We’re coming into the final days now of one of my favorite times in the Northern year - sugar season! A time of balance during seasonal change, when the days are warming in fits and starts, but the nights hold onto colder times, and old man winter is still in and out the door like he is on his way to the shops but oh darn, he’s forgot his car keys on the bureau - ‘ope now he’s back for his wallet too, and then oh dear, here he is again grabbing that grocery list; can’t leave without that either… Coincidentally, this is also a pretty accurate description of how my own grocery adventures often begin, to the occasional annoyance of some of my housemates.
My “baby’s first tubing setup” on a couple red maples as part of our LRCC sugaring operation.
It’s these conditions that get the sap flowing in the maple trees, and drive commercial and family operations alike to venture out, collect it, and boil it down into sweet sweet maple syrup. Growing up in New York’s North Country, I’ve poked around a handful of sugar shacks and done a fair bit of stove-top boiling on my family’s wood stove myself over the years, and missing out on this time-honored tradition while off at college these past four years has sometimes had me a bit down in the dumps, so it was really nice being able to immerse myself in the maple mania again while serving here in New Hampshire.
A lot of the staff here at the SLA are involved with personal sugaring operations so we were able to borrow some old taps, buy a couple sap bags at the local hardware, and get our own little operation off the ground, tapping trees around the SLA’s campus. For many of us, this was the most involved we’d ever been with the syrup making process. There were some of us who had never had any experience, and even for the ones like me who had tapped trees before there was still so much to get out of it - I know I learned a lot! I had worked primarily with collection via makeshift buckets fashioned from gallon jugs for instance, so using sap bags and playing with a bit of tubing that was a generous loan from our Executive Director ended up being a new experience that I enjoyed a lot (after having a few stops and starts getting it all together, of course). Having primarily tapped and heard about sugaring through sugar maples, I also wasn’t very familiar with the tapping of other species such as red maples, which are a bit more temperamental and have a slightly different flavor profile, but will likely be a more resilient tree in a warming climate. In the past, I had leaned on my dad a lot for tree identification and handling a lot of the collection when I was busy with other things (or just being a lazy kid), but out here I had to step up and take responsibility for a lion’s share of the effort. It can be hard some days getting out to do any more work after a full day of service, but thankfully everyone else in the house (especially Bri!) helped out here and there to lighten the load.
From summer hikes to winter ice castle excursions, there are so many unique opportunities that serving here in New Hampshire gives us access to, and I’m really glad that all 6 of us took advantage of this particular one to some extent. Even Kaela, who doesn’t like the taste of maple (gasp), came out and helped me collect several times. Part of my maple philosophy is that the best syrup is made all the more sweeter when it comes with the satisfaction of participating in the making of it. I suppose a similar thing could be said for the projects we work on during service hours as well. In total, we collected enough sap for a little over two gallons of north country gold - roughly what we might make in a good year back home - which will last a good while by my reckoning, even with Nikka’s penchant for a morning cup of syrup with a splash of coffee. We even have enough to bring the folks back home a little bit as a souvenir of our time here. I know my grandmothers are looking forward to a taste!
A popular North Country fiddle tune I like to play this time of year
We appreciate the creative flair Paul brings into his service at the Squam Lakes Association, and the music he shares with the community through his education programs. Learn more about Paul here!