The Waterloo Wellington Maple Syrup Producers hosted our fall workshop on Saturday November 27th at Hoover’s Maple syrup located just west of Listowel Ontario with all COVID 19 protocols in place! We were very pleased with the turnout of just under 50 people and also happy to sign up two new OMSPA members! After opening comments from our President, Kevin Snyder, our special guest, Donna Lacey, a forester with the Saugeen Valley Conservation Authority and secretary/treasurer of the Grey-Bruce local gave a very informative and humorous talk about forestry. This was followed by an excellent presentation provided by Pefferlaw Creek Farms and delivered by our Terry Hoover on their behalf. This presentation was all about training your employees on proper tapping methods. A huge thank you to Tony Tomory for allowing us to use his presentation. Terry also spoke about sap collection and the benefits of becoming and OMSPA member. After a great lunch of hamburgers, fries, maple twistie buns and apple crisp with ice cream, Kevin had the difficult task of keeping everyone focused after a meal like that. Thanks to Ron, Lillian Grubb and , Dale and Lucille Martin for looking after the food!. Kevin facilitated a conversation with Dale Martin and Fred Martin in the afternoon about proper operation and maintenance of Reverse Osmosis units including cleaning, maintenance and how to work with high brix. They also spoke about Evaporators including – cleaning, maintenance and the challenges of working with high brix concentrate. A special thank you to Michelle Sage who shared her experience on the challenges associated with storing sap concentrate in a refrigerated tank. Our final topic of the day was a presentation by David Wagler on ‘Off Flavours’ and he shared his many years experiences judging at the Royal Winter Fair. A tour of Hoover’s Certified Organic Maple Operation closed the day with a walk to the bush to see the various sap ladders and reverse slope set up. A successful workshop cannot take place without many hands and we would like to acknowledge and thank our Directors, Kevin Snyder, Terry Hoover, Al Murray, Ron Grubb, Fred Martin, Dale Martin, David Wagler, Chris Wagler and Phil Thomas. A special thank you to Terry and Diane Hoover for opening up their facilities and hosting an excellent workshop
Comments from the host Terry Hoover:
I forgot to mention the sign up sheet info at workshop
I found it very interesting
So here it is
Years making syrup
Zero to 55
I came in at 54 and Phil was 55
Tip of the hat to Phil ! Bravo !
We joke about having 200 years experience in the room
We had a total of 700 years !!
Avg was 25. And we had 13 under 20
Next up is Taps
From zero up to 15,000
Fred Martin claims top prize there
With Michelle Sage trailing at 13,200
We had a total of. 127,325 taps
Avg. is. 4700
Pretty impressive
I should note those numbers are even higher because Kevin didn’t sign in
It was a great day with lots of compliments from attendees.
They even thought we were very organized.
Thanks Again to everyone
Can’t wait till Jan at Dale and Fred’s
Terry
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