The sun is out this morning, hot and strong for a February day. Down the road the sap tappers are stringing plastic tubing tree to tree arranging the loops so that gravity does what strong backs did for years in these woods – bring in the clear maple juice.
Phil told me once that he always starts in the third week of February, which is where we are today, as his family has for many generations. Global warming doesn’t seem to have altered the local sugaring habits around here very much. Most people with a few trees still use buckets; the tappers with future sales in mind string the tubing and put in the all nighters tending the sap boil. Phil was ready for the long boils. His old sugar house had a cast off armchair, a bookcase of great literature and rug on the floor – all of it sticky from the sugar steam.
This is the time the year seems to turn toward summer. The land around our house lifts its face up to that big sun and warms. Snow melts down into the tree roots and liquefies the earth. And the Red Sox have reported to Fort Myers. The signs are all in place.
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