The temperatures are decidedly warmer now, which means we’re coming to the close of another maple sugaring season.
Back when the weather was still cold and muddy and hard to drive in, producer Erica Heilman spent a day visiting with Brian Blaisdell of Blaisdell Maple Farm in Cabot.
This interview was produced for the ear. We highly recommend listening to the audio. We’ve also provided a transcript, which has been edited for length and clarity.
This interview begins in Blaisdell's truck.
Brian Blaisdell: My uncle called me up one day, goes, "Hey, boy, I heard you're looking for a tank." He's passed away now. It's my dad's brother. I said, "Yeah." He goes, "How about the old one from my farm?" I said, "Ah yeah, how much?" He goes, "Well, come take a look at it, and then we'll discuss that part of it."
[An engine revs as the truck backs up to sugar tank in mud and heavy snow.]
Brian Blaisdell: She's a little soft. Gonna have to give her some go juice here.
Erica Heilman: That's Brian Blaisdell backing up to his sugaring tank at the bottom of his friend Matt's field. Brian is a mechanic and a sugarmaker in Cabot.
A few years ago, I interviewed his father, Carl, and back in the fall, I was trying to find Carl, but I didn't have his number, so I started calling Blaisdell's, and I got his son Brian on the phone, and he told me he ran a sugaring operation and I asked if I could drive around with him in the spring when he was gathering sap in his truck, and he said yes. So I did.
Brian has a lot of different skills, and he needs all of them to make a living. He also has a lot of capable friends — people who know how to make things and fix things, and they share these skills with each other as a matter of habit. Here's a few minutes with Brian Blaisdell of Blaisdell Maple Farm.
[Truck doors slam.]
Erica Heilman: OK, so what is this?
Brian Blaisdell: We're hooking hose up to load the truck. These pumps here are water cooled. It's the old, old way of doing it before oil got as high tech as it does, because now people run oil so they don't have to tend to the water. Where, if it got to be really cold at night, I have to get down here and pull all the pipes out of the brook, make sure they drain. Or if they freeze, I got to lay them out so they'll drain and thaw out before the vacuum starts running.
Erica Heilman: OK. I am so confused.
Brian Blaisdell: Well, see right here, these pumps require water to stay cool, like a radiator, and the newer ones all require oil, but this is old school. Water runs in. See the water running out? It just circulates through a tank. Keeps that pump cool, and it spins water really fast. Makes the vacuum. That's how the vacuum works.
Erica Heilman: So when that water gets too cold, you got a problem?
Brian Blaisdell: No, when it freezes, don't have no water going in, it gets hot and overheats the pump.
Erica Heilman: So then what do you do?
Brian Blaisdell: I have to shut them off until I get the water going. Or shovel snow in the tub. That's why you'll notice a shovel at every one, just in case. Because sometimes in the spring of the year, when we haven't got the water going, we'll shovel snow in.
Erica Heilman: That sounds like a kind of —
Brian Blaisdell: It’s just another step, right?
Erica Heilman: Yeah, but I mean, that means, like, you're doing it every —
Brian Blaisdell: Three or four hours.
Erica Heilman: Oh. You got three or four hours with the —
Brian Blaisdell: Sure, load it right up. Just like, a creemee, it's gonna melt, right? So as it melts, it keeps that water cold.
Erica Heilman: And you got a few hours on that?
Brian Blaisdell: Yeah.
Erica Heilman: Oh s—t. I would have thought that it would —
Brian Blaisdell: But you got to haul in about two wheelbarrow loads of snow, right? Two or three wheelbarrow loads. Then that water pushes out the drain as it melts it, because hot water rises to the top of the tub, runs out the overflow, so then it goes right back through there, and right down through the culvert and right back to the brook. All we're doing is borrowing it.
Erica Heilman: So this time of year is pretty much 24/7?
Brian Blaisdell: You never know. Tell God your plans for the day and see how it works for you. My wife gets so agitated because there's nothing etched in stone. You can't plan on it. Because she wants to know how much money you're gonna spend and whatever, and this and that. And I never know. She goes, "Well, what are you gonna …" "I have no idea." "What are you gonna do today?" "I don't know."
But it's just like, you know, you might find yourself up to Jim Rogers, my neighbor. He moves houses. Sometimes he calls me up and needs me to move equipment for him because he hasn't got time to do it. So I will.
I don't know what I'll do today. Sometimes I'll be up helping Matt at the farm. You need something, something broke. So here I'll be.
But it's like I told my wife. I said, I got to do something because there's no social security for guys like me. Because I said, you know, when I retire — if I do, because, what is it? I think it's 71 now for me to get full benefits. Chances of me making it to 71 are probably slim to none, welding and all the stuff I've done, I'll probably die of cancer or something, you know. It’s just the way it is. You're welding and grinding and doing all this stuff in the shop, and then I painted, worked in paint, lead paint, scraped all kinds of lead paint, you know, all that kind of stuff.
And my wife used to say, you know, you should change your lifestyle. But if you change your lifestyle, there's no money in it, right? So you either have one way or the other. You either have some money in your pocket and you grunt and get ahead a little, or lay around and wait to die. So I don't know. I just get up in the morning, tie my shoes and go work.
Erica Heilman: Do you like it, though? Do you like your life?
Brian Blaisdell: I'm not sorry for it. I've done well. I've, you know, done well.
The hardest season I had was about five years ago. I broke my ankle right in February. I was standing in front of the sugarhouse, and I was trying to get everything up and going. And broke my ankle.
And I'd already been to the top of Dad's mountain and fixed a bunch of stuff. And I was fixing stuff just right by my house, the releaser and stuff, getting everything ready to go. Sap was going to run — it was in February, and I had about 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of sap, and I was going to boil that day, and I slipped on the ice and broke my ankle and a bunch of stuff I was taking up on the mountain to fix some stuff. And so Tammy had to call Matt Lindstrom, and he came over and helped me get in the car, and Tammy took me to the hospital, and I broke my ankle, and I called everybody I knew to see if they wanted sap. Nobody was ready, so Matt had to go through and dump all my sap so it wouldn't freeze or anything. He goes, "You sure you're not gonna try to keep it?" And I said, "I can't, because if it freezes up in the tanks, gonna do more damage than good."
So I got out and I talked to my wife. I said, "Boy, this could really put a hurting on us, because it might be a hard year." And all my friends came out of the woodwork and took care of everything. Walked all my vacuum lines. I mean, my vacuum wasn't quite up to where I like it, but Jim would come drive my sap truck every day and come gather all my sap for me. Then Jim would come every night and gather my sap again for me.
I was pretty thankful for every one of them. It's pretty awesome, ain't it?
