The Last Biddy Battle

     

     Today as I chased Henrietta around my yard for about the zillionth time, I realized that I have created the perfect chicken trap.  I was sure I had sealed all the entrances through the fence, but Henrietta and a select group of friends keep finding their way inside.  The problem is that they won’t find their way back out.  So I huffed and puffed and circled behind the chickens trying to force them to escape via their secret path.  But, they just waddled ahead of me, necks stretched out, refusing to lead me to their hidden hole.   Finally, I gave in and opened the gate, chasing them back to the barnyard.  The chicken eating dog tried to help me, but when I caught him hauling one of the biddies around, I hollered and he dropped her.  Unperturbed, she strolled about the yard before finally climbing the steps to join the dog on my front porch. 

     My other activity today was sitting in a chair, taking money from tourists who came to sample pancakes, syrup and mountain hospitality.  I am always amazed that anyone would want to travel twenty winding miles over the mountains to stand in line for an hour or two so they could eat a meal easily prepared in the comfort of their own kitchens.  But, so many people told me that this is a yearly tradition for them.  Many folks told me that they had come to all four days of the festival.  So I started watching these families and friends as they were standing and waiting to be served.  I realized that syrup is only part of the reason they make the annual pilgrimage.  They were all laughing and telling stories both to their own friends and to new ones they’d made while they waited.  The Maple Festival is the first excuse of spring to take time away from the cares of daily living. Standing in line is not a chore, but a time of forced inactivity where the only thing to do is to talk to and enjoy each other.  I did not see any cell phones (no cell service here) or IPods plugged into ears or kids watching video on IPads.  What I did see was a lot of old fashioned fellowshipping and socializing. 

    Perhaps the chickens and I could learn to spend some happy time together as well.  I think I’ll take a lesson from the patient tourists and rather than working myself up, I'll invite the next chicken that climbs up on the porch, to set a spell (that pun was for you, Dad).  Hope you'll join us.

It's Maple Time

     It’s the first week of March and the morning air tastes sweet. There’s white steam curling out of sugar shacks all across the county and in McDowell the rising column from Sugar Tree Country Store is pink in the early morning light. It’s been perfect sugar weather. Nights below freezing and days above. These are the temperatures that really put the trees to work sucking up the starches they’ve stored in their roots over the winter and sending them skyward as sugars to jump start spring growth.
     My son Justin has been in the syrup business since he was about sixteen. That’s the year he and a friend collected enough sugar water to set up their own ramshackle sugar shack and boil until they had produced about 13 gallons of syrup which they then sold to visitors at our annual Maple Festival. It took about 500 gallons of water and 48 hours of work drilling, hanging, collecting, boiling and bottling to produce that small amount of syrup, but the boys were proud of their operation and were even featured in an article in the Washington Post about the county’s youngest syrup producers.
     For the last two years, Justin has opted to just gather his water and sell it to other producers who will boil it, condensing it until it is light amber, sticky and sweet. This year, he hung 80 buckets in the sugarbush down on our farm in McDowell. Joe had to set up an electric fence to keep the cows away from it because they love sugar water and will walk from tree to tree nosing buckets and dumping as they drink. Justin gathers his water by hand , tipping the buckets into a 425 gallon transport tank which rests on the back of an old farm truck. It takes him about an hour each time he collects and lately the buckets have been brimful twice a day. The season is only a few weeks long, and farmers who work their sugarbush are boiling without a break so they can finish off as much syrup as possible before the trees bud out and the rising water gets sappy and off-flavored.
     The smell of sweet steam is usually one of the earliest signs of spring here in Highland. So raise a jug of maple syrup and make a toast to warmer and sunnier days to come.

It’s maple time
It’s sugar time
It’s tapping trees for syrup time
It’s dripping, dropping
Sweet drops plopping
Buckets hanging
Tin lids banging
White steam roiling
Water boiling
Pancakes sizzling
Syrup drizzling

It’s maple time
It’s sugar time
It’s tapping trees for syrup time.

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