Shilson Sugar Shack's Liquid Gold

Last year, Ronnie, his father and his brother, decided to make their dream a reality by starting a maple sugar shack.

 The whole ball got rolling when Ronnie was younger and watched a neighbor making the "liquid gold" in his driveway. About a year ago, when my grandmother and grandfather decided to sell their house and move to Florida, my grandfather mentioned having a few sap buckets and of course, Ronnie jumped at the opportunity to make dream a reality! 

One thing led to another and before we all knew it, the sap was flowing and the boys had steam flowing out of the evaporator and smoke out the smoke stack!

This has become a fun hobby for us (mostly Ronnie) and our families. The operation improved this year with a custom built evaporator (care of Ronald 3 and Ronald 4- for those of you who don't know, my husband is the 4th, Ronald Shilson Palmer, of his family, which would make his dad number 3...... no pressure for number 5...right.....), which I'm sure has some high tech reasoning to it, but I wouldn't even begin to know what. 

There were many other changes to the shack this year as well. For one, it not only moved from one area of the yard to another to make it easier for Ronnie's grandfather to partake in the excitement, but it grew by about 8 feet! Jacob, Ronnie's brother was away at college this year and wasn't able to help (total bummer for Ronnie since Jacob collected almost all the sap last year AND practically camped out in the shack every night to take care of Ronnie's baby by continuously feeding the evaporator with wood- NO JOKE, he literally slept on a wood pile out there!)

 Secondly, the season was cut very short by the quick warming of weather. Because of this, there wasn't much sap, which in turn means less syrup. Ronnie also decided to invest in tubing this year which is a lot easier than collecting sap from buckets. The sap flows by gravity from one tree to another until ending in a 55 gallon drum. He was able to tap more trees this year, so again, it was a big help for collecting.  

We even had visitors! Family and friends (even a bun in the oven! :) )were able to come out and enjoy the process with us! Overall, we ended up with about 13 gallons this year, which wasn't far from last years total of 16 gallons. Plans are already in the making for next year (many of which I'm sure I don't yet know about!). 

Be on the look out for Shilson's Sugar Shack Maple Syrup in a store or house near you!