Steve Bartlett told me that a sign of the sugaring season coming to a close is 50 degree weather and rain. Yup. Sounds like spring in New Hampshire.
We were collecting at the Bickford sugarbush yesterday, and Steve told me to look up at the tops of the maples. They’re budding, and Steve suggested that they look “fuzzy.” Now that’s a scientific term I can understand!
It wasn’t a picture-perfect day. No blue sky and puffy clouds, but it was a good day to collect sap as the buckets weren’t frozen and the ground was only a little muddy. We had fared a warm spell and a blizzard. Time to get the sugar house steaming again.
It wasn’t a big day for the sugarbush; we didn’t need to switch to the second sap tank, but it was enough to provide Steve with several hours in the sugar house, and he’s coming up on 100 gallons of syrup made, which makes him happy. (My french toast is ecstatic!)
Our good neighbors Jack and Nancy Starmer collected with us. There they are tromping through the sugarbush together, buckets in hand.
It was an eventful day. At one point when Steve and I were collecting by the Cold River, we heard the distinctive call of a wood duck. Steve trotted over hoping to get a glimpse of it, but it was elusive, and I could hear its call receding as it flew away.
Obviously this photo was purloined from the Internet, but if it was a male wood duck, that’s what it looked like. Cool, don’t you think?
Steve also found two field mice drowned in a bucket. (I did not take a photo out of respect for the deceased.) Why on earth did they make the fateful decision to dive into the bucket? Anyone need an idea for a doctoral dissertation?
At one point when Steve was driving the truck, he stopped at a sap gathering point, hopped out of the cab and told us that he had just FaceTimed his best friend in California. Then Jack told us that an airplane that had passed high overhead was coming from Frankfurt, Germany, headed to Charlotte, North Carolina. (Apparently Jack has an app that tells him such things.) Will technological wonders never cease? It struck me as particularly ironic because we were gathering sap by hand, nothing new-fangled about it.
So, that’s my story. The sugar house is billowing steam as a write this, and we’ve been listening to sap pinging in the buckets hung along the road by the farm, so we’ll be off to gather again tomorrow. The weather forecasters are predicting snow this weekend (“plowable” amounts), so who knows how the maples will react. I think I’ll make pancakes 🙂
Here are a few more photos from the morning, including a selfie of yours truly, just so you’ll know I was there!
A wave from the crew
Helloooo! Here I am!
Don’t let the truck get too far away!
The Cold River
Steve collecting
Graceful Sugarbush
I can smell the sugary sap as I read this. Thanks for all the wonderful stories and all your help. <3
Thanks! Felt like I was there. When we first moved to NC I was all excited about spring meaning green, flowers, warm sun, etc. but it was surprisingly disappointing to me, too sweet really. I miss the cool, damp, slushy spring of NH. I miss the mud (no really!) and the waiting and waiting for the trees to leaf out. I really miss the sound when the streams begin to run and you can hear them under the soft snow and thinning ice. And I miss seeing all those buckets hanging on the trees! Thanks for taking me back.