The Weblog
The local foods movement is alive and well in Champaign County! Here are some updates on other projects while we finalize our virtual market:
Local Producers Map:
Our local producers map is ready for publication and you will soon be able to find it on gochampaign.com. Copies will be distributed around the community, in the local telephone book, and other “hangouts”. The guide lists the location and contact information for nearly 50 local producers within our county. The map was a project of the Local Food Council and printed with the help of some local sponsors including the Monument Square District, Champaign Bank, the Community Improvement Corporation, the Chamber of Commerce, the Farm Bureau and others. It is a great start to finding a local source for Champaign County’s finest!
Sweet Talking Hippie
Sweet Talking Hippie-Blues Traveler
This sweet talking hippie, your market manager, is passing on some sweet talk, to you, the customers, from our own Valley View Woodlands…
Let’s sit back, and read what sweet talk, Marc and Shary have for us…
A sap-run is the sweet good-bye of winter. It is the fruit of the equal marriage of the sun and frost.”
~John Burroughs, “Signs and Seasons”, 1886
Here in our sugar bush at Valley View Woodlands, this unusual warm spell is creating trouble. To produce sap, maple trees require nights below freezing and days above freezing. The taps have stopped flowing because it has been several days since we’ve had a freezing night. Late February is usually the middle of the maple syrup season, but it looks like this season may already be over. Unfortunately, local syrup producers have made only a fraction of their normal production.
Another problem we face is the potential for the trees to begin to bud. Once warm weather allows the trees to bud, the sap develops an off-flavor and we must shut down our operation for the season. Now it’s a race to see if a freeze can arrive before the trees bud.
We have made some delicious syrup, so the season is not a total bust. We were able to tap our trees very early this month, and our first syrup was wonderfully light and delicate. It has hints of vanilla and caramel. Later batches are an amber color and have a more robust maple flavor.
Just as farmers plant and hope, we tap and hope. Mother Nature is always unpredictable!
Marc and Shary Stadler