Webmaster’s note: The format of this column has changed a bit with all of the Quill’s Endians participating at various times and in various ways!
During the course of “winter,” I’ve been thinking of trees. Specifically, our tiny maple bush. We have about 20 sugar maples that are in a grove that is readily accessible, and we tap them every year for syrup. We typically make about 6 gallons of syrup. It is a system of convenience. We heat with wood; so we boil down sap on the wood stove. March here smells delicious, as the humidity rises in the house with sweetening sap that is headed to syrupy decadence.
The question these last few years is…when to tap the trees? There have been years when we have waited too long, and March nights don’t bring the freezing weather that drops the sap back down. We want 20-degree nights and 40-degree days. That weather makes the sap run during the warmth of the day.
This particular “winter,” I’ve thought of these maples since January. Not just, “is the sap running?”, but also we have no snow cover. What does this mean for the ecosystem that is accustomed to a gradual thaw in March and April, when the accumulated precipitation slowly saturates the trees as they awaken for the year?
Twenty years ago, we hauled a sled to the trees as we gathered sap. Today, I lug the buckets to the tarred road, lest I tear up the soft field with my pick-up.
The beautiful thing, the thing we count on, will still happen.
We used the last of our maple syrup this morning on our pancakes. Just in time, the weather hearkens the change. The trees, for all my worry about them, will follow their rhythm, and sap will soon permeate our lives for a short while. We will enjoy the change in the house–the scent of March, and recollect the memories of this annual Spring bounty that sweetens our lives the year round.
Heather and Phil Retberg and their three children run Quill’s End Farm, a 105-acre property in Penobscot that they bought in 2004. They use rotational grazing on their fifteen open acres and are renovating thirty more acres from woods to pasture to increase grazing for their pigs, grass-fed cattle, lambs, laying hens, and goats. Heather is Vice President of Halcyon Grange #345 and writes a newsletter for their farm’s buying club of farmers in her area and has generously given us permission to share some of her columns with Grangers. Visit the Quill’s End Farm Facebook Page for more information.