![]() Kate Posted on ApApCategories Maple Sugar Farms Tags dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1894 Leave a comment on Bisson’s Sugar House Maine Maple MemoriesĢ020 is certainly turning into an unusual year. It take all kinds, which is why my name is HodgePodge! Hopefully someone who started on barrels or a turkey cooker and is ready to upgrade finds it and brings it to life again. Hopefully they can sell their used evaporator and other equipment on or some similar site for the next person that wants to try. May it be so! I also see a number of new farms who think “that looks fun” and try it for a couple of years, realize how hard it is, and fade into history themselves. I am hoping that, in my travels, I may have made connections between Farmers ready to retire and Young’ens who might take over. Some of the maple groves are being absorbed by other farmers, but some are just reverting back to forests or, horror of horrors, being converted to developments. Too many Sugarmakers are reaching the age that they just cannot do it anymore, and few relatives (especially after watching their parents, uncles or aunts working so hard) want to take on the great responsibility of the farm. You can imagine my disappointment when I opened their website to find this: I thought that I might head to Northern New Hampshire for another visit to Bisson’s. Vermont is still celebrating with a second Maple Weekend but I was not up for another long drive in that direction. ![]() Today, Apis a warm but particulary rainy day. They had also written a book chronicling the 100 years of “the Sugar House on the Hill”. Too bad they didn’t give out tin cups as well! As part of their anniversary celebration, they gave out La Pallette with the purchase of La Tire. ![]() The spoons hadn’t been used in many years but there was still a box of them in the sugar house. Many years ago, while one of the farmers tended the evaporator, he whittled “La Pallette”, a wooden spoon that could be used to eat the taffy out of your tin cup. Bisson’s included photos and maple implements in their “museum”.īisson’s was famous for their maple taffy, aka La Tire. Many of the farms I visit are recent and hopefully they include other people in their adventure. I love the historical aspect of maple, especially the family connections. Rather than buy a new product to finish their syrup, they modified a system they had retired from service. This sugar house, as most, was space limited, so they had fold down stairs to access the tanks in the upper level. I always love to look at things that make a particular sugarhouse unique. I don’t remember if they asked me not to photograph Lucien or just that I don’t generally ask people to allow me to do that. ![]() Lucien and Muriel didn’t want me photographing the evaporator as it was not set up and a little messy. They generally weren’t inviting people in but it was 4 pm and they were closing up their table outside. Here’s Muriel in the doorway with a local EMT purching his syrup. They were celebrating their 100th anniversary and it was obvious from the visitors that they had great respect in the community. On April 3rd 2021 I visited Bisson’s Sugar House in Berlin, NH. ![]()
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