In February, an old man’s fancy turns to thoughts of – the maple sap run…
It’s that time again. We’re into the classic cycle of below-freezing nights and above-freezing days that stimulates sap flow. We probably could have started a couple of weeks ago - the winter has been so abnormally warm. Were it not for the firewood clogging the porch where the evaporator normally sits, I suspect we could have started collecting sap in mid-January – unheard-of just a few years ago.
The porch has now been cleared. And so starting tomorrow, the cinder blocks and patio tiles that support the evaporator pan will be levered out of their current icy coating and sledded over for assembly. The evaporator pan and sap storage tanks will be hauled out of the barn to be pressure-washed. The taps themselves will be sterilized, along with the tap bits for the drill. All of the many, many jugs and carboys used to collect and haul sap will be cleaned and readied for service. And we will be scanning the ads of our local hardware stores for who has the best price on propane to fuel our burner.
It shocks me when I think about this, but we’ve been making maple syrup now for almost fourteen years. Yet somehow it never grows old, or burdensome. Nancy has commented multiple times in the past how our little syruping operation ties us closely to the miraculous rhythms of the seasons. I can echo that. Because our operation is so small, we can have all of the joy of being so tightly bound to the earth without the anxiety faced today by those who depend on the soil for their livelihood and who are contending each year with more and more climate disruption-induced variability and uncertainty.
We are blessed. We hope that in whatever ways are meaningful to you, in whatever ways you have chosen to live your lives, you feel blessings too.
Joe