NEWARK VALLEY, N.Y. (WBNG) — Across New York State, dozens of farms are participating in Maple Weekend.
It’s a chance for people to go to a local farm to learn about the maple sugar making process and see how farms provide real maple syrup.
Lawton’s Maple in Newark Valley has been a part of this tradition for five years now.
The farm offers tours of its facility which produces thousands of gallons of syrup each season from 8,200 trees.
“I like to let people know what goes into real food,” said Maple Syrup Farmer Nathan Lawton. “We’ve had two BOCES groups out for tours during the week and then open house weekend, some people come back from the BOCES group, they bring their parents back and come see what goes into this.”
With the tours, Lawton shows people how they get the syrup from just sap to ready to eat with not just experience, but with technology.
“We go over monitoring, which is how we use today’s technology to keep track of woods and tank levels, so we don’t have to go manually do everything every time,” said Lawton. “We check it from an app on our phone, which makes life quite a bit better. We go over the evaporator, making syrup and filtering and we have treats and stuff for people to come taste and try.”
However, it wasn’t just the sap house the farm was showing off. On the event’s opening weekend, visitors had a chance to check out Lawton Farm’s cows and calves.
It’s something the family loves to engage the community with.
“It’s definitely really good to have them ask questions,” said fourth generation farmer at Lawton Farm Chelsie Fuller. “Not a lot of people understand where their food comes from, so it’s good to kind of bridge that gap between the consumer and the farmer.”
If you missed the event this weekend, there is still a chance to check out the sap house next weekend.
The farm will be open from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
If you’re interested in learning more about Lawton’s Maple, you can visit here.
If you want to learn more about Maple Weekend, you can visit here.
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