MUSINGS OF A BACKYARD SUGARER

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I DON’T WANT TO GET NOSTALGIC or overly philosophical about sugarin’, because it really is a fairly simple, down-to-earth and practical procedure which yields a very useful product which almost everybody enjoys eating. But I’ve got to say that there is something magical about sugarin’, and if you talk with people who make maple syrup, either in a big commercial evaporator or out in the backyard, you’ll find out there’s a lot of agreement on that fact.

Maybe it’s the time of year–the warm sun climbing higher into the sky, warming the back after a long winter, turning the snow into piles of white corn, turning the brooks from trickles to torrents, starting the maple sap flowing–a sort of hint of the spring and summer lying ahead. Maybe it’s the drip drip of sap falling into buckets, the telltale aroma of boiling sap or the hissing sound of sap in a rolling boil. Maybe it’s simply the magic of converting sweet water, as the Indians used to call it, to delicious golden syrup. But whatever it is, it’s there.

Mix the magic with a liberal dose of ingenuity, mechanical innovation and the determination to make do with materials at hand, and you come up with what this book is all about, backyard sugarin’. In one fell swoop you can satisfy your creative instincts, indulge yourself in a mystical experience and fill the pantry shelves with a product that the whole family can enjoy at a fraction of its usual cost.

As I write these words, another season has just ended, my sap spouts are stored away (that’s the only equipment I need to clean and store from year to year), and I am full of ideas for building another homemade evaporator for next year. I want it to be a bit smaller, as I don’t need as much syrup as my water pressure tank evaporator is capable of producing, and the front pan will be somewhat smaller and deeper, so it will be easier to handle. Maybe I’ll figure out a way to interconnect the two pans. Then, too, I mustn’t forget to mark those three big maples that produced such sweet sap (and so reliably!).

But there I go again, never satisfied to leave well enough alone. Maybe I should just be content with the memory of that warm, sunny afternoon, not so long ago, when a bottle of ale lay in the corn snow, awaiting my indulgence, and the boiling sap hissed quietly in the background. And just think of it, there wasn’t a customer in sight.

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