I had to dig a new spring for them about 15 years ago, but they’re getting over 10gpm out of this box. 4 tiles deep, 600’ of 1” pipe with a 40’ elevation drop and and three springs running into a good gravel reservoir around the boxes. Done right you really can’t beat a good gravity system.

Spring box

Unless you have a gravity fed spring!

I’ll taste test with ya anytime! Orange County has way better soil than Washington county, you can taste it in the water, forage quality is superior when we do forage analysis, it makes sense to me that the mineral composition in the syrup from Orange County would also lead to a better flavor. I’m a farmer, originally from Orange County but live in Washington county now. My forage and soil quality on my Washington county fields vs my Orange County fields are shockingly different, and to get my Washington county fields to the level of my Orange County fields requires a lot of constant amendments, where as I haven’t put anything on some of my Orange County fields in close to a decade (I mostly pasture those fields now as trucking hay home from there doesn’t make sense, if I was haying them I would obviously be adding amendments)

I will also say you’ll notice flavor differences with different rigs. Personally I don’t like the flavor or steam syrup. I think when you push sap through an RO you change the flavor some, going to around 10% doesn’t change much, but pushing it to 18% I think you’re losing flavor. Wood vs oil I think you have a different flavor, but not anywhere near the difference from that to steam.

I get what you’re saying with blending/grading and my terms are probably incorrect/misleading. I help out some friends who tap 60k and sell a lot of syrup, but grew up tapping 2k. Growing up we would draw off into a tank, check grade, run it through the press directly into retail packaging. Many small producers do this. At my friend, and most modern large producers it all goes into 40’s or 55’s and when we can we are blending the syrup with other boils to make grade. That is probably where I’m misusing the phrase blended.

I’m gonna argue with you on tastes the same. Orange County syrup is much better than say Washington or windham county. Soil quality/type makes a HUGE difference in taste of syrup. Grade is a function of weather, and mostly of cleanliness/bacteria levels.

As far as blending, unless you’re going directly to a producer you’re buying blended syrup, absolutely, and even than there’s a good chance it’s atleast blended with their own syrup to make different grades.

HA. Handed to me. I grew up in serious poverty, dropped out of school in 9th grade because I couldn’t work full time while in school. Was able to bust my ass and put myself through an associates degree program at VTC. There hasn’t been a single fucking thing in life handed to me that I didn’t bust my ass off to get.

The lazy complain, us “poors” bust our ass off to make sure our kids don’t live the life we did.

“Must be nice” dude we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Pitter patter.

Glad you found someone, I was gonna offer to come up after reading everyone’s comments. Only thing I’ll give you shit about is the use of meters. Next you’ll be like my brother using Communism degrees instead of Freedom degrees.

Oooh this post makes me want to make a whole checklist of cheese steaks to buy.

I think your ignorance that “republicans are the party of hate” is pretty hateful as well and just proves the problem with our two party system.

Nah.

You shoulda thrown in some random ones to make it a little harder. I would have aced it if my fat fingers didn’t hit barre for montepelier haha

Jesus Christ dude. It’s almost embarrassing that you run for public office.

Go get a job working for your local town, or better yet just show up and tell them how to do their job. Should they have put sand down when it’s 40 degrees and there’s water running off the road? Idk about you but I don’t like seeing my tax money running in the ditch.

Idk I think of it as pretty accurate. Look up the latest maps vs our county maps. If anything they include more rural voters in otherwise denser areas (including parts of Orange County in Washington county for example) yeah, it’s not exact but I do think our state senate is pretty well drawn up to represent our population.

Replying to bonanzapineapple...

Our state senate is essentially divided up by county. Not exactly, but close enough that I would call that county level.

No Billboards, no McDonald’s or Walmart in our capitol (although they are just outside of it)

Happy cows come from VT not CA.

Poutine and sugar on snow are two dishes I think of when I think of Vermont.

Snowmobiling, hiking, skiing, hunting and fishing. Pretty much all outdoor activities are the things to do here.

I wouldn’t visit any of our “cities” for a vacation, but there’s plenty of awesome areas to visit on a vacation. I always recommend people bring or rent a car, I can’t imagine going on a vacation here without a vehicle.

Mud season (or early spring if you don’t know what mud season is) is my favorite season, but I would never recommend that for visiting. I like it because winters over, I’m calving in all my beef cows, saps running, everything’s waking up. But it’s also just a muddy mess everywhere, and if you’re not from here you’re going to bury your car trying to drive around.

I did after this exchange. Idk what he was getting at, it’s obviously a thing.

Idk man google rural gentrification and you’ll see a million articles about it. Not saying you aren’t correct by definition, but it seems like a common mistake. Honestly never have been told that gentrification only applies to urban communities.

I missed your comment on urban. I didn’t realize gentrification only applied to urban communities?

Idk I bitch a lot about transplants ruining the Vermont I love. In my mind it’s not a problem on the individual level as it is we are watching a pretty rapid change of the industries and values that used to be what being from Vermont was all about, and it’s easy to blame the voter base change, as well as the amount of not native Vermonters running for office. So I get your sentiment but idk, I think this post is a little bit hyperbole.

1. Labor strikes. Not going to happen.

2 refusal of services. Go for it if you want to. My transplant customers are great, and I see bringing them onto my farm and engaging in conversations a lot more effective at getting them to understand the culture of Vermont than it would be to refuse them as clients.

3. State electoral college. Eh. No. That’s a little absurd. We get to vote on town and county levels for all sorts of important stuff. Go to town meeting day, get involved, run for something!

4. This is the only one I’ll agree with you on. I would love, love, to see a residency requirement for a certain period of time. I think 10 years is extreme, but I’m not a big fan of the amount of people that move here and immediately run for office.

The end of your post is a little hard to completely understand. You’re not drumming up a revolution, and nobodies trying to have this removed, they’ll just downvote it to hell.

Idk. Can chime in on that. Rural Orange County has been heavily gentrified.

Moving from Martha’s Vineyard by any chance?! Lived there with my wife for 6 years or so before moving back home. Really depends where you are, but I would think you’d be safe with 5a from the sounds of your comments. Have a good growing season!

Meh. I was out ice fishing yesterday. Ice is pretty good, just gonna be smart about where you’re going.