Full-Time Country Woman Workin' the Sugar Shack

****Note****
This was scheduled to post yesterday. Looks like I need to learn more about
how to schedule posting times.

Freed Eichler in the mid 60's

Jim's aunt Freeda was a full time country woman, back in the day when it was more common to find women who did not work a job other than her farm work.

Freeda was raised on a farm in Morrow County, Ohio. When she married Jim's uncle Lester, her parents gave them a farm to work. Pretty sweet!

Really.

A large part of their operation was making maple syrup and sugar. This picture is from a box of slides that we found when we were cleaning out Jim's mother's house after she passed. Freeda is boiling down sap in their sugar house.

Notice the evaporator, and that she is and stirring the syrup. The sugar shack is made of corrugated metal. Not too fancy, but it got the job done!

When our kids were small, we used some of the Eichler's equipment to tap trees and teach the kids where syrup comes from and how it is made. None of us do it now, though...it is a tremendous amount of work and a huge commitment to keep the fires burning under the evaporator and to keep the syrup from burning.

And, with two maple producers near-by, we still get our Pure Maple Fix.

SWEET!

Marcheta *did that, done that