Tuesday, February 05, 2008

How Sweet It Is




A few months ago Hiroko and I were invited, along with just about anyone in Round Hill, to tap our maple trees and have the sap converted to syrup.

On the next to last day of January we tapped (with assistance from Carter, the person responsible for getting the whole maple syrup program started) two of our maple trees. To our delight, as soon as the holes were drilled sap started running from the holes and into our buckets.

By the morning of Super Bowl Sunday we had collected about two gallons of sap. We toted our sap to home of the syrupy ringleader where he was preparing for a big boil. Carter told us that he expected a total of about twenty gallons of sap from the various people participating in the syrup making. A few hours later we stopped by again to see how things were going. The patio was crowded with neighbors talking about the upcoming game of course, but mostly about maple trees, our collective thirty gallons of sap, our neighborhood and the promise of syrup to come. A very congenial gathering on a chilly February afternoon.

When we returned from work the next day we found a jar of syrup on our front porch. How wonderful it was to have in our hands some food that came from the aged maple trees in and around Round Hill.

Now we know that maple trees produce more than the leaves we rake on autumn afternoons.