Fine-N-Dandy Rustic Sugarhouse Hosts Visitors for Maple Weekend

Fine-n-Dandy is most like the image I've always had in mind of a classic sugarhouse in the woods.

The forest in Norwood, New York, where this log cabin-like building is located, comes right to the edge of the highway. I parked on the road and then walked up a short dirt road, eying the piles of cut logs, the shelter of the deep forest, and the lovely, rustic little log building in the clearing.

Fine-n-Dandy, operated by Donald and Joyce Finen, is the sixth sugarhouse I visited on my 300-mile self-guided excursion covering seven maple syrup operations in St. Lawrence County for the 14th Annual New York Maple Weekend on March 21-22 and March 22-28.

The Finens hosted an Open House on the second weekend. I arrived on Saturday afternoon, just after Don had shut down his evaporator for the day. Joyce and one of their sons, along with a sleeping Beagle, were sunning themselves in lawn chairs outside the sugarhouse, enjoying this beautiful day in the woods. They welcomed me to their operation and told me to go in the sugarhouse and look around - there was also maple candy and cream inside to sample.

Don finished up with a customer, who bought a jug of syrup, and then he told me about his operation.

Don has 32 acres of woods, but only taps the front 10 acres of maples. This year, he has 347 taps. All of the trees are on tubing and a vacuum system. The operation produces between 45 and 60 gallons of syrup each season.

The log sugarhouse was built 28 years ago and houses the evaporator. There is an attached woodshed that has been converted into a kitchen, which also houses the retail sales display of the maple syrup, candy, and cream made here.

Fine-n-Dandy is one of the most traditional syrup-making operations I visited because, other than the plastic tubing and vacuum system, it hasn't adopted modern equipment such as a machine for Reverse Osmosis or a powered filter press.

Don proudly tells me with a grin that this is a 'zero debt' operation!

Don started maple sugaring nearly 30 years ago and described it as a natural spin-off after he and Joyce built a log home on the property. Don's maple sugaring hobby was a source of income to buy 'Dad's toys' when the Finens were a struggling young family on his teacher's salary. Don's wife and three sons helped him with the maple syrup operation over the years, but for the most part, he's now a one-man operation. Joyce notes with a smile that she 'supervises'.

Don relates that for his first year of sugaring, half of his taps were on buckets and the rest on tubing. He changed over to all tubing the very next year. With the system he has now, the sap is collected in a lower tank near the sugarhouse and then pumped to a tank above the sugarhouse where its flows by gravity into the oil-fired evaporator. A float box control keeps the flow constant.

Don explains that instead of a Reverse Osmosis (RO) machine, he uses a heater to warm up the sap. That's unique these days for a commercial producer! Fine-n-Dandy is the only one of the seven sugarhouses I visited that doesn't use RO - the method that takes most of the water out of the sap before it goes to the evaporator.

In the evaporator, Don uses steam and a device made of pieces of baseboard heating material to help warm the sap and save on fuel. If the boil gets too high, he adds a touch of canola oil, as the fat content brings it down.

Once the sap reaches the syrup stage it goes through a filtering process. Don doesn't use the waffle-like powered filter press that the majority of commercial producers use today, but instead, relies on one of the traditional methods that does not require power - a medical grade paper filter inserted in a big synthetic felt 'sock'. The sock allows the syrup to drip through while it filters out the sediments.

Next, Don reheats the syrup to approximately 180 degrees Fahrenheit and cans it in plastic jugs. The containers are laid on their sides, and that produces an airtight seal.

Don uses all plastic jugs in his operation and noted that customers just don't buy the glass or tin containers anymore - most likely because those containers are more expensive. Plastic jugs have proven to seal better than glass and are easier to seal than the old-fashioned tins, Don averred. However, he pointed out that Hackett's, a local department store, had recently ordered glass containers of his syrup for their specialty gifts and gourmet food section.

I ask Don and Joyce to pose for a picture in front of the log sugarhouse. Joyce notes that the Fine-n-Dandy sign needs painting. No, Don smiles, and tells her, that makes it more rustic!