open house

[mfchef54]

I work at a Enviromental Education Center. we have a brand new sugar shack,(last one blew up). we are having an open house on the 8th of March. My questions for this illustratious list are: do you charge a fee to visit? and do you offer anything; a taste of syrup, pancakes etc. thanks ahead of time for any input you may want to offer.

[NH Maplemaker]

mfchef54, When we have our open house on New Hampshire maple weekend ,we do not charge. We want to get as many of our friends and neighbors to come and see what we do,and how we do it as possible!! We serve a taste of syrup, sugar on snow, coffee and dough nuts,maple butter,maple candy!! Anything to give them a taste of maple!
We are also hoping that they will buy lots of syrup as well. But if they don't thats ok !
I spend a lot of time explaining the process as well as doing tours of our operation!! It's also best if you can be boiling as well! (some times not possible, No sap)

Jim L.
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PS How do you blow up a sugar house?

[mfchef54]

you have a faulty propane connection. the propane leaked under the sill plate and made it's way to the arch which had it's damper door open. no one was hurt as the class had ended an 1/2 earlier.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I am having an open house the same day March 8th as I can't get out of it this year with the wife as she is determined. She is going to be fixing free pancakes with syrup. She better sell a bunch to fund all of that! No admission and a free meal.

LOL!

[802maple]

I wish I wasn't so far away I would have breakfast with you.

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

I wish you were closer to, I would put you to work firing the evaporator! I hope I have some sap, forecast don't look to promising at this point. Guess I will have to save some and chunk it full of ice/frozen sap every day.

[mountainvan]

Open house implies that it is free. At least from my view. I give tastes of syrup, oh heck, I do the same with any visitor as I did with you! If you can make the other things, candy, cream, etc.. have them for sale. Good luck, I'd come down but hopefuly I'm busy boiling!

[NH Maplemaker]

Thank GOD for the class being Over!!

Jim L.
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[802maple]

Who says it is over everybody has just gone to dinner LOL

[mfchef54]

I will be in Pa. just southeast of Pittsburg at a sustainable ag conference. So I won't even be boiling that weekend at home never mind at work.. that' why i'm asking these questions. Is anyone particapating in their own states Maple Weekend's?
NH yes that's exactly what I did after I heard.

[royalmaple]

In Maine we have Maine Maple Sunday, 4th sunday in March every year. This year it falls on Easter. So many producers like myself will also be open on Saturday. I give free samples on ice cream, and boiling demonstrations, etc.

[Jim Brown]

mfchef54;we only live 1 1/2hour north of Pittsburgh and hopefully we will be boiling and you are more than welcome to stop by. Heck stop by even if we are not boiling


Jim

[Sugarmaker]

Our NWPA MAple Taste and Tour is March 15 and 16.
Check out the web site www.pamaple.org
We have lots of free Maple stuff and coffee and usually plan to sell about 25% of our yearly sales that weekend. We always have steam rising and some sap boiling slowly. We get about 200 folks over the weekend. Our are has 12 sugarhouse this year. That's only about 10% of what NY has.

Regards,
Chris