Winter is loosing it’s grip on Vermont. Our 5th Season is well under way. The sugar shack has steam rising and the smell of sugary sweetness is floating in the air - Maple Sugaring season has begun.
As the days grow longer the warm sun breaks the dormancy of the maple trees. Freezing nights and thawing days make the sap flow.
Sugar makers collect sap, remove the water and concentrate it into syrup. Nothing added, nothing removed except pure water.
Our neighbor sets 1600 taps in his “sugarbush”. In the olden days his family collected with metal taps, buckets and a tractor drawn sled. Now a days it is all plastic tubing that flows into large collecting tanks. A little less romantic, but still the same timeless taste of maple. All this sap flows down from the sugarbush to the sugarhouse and the wood fired evaporator. Eventually it ends up on our pancakes for a taste of New England.
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1 comment:
Could it be that it is closer to spring in Vermont than in Spain on the Mediterranean coast? Here we've had snow almost at the sea, and they say it will get colder as the week progresses. And we don't even have any maple syrup to show for it!
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