The Chronicles of Working with Dad
By Zoe Papageorgiou
When you think about working in a family business, you might imagine heartwarming moments and bonding experiences. But when that family business is maple syrup production, it’s all about your pace.
Every spring, we gear up for tapping season—a time when I get to witness Dad's “expertise” firsthand. Armed with his trusty drill , he confidently approaches each tree as if he's performing surgery. “Just one hole per foot,” I reminded him. He nods with pride thinking about all the wisdom he has imparted. A glutton for competition, I know that at the same time he’s secretly thinking about which one of us will tap the most this year.
Once the trees are tapped, it's time for sap collection. This usually involves me lugging around heavy buckets while Dad insists on telling stories from his youth—stories that always seem to involve some sort of challenge or struggle or story about how it “used to be.” It also involved a lot of his slapstick humor and jokes I hear time and time again each season, but I try to ground myself knowing I’ll look back with fondness on this some day.
What did the maple tree say to the sap?
"You’re so sweet, I can’t leaf you alone!"
And then there is the boiling process—the moment where all our hard work pays off…or so we hope! As steam starts to build, Dad’s knack for details turns into a lot of checks and balances and temperature tests. Endless hours to produce the fruits of our lab or invite some silliness, exhaustion and an endless smell of smoke seared into our clothes and hair –even after they are both washed.
As summer rolls around and we preparing bottles for sale, marketing becomes priority number one—but leave it to Dad to come up with some *interesting* slogans for our brand:
- “Just Call us the Sap Family”
- "Amber is Our Color”
- “Got Maple?”
- “What’s on Tap?”
I can only roll my eyes and then reroute the conversation to talk about other ways of marketing - including the latest tik tok trends and packaging ideas.
Working with Dad at Gold Brook Maple may be chaotic and occasionally too much togetherness —but we've crafted some sweet memories. (See what I did there?)
So here’s to more sticky situations ahead; (too hard to not keep going with puns) who knows what other shenanigans await us next sugaring season? I look forward to fights about who controls the drill and who sterilizes the buckets. But don’t tell him that, I need to keep him on his game.