Maple Syrup

It was a beautiful day on the Henning farm. It was early spring, but old man winter was still struggling for control. The cold fingers of his icy hands could still be felt in the form of that chill that runs down one's spine as a frigid breeze gently caresses one's neck. Scott, who was six years old at the time, pulled the hood of his jacket close as he waited to pass back into a sunny spot where the chill would temporarily give way to the warmth of the spring sunshine. The boy sat on the rear of his grandfather's wooden flat bed wagon. His feet dangled and his body swayed as the wagon jerked and lurched underneath him. The wagon was old and did not posses the suspension to soften the boy's ride against the rough terrine of the rutted woods road.

Scott watched with great interest as his older brother, his father, and two of his uncles walked swiftly from one tree to another, pulling galvanized tin pails off of trees and emptying their contents into five gallon buckets of varying colors. Every three or four trees, the men would walk back to the wagon and hand their five gallon buckets up to Scott's great uncle Clyde who emptied the contents into a large narrow mouthed vat. Uncle Clyde pulled an old tin cup off of a length of wire and dipped it into the vat. He took a sip and offered the remaining contents to the young rider who took the cup eagerly. Scott looked into the cup at the milky clear liquid before drinking the contents. The sweet taste of the maple sap washed over his tongue leaving the young man both refreshed and satisfied.

Scott glanced over his shoulder at the tractor that was pulling the wagon. His grandfather operated the old John Deere 730 with patience and skill. The road they were on was only used once a year, during the early spring. This lack of use left the road riddled with ruts and holes that had to be avoided or taken slowly enough to avoid damage to both the tractor and the wagon. The slow speed also allowed the bucket transfers to take place without having to stop the tractor at all, as long as everyone was careful. 

Scott loved collecting maple sap, mostly because he didn't have to do any of the work. A week earlier, he had gone out into the woods with his grandpa and brother to tap the trees. Tapping maple trees was a fairly simple task. It involved drilling a hole in the side of a maple tree using an old fashioned bit brace and an auger bit. A small metal spout was then driven into the hole with a hammer (this is called tapping the tree). A galvanized metal pail with an oblong hole in the side was slipped over the end of the spout and covered with a metal lid. The pail rested on the spout, collecting the maple tree's sweet sap until the collecting party returned a week later. The timing of this endeavor was critical. In the spring time, the extreme temperature fluctuation causes the sap of the tree to run, which builds enough pressure for the sap to leak out of the tree through the tap hole.

“Okay,” Uncle Jonathan called out to the rest of the crew. “I think we've got it all.”

The multi-generational crew boarded the flatbed wagon as Richard steered the rig out of the woods and onto the oil well drive. Scott watched the oil well pump arm raise and lower as the wagon went by. He thought it looked like a huge grasshopper with it's oblong head on the end of a stick body. The idea of a giant grasshopper was enough to keep the young man's mind occupied until the tractor arrived at the sugar camp.

The sugar camp, despite it's name, was not a candy covered cottage in the middle of the woods designed to attract unsuspecting children. It was a plain building sided with wood planks. There was a chimney poking out of the roof on one end that looked large in proportion to the small structure to which it belonged. The building stood on a hill and only measured about twenty feet by twenty-five feet. There were a couple of windows and two doors.

Richard backed the wagon down the hill on the north side of the building and the crew dismounted. David helped Scott down from his place on the rear of the wagon and directed him towards the small weathered building. Scott waked over to the door and reached for a piece of orange bailing twine that hung through a small hole in the door. The boy gave the string a tug which caused a hook on the inside of the door to disengage. The door swung outward and Scott stepped over the high thresh hold of the doorway into the sugar camp. He walked through the building to the other door. He opened the door and sat down on the threshold where he would be out of the way.

The limited floor space of the small building was occupied primarily by a large stack of fire wood at the east end and a large fireplace at the west end. The fire place consisted of a large, concrete box that stood three feet high and was three feet wide and six feet long. A big chimney that had been built using field stones stood at the west end of the fire box. The chimney was over three feet wide at the bottom and narrowed to about a foot and a half just before it poked through the roof of the building. Scott's grandpa immediately set to work building a fire in the fireplace, pulling from the pile of wood at the east end for fuel. 

“Hey, Caleb,” David addressed Scott's older brother. “How about you climb up into the loft and hand us the pans?”

“Okay,” Caleb responded, eager to oblige.

The loft was a platform the full width of the sugar camp that held a variety of different tapping and maple syrup equipment. There were stacks of unused buckets, five gallon buckets full of tapping spouts, a number of different lids, and three large metal pans. Caleb handed the pans down to his uncle, who brushed them out with a hand held whisk broom before wiping them out with an old bath towel that had been hanging on a nail by the door. The pans measured three feet long and two feet wide. Each pan had a lip that ran around the rim. David place the pans over the opening of the fire so that the lip of each pan rested perfectly on the concrete walls of the box. The three pans together filled the opening of the fire box perfectly which ensured that they would stay put until they were supposed to be moved.

“Alright,” Richard commented as the fire in the fire box began to ramp up. “I suppose it's time to start bucketing in the sugar water.” 

The other men in the group agreed and made their way out to the flatbed wagon. Jonathan held a five gallon bucked under a spout at the bottom of the sugar water tank. His uncle Clyde opened the valve, allowing the sweet maple nectar to flow freely into the bucket. He closed off the valve just as the level reached the top of the bucket. Jonathan waited for his second bucket to fill before carrying both of them into the sugar camp and dumping the contents into the pans. The sap hissed as it hit the hot surface of the pans. After a few trips, all three pans were full.

“Now, we just have to wait,” Dale commented. “I've got to go feed the cows. I'll check in on you guys in a little bit.”

“Take your time,” Clyde admonished. “We'll be boiling this stuff all night long.”

“All night?!” Scott exclaimed. “It's going to take all night?”

“Yes it is, Scotty,” Jonathan replied. “We have over a hundred gallons of sugar water out there. It takes a long time to boil all that down to syrup.”

Scott didn't respond. The men chuckled at his surprise and carried on with their work. After about an hour of keeping fire and pot watching, the maple sap finally started to boil. It wasn't much longer before the sap bubbled into a rolling boil. Richard and Clyde got up from their seats and started presiding over the bubbling pans. Each man held a wire mesh strainer in each hand. One strainer was used to dip out inedibles that floated to the top of the pans and toss them out into the driveway. The other was used to dip the frothy foam that built up around the edges of the pans. This was knocked into a bowl to be enjoyed by the workers when it was cool enough. When it cooled, it was a grainy sugar that tasted of maple.

When the levels in the pans got low enough, the workers would add more sugar water, bringing the level back up. When the fire burned low enough, the men would open the doors at the end of the fire box and add more wood. This was the cycle: dip out inedibles and froth, add sugar water, add firewood. Scott and Caleb watched and waited for an invitation to partake of the sugary froth.

The cycle went on and on until it got dark. Dale and Jonathan returned to the sugar camp after having finished the barn related chores. Dale sent the boys back to the house to be fed and put to bed. The sugar water had to be tended to all night long. The older generations took turns napping and tending until it was time for the morning chores. A couple of the men took their leave to take care of that responsibility. 

Finally, after hours of work, the syrup was ready to transfer from the boiling pans into jars. Richard ladled the warm maple syrup into the mason jars that Clyde held. Clyde put the two piece lids on the jars when they were full and handed them off to Dale. Dale labeled each jar denoting both the contents and the date. David and Jonathan packed the jars into homemade wooden crates and carried them out to Richards green Ford Ranger. (Richard had traded in his tractor and wagon for the truck when he had gone home to catch a few hours of sleep overnight.) 

The men jarred all the syrup except about a quart which they poured into a small pitcher and set aside. They worked to clean up the equipment using water from a spigot outside the south door. Just as they finished, Mary, Christa,  Rebecca, and a slew of children made their way down the sidewalk to the south door. Christa carried a pitcher of pancake batter and a stack of paper plates. Mary carried an electric griddle and a package of sausage links. Rebecca and some of the older children carried the other items that were needed such as cups, drinks, and silverware. Before long, the whole family was enjoying maple syrup soaked pancakes and sausage links.

“Well,” Richard declared. “I suppose we did alright this year.”

Agreement sounded out from the group around and inside the sugar camp as the entire family raised their forks in solidarity with the family patriarch.