The Upper Valley Land Trust hosted a hike and maple syrup tasting event at the Baker Bush property in Strafford Vermont today. Susan Baker conserved the parcel in honor and memory of her late husband, Chas Baker, who invested his time and energy in developing and maintaining a sugarbush and sugarhouse on the property. Tig and Elise Tillinghast now run an wonderful maple sugaring operation on this site. Here is Elsie in the sugar house.
We hiked the hill up back and saw the extent of the sugar bush. Four energetic Brittany Spaniels accompanied us.
Here Tig explains us how gravity, with an assist from a vacuum system, gets the sap to the sugar house.
From up top the view to the east toward NH was beautiful, even though the day was a bit gray. If you click either of the two images below you will magically be transported to a page where you can zoom into either picture and examine it in considerable detail. But please return to this page to view the remaining images from the day.
We returned to the sugar house where Tig boiled some syrup. The taste of the sweet warm maple syrup was wonderful. I just wish there was some to purchase to take home. They sell their syrup online like high quality wines.
