When the snow starts to melt in the deep woods and the days get longer, and one hears the occasional goose overhead, and the runoff swells the streams that trickle through the culvert down to the river, then is the time to tap the maple trees for maple syrup.
The other day I went to the Madoc Farm Supply, a drafty old barn of a place, to ogle the maple syrup supplies. I almost bought some green plastic tubing, which is the modern way to get the sap from the trees to the sugar shack, but I really still don’t know how that works, so instead I bought five spiles, five buckets and five lids, lifting my total count to a princely 33 taps.
I tapped the trees, with the help of the dog, and then went back to Toronto.
Two weeks later, Friday when we arrived at our farm, all of the buckets brimmed with frozen sap. (Actually, all but one bucket — I may have one a bit of improper winter tree ID there. Although I am studying forestry at the University of Toronto, I fear that one of my taps may be in a tree that is not Acer saccharum.)
I took a couple of white plastic pails and my toboggan and went from tree to tree, to collect the sap. Some hills are steep and I slipped a bit and sloshed a bit of sap, but most of it stayed in the pails. I poured the sap, still with lots of ice, and filled my pan, and then poured the rest in a barrel I have set on a little tower I built last year, so that gravity can flow the sap into the pan.
I lit a fire under my pan. My pan, which I bought last year, sits on some old rusted metal bars, atop the ruins of an old sugar shack that crumbled many years ago. I had a bunch of dry wood, but also some lengths of ironwood (Ostrya virginiana), a species I have been thinning out of the woods to give space to (in forestry we say “release”) the maples. The ironwood is not all that dry.
Also I didn’t have enough wood so Coco and I set about plunging through the spring snow to gather deadwood from the forest floor. Much of it was covered in snow and ice, so it sizzled and spluttered on the fire.
But eventually we got the flame to light. And I boiled, and went to supper, and went out again and stoked the fire again. And yesterday I boiled all day, with breaks to go back to the cottage to say hi and help my daughter with the crossword puzzle from the Globe and Mail.
Back at the fire, I sat down on some wet moss to watch the bubbling sap, as it slowly turned to a darker hue. As I felt my seat get wet, I felt something else: happiness. I grew up on a farm in western Quebec, and maple syrup season is one of my best memories: because it meant spring was in the air, it was an excuse to get outside, the sun finally came with some warmth, and (unless you burn your batch) sugaring off always has a sticky, happy, sweet ending.
Next to where I sat stands the frame of a new sugar shack, which my son and I began building last summer. The walls and trusses are up, but so far the structure has no roof, no walls, and most crucially, no evaporator. All in good time! Some people get rich on maple syrup, but that’s not my goal. For me, it’s all about the therapy.