Croagh Patrick Maple Works and Agroforestry

Croagh Patrick Maple Works and Agroforestry At Croagh Patrick, we are starting to explore maple syrup production in a very small scale, in Gilmer County, West Virginia.

We run the website for the WV Maple Syrup Producers Association. Please visit their page for more information about that organizat

02/25/2026

After quite the drought from sap (I had hoped for Saturday but only got about a quart), sap is running today, my last day here. Only 5 trees had sap this morning but the sun is supposed to come out and temps get to the 50s. So 🤞. The temperature started warming overnight but it is dreary and rainy so I was glad to at least capture something.

I had about 1.25 gallons of sap in the fridge but I was afraid it would not keep this long so I boiled it down to almost syrup the other day. That should keep it going until I can add this to it.

I hope to get enough to be worth cooking outside around 2pm.

I'll do my last collection just before dark.

Tomorrow morning I have to pull the taps and clean up. Then I will get on the road for an event in Maryland.

I thought about skipping it because the weather looks decent but I decided it is probably not worth it.

But also part depends on whether I need to stay to do some things regarding our new fiber Internet hookup. They came out yesterday but there is no signal to the house. They promised it would be working by this morning.... I can't leave until it is up and running.

UPDATE: Fiber hookup is complete! yay!

Also, at 2pm, I had decent sap from 6 trees so I pulled out the other taps which were bone dry. At 5:30, 4 trees were still dripping briskly so I left those taps in and pulled the other two. I ventured out in the dark around 8pm for my last collection, and pulled the remaining taps.

This all meant I could get a head start on cleaning buckets and stuff.

The winds were too high this afternoon to cook efficiently. The sap took forever to boil, and then boiled lethargically so I stopped it. But the winds died down at sunset and the sap cooked really quickly after that. I had everything cooked to syrup by 10pm. All my equipment has been rinsed.

I soaked the taps in bleach this time, and rinsed the other stuff in warm water. I'll see how they smell in a few months. It's not good to use soap because it can affect the flavor. Bleach is okay, and I usually do a quick rinse, but I have a time crunch tomorrow and was too tired tonight.

I'm just glad I only have to clean my big cooking pot tomorrow, and bring in the gas cooker. Then I can focus on packing and hopefully get on the road by 10am.

02/17/2026

Sap is running again today! It got below freezing last night despite the forecast. I got 3.75 gallons earlier and I'm expecting to get about as much an hour from now. Cooking in progress.

It's a perfect day to boil sap outside! The winds are very light, and the flame is strong and clean!I got some silicone ...
02/16/2026

It's a perfect day to boil sap outside! The winds are very light, and the flame is strong and clean!

I got some silicone deck protectors. Risk is low but I feel better about this than what I rigged up in the past.

I collected about 2 cups of sap all together in my buckets this morning. I didn't expect more. I'm interested to see if it got cold enough last night for the sap to start running today. Probably not.

Should be colder tonight. 🙏🤞🙏🤞

Out of my 11 trees I got over 6 gallons of sap since yesterday afternoon. It sounds like a tiny bit to most producers bu...
02/15/2026

Out of my 11 trees I got over 6 gallons of sap since yesterday afternoon. It sounds like a tiny bit to most producers but I'm happy to have enough to cook down tomorrow. Hopefully there will be as much today but I don't think it froze last night. Some trees were either still running or running again this morning. Some had stopped. I think there should be another good run Tuesday.

I like to produce about a gallon of syrup. Last year I didn't quite make it. In 2024 I made 1.2 gallons out of 73 gallons of sap.

We'll see!

Tree report:

Lloyd and Mikhail Baryschnikov are running neck and neck with Bernard close behind. Bubba, Matt Dillon and Vincent are holding their own. This is the first time Bubba ran well. I must have found the "sweet spot", pun intended. Patsy is not happy with tap placement apparently. She usually does so much better. James, and the 3 ladies are running steadily, but about a quarter of what the big producers give.

Bubba is the largest tree I tapped.
Lloyd and Mikhail are about the same size, pretty large.
Big Frank at the bottom of the hill never produced sap before. He has a lot of broken limbs. I don't usually tap him.
Frances (Frank Jr) is another large tree but hard to reach. I've never gotten sap from him. Roberto, Francesca and Alicia did well my first year but nothing since so I stopped trying. They are also a challenge to reach. Olivia and Star are up a slippery slope and didn't produce much
Patrick and Rosemary at the bottom of the hill are my best producers down there and I may tap them after the warm spell.
Miguel and Christina do okay and I may tap them next week.
Rosa Maria and Antonio are difficult to tap. I chain them with tubes but it is more trouble than it is worth.
Anna and Joan are finicky but easy to reach so I may tap them next week

Oh I forgot Papa and Grandmother. I tapped them my first year. They are near the road off the beaten track and didn't produce anything after my first year. But Mike Hardman said that after I pulled Papa's tap, sap ran to ground through March. He's in a cold zone so it's possible the warm spell might wake him up. I may have muffed the tap my first year. I have learned a lot since then. He's not that hard to reach if I chose to tap him.

Daniella is way up by Secret Park and up a slippery slope, not worth it to me to tap.

Phoebe is the mother of all, huge, but too venerable and gorgeous to disturb. Nicholas is up a slippery slope, also a large gorgeous tree. They are both off Crites Road and not in my other sugar bushes. The maples around them are too young. The land was timbered there.

The land around the cliff where most of my tapped trees are today was also timbered but my parents must have asked them to not timber along the cliff trail. Or else I'm lucky. It's possible many were too small to be worth timbering back then but Bubba is huge.

So the low hanging fruit to tap after the dry spell, easy to reach and possibly productive are:

Patrick
Rosemary
Christina
Miguel
Big Frank... May as well try...
Anna
Joan
Possibly Papa

Tapped my best 11 trees and the sap is running well for now! But this warm weather next week could be problematic. 🤞🙏🤞🙏
02/14/2026

Tapped my best 11 trees and the sap is running well for now! But this warm weather next week could be problematic. 🤞🙏🤞🙏

02/09/2026

I'm looking at February 14 to start tapping. We will see.

In all fairness, there were only two maple farms who entered the contest and I was the only one with Grade A Golden so I...
04/27/2025

In all fairness, there were only two maple farms who entered the contest and I was the only one with Grade A Golden so I had to win that category unless I was disqualified for it not being thick enough or something. The other farm entered bottles in 3 different syrup categories so he won all those. But getting Best In Show felt like a win. It seems like most of the producers here don't like the mild golden syrup but it is all I ever make. The president of our society says he usually doesn't want anything to do with a syrup this light in color because he assumes it wouldn't have any taste. But he was taken aback by how good it was! I kept telling them mine is best! I only entered once before and I found out I would have won if I entered it in the correct category, but it was darker that year so I put it in the amber category. I was disqualified. Because I always have sugar sand at the bottom of my bottles I never thought I could win. Then I heard that you don't have to bring the whole bottle and can pour off the good stuff on top. I'd like to enter against more competition.

And that's a wrap. I gave away 4 bottles of syrup. I still have 8. One is in the fridge because it was the odds and ends...
02/26/2025

And that's a wrap. I gave away 4 bottles of syrup. I still have 8. One is in the fridge because it was the odds and ends. I have a lot of odds and ends bottles of syrup here from years past. I need to take some of it home. I eat more pancakes there. It lasts a long time in the fridge at least.

It's a beautiful day to clean my buckets outside! It's about 60 degrees! I still have one tree (Lloyd) tapped. I will pu...
02/25/2025

It's a beautiful day to clean my buckets outside! It's about 60 degrees! I still have one tree (Lloyd) tapped. I will pull that tap around 4pm. The nephews pulled all the other taps this morning when they gathered the 8 gallons of sap before they headed back to Virginia. But Lloyd was running like gangbusters and I thought I could manage one bucket myself. Next year I am thinking of simplifying. Lloyd is easy to get to, and I can drive fairly close to him. I might only tap Lloyd down hill next year, and keep the 10 or so on the ridge.

I still have 5 gallons of sap to add to the evaporator. My method is extremely slow to start with, and my cooker is actually slower than usual. It needs a cleaning and tune-up off season.

And thick and fast it came at last! I sent my nephews out to grab whatever sap ran since 5pm yesterday, and de-tap the t...
02/25/2025

And thick and fast it came at last! I sent my nephews out to grab whatever sap ran since 5pm yesterday, and de-tap the trees. They came back with 6 gallons from the ridge and two from down below. I knew it would run all night but I didn't think it would run THAT much! This is our biggest take. I wish I'd gone out with them to see the sap in the buckets on the trees this morning! I'll be cooking sap and cleaning equipment all day!

A sight for sore eyes! I estimate We have about 4 to 4.5 gallons this morning. We didn't collect yesterday, since it was...
02/24/2025

A sight for sore eyes! I estimate We have about 4 to 4.5 gallons this morning. We didn't collect yesterday, since it was going to be colder than the fridge last night. It is supposed to go up to 55 today so we should have a good cooking day! The sap has a layer of ice on it so I'm sending the boys on a collecting mission in about an hour. This is not one of my bigger producers but it was such a pretty picture. Then they will collect around 2pm and 6pm. We will get last collection in the morning before we pull the taps. Since it is not supposed to freeze here tonight the sap might continue to run in the night but they should lose steam. I'll be leaving some sap running, no doubt, and it hurts my heart, but it is time to see the grandchildren and get home to my hubby. Ummm... I may leave a couple buckets on till afternoon. 🤷‍♀️

No sap yesterday but today is a bright sunny day and should warm up quickly. I hope for lots of sap on the ridge. Here's...
02/23/2025

No sap yesterday but today is a bright sunny day and should warm up quickly. I hope for lots of sap on the ridge. Here's a photo from my front door that I took this morning. Yesterday most of the snow melted on my side of the hill, but it is still gracing the hill opposite us. This is a good example of mini-climates. If I were to tap the trees on the other side, which I don't, the sap probably won't run until March. In between the ridge and that hill is my lower sugar bush. Sometimes it wakes up in February and sometimes not so much. Usually Lloyd, my uppermost tree in that area, produces a lot of sap. He's been a bit lackluster this year, it being a colder winter than we've had recently.

Next year I am considering only tapping Lloyd in that area.

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2700 3rd Run Road
Glenville, WV
26351

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