I enjoyed photographing our latest addition to our online store:  quarts of maple syrup.  The timing was serendipitous as this week our maple trees have transitioned to their fall colors.  The three big sugar maples by the road are a mottle of yellow and green and the smaller maple near the greenhouse is a potent red.  All along the hedgerows the same color scheme is alternating in contrast with the other hardwood trees that haven’t quite given up on their late-summer green.  I love it.

Our customers have been asking us for a while about buying maple syrup and raw honey.  These aren’t items that we produce on the farm, but we know people who do, so we’re glad to be able to start offering some of these items on our farm store.

The syrup is made by the Mast family nearby in Fultonville, NY.  The Masts are an Amish family who, like most Amish folks, are involved in all sorts of enterprises.  During the winter they make maple syrup, using horse drawn sledges to haul the sap to their sugar house.  But they have so many other enterprises going on their place is always crackling with activity.  They tend to field crops, a pumpkin patch, beef cattle, honeybees on the farm.  They also run a fascinating off-the-grid machine shop complete with lathes and milling machines all driven by overhead belts and pulleys.

They will be bottling the raw honey next week, so expect to see 2 lb and 5 lb jars of honey soon.