Spring is Here!

 My Goodness! What a beautiful day. It certainly has been nice to have the temperature in the 50s with lots of sunshine! We had showers in the morning, but then it cleared and has been truly glorious. I expected a rainy, windy day, but now I'm guessing that will be tomorrow. At this point, it doesn't matter, I just enjoyed today!

The maple sap must be running well right now. Last night was in the 20s and that's what it takes to get things going in the maple trees. I was interested in reading Beth Kanell's article in this month's North Star about maple sugaring in Vermont. Indeed, years ago our ancestors boiled the sap long enough so it would harden and that way it kept better. In addition, it was easier to transport solid cakes of maple sugar than liquid syrup. About the only difficulty with maple sugar is that it is inclined to harden over time. I remember putting half an apple into the container to soften my maple sugar. That sometimes also gave it a slight apple taste, but when used in cooking, it isn't objectionable.

We always had a tub of maple sugar at our house when I was growing up. We also has syrup, but I think I also remember that my mother used to flavor her baked beans with the dark liquid that collected in the bottom of the maple sugar tub. I'm sure she used it for other things, as well - and my father made a dry rub of maple sugar and other ingredients to cure hams at butchering time of the farm. 

Sugaring was a fun time when I was growing up. Our sugar place was a couple of miles away from the farm - actually on what we called the Webster Lot, on the north side of the hill where Cabot Plain Cemetery is. My grandfather owned a number of acres there, including a nice sugarwoods. Many years later, Bob Davis, president of Cabot Creamery at the time, owned that stand of maples, and he and his wife, Barbara, had a very productive maple production business.

Our sugar house was down hill from the woods, actually in a pasture owned by a farmer by the name of Petit. I don't remember his first name, but use of the land where the sugar house was located was paid for in syrup. I don't suppose there is anything left of the old sugar house now, but it was a great place to be in those days - warm and filled with sweet steam.

When I was old enough, I was sometimes called upon to drive the horses for gathering sap. It could be pretty exciting, especially in deep snow or when we had a nearly full tank of sap on the sled and had to navigate a steep incline. We had to be careful not to dump the tank of sap, and sometimes, if the load was particularly heavy, it was difficult to keep the sled from lurching in snow ruts or going off the path a bit into deep, soft snow, and that could mean a spill. The top picture was the back side of the sugar house - the wood shed was on the left and where the evaporator was, on the right. If you look closely, I think you can see the sap line running from the storage tank at the edge of the woods above, down to the sugar house. There was a large holding tank in the house, and fresh sap was let into the evaporator as needed, as the finished syrup was drawn off. At the end of the season, we usually had a sugar-on-snow party and the "womenfolks" would often come - my mother and any neighbors who didn't mind walking in or riding on the sled. It seems to me we had a lot more snow in the woods then than we generally do now. That said, it's been a while since I've been out in the woods!

The next photo was taken in about 1935 with some of the Bolton family probably on their way home after a day in the woods gathering and boiling sap. Aaron, my father, is shown standing facing the camera; Jack, Bob, Mabel and Bill standing on the back of the sled. That was when schools closed so farm children would be able to help during maple season. I think all of the ones shown here except my father were still in school. Bob would have been the youngest, at 14, Bill about 16. I think Mabel about 19 might have graduated from high school perhaps that spring, or perhaps she was home from college to help, and Jack, a year younger than Mabel, might have been through school, as well.

Sugaring then was hard work - and it still is, I'm sure. We used wooden buckets with tin covers. My father usually did most of the tapping and the boiling; his younger brothers handled the gathering. But they all knew how to do all of it - and everyone had to pitch in to cut wood enough in the fall to see them through the boiling season; and then there was cleaning up after the season closed - washing and painting buckets, cleaning the holding tanks, and making repairs. It wasn't for everyone, but everyone liked the produce!