Over the course of a few weeks, Jeremy Clark and Bill worked to put a floor in a part of the hay barn where none had previously been. Originally, the barn was used to store loose hay, so a floor was not necessary. Since we put in bales, and we can always use storage space, the new floor is a great addition. We built it from heavy native hemlock timbers and planks milled by Norman and Jeffery Hicks of the nearby Hicks Farm and Sawmill.

One of the things we need the new storage space for is an incredible maple burl that was in a tree that came down a couple of years ago. We’ve been moving it around from shed to barn to garage, etc. until we can find an interested buyer. It is an incredible piece of wood with amazing “bird’s eye” burl. We are hopeful that a world class carver or other artist will be interested in it, since it is clearly one of a kind in both size and quality. Any referrals are welcome.

Starting last spring with a thickly wooded lot a thickly wooded site, we continued to make progress on building my Dad’s new house. From cellar hole cellar hole to finished house took about nine months, and Dad was comfortably ensconced by February, 2001. With a little landscaping done, we are pleased with the way the house came out. Click here for pictures.

The winter of 2000-2001 brought more snow than anybody had seen around here in a really long time. The clouds just kept dumping on us into April, when we had a blizzard on April first (no fooling) that buried the house with so much snow that we couldn’t see out of windows on one side. Our guests tell us that it was a truly great ski season at Berkshire East.

All the snow made for “The sugaring season from Hell,” however. Everything had to be done on snowshoes, which, in such deep snow, made things ten times harder. One time, Norma stepped out of her snowshoe bindings, and went down into the snow on that leg right up to her hips. She would have had quite a time getting out and up if she had been alone. Even once we were tapped, every time more snow would fall, we’d have to go out and pull all the pipeline up above the snow to keep it from freezing.

Because of all the snow, we only put out about 50% of our taps. Some sugar makers, particularly those who use primarily buckets, decided to not even sugar. Fortunately for us, we had decided to expand our sugaring operation into a new lot, using a permanent tubing layout that we had previously hired a private contractor to design and install. Because of the new production from these 650 taps, we had just a little below average production, while others made as little as 20% of a normal crop.

Our mare Gita presented us with a lovely little filly we named BHF Taska. It turns out that Taska is a Grey Dun Fjord, the first time we have had anything other than Brown duns born here. Taska will probably stay in the herd to be trained and ultimately probably be bred.