To Sugar a Maple

I pack nervously, unsure what to bring: ski gloves? Work gloves? My backpacking thermals? Heavy jeans? I’ve never made maple syrup before. What I’m expecting is some combination of snow and mud, and the lifting of heavy things in cold weather.

This trip to Minnesota, to Ert’s parents’ house, is solely for the purpose of making maple syrup. It’s a much-delayed forest foray, and I can’t remember now how the invitation occurred. It would have been simple: maple sugaring sounds cool, Bill and Mary Ann do it every year, and so I’m going to go join them and learn how. My parents thought that sounded fun too, so it’s the three of us (and not Ert) headed to the farm for the week, for some combination of learning and helping out.

The trip planning itself is a little challenging, and not just because we originally meant to go in March of 2020. You have to tap the maple trees when the sap is running, which is a couple of weeks probably in March, depending on climate factors of the year.

By the time we go, Bill has been texting Eileen pictures of full bags of sap on the trees. They’ve already harvested hundreds of gallons of sap, and boiled out more than five gallons of syrup.

Hopefully, we’ll be a good second wind: gathering bags that continue to fill, and keeping the boiling fire going. It’s my last week of work at EDGI and the middle of my grad school semester, so I’ll be in work and meetings a good chunk of the time, but we’re here a whole week. I’ll have lots of time to chop wood and tramp around in the trees… or whatever one does to make maple syrup.

Next: The Lay of the Land