Sweet Dreams

February 18, 2018

It started a year ago with an email from an old friend.  She happens to be an editor and one of Randy’s connections in the magazine world.  “Do you know of anyone who makes maple syrup for fun?”  They had the idea for a story, but needed a subject.  My boss happens to make maple syrup every year at the school where I work.  The students get involved tapping the trees, gathering sap and witnessing the boil outdoors.  A story was born.  Randy photographed Pete for a few days and came home inspired to do the same.  Last year, at our home in Pond Eddy, Randy tapped the two sugar maple trees on the property.  We must have made about five or six quarts of syrup when it was all said and done.  I say “We”, but it was mostly “He”.  I gathered sap a few times, and boiled it down in the kitchen once without him, while he was away on assignment.  It was an amateur operation, but great fun nonetheless, yielding sweet syrup we were so very proud of.

When we bought this house, we noticed right away, the big old sugar maple trees above the stone wall next to the house.  The sugar bush stretches from the road, back beyond the barn on the upper tier of the hillside next to the house.  It was part of our plan from the beginning to tap the trees and make maple syrup here.

About a month ago, Randy started doing research and began ordering supplies online.  Excitement mounted as packages started to arrive.  We are now the proud owners of one 2 x 3 foot stainless steel evaporation pan, fifteen stainless steel taps, fifteen plastic collection buckets with lids, two woolen cone filters, a dozen disposable paper filter liners, two five gallon food grade collection buckets (Randy had these for making beer), a 44 gallon food grade plastic barrel, galvanized sheet metal (for use in heating ducts) to shield the fire and twenty pint sized metal syrup tins.  All of this, I will add, has been “on display” in our living room since it arrived, waiting for the temperatures to rise.  I do love Randy, he has such enthusiasm!!

We have been watching the weather, and last week the forecast showed a stretch of days above 40 degrees with nights below freezing.  Perfect!  Now, if you have not met Randy, he is a character.  He loves ALL things living, and talks to most everyone and everything.  As he went to tap the trees, he gave them each some “Lovins” which included “Big Hugs”.  They stood so tall and proud, and he felt a deep reverence for their age and stature.  It was originally a Native American tradition.  They called it “Sinzibukwud” and they taught the first European settlers how to tap the sugar maple trees in the spring.  This area was home to many native people.  They called this spot Cushetunk, meaning a place to wash, along the Delaware River, at the mouth of the what is now called Caulkins Creek.  They had been here for many moons, before the white man came.

The sap began to run.

Yesterday, we held our first boil.  I had been up early and made a pot of soup and some corn bread to keep us fed for the day.  Randy woke and was outdoors shortly after, beginning to gather the necessary supplies.  It had snowed a few inches overnight and so snow removal was going to be a part of the day’s chores.  We had purchased some cinder blocks to house the fire, but he soon realized that we did not have enough.  Sadly, our nearest hardware store is 25 minutes away, a setback that would cost us a good chunk of time.  Now, I told you the trees are on the hillside above the house.  There is an upper tier that levels out with the bed of an old road still visible on the forest floor there, leading through the woods.  This was the chosen spot for the fire.  It was level and we would not have to lug the sap down the hillside to our current fire pit next to the barn.  It seemed logical, until we realized the challenge of lugging everything up there by hand, in the snow.  Not an easy job!  In addition, Randy had put the sap barrel in the barn, out of the sun.  The previously collected and stored sap would also have to be carried up to the the fire.  Oh, and I forgot, our dry wood was next to the barn.  Up it all went, one load at a time.  The snowy path we walked revealed slippery wet leaves and then mud, as the air warmed up, the snow melted and the day progressed.  The whole setup process took us until well after noon.

The old road bed seemed level, but of course, Randy’s eye for detail called for a full scale leveling involving a shovel and excavation down to the dirt below the snow and leaves.

All level, the cinder blocks were lined up, and we started the fire.

The chain saw came up the hill, and we began harvesting a downed ash tree that had fallen years ago and was still off the ground, dry and ready.  Long lengths were cut to fit the fire pit and in they went.

We placed the evaporation pan on top and loaded it with sap.

You can imagine our relief when at 3:48 PM it started to boil.  We stood watch until after dark.

In pitch darkness, with our head lamps on, we filtered and poured off the syrup, and carried it back into the house.  Fresh snow was used to clean out the pan, and we completed the final boil in the kitchen.

Filtered again, then poured into four pint sized tins and the syrup was complete.

Or so we thought…  Today we had pancakes for breakfast, along with the two Advil I took to help with the body aches I felt all over.  When we poured the maple syrup onto the fresh hot-cakes, we laughed out loud.  It was like water. Way too thin.  But Tasty!!

Today’s boil was 100 times easier.  The only thing we carried up the hill was the empty barrel (which now has a home near the fire pit) and some corrugated metal to make a roof, to shield it from the sun.  We placed it within the old blue stone foundation of what we think might have been a cold storage shed, now long gone.  With snow heaped up all around, it was sure to keep cold.  We boiled another full pan of sap which had frozen overnight in the buckets.

Our fire was going by 9:00 and around 12:30 it started to rain.  We rigged up a tarp using the nearby trees, and before long the sap was done.   In the kitchen, during the final boil we combined it with yesterday’s syrup (I use the term loosely).  In the end, we canned four pints of syrup which is the color of golden straw and delicious beyond belief.  Most importantly, it is syrup.

Last year’s maple syrup article, along with Randy’s photographs, are due out any day now.  Good things come to those who wait.  A perfect end to our sweet dream.