During the month of October, you can usually count on a fun time at the Bulls’ farm when it’s time to strip the cane and stir the molasses.

“Watch your head” and “duck” may not be the first phrases you think of in the molasses making process, but according to Earl Bull, it may be the most important.
“When that pole comes around you’d better be prepared,” said Earl. “It already got me a few times. Stops hurting after about the tenth time though,” he joked.

Earl and Aurora Bull always have a steady stream of onlookers from Union County and the Knoxville area, and family and friends from Ohio, Michigan and Florida during October to participate in and observe what the Bull’s have made into an annual event in the years when they grow cane.

Earl is familiar with the process of molasses making from his youth, but in 2012, he built what he needed to make them on his Union County farm. His grandson, Jed, who was six at the time, was instrumental in building the furnace.

The Bulls make molasses the old-fashioned way using their two Belgians, Buck and Suede, and their mule Zeek to turn the pole attached to the mill and strip the cane.

The group, including neighbor Polly Gray who rarely misses a year, assembles to cut and strip the cane, feed it through the mill and cook the juice. The cooking takes place under the cover of an original log building that was on its way to the woodpile when Earl happened to drive by and spot it. When he asked what was going to happen to the building he was told it could be his for the price of moving the logs. He loaded the logs himself, brought them to the farm and reassembled the building.

The entire molasses making process takes days and usually finishes around 3 a.m. on day four. The first run yields about forty-two quarts. Not a moneymaking endeavor if you count the labor but it certainly looks like fun for those who come to observe. If you are lucky enough to be counted as a helper and good friend, you probably get to take a quart home.

“It is a long and slow process and a lot of work,” said Aurora. “But it’s always fun.”