Images Courtesy of Aaron Orient

At RiverStone Farm - Foxburg, PA

Allegheny RiverStone Center for the Arts reports that the Maple Trees are cooperating and the sap is flowing and buckets are filling at RiverStone Farm, in time for the ARCA Maple Syrup Festival, Saturday, MARCH 12th. The farm is located on Foxview Road off of Route 58 behind the Allegheny Clarion Valley School District buildings and across from the Allegheny Clarion Medical Center.

Gathering the sap which is part sugar from maple trees begins at Riverstone Farm in late February. The first step is to drill and insert taps in over 700 trees. The sap buckets are hung from the taps and the next step is to wait on the right late winter weather for the sap to run. Sunny days with temperatures in the high thirties/low forties and cold nights with temperatures below freezing are ideal. This causes the sap to flow up through the tree during the day and the flow reverses before it freezes at night. A portion of the maple sap is collected in the buckets, gathered then emptied into large tanks and taken to the sugar house. At the sugar house the sap is processed by boiling the sap in a wood fired evaporator which separates the maple sugar from the sap water. The sugar syrup is drawn off the evaporator as the water becomes steam. The syrup is collected, filtered, and put immediately in bottles. It takes approximately 50 gallons of tree sap to make 1 gallon of syrup.

The Maple Syrup Festival schedule runs from 9:00 AM until 2:00 PM. The day starts with a pancake breakfast with flapjacks on the griddle from 9:00 AM to 1:00PM. Weather permitting, wagon rides to gather syrup buckets and tour the Sugar House will be ongoing from 10 AM until 2 PM. While waiting at the Riverstone Event barn for a ride to the Sugar House one can inspect a collection of restored horse-drawn wagons and carriages. ARCA will also be selling bottles of absolutely fresh Maple Syrup and sweet Maple Syrup cook books during the day long event.

Admission for the festival will be collected on the day of the festival at the gate of Riverstone Farm. All day admission including the pancake breakfast is $10 for adults and $6 for children under 12. It promises to be a fun day at the farm!