The sap is running in Minnesota and all over the northland, folks are trekking out to the sugar bush to monitor taps and collect sap. I grew up in Illinois where spring came a lot earlier than it does here in Minnesota, and we thought pancake syrup was that dark corn syrup in the Karo bottle. That thick dark goo is made from cornstarch and flavored with a kind of molasses called refiner’s sugar….sounds awful to me now that I live in maple syrup land and have grown used to that wonderful boiled down maple sap with no flavoring needed. Minnesota is the farthest north and the farthest west of the 19 maple syrup producing states. Forty-seven maple syrup vendors are selling members of Minnesota Grown, but many more produce syrup just for their own use.
That’s why I went to visit Ed Kuehl near Embarrass last week. I’ve known Ed for a few years and have had the pleasure of tasting his wines, all made from local produce. He and his neighbors made 36 gallons of wine last year. And now they’re boiling down maple sap. When the daytime temperatures are above freezing and the nights are below freezing, the trees start yielding sap. Ed says a tree should be at least 8” across at chest height in order to support one tap. And it takes about 10 trees to yield a gallon of finished syrup. Ed and friends have tapped maples in a number of places on the Range, but right now they’re tapping 400 trees near Gilbert on land owned by a friend in St. Paul. The land has been logged, but they left all the maples—perfect! I just assumed that tapping meant pounding in a tap and hanging a 5-gallon bucket, but this is much more sophisticated.
Clear 5/16” plastic drop lines run from the tap to light blue cross lines making their way past each tree and into a 1” mainline that drains by gravity into a 240-gallon tank. The sap is then pumped using a vacuum system (that runs on two 12V batteries) into a 150-gallon “pick up tank” in Ed’s truck bed. The syrup goes back to Embarrass and the poll barn with all of the tanks and tubes and boilers. The team hooks up Ed’s portable reverse-osmosis system (first photo, above) to the 150-gallon tank and pulls out about 2/3 of the water so that boiling down the sap takes much less time. (Sap is about 98% water.) And then it goes into the massive fuel-oil-powered boiler. It was the steam from that boiler that I saw coming out of the chimney in the poll barn as I drove up.
As I drove up, I noticed something different about this farm. Everything looked so NEAT, no junk pile around, no old tractors, no chickens underfoot, no roosters crowing. There were large clean pole barns and an enormous (about 2 acres) fenced-in garden. And field after field of white spruce and red pine. I asked about that. When Ed and his wife bought this 116-acre farm in 1985, it had been logged over and the fields left fallow. They reforested the entire farm with 1,600 white spruce and 2,500 red pines. They used to have chickens, but, according to Ed, the raccoon got the eggs at night and the fox got the chickens by day. He gave away the survivors to a neighbor and got out of the chicken and egg business.
But he kept up with beekeeping. He had two hives last year but will have about six this year. He winters his bees (and those of a neighbor) in a partially heated poll building. And, just like the wine and the syrup, he and the neighbors make honey. They also help to tend the large garden and preserve its yield. Blueberries, raspberries, potatoes, asparagus, squash, beans, peas, and all the usual garden produce are tended by Ed and three others who help out. Among the neighbors and the helpers, it all gets eaten or canned or stored in Ed’s basement root cellar. That’s where the wine is too. And onions hanging from the ceiling in old pantyhose legs—a great idea that I’m going to use at home! He says it keeps them crisp all winter.
Like most farm owners on the Range, Ed worked off-farm. He operated heavy equipment for St. Louis County, then retired as the road foreman in Tower. Early on he worked in the mines but didn’t like it. And he served in the Army and Army Reserves for 28 years. I got to know Ed when we both participated in a book group as part of Congregations Caring for the Earth. Ed is a passionate advocate for the health of the planet, and his life reflects that passion. I know that Ed’s religion is part of that inspiration, but I wondered if there was anything else that feeds it. Ed told me that when he was 67, he was in the hospital with heart issues and having two stents put in. They “lost” hime had to shock him to bring him back. During the time he was “out,” he had what is usually called a “near death experience.” He recalls floating up into outer space in an experience that was beautiful beyond description—so incredible that he still can’t describe it. But it ended when he knew that he had to come back, he couldn’t leave this life yet. It’s often the case that those who have had near death experiences return to life with a passion for living and no fear of death.
Now Ed is 85 and has survived the loss of his wife and two of his six children. A relatively recent heart attack resulted in clearing a 99% blockage in two blood vessels. But he’s regained his health and vigor and grown a beard. His enthusiasm for all these local food adventures that he and his neighbors do for each other is contagious. I went back home with two bottles of Ed’s wine and one of maple syrup and ordered some more seeds for my garden. It’s spring in Minnesota!
Ed in his basement root cellar.