Lions and tigers and bears, oh my. Well, not really lions and tigers and bears, but there were goats, ponies, chickens and cows. No sheep but, in fine Yankee style, there was some yarn spinning and undoubtedly a surreptitious goose or two.
This year’s Bright Acres Farm open house was blessed with fine weather that drew a large number of visitors from around the area. Friends and neighbors, families, couples, singles, passers-by exploring the hidden treasure of the Quiet Corner. Kids from infant to 80. All having a good time.
There is something about a well constructed post and beam barn with its wide raw boards echoing under your feet that soothes the soul. Add to that some free sample maple sugar candies and a chorus of mmm-mms, and nirvana is but an ohm away.
Molly Miller, of Full Moon Farm, had on display (and available) a carton of free range eggs with their straight-from-the-nest red, green, brown and tan colored shells. It seemed as though they could go right into the Easter basket without the bother of dyeing them. Once you’ve had farm fresh free-range eggs you will be loathe to return to those anemic looking white eggs you find at the grocery. She also had available to purchase organic beef and pork products. For taste and nutritional value you can’t beat locally grown organic products.
Michelle Thart, of Soapsium, had her stunning variety of hand-crafted soap available in all manner of scents, shapes, sizes and decorative themes — guaranteed to make the ladies smell and feel prettier. For you hard working smelly guys, they won’t make you prettier but your cuddles may be more welcome. The right combination of soaps may well produce miracles.
Set up near the goat pen, adjacent to the Sugar House, Bob Inman was demonstrating how humans made stone tools and arrow heads using stone tools. A skill known as flint knapping first practiced during the Stone Age and continued around the world up through recent centuries. It is still employed by some of the most remote tribes on earth. He had on display an amazing array of arrow heads, spear heads and stone tools he had himself made from and with stone. Yikes. That’s some serious skill and patience.
Next door to Bob, Joe Burnham was demonstrating old-school blacksmithing skills – making rustic coat or gear hooks. Some with fancy twists. Some plain utilitarian. All impressive. Asked how or why he got into the hobby or trade he had no explanation — adding “neither can the guys who taught me explain their own interest.” It just grabbed them and that was that.
Now for that thing that makes you forget all your troubles for a while and see that life is still worth living — Bright Acres Farm Maple Syrup. The best you will ever taste. If you have never tried it, you must. Treat yourself. You are worthy. Great on oatmeal. Great in tea. Great in cookies. Great in bread and on your toast. Great in yogurt. Great to lick off your fingers or drink straight from the jug like a mapleaholic. And it’s good for your health. Just think of it as the Bubba Gump of the maple syrup world.
Producing this nectar of the gods takes no small amount of time or labor of love. There are over 1500 trees to be tapped, drain tubes to connect from tap to tap that eventually empty into collection tanks. Sap is then transferred from the collection tanks to the transport tank and trucked back to the Sugar House where it is drained into the evaporation pan and boiled to remove the water. The pan is heated by an oak-fed woodstove in which the temperature must be maintained at a constant 800 to 1200 degrees for 6-8 hours, depending upon the quantity and current water content of the sap. On a good day 2100 gallons of sap will net about 40 gallons of syrup. Go back the next day and start again. This whole labor of love falls mainly to event hosts and owners, Rich and Judy Schenk, and their good friend Noel Waite.
If you are one of the lucky ones who forgot your troubles for a while, attended the Bright Acres Farm open house on March 18th, and treated yourself to some fresh air, sunshine, a yarn or a goose and some nectar of the gods, good on you. Lick those fingers clean.
You can learn more about Bright Acres Farm on Facebook.
J.P.G.