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Shelburne Farms InFARMation

Volume 25, Number 44 Friday, March 10, 2017

InFARMation

A newsletter for staff, volunteers, residents and friends of Shelburne Farms

Sugaring with preschoolers A special learning experience

What a fun and special learning experience for the Shelburne Community School preschoolers today to visit the sugarbush and Sheep’s knoll, to tap a maple tree and to see what happens in the sugar house! We are so lucky to be neighbors and friends with the farm. Thank you to our wonderful preschool teachers and our fabulous farm educators for all you do. This is community and educa-tion at its best, as far as I’m concerned and I am grateful! (And a slice of cheddar and a spoonful of maple syrup are literally better than icing on cake;)

Love and Respect, Michelle Lewis, SCS parent

Join us at Bleu Northeast Seafood for a one-night-only benefit dinner prepared by Burlington’s top chefsSunday, March 12, 5:30 – 9 p.m.

Executive Chefs Eric Warnstedt of Hen of the Wood, Doug Paine of Bleu Northeast Seafood, Juniper, and Hotel Vermont, and Phillip Clayton of the Farmhouse Group have created a one-night-only menu featuring Vermont-made products to benefit Junior Iron Chef VT.

Cocktails, paired beverages, raw bar, hors d’oeuvres, and three courses will fill the evening at Bleu Northeast Seafood in Burlington. The evening culminates with a birthday cake for the 10th year of Junior Iron Chef VT created by Sweet Simone’s.

A silent auction is to follow. All proceeds of the evening go directly to Junior Iron Chef VT. We hope you can join us! To buy a ticket http://vtfeed.org/events/four-chefs-kids-evening-benefit-jr-iron-chef-vt

To read more details about this exciting 10th birthday party for Junior Iron Chef VT, go to the

Vermont Feed webpage vtfeed.org/events.

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A maple surpriseLate Tuesday evening Marshall Webb

checked how the sap was flowing to the sap house after the cold temperatures of the weekend and the beginning of the week had brought sugaring to a stop. He timed the flow, did the arithmetic, figured in the weather forecast for sun, temperature and wind, and went to bed confident that the 1,500 sap tank would not be full before daylight. He set his alarm clock for 6 a.m.

At 3:25 a.m. he woke up, his years of sugaring experience triggering a strong feeling: “I’d better get up.”

It’s lucky he did. The sap house, where the sap lines dump their sugary loads, was pumping, and when he checked the sap tank, it was close to overflowing.

He started the RO (Reverse Osmosis) machine which reduces the water con-

tent of the sap and thereby increases the efficiency of the boiling process, and by 6 a.m. he was boiling. By 10 a.m. he and Assistant Sugarmaker Char-lotte Sullivan who arrived at 8, had produced 25 gallons of syrup, some of it dark, and most of it beautiful Amber.

Above: Feeding the fire is a constant task during boiling.

Right: The Reverse Osmosis machine

processes 10 gallons of sap a minute, forcing it through a membrane

that separates it into 1.8 gallons of what is

called concentrate with a sugar content of 7.5% (compared with 2.5% of

the sap from the tree) and 8 gallons of pure water.

Frequent samples create a visual record of the progress of the syrup

through the many shades from dark to golden.

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The concentrate is pumped to the evaporator, carefully monitored for temperature and density, until it reaches the ideal maple syrup specifications, at which point it is drawn off

… and gathered

in the tank

from where it is pumped through the filtering system and collected in a 40 gallon drum.

The next steps for the syrup will be reheating it and pumping it into the bottling room.

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ABCs of Farm Based Education

Nineteen educators from near and far gath-ered in the McClure Education Center early this morning to begin three days of sharing the joys and challenges of teaching farm-based education, and to learn

of the techniques, strategies and teaching aids that Shelburne Farms ed-ucators have developed in years of working with field trips and profes-sional development gatherings like this one.

Educators including Susie Marchand, Cat Wright, Vera Si-mon Nobes, and Kestrel Plump had been busy yesterday setting up displays around the Education Center, from bookcases full of books with farm and nature themes, and model nesting boxes with stuffed toy chickens, to tables covered with the material they use when explaining the many uses of wool … informa-tion the ABCs group will browse during their time here.

The ABCs folks began this morning drawing schematic maps of their home bases, maps they will use to help to intro-duce themselves to the groups.

The three days will be a blend of hands-on activities inside and outside, and serious conversations about the importance of farm-based education.

Susie Marchand sets up the chicken and egg

display on Thursday afternoon.

An educator from Merck Forest with a map of his education site.

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Welcome Thomas Perry Although Thomas Perry just arrived this week to become Cheese

Sales Manager, his connection to Shelburne Farms and our cheese goes way back. It was in 2010 that he was working at Farmstead, a fine food shop in Providence, Rhode Island, where they included our 2-year

cheddar among their offerings. The Farmstead staff came to Shelburne Farms for a field trip and were introduced to the magic of cheesemaking by Head Cheesemaker Nat Bacon. “That visit was eye-opening,” Tom says. “I felt like making cheese was a kind of magic, transforming milk into this delicious complex food.”

Thomas grew up in Connecticut and had several food-related careers throughout New England including at Fromaggio Kitchen in Cambridge where he was catering manager (and where he met his wife Mary), in Pawtucket, Mass., where he was chef at the oldest child care center in the country, cooking healthy house-made meals for the multi-ethnic low income children and finding it “the toughest job you’ll

ever love,” and a stint in Burlington, VT where he worked in an Italian restaurant on Church Street, then at Sweetwaters, and then on the bot-tling line at Magic Hat.

After his role as Senior Cheesemonger, Domestic Cheese Buy-er and Lead Educator at Farmstead, he decided he wanted to learn to make cheese, so he returned to Connecticut and worked at Cato Corner Farm, a raw milk farmstead dairy. He and Mary then moved to Chicago where he became Head of Cheese & Specialty Foods for an upscale

grocery chain, developing special ‘cut-to-order’ cheese sales programs, and popular Tuesday tastings, and expanding their artisan cheese selection. While there he was the recipient of the Daphne Zepos Teaching Award which allowed him to travel to Europe to learn about native bacterial cultures used in cheese-making.

Now he has joined the Shelburne Farms cheese making and marketing team where he will be communicating with the vast array of folks that buy our cheese, from individuals who shop locally, in Vermont and New England, to national clien-tele, from customers who want that half-pound block of 2-year cheddar to take home from the Welcome Center to distributors that buy multiple 40 lb. blocks to sell throughout the country.

You can find him at the Farm Barn most days, but some-times he’ll be out and about spreading the sustainable gospel. When not at work or talking about cheese Thomas enjoys cooking, visiting craft breweries and playing board games with friends. He and his wife Mary live with their two Satos (aka Puerto Rican Street Dogs), Doug and Maya.

Thomas communicating with the cheese-buying world from the office

and getting a cheese-making refresher from Kate Turcotte.

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Exploring sparksthat become creativity

The first of this year’s Con-versations series, held Wednesday evening at the Pizzagalli Center at Shelburne Museum, delighted its audience as Alex Crothers of High Ground and Eyan Miller, musician and lead singer of Guster delved into their own experiences to un-cover the sparks that had become their successes … and to further explore where that commitment to pursuing their ideas might take them in the future.

Host Fran Stoddard will continue the exploration of The Spark of Creativity on March 22 when she interviews Michael Metz, business owner and entrepreneur, Cairn Cross of Fresh Tracks Capital, and Pa-mela Polson of Seven Days on the subject of Fearless Entrepreneurism, and on April 5 when she delves into the subject of Fostering Creativity with Rebecca Schwarz of Champlain College and Judy Klima of Burl-ington’s Integrated Arts Academy. These conversations will take place at All Souls Interfaith Gathering at 6:30.

Free and open to the public. Sponsored by Shelburne Farms, Shelburne Museum, All Souls Interfaith Gathering and Shelburne’s Pierson Library.

Fun for kids at Vermont Flower ShowShelburne Farms was in the family activity room at the 2017 Vermont Flower Show last weekend sharing the wonders of red wigglers with kids and their parents.Volunteers Maeve McGuinness and Emily Boisvert helped Susie Marchand and Cat Wright with the Flower Show activities.

Photo by Cat Wright

Host Fran Stoddard, left, with Eyan Miller, center, and Alex Crothers, right, at the first of the Conversations for 2017.

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MARK YOUR CALENDAROwl Prowl

Craig Newman of Outreach for Earth Stewardship will lead an evening walk into the forest to meet some wild owls on Monday evening March 13 from 6:30 to 8:30. The Owl Prowl, a program for adults and children over the age of 10, will be a chance to explore the world of Vermont’s winged nocturnal predators, listening for and perhaps seeing some of the creatures who make the Farm their home.

Then back indoors at the McClure Education Center to warm up with hot refreshments and meet some OFES live owls.

Be sure to dress appropriately for the cold weather, and be prepared for a hike up Lone Tree Hill and into the woods where we will encounter some moderately steep terrain.

Registration is required (there is a $10 per person fee) by going to the Shelburne Farms webpage www.shelburne-

farms.org and for any questions, check with Cat Wright at cwright@shelburnefarms.org

Pancakes and syrup and sugaring and owls … oh my

On Sunday, March 19 Shelburne Farms invites the community to come to enjoy everything maple:Pancakes:

From 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. the Shelburne Explorers 4-H Club will be serving pancakes and delicious Ver-mont maple syrup in the McClure Center for Educa-tion in the Farm Barn. $8 for adults, $4 for children, a benefit for the 4-H Dairy project.Exploring:

From 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. see the sugarbush and the sugarhouse in action and learn about the process that transforms sap to syrup. And taste the results. Explore a sugarmaker’s tools, tap a sugar maple, add sap from the collection buckets to the bulk tank, go on a scavenger hunt throughout the sugarbush and of course try some sugar-on-snow. It’s free.Meet the wildlife:

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Outreach for Earth Stew-ardship will be in the sugarbush to introduce some of the wildlife that lives in the woods. You’ll meet birds-on-hand, and hear helpful hints about what other birds you may find at this time of year.

No registration required. All are welcome.

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MARK YOUR CALENDARPlay on the Farm

Call up a friend! Drop in any time from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, March 25 at the McClure Education Center. Meet wiggly worms, burrow underground like a woodchuck, tap a sugar maple, along with so many other activi-ties at your own pace and schedule. Seating and tables available if you would like to bring your own lunch/snack.

Special guest from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. will be a live owl with Outreach For Earth Stewardship!

Recommended for ages 2 to 5 with a parent/guardian/chaperone required. Fee for members

is $3 for a child. For non-members it is $5. To create a safe and educational environment in this limited space, registration is now required. Please register by going to the Shelburne Farms webpage at www.shelburnefarms.org and pay at the door upon arrival. Please contact Cat Wright at cwright@shelburne-farms.org with any questions.

A special visitorat the Flower Show

After their performance in the family room at the Vermont Flower Show, a Fairy flew over to investigate the worms with the kids.

Photo by Susie Marchand Ady’s interest in flight has really ramped up!

From the Imagination of Mark Thermansen