The temperatures are warming up, the snow has mostly melted… even though it’s snowing right now…!, and with the third boiling of sap, our second Season of Sugarin’ has come to a close.
I’ve gotta say, I really enjoy winter… love it, actually… but I’m welcoming the warmth coming along with the sap this next little bit…! I think my body and brain needs it. There’s a lot going on out there in The World… on top of all the things most of us probably think/worry about on a daily basis… or are starting to think more about… like our futures n stuff. It can be a lot to deal with. It is a lot to deal with sometimes, but interspersed throughout our days are the beautiful things that happen solely because it’s Time for them to show themselves and we just happened to be there and look up…! You know, sunsets, low tide, the first crocus type shit. They’re there… even when you’re focused on other things.
Amanda and I started making our own Maple Syrup last year sorta on a whim, and it’s been a wonderfully fun and educating experience for both of us right here in our back yard. Nope, we ain’t no professionals, but that’s one thing I love about making Maple Syrup… it’s pretty basic stuff. If you’ve got fire, a pot, and Maple Sap… you can make syrup! Now, the fact that it takes 40ish gallons of sap to make 1… yes 1!… gallon of syrup… well now… that’s when “The Process” of boiling off 39 gallons of water comes into play!… and it’s a fantastic exercise in the practice of Patience.
I’m not gonna get into the progression of our “Operation” over the 6 times we’ve boiled within the last two years, how we started with a stock pot over an open fire… on a windy day!… and have now reached the “2 hotel pans on a box I made out of stainless steel from an old kitchen’s hood system that was being thrown away”, but each time we’ve boiled, we’ve learned to do it a bit more efficiently and have been able to make it a scant more comfortable..y. More importantly, we’ve had fun doing it… together. Plus, when Maple Syrup is part of the end result from an activity, it helps sweeten the blow when you realize it took you ten hours to get a quart of Ash Infused Syrup!… which I’m just gonna brand as “Raw Syrup”… and sell to the Asshole Tourists… it’s gluten free. (Not to the Good Tourists… because they’re Good People. Just the Assholes… because… well… they’re Assholes)
(Side Note: Sugarin’ Season takes place in spring… which we here in Vermont also like to refer to as Mud Season because of all the dirt roads… and there’s a lot of water run off… from all the snow n shit… which is what makes everything green for the two weeks of summer! But currently, the sump pump in my basement is going off every 17 minutes and 22 seconds…!.. yay.)
Amanda and I have only Mondays off together so if we wanted to boil sap together this year, we had to do it on Mondays. Sometimes, Life… and the weather… don’t care about your plans or the schedule for your little Sugarin’ Operation. Last Monday, because of an appointment/meeting/discussion that had been scheduled in the afternoon, I decided to wake up at 3:30a.m. in hopes of getting the fire going by 4:00a.m. so as to have enough time to boil our sap, jar it up, take showers, and get into town. The Oracle was calling for rain in the morning, so I even hung a tarp the night before for one less thing to do in the first few hours of the day… and so I wasn’t sitting in the rain. Just as with every previous boil… it took longer than I had anticipated (ugh… Patience… and Realistic Expectations), but I made it to my appointment…!
I actually rather enjoy getting up early, prior to The World waking up. There’s a sense of calm a couple of hours before the sun rises as the darkness is slowly replaced with the view of leaves, trees, and pastures on hillsides. I’ve had a lot on my mind as of late, and it was nice to have an opportunity to kinda be forced to sit and think. Awe… thinking. Sometimes it can be rewarding. Sometimes it provides clarity… or sometimes, it can create more questions. It can be heartwarming, sadness provoking, or profound. No matter what, we all do it!… think, that is… even if there are times we question if we were!… thinking.
One of the things I thought about in the wee hours of the morning as the sap was steaming away is that there’s a lot going on out there in The World…! Although I’m not one to get too worked up about all the bad shit in The World… (I have no control over most of the big things. I have a basic understanding of the effect money has on people, power, and politics. I get the gist on human nature.), I still pay attention and can understand the anxiety people are feeling over the current state of affairs both within The United States and outside our borders. I get it. It’s like squinting to watch a horrible reality gameshow on a 3″ screen where your retirement is someone else’s Prize Money and most of the audience members think they’re contestants on The Show, playing for a certain Team, and a piece of The Winnings. It’s whacky out there. It’s wild. It’s complicated. And… it’s on top of everything else in our Life!… gross. I’m just gonna keep truckin’ along and take advantage of opportunities to reflect on my actions, decisions, and overall Life during the quiet times… such as at 4:36a.m…. when watching sap boil.
Luckily, I was out there for a few hours and had plenty of time to think about other things besides the state of the World. Ya, I thought about some of those BIG Things like Money, Health, Jobs, My (Our) Future, My (Our) Home, and the such, but the small things were also there, like somehow, I forgot to clip my pinky finger’s nail…! I mean, that’s sorta weird… right? How did I just not clip one nail..?!… or did it happen to grow super fast..?…!.. I have questions.
I thought about how Kateri would’ve loved making Maple Syrup at Home from her own trees. I started to try to picture what that experience would have looked like but for some reason it felt… futile… pointless. Yes, she would’ve loved this… LOVED IT!… but Kateri and I didn’t have this experience… and that’s ok. We had almost two decades of being in each other’s Lives. Twenty years of which were filled with all sorts of other wonderful adventures. Sitting there, in the beat up ol’ camping chair in the dark with my coffee… on my land… at my (our) Home… I had this sense of wanting to be more in the present. I didn’t want to reminisce and feel the sadness that comes along with remembering the good times with Kateri or think about all those “If she was here…?” type questions. It just wasn’t the time for that. I wanted to think about Today and Tomorrow and This is What I Have. On this particular morning, Amanda and I were making maple syrup… because that’s something we do..!.. and I loved the feeling of excitement and anticipation I had as I pictured her with her coffee walking across the backyard to join me under the tarp so I could fill her in on the progress… and my early morning escapades. I wondered if Xander… our pup… would be by her side, but knew it was probably a good bet he wouldn’t be. Nope, he’d still be in bed… probably stretched out under the duvet… diagonally at this point. He’s not exactly what we would call a “Morning” “Dog”.
When it comes to the 6 times we’ve boiled sap, as I sat there at the start of #5 nestled in the old camping chair with my coffee mug sticking up from the armrest as the light from the fire escaped through the cracks of the fabricated metal box and stuck to the tarp and trees… I was feeling pretty good about Life. I was on schedule. The sap started boiling sooner than I expected. It was quiet… besides the sounds of The Woods, water hitting a tarp, and the crackle of burning wood. The tribulations of Life were still asleep or hangin’ somewhere off in the distance and all I had to do was keep a fire going, sap in the pans, and sit there with my thoughts. I was tired, maybe… but good.
Widower Notes n Thoughts:
- Find/Make/Recognize Time… Time for yourself. Time to figure it out. Time to remember. Time to reflect. Time to plan. Time to learn. Time to share. Time to give… and knowing when you need to take it. Take time to stop… and think… about whatever it is you need to think about.
- We’ve semi-started a tradition of eating Breakfast for Dinner on nights we make maple syrup. You know, pancakes n such… just seems fitting.
Thirty Days of Mo(u)rning 