BETHEL — “Somehow the family got together and  helped him buy this place,” says Farmer Ed Swain about his property on West Bethel Road that his grandfather, Edwin Swain, purchased after losing his Roxbury farm during The Great Depression.

At his popular roadside farm stand, Swain sells hay, straw, pumpkins, squash, onions, potatoes and peppers in the summer and fall, but late winter is for maple syrup.

Swain said he is hopeful for a good season, but you never really know. “It’s very fickle, if the wind blows it won’t run, if it gets too warm it won’t run. It can start off running good. Then all of a sudden it’ll stop,” said Swain.

He drives his pick-up truck across West Bethel Road to Annis Road to check on the trees in his five-acre sugar orchard. He passes “the old house,” that his father bought to generate rental income. Over the years, his father, Ruel Swain, farmed and added acreage to his grandfather’s land while his mother, Maureen, kept the books for the family-owned Bethel Oil Company.

On Annis Road, hoses are connected to tree taps that drip the syrup into a large sap tank in the culvert. Swain listens. How fast or slow the drip is coming helps him plan his day. Because today’s drip is slow, he won’t be boiling tomorrow.

Back in the sap house, Swain keeps an eye on the four sections of the open-pan evaporation tank. Each is boiling with varying amounts of bubbles. Nearby is a kitchen stove, seemingly out of place in the sap house until you know the purpose. A pot of syrup on the stove is boiling at 245  degrees for the melt-in-you-mouth maple candy squares he sells on the farm stand.

Swain says the farm will be open Saturday for Maine Maple Sunday Weekend.

In the meantime, self service is inside the sugar house at 185 West Bethel Road where if you’re lucky you’ll see the farmer at work, too.

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