got sap?

There are no leaves on the trees, barely even any buds, snow still settles in the shadows, there's a cold wind and mud underfoot but the world is awake and heading towards spring. How do I know this? There is a steady drip in every sap bucket I pass. The sugar maples are waking up.

The run generally starts in mid-February and wraps up in mid-March. It has to be freezing at night and it has to be warm during the day for the sap to run. Once it starts, sugar houses around Lincoln and Concord have smoke billowing out of their chimneys non-stop. Farmers, friends and volunteers keep fires burning by loading cord wood into the furnaces. Steam rises as evaporators boil away the water. The ratio is 40:1. That is forty gallons of clear sap collected from trees boils down to one gallon of syrup.

When their children were grown up and living on their own, my parents and their Summit friends went to Hardwick, Vermont every year to help Hugo and Liza Meyer with the "sugaring off." Faded color photos, curling now, show piles of snow on the ground and the grey haired crowd wearing red and black plaid wool jackets and rubber boots, hauling buckets. Hugo drove the tractor and the others put the buckets on the flat bed. There was a lot of frivolity and I am sure the bourbon was plentiful in the evenings. What a wonderful time that group of old friends had together every year as the sap began to flow.