Last sugaring season started early, and it lurched like a 16-year-old learning to drive a stick. It was too cold, then too warm, then too cold – that cycle over and over. We made syrup on the margins of the temperature swings, working for every scrap.
This year things started late and then the trees just opened up. Picture the sugarhouse like an ark in a torrent, the crew bailing and stoking furiously as we try to make a six week journey in three weeks.
We gathered sap on 27 days last year, in a window of time that stretched from February 19 to April 4. This year’s boiling window started on March 13, and thus far, we’ve gathered sap on 15 days. As of me writing this on Thursday night, our syrup-per-tap ratio is just about equal to what it was last year, even though we’re at 82 percent if we compare this year to last on a sap-per-tap basis. The explanation for this discrepancy is that this year’s sap is a lot sweeter (around a 50:1 ratio as opposed to 60:1). Now we’ve still got a ways to go – we consider 16 gallons of sap per tap to be a crop, and we’re at 14. But the seven-day forecast looks promising. We’re feeling optimistic. And a bit more exhausted than usual from the long days in this compressed season. A few nights ago a sugarmaker from down the road showed up at the sugarhouse and said: “I’m taking the night off – I’m spent. It’s too much.” And we nodded, bleary-eyed.
The detail to note in that story is that the guy, who’d likely been boiling for a week straight, took the night off and came and visited another sugarhouse, which tells you a lot about the people who practice this craft.