Article content continued

Around me, sugar maples are recharging themselves with liquid from their roots. As the sap rises through the cambium layer of the maple’s bark, the spile catches a small amount, and right after we’ve emptied the buckets, with the forest so quiet, one can hear the tiny “ping!” as a drop of sap hits the bottom of the each aluminum bucket. This adds to the soft symphony of spring.

Photo by Tallulah Kuitenbrouwer

By necessity I interrupted the silence and social isolation on the Saturday afternoon, when my sap abruptly turned to syrup and I needed help to get the molten liquid off the fire before it burned. I called my neighbour, who is 88. He rumbled up on his tractor. Behind him came his son, daughter-in-law, and their children and grandchildren: nine helpers in all. It appears they had relaxed social distancing rules for immediate family, but kept their distance from me. Hot foaming syrup soon filled a white bucket.

One of the great-grandsons, who is 14, had helped by opening the door. I strained the syrup through a felt cone and, wearing work gloves caught some in a jar to give him a taste. Then I filled a jar and gave it to his grandmother.

They all left. The neighbour stayed and held the funnel as I filled many small and larger jars with syrup. The sun shone. I had stripped to my t-shirt in the heat of the action; now I felt the chill and put on my jacket. My helper climbed on his tractor and rumbled off. I stayed and scrubbed my pan a long time in the fading light.

Still, maple syrup season has remained a sacred time for me, when we celebrate the return of the light

I grew up on a farm in western Quebec. We trudged through deep snow to collect sap; the crystalline snow crept over the tops and into our rubber boots. Never have icy, soaked socks left my feet so cold. Still, maple syrup season has remained a sacred time for me, when we celebrate the return of the light, the rising of the sap and, more fundamentally, the health and bounty of our land.