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Tuesday April 14, 2015 Edition
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Making Maple Magic At The Grant Haven Farm

Grant Haven Farm...Scott Grant, Brad Clark, Jenn Morin, Brian Morin, Kevin Reed, Brad Mullin and Buster Grant.
photo by Cookie Steponaitis
Grant Haven Farm...Scott Grant, Brad Clark, Jenn Morin, Brian Morin, Kevin Reed, Brad Mullin and Buster Grant.
Brad Clark is happiest manning the arch.
photo by Cookie Steponaitis
Brad Clark is happiest manning the arch.
The beauty of Vermont. Too bad this is the last year we can use these buckets. What will the landscape look like in the future?
photo by Cookie Steponaitis
The beauty of Vermont. Too bad this is the last year we can use these buckets. What will the landscape look like in the future?
Fourth generation Grant, Hunter Morin, age 5, tapping his first tree.  Now at age 12 his tapping experience is put to work for the family farm.
photo by Photo Provided
Fourth generation Grant, Hunter Morin, age 5, tapping his first tree. Now at age 12 his tapping experience is put to work for the family farm.
Grant Haven Farm...where there's steam rising...all are welcome!
photo by Cookie Steponaitis
Grant Haven Farm...where there's steam rising...all are welcome!

Tuesday April 14, 2015

By Cookie Steponaitis

Howard “Buster” Grant first became acquainted with the process of collecting and boiling maple sap into syrup when he was a child. His father Elwin has a farm in Bristol and the family tapped trees, gathered buckets and helped as his mom boiled sap into syrup on an outside pit. While the process has initially stayed the same the equipment has not and on this cold April evening, boiling is going full tilt and generations two, three and four of the Grant clan are on hand to participate in the family maple tradition.
    Grant Haven Maple Products is located on family land in Addison and has been in the yearly line up since 1964. The Grant family taps 3000 trees and has traded in buckets for a pipeline but still give full credit to the real boss in charge, Mother Nature. “On average it takes approximately forty gallons of sap to create one gallon of syrup,” shared Buster and with the Grants planning to produce more than six hundred gallons of syrup this season, it does not take much math for the non-syrup person to figure that is a lot of sap and boiling.
    Working alongside Buster Grant is son Scott Grant, daughter Jennifer Grant Morin, son-in-law Brian Morin, and Brad Clark, Brad Mullin and Kevin Reed. The Grant sugarhouse sells the product wholesale and retail and has not only seen its share of generations of Grants, but literally hundreds of local teens as well. Under the direction of Bill Scott from 1984-2009 students in the Forestry program at the Hannaford Career Center came to the Sugar House to learn hands on about this staple part of the Vermont agricultural landscape. Shifting back to a Grant family project in 2009 maple has continued to flow on the property uninterrupted since 1984.
    While terms like arch, evaporator, refractometer, tap, tank, tubing, hydrometer and density were all patiently explained to this reporter by Buster Grant, the process seemed but a small part of what was witnessed by seeing the Grant family working first hand. "For me," shared third generation maple maker Jennifer Grant Morin, “I get the most excited about seeing the next generation getting involved. I just love it when Hunter and Courtney are out here putting up tubing and collecting buckets.” Sibling Scott Grant echoed Morin’s sentiments, but added it was also about simply enjoying the outdoors and seeing family working the land.
    While Mother Nature might be calling the shots, standing outside the Grant Haven Sugaring House and watching the clouds of vapor rolling up into the cold night air while the smell of Vermont’s sweetest agricultural harvest catches your nose is quite a treat. Walking away from the site just as the sun disappears behind the mountains and the last rays of sunshine are eked out of the day and hearing the laughter and banter of the adults gathered brings to mind times of long ago and other generations, harvesting what nature has to offer bringing it together with the lasting recipe of skill, patience and family. It is indeed the sweetest recipe for any generation who calls the Champlain Valley their home.


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