The Orebed Sugar Shack - Part 1

On the very first day of St. Lawrence County's "Maple Weekend," I drove 40 miles southwest to the tiny farming community of Dekalb Junction, where I attended an open house at the Orebed Sugar Shack, a maple sugar house. I parked way back off the road and walked to the sugar house, passing this lovely old barn on the way:

The sugar house was straight ahead and, judging by the number of parked cars, would be crowded:

Indeed, it was crowded inside, but I got to photograph the evaporator, where the St. Lawrence County Maple Queen was explaining the operation:

Young people were offering tours, so I accepted this young woman's offer and she led me outside for a demonstration of the old fashioned way of tapping trees - a method still widely used around here:

I noticed that chickens (or turkeys - they were awfully big) were roasting. I saw plates of hotdogs being carried around, but didn't see them for sale and never figured out who, if anyone, was eating all that food:

The next stop on my tour was at this demonstration of how it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. I asked if there were 40 jugs there and she said, "Oh, more or less." I counted them in the picture and got a total of only 27 - some of them only half full. But it was still a good thing to learn that it takes 40 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup. Hey, I remembered it, didn't I?:

Then we came to an illustration of the old fashioned way of boiling down sap to make syrup:

The sap was heated over a wood fire and progressed from one channel to the next as it thickened. The last channel had a thermometer so that it could be the final determiner of when the syrup was ready:

Outside, she showed me the modern sap collection technique. The blue lines were gravity fed transportation from the trees to the vacuum powered, larger, black lines:

All of the pipelines carried the sap to this modern collection hub, where it was then pumped into the evaporation room:

Back in the evaporation room, Bill, who appeared to be the patriarch of the operation, was explaining the process. But there was still more to see at the Orebed Sugar Shack and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

Old Fashioned Harvest Days In The Town Of Madrid - Part 3

The miniature horse pulls were what I'd most hoped to see, and they were in full swing when I arrived. Alas, the bleachers were full and it was difficult to find a good spot from which to take photos, but I tried:

These tiny work horses were all energized and anxious to go. And boy oh boy, did they give it all they had!:

The little horses were so anxious to pull that their handlers had difficulty getting them hooked up to the sled with the weight:

I believe I heard the announcer say that the sled was bearing 1800 pounds, a lot for two tiny horses to get moving:

Each team of two got a chance and then the handlers brought out another team to give it a try:

Here's a very brief video of the action:


I left the miniature horse pulls and began walking over to the grainary and corn crib:

The Walker family grainary was moved here and lovingly restored. The sign didn't actually say, but gave the impression that it was built about 1920:

Inside the grainary were wooden bins to store the grain, a fanning mill and other related equipment:

From there I walked to the Maple barn where, I was surprised to learn, the St. Lawrence County Maple Queen which I had met had been replaced by a new Maple Queen:

And just then, the 1932 Worthington Golf Tractor, which I featured in yesterday's post, went driving by. Two older gentlemen were riding it, chatting and enjoying their tour:

There was an entire flatbed filled with miniature farm equipment. A sign said they were all fully operational, half size (I'd have guessed smaller) and built by Garry Wilson of Lunenburg, Ontario:

A horse drawn wagon drove by, but it had no passengers at that time. I supposed it would fill up soon. But I was tired and hungry, so I walked to my car and began the drive home:

St. Lawrence County Dairy Princess Parade - Part 2

Roughly half the parade had passed by me when this 1948 Ford went by:

And I got a big kick out of this float from a retirement home. I thought it wonderful that they participated and had a sense of humor:

Reality Check, a youth group fighting the smoking habit:

This marvelous action float had a moving cow (two, actually) jumping over the moon. There was also a giant spoon, so they apparently were referencing the nursery rhyme:

The State University at Canton's basketball mascot was a kangaroo:

And his pouch was full of candy, so he was a very popular marsupial:

The St. Lawrence County Maple Queen who, you may remember, I met at one of my springtime visits to a sugar house:

Cabot Cheese participated (this was, after all, a celebration of the dairy industry). The man next to me quipped, "Why aren't you handing out cheese?" and the lady in the truck said the people following them were doing just that. Indeed, a number of marchers were handing out small packages of Cabot cheese. Alas, I didn't get one:

This handsome team waited beneath a maple for their chance to get into the parade with a lady and tiny baby in the wagon. Everyone, including the horses, looked bored:

And lastly, there were antique tractors - a John Deere:

An Allis Chalmers:

And another John Deere. I was in a residential neighborhood where the parade began and so hopped in my car and found a way back to the highway which avoided the crowded downtown streets. It had been a fun and impressive parade. I hope to return next year: