Dispatches from the Ridge

The sap is running, and so is our sugaring operation! Listen closely and you can hear the dripping...








I feel like I should explain--to myself and to anyone else who reads this--why I would want to spend six hours literally toiling by a hot furnace in order to get two or three quarts of maple syrup, which, at our house, is enough of the sweet stuff to last for approximately one month.

First, there is something utterly magical--even alchemical--about getting syrup from sap. The alchemists were looking for a way to turn boring old metals into pure gold, but we've done something altogether more fantastic. The practical act is actually quite simple (add fire and wait), but it's the idea that's so, well, deep. Can we all agree that sugar is the most coveted of substances we ingest? It is entirely unnecessary in our diet, yet so habit-forming that a candy bar as an afternoon pick-me-up can become a worse crutch than morning caffeine. (They say crack is addictive your first time...well, I say Snickers is a gateway sweet!) Making my own sugar substitute gives me the pleasant illusion that I am exempt from the history of oppression, exploitation, and downright evil that made that bag of Domino Refined such a fixture of the American dietary landscape.

But no, that's not it. Maybe it's more about having an excuse to get outside in March, when it can be sunny and 50 degrees on Monday, but dump four inches of snow on Tuesday--when you've vowed to retire the long underwear until next fall, only to get caught in a sub-zero, grimace- and curse-inducing shuffle to your freezing car in the morning. (I packed mine away last week, and I am NOT getting it back out again, no matter how long winter drags on. It's the principle of the thing, you know?) Sugaring gives you a real reason to be outside, no matter the weather. It even allows you to relish bad weather, because then you get the satisfaction of having braved the elements, just as your hardy ancestors must have done before central heating and polypropylene made us all soft. Mud season isn't good for anything much besides tromping around in the slush and getting dirty. What I've found while sugaring these past couple of weeks is that March is actually much prettier than I ever noticed before. The birds are starting to come back, and when you're sitting watching sap boil, you see more than you ever would inside chipping away at your Netflix queue. I never was much of a bird watcher, but lately I've started to differentiate between varieties of Pretty Bird, and Pretty Little Birdie. They make really distinct noises; their heads are shaped differently. Who knew?

But that's not the main draw of sugaring, either. Could be the upper-body strength I'm building hauling those damn buckets from all four corners of our five acres. But no, I could get the same benefit from actually doing yoga every morning instead of feeling guilty for not doing yoga as I sip my coffee.

I really think my deep enjoyment of the whole sugaring gig stems from a reconnection to that ancient link between labor and food. So many of us, for so long, have involved a third variable in this very simple equation: work. Work that has nothing whatsoever to do with what should be the literal fruits of our labor. I'm not saying we should all call in sick and go hoe up the nearest green space; I've just noticed how unusual--and how refreshing--it feels to work hard for something you know you will consume. (And not just anything: we're talking maple syrup, not soybeans or wheat. We're talking, like, the most delicious substance known to man!)

I want to share a quote I love from a really cool book on sugaring by Helen and Scott Nearing, a couple of Vermont homesteaders who were writing in the 50's: "The world about us is replete with food, clothing, and shelter, but most of it is unprocessed and cannot be utilized for our comfort or need without a vast amount of bestirring on the part of man and beast...We want food? Fruits are there to be plucked from the trees, vegetables on the ground. But only because someone labored to develop or help them grow. We want a house? Stone, sand, and timber cover the earth. We have only to dig, lift, pull, or hew. The wind roars or the sun burns, and we want covering? The materials lie at hand whereof to knit, to sew, to fabricate. With the materials at hand, however, labor and ingenuity must make something of them."

So, my friends: bestir yourselves, be fruitful, and fabricate! It feels so good (and tastes even better).

I just realized that in the earlier post on sugaring, dated April 3rd of last year, I wrote that "one of my new dreams is to produce my own maple syrup from my own sugar bush." I had no idea that the very next year I would actually be doing it. How cool!