MEMBER PROFILE
by Terry Coleman
Profile Editor

John & Roxanne Ripley

If you haven't heard of any hard working high school kids in recent years, here's a story about one from the past. John Ripley, who now operates Ripley Farms in Vermontville, Mi, was a high school senior in 1975. Close to his home was a 425 tap sugar bush that hadn't been run for at least 15 years. The equipment was still in the shack, but needed serious clean-up work. John located the owner in Detroit and got permission to use everything for a 50/50 split.

The old arch was 4'x12' with 3 flat pans joined by siphon lines. He can remember one stretch of 72 hours straight boiling by himself! He made 100 gallons that year boiling by lantern light and with wood he cut himself. Wow! After using this woods six years John rented a different woods by Bellevue with 300 taps and a 40"x10' flat pan rig. He ran this for two years and then quit for 12 years.

The farm he now owns and runs is 80 acres with 10 acres of woodlot. John runs 500 acres of cash crops on his homestead and leased properties. The Ripleys also raise Main-Anjou beef cattle and breed calves to sell.

In 1994 the fever hit John again. He bought a 5'x16' King wood fired evaporator and housed it in a 20'x40' pole building with a 10'x40' lean-to for wood. John says he will always burn wood for the tradition and the quality of the syrup flavor. The Ripley farm has 1300 taps on vacuum tubing piped to the sugar house. Two other rented woods on tubing and buckets supply another 1300 taps and 1400 more taps are brought in from four other people to be boiled on shares.

John does all the boiling and his wife Roxanne does the canning. A nephew gathers and keeps pumps going. A normal season is 800 gallons for the Ripley farm. John batch finishes all syrup on the evaporator.

The Ripleys are active at the Vermontville festival and also sell at the house. Candy and cream sales help their syrup inventory to vanish buy July each year. Next year his plans include a piggyback pan and a web page to market syrup and honey, which they also produce. John attributes his "sugarin' fever" to loving a 'traditional old fashioned art' that few are involved with.

To visit the farm, take M79 west from Charlotte 10 miles to Ionia Road. Take Ionia Road one mile south to Carlisle Road, turn right and it is the second farm on the right. The name is on the barn.