Maple syrup time at the Kennedy farm in Omemee means busy times harvesting their most lucrative crop.

Gary Kennedy, along with his wife Mary, his brother Jason and his wife, Janice, and the brothers’ parents, Clarence and Elsie, own 350 acres of land and work another 200 acres producing cash crops of both hay and grain.

Along with 80 Angus-cross cows they also finish approximately 70 calves, and raise 500 laying hens. They operate a market garden from two roadside stands in the strawberry and corn season along with a wide variety of other garden vegetables and also sell at the Lindsay Farmers’ Market on Saturdays from the first Saturday of May until the last Saturday in October.

However, the mainstay of the operation is production of a couple of thousand litres of maple syrup a year. It takes a lot of hard work and dedication to run such a diverse operation and the couples say that from the time maple syrup starts until the end of October life is really busy without a lot of "play" time.

"In fact," says Mary, "The syrup season really lasts all year long. The sap normally runs from March to April. When the sap is running it needs to be collected daily, boiled and bottled. This is a whole family process.

After the season is over the clean up begins—the lines need to be cleaned, the buckets taken off the trees and washed, the evaporator needs to be cleaned and dismantled."

She adds that throughout the fall and winter wood is cut, split and piled to be ready to use in the evaporator. They try to keep a year ahead with the wood to ensure that it is dry, and there’s always maintenance of the lines, especially after summer and winter storms when they have to go into the bush and check for fallen trees and repair lines.

Still, for this operation the most time spent is working in the gardens. From planting season, (late April, early May) until the end of October days are long. After planting comes weeding and harvesting.

"There were days last summer when we ate lunch and even supper in the strawberry patch to ensure that all the berries were picked. Summer produce needs to be picked daily to ensure that it is fresh and some are always picking while other family members are selling at the stand and the market.

In late June to mid July (strawberry and sweet corn season) and late July until Labour Day weekend, Saturday mornings begin at 4:30 a.m. loading produce to be in town before 5:30 a.m. to ensure being set up and ready to sell by 7 a.m. It’s back home at 1 p.m. to do whatever needs doing and pick for the next morning.

This becomes even more complicated when hay or straw needs to be baled, and at times they hire a few teenagers to help out. In September and October the weeks don’t slow down as they harvest pumpkins, squash, tomatoes and potatoes as well as combining corn and preparing the fields for the following year.

Kennedy Farms has been a long family tradition and most marketing has been done through word of mouth and their long-standing reputation. Customers at the market are very loyal and often introduce new customers to the farm.

"It is nice to see winter come as that is when we try to take a bit of a break between chores and maintenance," they add.

As a fourth generation farmer Gary says that his grandfather started to market eggs and syrup from the house and the tradition continued through his dad. The market gardening was started by Gary and his brother Jason as the youngsters’ way to pay to play hockey, and each segment of the business has just grown.

Maple syrup is produced by tapping 2000 trees and it’s that aspect of the business that Gary enjoys most. Having been started by his grandfather over a hundred years ago, he has seen many changes here. His grandfather boiled sap in pots in the open bush, now they use a more modern method, a 3 ½ by 14 foot evaporator that allows them to boil on the second level.

"The Piggyback recaptures the steam from the lower level, forced air into the top level allows steam to rise off of it and boils the water off the sugar," he explains.

The family taps some 1500 trees with the use of gravity-fed lines and another 500 trees are tapped in buckets on the flat. "I think if the operation was expanded it would be the maple syrup aspect, it’s the most profitable.

Choosing beef cows don’t really seem worth the time. Killing plants are American owned and they flood the floor up here—it’s American. We always knew some things were out of our control but until BSE we didn’t think about it, we should have."

He adds that although Mr. Harper got voted in on a rural vote, now he doesn’t seem to be doing anything. "He promised us a lot of things, but so far we’ve seen nothing. I think he looks up to Mr. Bush too much," he says.

As a young man of 25 with a wife and baby boy, Gary Kennedy thinks it’s sad if his son and his brother’s two children won’t eventually go into agriculture.

"There’s not much hope for the future generation, considering things like the BSE crisis, and my father talks about cattle prices being the same now as they were 25 years ago," he said. "Everything else has gone up: feed, seed and equipment."

Gary also works off farm part time in carpentry and says that if he didn’t have his wife he wouldn’t be able to keep up.

"I have enough to keep me busy around here — I shouldn’t have to work off farm, " he says. "Agriculture should be one of the most profitable businesses, and it’s sad that its not."