SHARON, Conn. — Sharon Audubon will hold its annual MapleFest on Saturday, March 16, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Visitors will be able to watch as maple sap is collected from the trees and turned into delicious maple syrup.More efficient evaporatorScott Heth, Audubon’s director, said that the clear liquid sap is only about 3 percent sugar. An evaporation process is used to reduce the amount of liquid in the sap and increase the percentage of sugar, and turn it into amber-colored sugar. To improve that process, Audubon now has a new evaporator that Heth said “is much more efficient than the old one.” It was a gift of the Housatonic Audubon Society, the local Audubon chapter. Sharon Audubon is owned by the national Audubon organization.“Members of the local Audubon chapter recognize the importance of our educational programs in showing many people how maple syrup is made as well as in making syrup,” he said of the donation.Heth and Wendy Miller, Audubon’s education director in Sharon, said they usually draw enough sap to make about 60 gallons of syrup. With the new evaporator, they expect to produce 75 to 100 gallons this year.Audubon syrup will be available for purchase at the store in the main Audubon building.Heth said the maple syrup season has shifted over the last decades. “It used to go from Valentine’s Day until the end of March. Climate changes have shifted it so now it goes from Feb. 1 to late March.”The new evaporator is 2.5 by 8 feet. The old one was 2 by 6 feet. The larger evaporator will hold and boil more sap, more quickly. Made of stainless steel, the new evaporator will also stain less than the old one.Heth said the new evaporator, made in Canada, is basically custom made and cost about $16,000.Aside from the increased size of the evaporator, Heth said, “The arch [or fire box] is insulated and airtight, while the old one was not.” He explained this provides much more efficient burning of the wood used to keep the evaporator hot. There is also a blower, forcing an air draft to help the combustion of the wood, rather than just an open vent as in the old machinery. This causes the wood to burn more completely. The bottom line is that with the new evaporator system, Sharon Audubon will be able to produce more maple syrup more efficiently. They will be able to draw off small batches of maple syrup about every 45 minutes to one hour.More efficient tubingOn the Sharon Audubon property there are about 450 maple tree taps. As another aid to make syrup production more efficient, new tubing is being used to collect the sap. The new tubing is more resistant to ultra violet light, which provides for a better quality sap and increased production. Heth said the new tubing should last about 10 years, much longer than the previous tubing that was used.Another production enhancement is a small vacuum pump on one line of tubing. A line of tubing collects sap from many different trees and delivers it to a collection vat. The vacuum pump moves sap out of the collecting tubes more efficiently.Heth said there is about a mile of main-line tubing plus another two miles of lateral lines at Sharon Audubon. These carry the sap to three collection points. A tractor hauls a gathering tank to these three collection points to collect the sap. The gathering tanks are taken to the sugar shack, where the sap is drained into a holding tank.On one inside wall of the sugar shack are posters illustrating the process of making maple syrup. One poster says that “40” is the magic number in maple sugaring: 40 gallons of sap equals 1 gallon of maple syrup; to collect sap, daytime temperatures must be 40 degrees Fahrenheit; and a tree must be 40 years old and at least 10 inches in diameter before it can be tapped.The MapleFest entrance fee is $5 per adult and $3 per child. Fresh syrup will be sold in the Sharon Audubon Center Nature Store while supplies last. Depending on sap flow, the sugar shack should be open each weekend in March for visitors. Call ahead to see if Audubon staff will be boiling sap. Volunteers are also always needed to help make syrup.For more information, call 860-364-0520.
Latest News
Greg Fricke and James Boehmer, co-owners of Peggy Mercury in Kent, recently launched their first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts.”
Provided
Fricke and Boehmer are not there to stock their shelves with the same products customers find at standard makeup retailers. They’re there to help customers find what works for them. That usually means asking customers about themselves and learning about their beauty habits, skin, style and the way they like to present themselves. Fricke and Boehmer believe it’s their job to help customers bring out the qualities that suit them and determine what works best for their look.
So much of the Peggy Mercury world is about emboldening people to become more creative, and possibly bolder, versions of themselves. Some of this comes through the store’s creative collaborations with artists, designers and stylists.
It’s part of an ethos that encourages them and their friends to use the shop as a kind of laboratory, trying out new creative experiments without knowing how they might turn out. Whether in fashion, painting, fiber arts or photography, the projects almost always turn out marvelously.
A line of sterling silver charms they sell started as a small project by their friend Nolan Percival. In the beginning, the pieces were for close friends and loved ones. But Boehmer and Fricke encouraged Percival to get a little more serious about the project and create a whole line for the store. Today, it’s one of their top-selling collections.
Classic styles, bold colors, and creative concerts make up the “Imaginary Concerts” line at Peggy Mercury.Provided
“Imaginary Concerts” has the duo taking their own advice.
The project started as a way for Boehmer to connect with his mother, who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Taking old concert shirts from his own collection, Boehmer and his mother began cutting out the graphics with the idea that they would make a quilt together. Unfortunately, she died before they could complete the project in 2025. The pieces, which were ready for production, were put on the back burner as Boehmer and Fricke dealt with their loss and the whirlwind of projects that never seemed to cease at Peggy Mercury.
But the harsh winter of 2026 presented an opportunity to take some time and focus on themselves. Part of that meant revisiting and redefining the concert T-shirt project. This time, instead of looking to the warmth and comfort of a quilt, they turned to another passion — fashion.
Taking a page from their own book, they wanted to create something that felt comfortable to them. They took two disparate loves — one rooted in simple preppy style, with clean lines and classic silhouettes, and the other in the nitty gritty worlds of punk rock and pop — and blended them together to create something entirely new. Pulling from the staples of vintage Brooks Brothers and Charvet collections, they applied the graphic elements with bold stitching reminiscent of punk jackets of the ‘70s and ‘80s, but with a much more sophisticated air.
But the remixing isn’t just the pairing of prep and punk. The pieces are not canon. They take liberties with the realities of concert tours, combining one band’s dates with another band’s logos, mixing them all up until the reality is lost and imagination is the only truth.
Shirts from Peggy Mercury’s first fashion line, “Imaginary Concerts,” hang on display.Provided
Adding to the mix is an element of perpetual creativity. Art can be messy, both figuratively and literally, and many of Fricke and Boehmer’s artist friends carry evidence of their work on them at all times. As a nod to these tireless creatives, the duo added haphazard splashes of bright color, giving the line an even more distinctive feel.
For them, “Imaginary Concerts” passes the “Peggy Test.” The mythical Peggy Mercury is a fictional figurehead for the company, a character who thrives on creativity and change. The name, much like the clothing line, is a mixture of interests: Mercury is a planet, a deity and an elusive, transformative element, while Peggy is the wonderfully stylish and boundary-pushing Peggy Guggenheim.
Everything Fricke and Boehmer put in their store has to pass this test: Would Peggy Mercury approve? For their first collection, the answer is a resounding yes.
Peggy Mercury is at 9 Maple St., Unit 2, Kent.
Want more of our stories on Google? Click here to make us a Preferred Source.
