Growing Pure Maple: Our Journey from Horses to Syrup

Part 1: Big Sky Farms and the Pull of Agriculture

This is the first in a five-part series documenting our expansion from a 3,900-tap sugaring operation to a modern 12,500-tap+ commercial maple facility. We're sharing the full story - the planning, the numbers, the decisions, and the challenges - because we believe transparency matters and because we hope our experience might help other producers thinking about scaling up.

There's a moment in every farmer's life when you realize that what started as a side project has quietly become something more. For us, we have faced this a few times in different parts of our agricultural careers, first with horses, then equine reproductive services, and now maple syrup.

Eighteen Years of Big Sky Farms

We've operated Big Sky Farms in Starksboro, Vermont and Eloy, Arizona for almost two decades now. There are have been countless early mornings, lots broken equipment, weather that doesn't cooperate, mares that don't take and foals that don't nurse. We do it for that particular satisfaction that comes from building something with your hands on land you know intimately.

Big Sky Farms has always been diversified. We started Big Sky Farms, raising horses for ourselves and built up quite a broodmare herd. We keep back the horses we want to raise and train, and sell ones that aren't going to fit our program. More recently we began raising and promoting our own stud bloodlines. While having broodmares brings revenue after the first year, the studs take a long time to build a following that books breedings. Through that journey, we have also expanded into providing equine repro services, a pursuit that requires precision, patience, and the ability to solve problems at 2 AM when nothing is going according to plan.

This diversification isn't just business strategy. It's philosophy. We believe in keeping agriculture alive in this generation, not as a museum piece or a weekend hobby for people from somewhere else, but as a viable way of life for families who want to make their living from land and livestock. That means being willing to try things, to adapt, to find the enterprises that work for current market conditions and allow us to make a living. Most of all, it allows us to find the parts of the business we really enjoy.

We chose to headquarter our livestock business on the Arizona farm primarily because agriculture in Vermont has always been a challenge. The season is short. The terrain is steep. The economics of commodity agriculture rarely pencil out for small producers. Managing livestock in Vermont's hard winters is brutal. But Vermont does offer something rare: a market that values authenticity, quality, and locality. People will "buy Vermont first" because they know Vermont is synonymous with craftsmanship. This makes our Pure Maple endeavor "a no-brainer".

Sustainability as Practice, Not Marketing

We hear a lot about sustainability these days, so much that the word has lost some of its meaning. For us, sustainability isn't a marketing gimmick. It's the way we make decisions.

A sustainable operation is one that can continue. It pays its bills. It doesn't deplete the resources it depends on. It can adapt to changing conditions. It provides meaningful work and an enjoyable quality of life for the people involved.

By that definition, a lot of farming isn't sustainable. Operations that depend on family members working for free. Operations that slowly draw down soil health or water resources. Operations that can only survive by cutting corners on quality or safety. These might continue for a while, but they're running on borrowed time.

When we look at any new enterprise, including the maple expansion we're about to describe, we ask whether it can truly sustain itself. Not just in year one, but in year ten and year twenty. That's a high bar, and it rules out a lot of projects that might look attractive on paper.

Finding What Works

Through the years, we've learned what works on our land and what doesn't. We've learned our own strengths and limitations. We've learned which enterprises reward hard work and which just consume it.

Maple syrup has been part of Big Sky Farms since 2009. What started small, 2,000 taps, making syrup mostly for ourselves and friends, wholesaling some, has grown steadily over sixteen years. And unlike some of our other experiments, maple has consistently rewarded the effort we've put into it, growing it to our current level of 3,900 taps.

We do have some unique advantages on the property in Vermont. Our land has excellent sugar maples with natural topography that is very conducive to running everything to our sugarhouse without a lot of extra equipment. We have the infrastructure to support a larger operation, both people and machines. And most of all, we have a robust community with producers like Werner Tree Farm in Middlebury and Shaker Mountain Farm across the gully, that are happy to share their vast knowledge with us.

Now, the big transition is our sales and distribution strategy moving forward. The bulk maple market, where producers sell syrup in barrels to packers who blend it with syrup from other sources, has always been difficult. Prices swing based on Quebec's harvest, global supply and demand, and factors entirely outside any individual producer's control, but worst of all, the prices are just low. You can do everything right, have great production, and still lose money.

The retail market is different. When you sell directly to consumers in glass bottles under your own brand, you capture the full value of your product. You control pricing, quality, and customer relationships. You're not competing on cost alone; you're competing on quality, story, and trust.

That's the opportunity we see with Pure Maple.

Pure Maple LLC

In 2026, we formed Pure Maple LLC as a wholly owned subsidiary of Big Sky Farms. The decision to create a separate entity was deliberate: we wanted to separate the maple manufacturing and retail operations from the broader agricultural activities of the farm while building recognizable branding that is maple-specific.

Pure Maple's mission is straightforward: produce the highest quality Vermont maple syrup through sustainable practices and efficient technology, and sell it directly to consumers nationwide through modern e-commerce channels.

We're not trying to be the biggest. We're trying to be excellent at a specific scale, large enough to be commercially viable, small enough to maintain the quality and attention that makes direct-to-consumer sales possible.

The expansion we're undertaking from 3,900 taps to 12,500 taps (we hope), represents our best judgment about that sweet spot. It's ambitious but achievable. It requires significant investment but generates returns that justify that investment. It's large enough to matter and small enough to manage.

What's Coming

In the posts that follow, we'll walk through every aspect of this expansion:

Part 2: Our Maple History — How we started sugaring in 2009, what we've learned over sixteen seasons, and how we reached the limits of our current operation.

Part 3: The Expansion Plan — Why 12,500 taps, how we're acquiring the sugarbush acreage, and the two-year timeline for development.

Part 4: Designing for Efficiency — The technical deep dive into equipment selection, sugarhouse layout, and the engineering decisions that will define our operation for decades.

Part 5: Funding the Dream — Grant programs, capital requirements, and the financial strategy that makes this possible.

We're sharing all of this for a few reasons. First, because we believe in transparency. If we're asking customers to trust our product, they deserve to know how we operate. Second, because we've benefited from other producers who shared their knowledge, and we want to pay that forward. And third, because putting our plans in writing forces us to think clearly about what we're doing and why.

And we're inviting you along for the journey.

Next in the series: Our sixteen years of maple production, the lessons we've learned, and how we hit the ceiling of our current operation.