Way back when I took a semester off university and traveled to East Africa. I was having a hard time getting inspired by textbooks and wanted to see some of the work that was being done with wildlife firsthand. So I decided to go check out where Jane Goodall started out working with chimpanzees - Gombe National Park in Tanzania. I worked for two months to pay for two months of travel. I feel blessed to have had this opportunity. It was a life-changing experience for reasons I hadn’t expected. As the trip required the ability to carry everything I needed on my back, I learned about rationing. I also met numerous people who were happy though they owned very little. Food availability was different from what I was used to (understatement) and I often traveled hungry. I learned something about assigning value to tangible things.
Many of the people I visited with owned almost nothing in terms of material goods. On Zanzibar island a mud house with a partial straw roof and a dirt floor was something to be very, very proud of. A boat made of a carved out tree and some rope was a great asset. Some people were apathetic to the stuff attached to the one white girl on the beach. These folks wore no shoes, only smiles. Some would follow me around for days asking me to give them my camera, my shoes, batteries, my pen. To them I was the white girl with all that stuff. Even though all that I had with me fit into a bag on my back.
The interaction I remember most was with a small girl who had braids coiled up around her head. I had a particular fondness for this girl and we spent a lot of time together. Before leaving I pressed a small deck of cards into the palm of her hands. She looked up at me blankly, turned on her heel and walked away with the cards. There was no mention or gesture of gratitude and this was, however curious, fine with me. An hour later she returned and held something out in her hand. It was a pile of shells. She grabbed my hand and dumped the shells into it and then turned on her heel without a word and walked away.
A few days ago I did my hike up a mountain in the Adirondacks in New York. As it was still a very wintery time of year and there was lots of snow and even more wind, we were required to bring extra warm clothes and lots of food and water should an emergency occur. So I took the very backpack that trekked around East Africa with me and packed it full of everything down, wool, fleece and polypropylene that I owned. Well, not really, but it felt that way. Then I put cheese, raisins, almonds, veggie pate, cucumbers, apples, tortillas, a jar of peanut butter, oatmeal cookies, salami, and some carrots into the backpack. Like a whole package of each of those things.
It was to take 7 hours of hiking up and down the mountain on snowshoes, in the cold, carrying a pack. Here is the thing I learned. I took up WAY too much food. Perhaps if I had fallen down a crevice and got my hand stuck in a rock for 127 hours, this would have been the right amount of food. But it seemed I felt the need to bring enough food for 5 men for 3 days on this day hike.
During one of our short stops, my hiking partner and I came across a team of skiers heading back down the mountain. I took out my food bag and offered snacks all around. Some of the fellows partook, I think out of pity. Others just thought this crazy offering lady probably needed some oxygen due to the 4500 foot in altitude. They obviously didn’t know me. People that know me know that I never, not ever, go anywhere, at all, without a huge bag of food. Knowing that, how can I do a hike that requires some 3000 calories and not bring the entire contents of my fridge along?
I am a hoarder. I greatly fear that deprivation is around every corner. I watch for the possibility of losing it all any minute. For this reason I am almost always more than prepared. I have enough snowsuits and winter boots for my kids to clothe a small daycare (all bought for a handful of dollars at second hand stores of course). They use most of it, between the barn set and the ones they take to day care and the ones that we play with in the yard at home or at Nana’s in the city. But looking at the mountain o’ things sometimes makes me feel nauseous even though it gives me a strange comfort.
I recently read an article about how women like me (consumers? hoarders?) need to find a way to flick the abundance switch without stockpiling enough food or gear to fill a warehouse or spending enough money to keep a credit card company in business. One of the ways to turn this switch on is to focus on gratitude. When we are grateful for something, we are looking at what we have and not what we are missing.
Another way to embrace abundance is to become a farmer and try to grow all of your own food. Your husband will even encourage you to buy a second freezer so that you can fill it with your harvest. And if you are grateful for it you get bonus points.
But here is the thing. I do assign great value to the farm goods. I certainly understand how nutritious our food is, how fresh, how tasty, how handy, how much money we save in growing our own food. But I assign even more value than that by making it my life. It is my job. It is my worth. And it’s a darn good bit of worth if you ask me. And I know it. That’s the thing. That’s a kind of abundance and gratitude that no money can buy.
I must say that I think I’ve found a way to surround myself with a mountain in a way that is acceptable and almost coveted these days. I have enough food for my family to last a year (in order to make it back around to the same season again) and we grow enough to feed numerous families with some left over to give away.
I can only imagine what happened to that deck of cards that I gave to the little girl. Perhaps she cherished it for many years or perhaps she gave it away before I even received my pile of shells. She taught me something about the value of tangible things. With her lack of fuss, or need for ceremony, the quiet exchange, the way she seemed so happy without any shoes on and so proud to show me the home that she lived in that had no roof. She basked in all that surrounded her and didn’t need a deck of cards to make it better.
I work to be that girl who builds her life on something other than a house of cards. And I’m grateful I don’t have to fit all that I have in that one backpack.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Monday, March 28, 2011
Land Line
When I was a teenager I remember describing God as the string that connects all living things together. This metaphor still holds true for me today. If we look inside of ourselves to the part that is linked to every other living thing, we see God. In this way God is not a separate entity from us. Yet we are not God. We are empty vessels if we do not reach out to other beings. If we think we can do it all alone, we lose God’s frequency. That’s just what I think.
Yet I find myself tempted to judge people who see God differently than I do. And worse, I want to judge those that judge others for seeing God differently than they do. But I am concerned about people that want to put God in a box and keep Him for themselves. My idea of God doesn’t work without everyone on board. My Pastor has helped me through this. Treat people as I would want to be treated, leave the judgment to God.
If the connection we are looking for requires an intact telephone line to get through to the purest part of ourselves and each other, then what does that say about this day and age of cell phones? I wonder if we are ‘cutting out’ on each other more and more often. If we are finding ourselves in need, but out of range, out of batteries or out of time?
I recently heard travel tales from people who had visited The Gambia in West Africa. They spoke of how there was not a great deal of wealth circulating the villages, but there were a great number of cell phones. Last summer when I traveled up near the North pole I was astounded to see the number of people carting cell phones around and using them with the same addictive quality that you would see on a New York City street.
I read recently that people moved from rural areas to cities to come closer together. Next came the Internet and cell phones with the same goal. The author astutely noted that what is bringing us together is tearing us apart. This idea that we should be able to reach everyone always and get information immediately ends up being counter-intuitive to the idea that God lives in a quiet space inside of us. And that it is only the “land line” that can reliably connect us - pun definitely intended. I don't suggest we all move back to the land. But shall we take a moment to consider if this new age of advancement is working for us?
Essentially we need to be grounded to hear God’s voice inside of us. Buzzing around with a never-ending to-do list and piling more and more onto our plates with all of the ‘free’ time that technology has given us is causing us to unravel - from ourselves, our families, our communities, our land. What I find is what used to take a day of research in a library can now be uncovered in a matter of minutes from the comfort of my own home on the Internet. And what used to take a walk over to the neighbours house, can now look like an email. I am surprised at myself how often I use email to farm. No face, no chitchat, just right down to business. Do you have any extra hay this year? Can you give me a good source to buy firewood? Anyone need some extra eggs? The business is attended to here but the connection is lost.
Like all progress, it is necessary to figure out a way to take the good from what has been learned and let go of the parts that don’t serve humanity for the better. That is tricky on a continent where greed has turned into an almost unconscious state. We no longer know when enough is enough. We eat too much, buy too much, have too many cars in our driveway, consume, consume, consume then waste, waste, waste and wonder why we feel empty at the end of the day. I might not be speaking for everyone here but I certainly find that the more I accumulate and focus on this amassing of goods, the less fulfilled I feel. The more I reach out to my fellow human beings and tend to the living things around me with care and consideration, the happier I become.
Cell phones were once considered to be useful for emergencies. Either we are experiencing a lot more emergencies these days or using a cell phone (Blackberry, iPhone, Internet…) has become as regular as eating and pooping in our day.
Is it possible to connect to the true God within us all if we are driving down the road with a headset babbling about which kind of pants we bought today? Or have we turned God into something we want handed through a car window when we need to feel nourished? Fast food God in a box. Buy one get one free God.
In the case of amenities in the home, women no longer have to slap laundry against rocks in a creek, we have appliances to do our elbow work, our cleaning, our kneading, mixing and chopping. We don’t have to handle our food as intimately as we used to. If we choose, we can have a pre-made meal waiting for us in the freezer when we get home. We have people in other countries to do our sewing, knitting and weaving, depending on cheap fuel and labour to bring it all to us at a cost much less than what it would take to make it ourselves. Supposedly, our lives have gotten easier. We don’t even have to get out of our chair to turn the channel on our soap operas.
Now instead of being physically exhausted and having hands that are worked to the bone, we are breaking apart in other ways. Our bodies are fighting back. Where there were once villages of people working together, we now have gadgets and pharmaceutical companies to attend to our dis-ease. Don’t get me wrong. The right prescription in the right case or the right gadget at the right time saves lives. But can we admit that we are getting frivolous in our usage? I think overuse of these external ‘helpers’ that supposedly make things easier is disrupting our ability to seek unity and balance. We are indeed losing our connections – to ourselves and to God.
Okay, I have no solutions here I know. I'm going to quit preaching for now and take a walk over to my neighbour’s house and see if she needs a dozen eggs. But first I will call her on my land line to see if she is home.
Yet I find myself tempted to judge people who see God differently than I do. And worse, I want to judge those that judge others for seeing God differently than they do. But I am concerned about people that want to put God in a box and keep Him for themselves. My idea of God doesn’t work without everyone on board. My Pastor has helped me through this. Treat people as I would want to be treated, leave the judgment to God.
If the connection we are looking for requires an intact telephone line to get through to the purest part of ourselves and each other, then what does that say about this day and age of cell phones? I wonder if we are ‘cutting out’ on each other more and more often. If we are finding ourselves in need, but out of range, out of batteries or out of time?
I recently heard travel tales from people who had visited The Gambia in West Africa. They spoke of how there was not a great deal of wealth circulating the villages, but there were a great number of cell phones. Last summer when I traveled up near the North pole I was astounded to see the number of people carting cell phones around and using them with the same addictive quality that you would see on a New York City street.
I read recently that people moved from rural areas to cities to come closer together. Next came the Internet and cell phones with the same goal. The author astutely noted that what is bringing us together is tearing us apart. This idea that we should be able to reach everyone always and get information immediately ends up being counter-intuitive to the idea that God lives in a quiet space inside of us. And that it is only the “land line” that can reliably connect us - pun definitely intended. I don't suggest we all move back to the land. But shall we take a moment to consider if this new age of advancement is working for us?
Essentially we need to be grounded to hear God’s voice inside of us. Buzzing around with a never-ending to-do list and piling more and more onto our plates with all of the ‘free’ time that technology has given us is causing us to unravel - from ourselves, our families, our communities, our land. What I find is what used to take a day of research in a library can now be uncovered in a matter of minutes from the comfort of my own home on the Internet. And what used to take a walk over to the neighbours house, can now look like an email. I am surprised at myself how often I use email to farm. No face, no chitchat, just right down to business. Do you have any extra hay this year? Can you give me a good source to buy firewood? Anyone need some extra eggs? The business is attended to here but the connection is lost.
Like all progress, it is necessary to figure out a way to take the good from what has been learned and let go of the parts that don’t serve humanity for the better. That is tricky on a continent where greed has turned into an almost unconscious state. We no longer know when enough is enough. We eat too much, buy too much, have too many cars in our driveway, consume, consume, consume then waste, waste, waste and wonder why we feel empty at the end of the day. I might not be speaking for everyone here but I certainly find that the more I accumulate and focus on this amassing of goods, the less fulfilled I feel. The more I reach out to my fellow human beings and tend to the living things around me with care and consideration, the happier I become.
Cell phones were once considered to be useful for emergencies. Either we are experiencing a lot more emergencies these days or using a cell phone (Blackberry, iPhone, Internet…) has become as regular as eating and pooping in our day.
Is it possible to connect to the true God within us all if we are driving down the road with a headset babbling about which kind of pants we bought today? Or have we turned God into something we want handed through a car window when we need to feel nourished? Fast food God in a box. Buy one get one free God.
In the case of amenities in the home, women no longer have to slap laundry against rocks in a creek, we have appliances to do our elbow work, our cleaning, our kneading, mixing and chopping. We don’t have to handle our food as intimately as we used to. If we choose, we can have a pre-made meal waiting for us in the freezer when we get home. We have people in other countries to do our sewing, knitting and weaving, depending on cheap fuel and labour to bring it all to us at a cost much less than what it would take to make it ourselves. Supposedly, our lives have gotten easier. We don’t even have to get out of our chair to turn the channel on our soap operas.
Now instead of being physically exhausted and having hands that are worked to the bone, we are breaking apart in other ways. Our bodies are fighting back. Where there were once villages of people working together, we now have gadgets and pharmaceutical companies to attend to our dis-ease. Don’t get me wrong. The right prescription in the right case or the right gadget at the right time saves lives. But can we admit that we are getting frivolous in our usage? I think overuse of these external ‘helpers’ that supposedly make things easier is disrupting our ability to seek unity and balance. We are indeed losing our connections – to ourselves and to God.
Okay, I have no solutions here I know. I'm going to quit preaching for now and take a walk over to my neighbour’s house and see if she needs a dozen eggs. But first I will call her on my land line to see if she is home.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
The Sweet Taste of History
One of the benefits of living in a ‘slow-growing’ agricultural area (some say economically depressed) is that there is history everywhere you look. Very few of the homes on our road have been bought up and torn down or transformed. The sad point is that many of them are abandoned or cared for only by relatives in the area. The people come, they cut the grass, leave a light on and lock the gate behind them. The ghosts of the past are left to play freely in the space they have always known. The woman who lived directly beside us was in her nineties when she moved away to an old age home. She lived in that log house for her entire life, and could recall the day when she was 2 that they moved the cabin from back against the mountain to a spot closer to the road.
Our home was originally built 150 years ago. Since then a new addition was put on close to 100 years ago. And another major addition was added on 5 years ago. The place had remained in the same family for 5 generations and we were the first to change the name on the title in over 100 years. Because we wanted to preserve some of the history, we retained the previous owners name on the mailbox and put our new and shiny letters around the outside of them. The builders that had come to erect our timber frame addition asked if we had plans to demolish the old log cabin that was the original house. I was slightly insulted by this question but understood his point. Our house was on such a great angle that we could not use any chairs or tables on wheels without losing them to the other side of the room. The doorways are less than 6 feet high. I explained that part of the attraction of this place to us was that there was a lot of history in it.
When we moved in we swallowed any stories that the previous owner was willing to share with us. We learned that his uncle had died while logging up on the mountain. We learned that his wife had died in this house. There was a time that the road stopped at our house. Earlier still there was a mail road that passed our house and went up and over the mountain. I have since found a rusting old mail truck back in the woods on an old overgrown path. We have also had people dropping in to tell stories of how they were involved in the life of our home. One fellow in his eighties remembered our barn being resurrected and described a spider that he used to look forward to visiting in the mow when he was a boy. On the ceiling of our kitchen there is a name, Dave Young, carved with 1917 as the date. The wood was taken from a dock that was torn down on the river down from our place.
As I made the hole from the old log cabin for a doorway into our new addition upstairs, there turned out to be no less than 5 layers of wood and two layers of insulation. There was one layer of wood panel, two layers of old barn board (this was once an outside exposed gable), one layer of tongue and groove pine, one layer of chip- board, some shingles and that black board you put under them and the drywall painted apple green that I had put up a few years back. Sawing through these layers was like peeling back the layers of time. Each of those many nails had been driven by others in a different time so hopeful with their own new additions. There was no way to salvage the wood, so I decided to use it to boil down our maple sap this year.
I can’t believe that maple syrup season is already upon us! Sap season is the mark of the beginning of production for us unless you count planting seeds for the greenhouse that happens in late February. For me syrup is the first real harvest of food that goes from our land to our fridge. Those seeds will only come to fruition in some number of months from now so I prefer to count those chickens later.
I also knew of a pile of old cedar fence posts that were rotting in the woods at the back of our land that I thought would be great for boiling sap. We took the trailer back today over the frozen morning snow and filled it up with help from the kids. The wood was also covered with fencing staples and old fencing wire. Being cedar, it burns hot!
We try not to buy wood to boil the sap because it’s a good time to burn things that can’t be burned in our outdoor wood furnace. We scatter the ashes from that onto our fields and could not do this if it were full of nails. Our rig includes a pair of old stainless steel commercial sinks nested inside an old oil container on its side with the top cut out, and a door and chimney put into the sides. My husband was the handiworker and it cost us less than $50 for the set of sinks (the oil tank came from the dump). We used an old woodstove chimney. The syrup ends up slightly smoky tasting with this method and the sides of the sinks get a little burned so it is not one bit of fun to clean up but all in all it is a pretty effective method.
It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 hours to do a sink load of 170 L of sap which results in around 5L (over a gallon) of syrup. Seems to depend on the type of wood we use and the amount of draft in the air. Overcast days are the worst to boil, rainy days of course can be ineffective, and sunny, windy days are my favourite. We aim to do around 2-3 rounds in a season that results in 10-15L of syrup for ourselves (what we seem to use up no problem). Any extra makes excellent gifts but we have learned the hard way not to give it all away, however tempting it is to share it.
Once the sap is down to a sticky watery syrup consistency we haul it out (usually less than 8L) and do the rest inside the house on the stove. This step can take anywhere from 1 to 6 hours depending on how far we let it get down in the sinks. Some nights we have been known to not stoke the fire anymore once we go to bed, place plywood partially over the sinks and let whatever is left of the fire work overnight. One time we literally woke up to a vat of syrup already made for us! One more hour and it would have been lost and burned to the sides. This is the lazy mans method to not get up in the middle of the night to stoke it. We know it is ready by placing a small amount in a metal container in the freezer. If it is the right consistency within a few minutes when it is cool, it is ready. That’s how technical we get around here.
They say it is around 40L to make 1L of syrup but we find we get thick syrup with 35:1 or sometimes 30:1. This must be related to the kind of trees we have. The sugar maples too are rich with history. They line the winding road that our house is on and can be over 1 metre (1 yard) in diameter. The trees apparently had been planted by so-and-so’s greatgrandmother and I would guess they are well over 100 years old. As someone who has planted many kinds of trees around our property in hopes that one day there will be a story about them too, I love imagining that woman with her handful of seedlings (transplanted from elsewhere?). She is my hero and I visit with her every other day for a few weeks every year in March and April.
As the temperature is now diving below zero each night and rising into single digits (Celsius) during the day, we are in perfect sap running conditions. The season could last a couple of weeks or has gone as long as 6 weeks for us. It started March 1 last year but some years we don’t even start until early April. I have learned not to try to predict anything and just go with the flow (pun intended). We have around 30 taps set up and collect every other day or so, keeping it in a big fridge until we have enough to boil. The sap starts off light and gets darker and richer as the season goes on. When the buds start to break on the trees the season is over.
With all of the work it takes to make maple syrup you can see why the finished product is treated like liquid gold. I once underestimated a pot on the stove and ended up spending hours cleaning syrup out of my oven, under the elements and inside the pots and the pot drawer. It was one of my most devastating losses of the year!
Expenses each year include the replacement of a few buckets and spouts that have broken or cracked and a few cone paper filters for straining the syrup. As in all things farming, it takes a lot of time. But like many jobs it is hard to know when the clock is punched in or out. Especially when you’re having fun and doing what you like. We seal the syrup in 1L mason type jars. It’s not a bad deal for over $200 in syrup.
Year after year we have collected the sap with our children. First with a two month old baby strapped underneath our coats, then a one year old in a backpack, then a 2 year old with a newborn strapped under our coats, then a 3 and a 1 year old toddling along with us, and so on. This year was the first year my daughter is old enough to help pour out the buckets and hand me the hammers, the lids, the buckets, the spouts during the tapping season. All the while some number of dogs are attached to the stroller or wagon that has come with us. It is quite a party on the street!
My favourite part this year is letting the history of those fences that once kept animals on this very farm many moons ago reduce the sap along with the wood from my new (almost finished) passageway above the kitchen.
And that is how you turn history into something sweet.
Our home was originally built 150 years ago. Since then a new addition was put on close to 100 years ago. And another major addition was added on 5 years ago. The place had remained in the same family for 5 generations and we were the first to change the name on the title in over 100 years. Because we wanted to preserve some of the history, we retained the previous owners name on the mailbox and put our new and shiny letters around the outside of them. The builders that had come to erect our timber frame addition asked if we had plans to demolish the old log cabin that was the original house. I was slightly insulted by this question but understood his point. Our house was on such a great angle that we could not use any chairs or tables on wheels without losing them to the other side of the room. The doorways are less than 6 feet high. I explained that part of the attraction of this place to us was that there was a lot of history in it.
When we moved in we swallowed any stories that the previous owner was willing to share with us. We learned that his uncle had died while logging up on the mountain. We learned that his wife had died in this house. There was a time that the road stopped at our house. Earlier still there was a mail road that passed our house and went up and over the mountain. I have since found a rusting old mail truck back in the woods on an old overgrown path. We have also had people dropping in to tell stories of how they were involved in the life of our home. One fellow in his eighties remembered our barn being resurrected and described a spider that he used to look forward to visiting in the mow when he was a boy. On the ceiling of our kitchen there is a name, Dave Young, carved with 1917 as the date. The wood was taken from a dock that was torn down on the river down from our place.
As I made the hole from the old log cabin for a doorway into our new addition upstairs, there turned out to be no less than 5 layers of wood and two layers of insulation. There was one layer of wood panel, two layers of old barn board (this was once an outside exposed gable), one layer of tongue and groove pine, one layer of chip- board, some shingles and that black board you put under them and the drywall painted apple green that I had put up a few years back. Sawing through these layers was like peeling back the layers of time. Each of those many nails had been driven by others in a different time so hopeful with their own new additions. There was no way to salvage the wood, so I decided to use it to boil down our maple sap this year.
I can’t believe that maple syrup season is already upon us! Sap season is the mark of the beginning of production for us unless you count planting seeds for the greenhouse that happens in late February. For me syrup is the first real harvest of food that goes from our land to our fridge. Those seeds will only come to fruition in some number of months from now so I prefer to count those chickens later.
I also knew of a pile of old cedar fence posts that were rotting in the woods at the back of our land that I thought would be great for boiling sap. We took the trailer back today over the frozen morning snow and filled it up with help from the kids. The wood was also covered with fencing staples and old fencing wire. Being cedar, it burns hot!
We try not to buy wood to boil the sap because it’s a good time to burn things that can’t be burned in our outdoor wood furnace. We scatter the ashes from that onto our fields and could not do this if it were full of nails. Our rig includes a pair of old stainless steel commercial sinks nested inside an old oil container on its side with the top cut out, and a door and chimney put into the sides. My husband was the handiworker and it cost us less than $50 for the set of sinks (the oil tank came from the dump). We used an old woodstove chimney. The syrup ends up slightly smoky tasting with this method and the sides of the sinks get a little burned so it is not one bit of fun to clean up but all in all it is a pretty effective method.
It takes anywhere from 5 to 20 hours to do a sink load of 170 L of sap which results in around 5L (over a gallon) of syrup. Seems to depend on the type of wood we use and the amount of draft in the air. Overcast days are the worst to boil, rainy days of course can be ineffective, and sunny, windy days are my favourite. We aim to do around 2-3 rounds in a season that results in 10-15L of syrup for ourselves (what we seem to use up no problem). Any extra makes excellent gifts but we have learned the hard way not to give it all away, however tempting it is to share it.
Once the sap is down to a sticky watery syrup consistency we haul it out (usually less than 8L) and do the rest inside the house on the stove. This step can take anywhere from 1 to 6 hours depending on how far we let it get down in the sinks. Some nights we have been known to not stoke the fire anymore once we go to bed, place plywood partially over the sinks and let whatever is left of the fire work overnight. One time we literally woke up to a vat of syrup already made for us! One more hour and it would have been lost and burned to the sides. This is the lazy mans method to not get up in the middle of the night to stoke it. We know it is ready by placing a small amount in a metal container in the freezer. If it is the right consistency within a few minutes when it is cool, it is ready. That’s how technical we get around here.
They say it is around 40L to make 1L of syrup but we find we get thick syrup with 35:1 or sometimes 30:1. This must be related to the kind of trees we have. The sugar maples too are rich with history. They line the winding road that our house is on and can be over 1 metre (1 yard) in diameter. The trees apparently had been planted by so-and-so’s greatgrandmother and I would guess they are well over 100 years old. As someone who has planted many kinds of trees around our property in hopes that one day there will be a story about them too, I love imagining that woman with her handful of seedlings (transplanted from elsewhere?). She is my hero and I visit with her every other day for a few weeks every year in March and April.
As the temperature is now diving below zero each night and rising into single digits (Celsius) during the day, we are in perfect sap running conditions. The season could last a couple of weeks or has gone as long as 6 weeks for us. It started March 1 last year but some years we don’t even start until early April. I have learned not to try to predict anything and just go with the flow (pun intended). We have around 30 taps set up and collect every other day or so, keeping it in a big fridge until we have enough to boil. The sap starts off light and gets darker and richer as the season goes on. When the buds start to break on the trees the season is over.
With all of the work it takes to make maple syrup you can see why the finished product is treated like liquid gold. I once underestimated a pot on the stove and ended up spending hours cleaning syrup out of my oven, under the elements and inside the pots and the pot drawer. It was one of my most devastating losses of the year!
Expenses each year include the replacement of a few buckets and spouts that have broken or cracked and a few cone paper filters for straining the syrup. As in all things farming, it takes a lot of time. But like many jobs it is hard to know when the clock is punched in or out. Especially when you’re having fun and doing what you like. We seal the syrup in 1L mason type jars. It’s not a bad deal for over $200 in syrup.
Year after year we have collected the sap with our children. First with a two month old baby strapped underneath our coats, then a one year old in a backpack, then a 2 year old with a newborn strapped under our coats, then a 3 and a 1 year old toddling along with us, and so on. This year was the first year my daughter is old enough to help pour out the buckets and hand me the hammers, the lids, the buckets, the spouts during the tapping season. All the while some number of dogs are attached to the stroller or wagon that has come with us. It is quite a party on the street!
My favourite part this year is letting the history of those fences that once kept animals on this very farm many moons ago reduce the sap along with the wood from my new (almost finished) passageway above the kitchen.
And that is how you turn history into something sweet.
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