Pictured is one of the large maple trees in the Staple’s sugar bush that was destroyed by the recent ice storm.
Since the ice storm in late March, Bob Staples has spent most days working in the family’s sugar bush on Highway 7A, cleaning up logs and brush scattered throughout the forest.
The work is exhausting, both physically and emotionally. Light streaming onto the forest floor is depressing rather than uplifting: a few weeks ago a dense tree canopy from mature sugar maple trees blocked the light. Now many of those trees are in pieces on the ground.
The syrup season was wrapping up at the Staples bush when the storm hit, so their 2025 season was not significantly affected by the storm. They estimate that roughly __ % of their 3500 producing trees were damaged or completely destroyed. The forest will eventually return: the streaming sunlight will encourage the young saplings in the forest to grow and they will face less competition from mature trees that are now on the ground, but the process will take years.
Like most farm operations, production of maple syrup is a family affair, steeped with tradition. Bob and Jill have built on a family legacy of syrup production that began on their farm in 1813.They have invested in modern production methods, including an industrial sized oil-fired steel evaporator and a sophisticated reverse osmosis system with a view to the future.
On Sharpe Line, the Winslow bush was recovering from major damage inflicted on their sugarbush by the 2023 derecho storm when the ice storm hit. Their season had begun later than usual because deep snow cover remained in their sugar bush. Snowshoes were required to travel through the woods to set up taps and lines, making the process much slower than usual. They were expecting their season to run another two weeks, so when the storm took out power and knocked down lines, they jumped into action. As Margaret Winslow explains, setting up a generator to run the vacuum pump is of little value when tap lines are punctured or on the ground. They cobbled together some lines and continued production but it was a big effort for little product. For now, the Winslows are in a wait-and-see frame of mind before they decide whether or not 2025 is their final syrup season. They are waiting to see if the weather is kind to the trees this summer. A hot, dry season will create more stress on the exposed saplings, but amore temperate season with adequate rain would help the trees recover.
Mother Nature is always the unseen partner in agriculture, and Margaret is philosophical about the situation. Farmers understand what they can control and what is out of their hands in their operations. Storms like the derecho and the ice storm remind us who’s in charge, and encourage us to respect the environment in our daily lives if we want to preserve our way of life.