Maple sugar farmer Bruce Pierce of Newry has help from his son, Reece, 14, at their sugar house. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

BETHEL  — Four area farms are planning to participate in Maine Maple Sunday on March 26. All will open on the 26th and  some may be open both the 25th and the 26th.

Bruce Pierce and Alan Fleet

Bruce Pierce, of Newry uses his grandfather’s pails to tap the trees around his farm. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

On Bruce Pierce’s first day of boiling sap, the converted shed he uses beside his Newry house is periodically filled with steam. So much so, that it’s hard to see across the room. Pierce explains to his son Reece, 14, how to ‘scoop the niter off.’ The niter is sap sand, says Pierce who filters his syrup four of five times to rid it of impurities. One of the other filters they use is a ‘felt’ or ‘felt hat’

Every year on the first draw, Pierce uses the ‘felt hat’ in honor of his grandfather who used it 65 years ago.

“My grandfather was a gentleman farmer – a hobby farmer. He had cows and horses and pigs and chickens. He lived on a farm and the farm was beautiful. He and his partner, Harold, made maple syrup in the Spring. The horses Dan and Chub would pull the sap scoot around the woods. They’d tap 400 to 500 trees.”

Pierce and his partner, Alan Fleet, have 275 buckets. “We go out, we drill holes in trees, we pound in spiles and we hang buckets.” he said of their traditional set-up. Near the house, sap fills some of Peirce’s grandfather’s buckets.

A and B Maple Syrup, is at 1014 Sunday River Road, Newry. Fleet and Pierce have been partners for 12 years. “We’re like a really old married couple. We sit and we bicker back and forth.”

Peering into the evaporator tank Pierce says, “It’s starting to turn color.” He explains that barometric pressure changes the process, so they use a hydrometer as a reference gauge. A tiny bit of organic butter breaks the suspension in the bubbles so the sap doesn’t boil over the top of the evaporator.

Reece is in charge of carrying inside wagons full of the six cords of soft and hard wood stacked by the sap house. He helps tap trees and collects sap. He likes to taste the barely sweet sap right from the bucket on the tree, said his father.

“I’m happy. This is my joy. This is Springtime. From the slumbering winter comes the awakening. The birthing of life in this territory. The sap is running and that’s what it’s about,” says Bruce Pierce.

Because snow and freezing temperatures are expected in the succeeding days, they will boil all of the 240 gallons of sap they have collected at about 35 gallons per hour. “The first boil is always the longest boil … I’m going to be out here until late.

“I do it because it’s a labor of love. We’re certainly not making any money,” said Pierce laughing. Opening for Maple Sunday is weather-dependent, he said.

As steam continuously squalls out of the little shed, Pierce, outside now, describes, ‘sugar on snow.’ When maple syrup is cooked to 227 degrees, the temperature just before it caramelizes. It turns to taffy as you pour it onto snow. Next you roll it onto a stick then lick it off.  “You remember that, don’t you?” he asks Reece.

Ed Swain

In early February, Ed Swain, of Swain Farm, 185 West Bethel Road, said his tapping would start right around Valentine’s Day, and it did. “Right on schedule,” he said.

Said Swain last week, “Pretty well all tapped. The sap ran pretty good. We must have put up 10-12 gallons of syrup so far. Now, everything’s frozen up. I don’t think it will run again for another week or two, by the looks of things.

“It’s been pretty uneventful for the most part. I’ve been doing everything left handed [after jamming his thumb in a little logging accident], but other than that, we’re doing all right.”

His farm will be open both days for Maine Maple Sunday and they’ll serve ice cream with warm maple syrup and have maple candies, too. Swain said they will likely have school children, including his granddaughter, Amelia Paulson, visit from Crescent Park around the same time.

Regarding the maple sugaring process overall, Swain says, “It’s pretty fickle sometimes. If the wind’s blowing it won’t run. Sometimes it gets too warm and it’ll stop running. It’s a thing of patience I guess … sometimes it will run into April, just depends on the season.”

Barry Carver

There is a lot of preliminary work, work on the lines that go from tree to tree, like removing limbs. “There’s quite a bit to it, besides drilling a hole and putting your spout in a tree,” said Barry Carver of Carver’s Maple Farm at 420 Grover Hill Road.  “I’m still learning a lot … it’s quite a science.” He leases a sugar bush in Rumford where he has 2,500 trees.

On February 22, Carver finished tapping all of his trees and will begin cooking the sap as soon as he hauls it over in 300 gallon plastic tanks to his Grover Hill home.

“Last year we did end up with quite a few people that came by (for Maple Sunday). Kind of fun to see people we don’t see too often. It’s mostly a gathering and the kids all play.” Carver said. He’ll be in his sugar house that weekend for anyone who wants to stop by.

It took three days for Brian Dunham, who operates Dunham Farm and Velvet Hollow Sugar Works with his wife, Suzanne, to tap his 800 maple trees. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

Brian and Suzanne Dunham

It’s a matter of the weather, if they get above freezing temperatures during the daytime and it freezes up to the mid twenties or high twenties at night, “the sap will start running,” said Brian Dunham who started tapping his 800 trees on February 11, but like the others has had to wait out the cold temperatures this week.

Having done sugaring as a child, Dunham told his wife, Suzanne, “No way I’m going back to buckets.” They started their own business using tubing in 2010.

Driving along the driveway, at 29 Dunham Road in Greenwood, you pass a farmhouse where Brian grew up and his sister currently lives. Next you pass the Dunham’s house and then a building they built themselves, called Velvet Hollow Sugar Works. In the center of the space is the evaporator. Other rooms: the small retail store, a kitchen and a dining room called ‘the tree house,’ surround the sap room. Suzanne, Brian’s wife, is in the kitchen baking for The Good Food Store. She makes gluten free wraps, muffins, pumpkin rolls, cookies, carrot cakes, and breads.

This time of year the sap “runs” start at one in the afternoon and end at about 5:30 p.m., explains Brian. “Once we get into March it will start as early as eight in the morning and go until eight in the evening.”

Brian Dunham operates Dunham Farm and Velvet Hollow Sugar Works with his wife, Suzanne. He started tapping his 800 maple trees Feb 11. Rose Lincoln/Bethel Citizen

In this area of Maine, they experience the “Mount Washington effect,” said Dunham, “The cold breeze coming off the mountain. You could have a 45-degree day just as sunny as can be and if the wind’s blowing,  [the sap] is not going to run very much.”

When they bring the sap into their tanks they perform reverse osmosis a process that removes about 80% of the water. Then they start boiling. Sensitive to people’s allergies, they use a defoamer that few people respond negatively to, safflower oil.

Dunham said most of the people who show up on Maine Maple Sugaring days will first hike up nearby Mount Christopher, then sit down to eat. The Dunham’s will serve about 300 gluten free pancake breakfasts between 8 a.m. and Noon each of the days. In the afternoon (Noon-4 p.m.) they serve a barbecue turkey chili, “which is getting almost as popular as the breakfast,” said Dunham.

Both meals are sweetened with the Dunham’s maple syrup.