
Sugaring off, for me, heralds spring: Winter comes to an end. The days lengthen. Sap rises in the maples to reach the branches, to help the buds burst into leaf. As the sap heads up the trunks of the sugar maple trees, we sneak some sap to boil for syrup.
I welcome spring as much as anyone. Still, when it comes to collecting sap, snow can be your best friend, at least when you use technology as primitive as mine.
During my childhood in western Quebec, we gathered sap in buckets and poured the sap into a big plastic tub lashed to the drawbar on our old Massey-Ferguson tractor. The chains on the tractor’s rear tires jangled merrily, to keep it moving in the deep snow. My stepfather drove the tractor; we scampered from tree to tree. Nobody could call this system high-tech; still, it outclassed my operation.
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