We came here specifically to set up a maple syrup operation. We looked at existing operations for sale, but found them too expensive, too small to produce a decent income, or not possible to grow the size of the operation due to tree availability on the property. Certainly you can plant trees, but in this industry, trees are not tapped for sap production until they are a certain diameter, which can take a decade or more. We couldn't wait.
We also decided that we could not buy a property without an existing house. The logistics of putting a trailer on a lot which didn't have water or electricity and required permits from the township for every phase was too much for us. We had already had our furnishings in storage for five years while we lived on our sailboat and weren't keen on doing that again for several years, all the while learning the maple syrup business and simultaneously trying to build a house. So, a property that had lots of maple trees and a house (with the aforementioned water and hydro-electric power) were essential.
When we saw this place, we thought it fit all our needs, in addition to being farther away from other properties and traffic (not that there's a lot of that here). We marked out an acre of land at random and counted potential taps (maples can have one or more taps depending on their size). We liked the number, so asked our agent, who is also a maple producer, to go through the whole property to assess it for maple potential. He and his wife walked the trails and counted potential taps from the trails and liked what they saw as well. He then recommended a local man who sells maple syrup production equipment to go through the property. That man thought there were two sections that had nice, mixed growth (mix of seedlings, saplings, mature, and old trees), confirming what we had thought on our own walk-through and what we could see via a satellite view using Google Maps. So we were off.
We attended an Ontario Maple Syrup Producers event which had lectures, demonstrations, sales and tours of existing productions. We did lots of research. We sold our house in Hamilton. We made a long list of things to be done, in hopes of beginning production in March of 2017. Everything on the list had to be started as soon as we hit the new property. Well, in fact, things moved slower than we had hoped.
We arrived here a month later than we would have wanted. The loggers, which would clear out non-maple trees from the areas we thought were viable and to clear and level an area to build our sugar shack, needed to increase the size of the driveway access and culvert in order to move their huge equipment onto and out of our property. This is taking forever as bureaucracy is involved to get the required permits. We understand that we have been approved but the approval is in writing and is to be mailed. Mailed! We could have picked it up, as the office is only an hour away; or, they could have emailed, faxed, texted the document, sent it via carrier pigeon, and it would get here faster.
In the meantime, Dave has been working on the construction of a wood shed, repair of the existing shed, cutting trees for firewood, organizing and building storage boxes and roofs for equipment, doing preliminary work on the vegetable garden (it has been unused for years and contains thousands of potato-sized stones), and fixing little things wrong with the house. For fun and work, he has learned how to run the tractor and its attachments as well as the 6 x 6 all-terrain vehicle, both of which we bought from the previous owners of the property.
I have been learning how to make candy and other products using maple syrup we've acquired from some of the local producers. When we have eaten our way through them, Dave complains that there are no more "test samples" to nibble on. We have apple trees on the property, so I made lots of apple butter and a smaller amount of cooked apples for future use.
We also went to a maple syrup equipment retailer in Michigan to see their operation and their equipment to better understand what we need. To house all the equipment, we need a sugar house. Since we are far behind "The Plan", we may not have the sugar house built in time to produce syrup. Instead, we may build a vacuum shack (which contains pumps to extract the maple sap from the lines), tap the trees in the first section which we think is the better of the two, and sell the sap in bulk. We can then buy finished syrup in bulk to make our confections, which is really what we wanted to focus on anyhow, since the syrup market is pretty saturated around here with so many producers in the area. The sugar house would then be built next year, ready for the next maple syrup season.
So, "The Plan" is looking like it is going to be altered, I think. We still have loads to do and most of the work, such as the tapping, is done in the cold.
Angi