Michigan Maple Syrup Association
Fall Tour 1998 September 26th

The plans for our Fall Tour are all set. We will start the tour at the Brodbeck Farm one half mile west of the M-66 and M-43 junction on M-43 (Brown Road). Registration will begin at 830am and the tour will start promptly at 9:00am.

Tim & Tammy Brodbeck, 10560 E Brown Road, Lake Odessa in Barry County will host the first stop. Tim, Tammy and their four children have operated the family sugar bush since 1989. Along with the Maple Syrup business, they cash crop farm 5000 acres with Tim's brother, Kevin.

Syrup making has been in the Brodbeck family for five generations. The arch started back in the woods. With forty years of no syrup making at the farm, Tim, along with his Uncle Russell, started the business once again. Uncle Russell helped Tim get started by passing on his knowledge of the syrup making process.

They started with a 40 X 12 wood-fired evaporator with 600 taps. Their gathering system was a gravity fed tubing system with the sap pumped to the sugarhouse. Later it was converted over to a vacuum tubing system.

In 1993, their sugarhouse burnt to the ground. With everything a loss, they started over. A new sugarhouse was built and a Small Brothers 40 X 10 natural gas fired evaporator was purchased, along with all the other necessities for syrup making
Over the years, they have expanded to over 900 taps The Brodbecks are in the process of cleaning their woods. They are in hopes that some day their children will carry on the Brodbeck family tradition.

Wayne & Marian Pennock, 10401 W Lawrence Hwy, Nashville, also in Barry County, is the next stop. Their farm name is Mari-Way Farm and was a large dairy operation before their retirement. In 1986 when the cows were sold, the farm was also sold, except for the 30 acres, which is now the Pennock residence and Sugar Bush.

They hang 800 pails each year in their home woods. In addition, sap is brought in from 100 to 400 pails by neighbors to be processed on shares. The evaporator has been oil fired since 1968.This is a third generation Maple Syrup operation started in
1890 by Wayne's grandfather, Curtis Pennock, when he was married and bought the farm. Maple Syrup has been produced each and every year since by the Pennock Family.

They have a very nice pond and picnic area including a covered bridge in front of the sugarhouse. The recreation farm pond was dug in January 1980. It was dug in a swampy area of the woods and has been developed into a family campground and park. 500 spruce trees have been planted and are being nurtured for Christmas trees. As time and ability allows, timber stand improvement is being done.

Lunch will be at the Bellevue United Methodist Church in Bellevue. The business meeting will follow lunch.

Larry & Karen Haigh, 6903 S Lacey Lake Road, Bellevue will be the first stop of the afternoon. They are both 4th generation Maple Syrup makers. Larry is the son of Amos and Joyce Haigh, and has been active in syrup making since his folks first tapped in 1958. Karen has fond memories of her grandparents' new Maple Sugar House when she was 5 years old. After they were married, Larry and Karen continued to help his parents each spring.

In the fall of 1982, they purchased the 20-acre woods just north of their farm. In the spring of 1983 they purchased 250 used buckets and spiles and tapped their trees. They used a 460-gallon plastic tank on a pickup to haul the sap the 17 miles to Haigh's Sugar House Farm.

They now have 435 taps with 120 still on buckets. The rest are on tubing running to 5 stainless steel dairy tanks. They use a 1000-gallon aluminum tank on a tandem axle trailer to haul their sap.

Their woods are wet and contain a wide variety of trees including numerous tulip poplars. They do selective cutting to improve maple growth. This wood is used to heat their house and work shop.

Amos & Joyce Haigh, 5737 N. Benton Road, Charlotte will be the last stop of the day. They are both from Maple Syrup making families. Some of Joyce's ancestors were part of the pioneers who came from Vermont and settled in the North West corner of Eaton County. They established the village of Vermontville.

Amos and Joyce helped make Maple Syrup in Joyce's grandparents' woods a spring or two after they were first married. Later, when farming near Potterville, they rented a woods a few miles from their farm.

In 1955, they purchased the present farm on Benton road. This was Amos' grandparents' farm. Amos remembers helping his grandfather make Maple Syrup in these woods.

They began making Maple Syrup in the spring of 1958 with rented equipment. A few poles and four big barn doors made a shanty. Help was their four boys and Joyce's brother. A girl and another boy were born later.

A couple years later a shop building was moved 4 miles from a cousin's farm and converted into a sugar house. The boiling operation moved from the woods in 1971. The new sugarhouse was built in the fall of 1970 and has had some additions.

The Haigh's tap about 2000 taps. They have 300 to 400 in the original woods with the rest in leased wood lots. They also boil on shares for Larry & Karen and other sap gathers near by. They boil from over 3000 taps total.

They have a farm pond, which was dug 2 years ago. This year they built an 'all steel' bridge over the creek which runs through their woods.

All of these producers are very active in the Vermontville Maple Syrup Festival Corporation and its Festival.

Princess Laura Paddle Boat
At 7:00 pm there is an optional evening paddleboat trip on the Grand River in Grand Ledge. This is a beautiful fall tour on the river and goes down stream past the famous 'Ledges' for which Grand Ledge was named. There will be piano and banjo music and desert will be served. This will be an option for anyone wishing to stay for the evening, but you must pre-register so that we can make the reservations. There is an additional charge for this event and you must register and pay by September 11th.

We hope to move the tour along at a fairly good pace. It will be a very full day and we do hope that everyone will find it interesting and informative.