The Land’s Sake Sugaring-Off Festival is back this year on Saturday March 27 from 10 am – 2 pm, and in its usual spot at the Bill McElwain Sugar House at Weston Middle School, 456 Wellesley St. This is a favorite community event celebrating the changes on the farm from winter to spring. And there are more changes coming to the farm, which will be presented to the community at an event on March 31.

Sugaring Off

If you’re not from New England, you may not know about sugaring off, which is the process where sap from a maple tree is boiled down until it turns into thickened syrup or crystallized sugar. If you’ve noticed the hundreds of blue or silver buckets around town (First Parish Church’s backyard holds many), the sap has been running. That sap is then brought to the Sugar House, which was built in 1973 by Bill McElwain, the founder of Green Power.

If you’re interested in the ins and outs of maple syrup production, please check out Land’s Sake’s maple syrup production page, and watch the video produced by Weston Media Center (link on page). It’s a pretty amazing process and a sweet victory at the end.

While the festival is a little different this year due to the pandemic, visitors to the Sugar House will still get to see the boiling process in action, and get a tour. Due to gathering restrictions, people will be led through the Sugar House in small groups, and you are encouraged to sign up for one timeslot for your family group–all individuals need to be counted.

While there is no pancake breakfast this year, there will be some goodies to take home, and Land’s Sake Syrup and other farmstand items available to purchase.

For more information about the festival, please see here.

Come Grow with Us Meeting

On Wednesday March 31, Land’s Sake will be holding a virtual community informational session to present its vision for the future. Founded forty-one years ago by Doug Henderson, Martha Gogel and Brian Donahue, Land’s Sake built on the pionering work of Bill McElwain (yes, he of the Sugar House) at Green Power Farm. While some elements have changed over time, Land’s Sake was founded for farm, forest and conservation management.

From the Land’s Sake townwide communication:

“As many of you know, for the past 40 years, Land’s Sake Farm has been at the heart of Weston, nurturing our community through sustainable farming, hunger relief and education for children and adults. After receiving a long-term lease on our current land, we began a strategic plan to envision a model community farm, fully sustainable to nurture our community even further. Our new infrastructure will significantly increase the impact we can have on the community and beyond – reaching more children, more elders, more schools and more hunger relief partners. We are now in phase 1 of a two-phase capital campaign to develop our infrastructure operations. We can’t wait to share this exciting chapter with you all and look forward to presenting our plan! We welcome all feedback and questions. Thank you for your support!”

The community session will be held at 7:30 pm on Wednesday, March 31 by virtual platform. You must register in advance here.