Scribbles by Shirley
Firstly a huge thank you to everyone who made our 2018 season fun, exciting and successful. What a privilege to work with Team Awesome and to chat with our customers. Of the customers I was lucky enough to meet, the youngest was 6 days old and the oldest 101 years! We are have many families who have been visiting Fulton's for 20, 30 and 40 years.
I thank Team Awesome for happily (well, sort of) extending our maple season for one week. The unseasonally cool temperatures extended our maple syrup production to April 22. This has been one of our longest producing seasons; our first syrup was made on February 27 and our final boil was almost two months later. We made mostly Amber grade with one run of Golden (a lot of it dissappeared for family enjoyment). Our Dark was a delicious stronger flavour but our Very Dark lovers were out of luck. We did not make any Very Dark, probably because we never got warm temps throughout our season.
Finishing up a seasonal business is a relief (all of us are ready for some R&R) but it also is bitter sweet. More than fifty of us, including staff, some experience-providers and a few spouses celebrated our year-end at an informal gathering where we shared stories and laughs from the season and an excellent meal together. Most staff have moved on to other seasonal jobs, the sugar bush is quiet, Lacey is lonesome and the parking lot is empty. After a couple of weeks of recuperation the year round staff are back cleaning, counting, planning and enjoying each other's company.
The 'off season' is filled with serving visitors to the Maple Gift Shoppe (by chance or call ahead), filling online and wholesale orders AND some downtime to recharge our batteries.
Also in May we will start planning our Staff Alumni Reunion on Sunday October 7 (Thanksgiving weekend). Stay posted for details and 'like' our Facebook page. The year 2019 will also be the 50th Anniversary of our Pancake House. We are looking forward to planning something special for the season.
Sweet maple wishes to you,
Shirley Fulton-Deugo
4th Generation Owner