Day 8

Last year we missed the season.  It came and went quicker than you can say, "Holy Shit there will be no maple syrup this year." 

This year it's slow to come.   Late.  But we had a run of the sweet stuff yesterday. 

 Yeah Yeah- he's supposed to be in school.

He's "sick" with an earache.  Fever.  Nurse's rules.

So we put him to work instead.  Sucking the sugar water out of the trees for our guilty pleasure. 

The Official Official Arrival of Spring

I've been contemplating this post for a week now. I've been contemplating this post for a week now because I'm not really sure you absolutely for certain love to see Paul Bunyan naked. I mean every spring he waits impatiently for the ice to be gone from the pond and every spring I wait with baited breath and camera ready in hand.






But the official official arrival of spring- Paul Bunyan's spring leap- has, for the past 8 years, been after the official arrival of spring. And so spring doesn't really officially get sprung around these parts until Paul Bunyan leaps naked into water that was just ice a few hours earlier.




But this year the ice went out on the day we returned from Disney- the 16th of March.
What a weird and eerie thing to have the official official arrival of spring happen BEFORE the official arrival of spring.








And my soul and my car have been tormented by this crazy early arrival of geese and ducks and buds and mud and the dog poop that has been buried under the snow for 3 months. And there has existed the same morose sadness I experience at the end of every winter.




But this season it has been worse because the heat wave that brought record breaking warmth to the area wrecked everything I love about this month.




There were no nights at the sugar house or Paul Bunyan returning home drunk off the heat and sweet smoke and whiskey. And now that the sugar maples are turning red at their tips, they're done. My heart goes out to Paul and my heart goes out to all the others who rely on this sweet stuff to pay the bills.

And so I've always loved showing you pictures of my naked husband jumping into the water that had ice on it a few hours ago, and although you may not always love looking at pictures of my naked husband jumping into the water that had ice on it a few hours ago, I will continue to show you pictures of my naked husband. My hope is that the official official arrival of spring comes, next year and all the years after this, after the official arrival of spring. And that this fluke year will remain a phenomenon for the sake of the maple trees and those that need its sweet sap to make liquid gold.

No Differing Opinions Welcome Here Today

My dad gets me a subscription to Reader's Digest every Christmas. I think it's super cheap. But I don't think that's why he keeps on giving it to me year after year. I think he gifts it to me because he wants me to share in his love of reading it while on the John. I don't read it on the John. I don't read it near the John. I read it right before I turn the light off. I can't ever make it through a chapter. In a book. Those things with hard covers. Some have soft covers. Yea, can't do it. Too tired. So the articles in Reader's Digest are just right. Sometimes I just read the jokes. Sometimes I read about what my pilot won't tell me. Or what my lock smith won't tell me. Or what my mail carrier won't tell me. Or what my doctor won't tell me. I always practice the Word Power and I never read the drug advertisements. Just so you know.

And generally speaking I'm a pretty easy going gal. I rarely disagree with you or anyone. I hate confrontation and debate and disagreement. I know it's what makes up the backbone of this great nation. But I'd rather everyone just have a little hug and kiss and maybe a pat on the ass. I don't spout my beliefs here, mostly because I don't have any. I mean I do, sometimes, but it's rare. But today, right now, I'm on the attack. Because this topic is very near and dear to my heart.

In the September 2010 Reader's Digest there is an article entitled Laughterpedia- An alphabet soup of what cracks us up. So under the letter D for 'Defense' is an excerpt of something Ross McCammon wrote in Esquire magazine. Now, I don't know how the authors of the Laughterpedia thought this was funny but here is the excerpt reprinted in Reader's Digest:

"People give 100 percent real maple syrup as gifts. They take their kids to a farm to see it being collected and cooked. In the Northeast, it's extolled. Which is strange because it's not as good as Aunt Jemima or Mrs. Butterworth's, its mass-market imitators. First of all, syrup shouldn't run; it should ooze. Real maple syrup runs. The mass market stuff- the stuff you grew up on- that stuff oozes. It has viscosity. So instead of going straight into the pancakes, like water into a sponge, it maintains their integrity. And the taste: Mass-market syrup is sweet. Real maple syrup is a beguiling combination of sugar and resin. Which is authentic, sure. But bark is authentic. Is there anything else we eat that tastes vaguely of trees?"

Now, I realize that people can have their own opinions. But I'm sorry, this is one area where that's not allowed. No one is allowed to think that imitation syrup is better than real maple syrup. If you think so, then stop reading my blog. Please. You are not welcome here. I'm not accepting arguments (for the sake of argument) at this time. I don't care about your opinion if it's different than mine. I usually do, because you can usually persuade me (easily) to think what you think. But this time...NO.

So last night I was reading a more current edition of Reader's Digest and came across an article about the importance of writing an 'ethical will'. The author reminded us good readers of Professor Randy Pausch's 2007 "The Last Lecture". You should listen if you haven't already. And on a similar topic a woman named Jo Kline Cebuhar has written a book, So Grows the Tree: Creating an Ethical Will, in which she proclaims that leaving behind life lessons, wishes, and dreams may even last longer with loved ones than financial reward. Which is great because I'm pretty sure the spawn will only be receiving a forest of maple trees when Paul Bunyan and I pass on to greener pastures.

To my spawn,
So here lies my ethical will (this blog). I've been creating it. I will continue to create it. I will not stop creating it until I die and lay under the pine trees at the crest of my mountain. The topic for this entry of my ethical will (wishes, hopes, life lessons, dreams): maple syrup.


I wish that the trees in our woods will always leak their sap into buckets for your lifetime and for your children's and their children's lifetimes. They say the world is warming and that the trees won't do this forever. I hope they are wrong or that we can do something to make a change.



My wish is that you'll always remember how your father awoke from a long winter's nap with a smile on his face when the sap began to flow.




My dream is that every March you'll meet up with good friends.



And stoke a big fire with wood that you've collected and split from our forest.





My dream is that you'll never experience anything better than the sweet steam opening up the pores in your face as you stick your head over the evaporator.




And that you realize the importance of the 'ways' of sugar making.




And how they have been passed down from generations to generations.




My hope is that you'll feel the love.




Of Friends.



And mud.



And beer (well, unless you're an alcoholic...then I don't wish that on you at all).




But more importantly, I wish that you get to reap the rewards of collecting water from a tree.





And just by adding a little heat to it.





And boiling it to just the right temperature.




You'll find that with a little patience,



you'll have created the sweetest thing ever known to mankind.


Put it in your coffee, on your ice cream, in your yogurt, on your cereal, in your frosting, on your rice, in your pot roast, on your pancakes. Bring it with you when you leave the state. Pack it in flasks. Hide it in coat pockets. Swig it straight in the dark.

I imagine that I won't have to tell you all this because you'll already know it. But just in case someone tries to convince you otherwise, that some woman named Aunt Jamima might have something better to offer you, I just wanted you to know that this sweet maple stuff is in your blood and let's hope that it'll be in your children's blood too and that they have the chance to dip their dirty little fingers into the sap before it's syrup and sip the cloyingly sweet sugar straight out of the evaporator when it's done.

The House That Paul Built

The doors are open, left ajar even, and the wind enters making the dried mud swirl in the corners.




The smears from a winter's worth of smudge are more noticeable on the windows when the sun sets, later every day.




The favorite t-shirts are resurrected, replacing torn polar fleece. Ball caps return from the bottom of the bucket.




The evaporator is cleaned. And flushed. And rinsed again.




And the smiles, they seem brighter, more full with the longer days.




And it all just seems to come together, no matter the different ways we arrive at Spring.





The sweet steam favors the season. It just wouldn't work in summer.



And like bears wakening after their slumber, we saunter out to find who else might be alive and well.



The popping fire hides the sizzle the ground makes as snow melts in the background.




And the tasting begins.



It's the kind of sweetness that hurts the back of your jaw.



But you just can't resist having a little more.



The steam is mesmerizing.




So is the fact that we can make such sweet love out of the juice of trees.




Just with a little stoking of the fire.

Paul Bunyan's Favorite Time of Year

I think I remember saying last year at this time that you ain't nobody around these parts during sugaring season unless you've got a sap container in the back of your pickup.

Well, Paul Bunyan does.

This is the old fashion way of doing it.

There is something very aesthetically pleasing about these buckets. It's so old Vermont.

But nowadays all the maple sugarers are tapping their trees with plastic tubing and plastic taps.

It's so much more efficient. But not quite as beautiful.

Everything ties to a main line and the main line feeds to a holding tank. There are lots of different kinds of holding tanks, but we'll get to that in a later post.

It can be a squirelly mess.

And a zig zagging maze of sugar juice.

Paul Bunyan will demonstrate how to put a tap in the line.

First, you have to have one of these Two Handed tools. I swear to you that's what it's called. A Two Handed tool. I'm not making that up.

The tool spreads the tubing...and then you cut.

So now you got a space.

Then you stick your thingy in. Yea, you know what I'm talking about.

Yea, that thingy that gets drilled into the tree.

And then you squeeze on the two handles of the Two Handle Tool. See? Paul Bunyan is squeezing.

Voila!

All the small tubes lead to the big blue tube which leads to a smaller holding tank at the bottom of the hill near our road.

If you look closely you can see the sap level in the tank- it's about 3/4 full.

Paul Bunyan emptied the small tank into the tank in his truck to drive it up the hill 1/4 mile to HERE.

Did you know Sap is clear? It looks like water but tastes sweet and sugary.

These are the days that I wish the spawn could skip school and we could hang out in the woods and listen to sap fall into the buckets. The drip drip drip of liquid gold. Or we just hang out under a tap and let the sweet water flow right into our open mouths. And then, after our tank is full, we drive up the hill to help Paul (the real one) fill the fire box as we cleanse our clogged pores with the steam from the boiling sap, while the kids play in the streams created by the hot water coming out of the boiler and Paul Bunyan and me get drunk on whiskey.

Note to Sue (the secretary at my spawn's school): Claire, Timmy, and Auggie will be absent on 3/10/10 due to foreseen circumstances. They'll return on 3/11/10 caked in mud and dried sap. Thank you very much, The Hussy.