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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Sister Trips

     When my big sis was five and I was three, she was so shy that I had to walk her to kindergarten for her first day of school. I don’t remember doing this, but it’s a story my mom has told often. As we grew, we remained best friends when we weren’t bickering over clothes or boyfriends and my shy sister blossomed into a leader and my hero. I remember days when Mom sent us to our separate rooms for fighting and we managed to rig a telegraph line between our upstairs windows by leaning out and swinging a string until we were connected and could clothesline messages back and forth. Then we grew up and moved away from each other, but the conversation never stopped.
     One of my favorite traditions with Meg is our sister trips. Originally they started with her travelling to the mountains to see me, or me travelling to Atlanta to see her, but in 2007 I was selected as Virginia’s Educator of Excellence and receiving the award required me to attend a gala in Washington, DC. In need of a dress and some advice about taxis and tipping, I flew to Atlanta to conspire with my more sophisticated sister. As we visited the dress shops, I shared my fears and Meg offered to attend the gala with me. She’s a world traveler who is unfazed by airports and bellhops so I eagerly accepted her offer. Suddenly the idea of navigating the city sounded fun. It was. Meg steered me through the unfamiliar formalities of a glamorous evening and I was able to enjoy my brief moment in the spotlight. After DC we decided that we’d had so much fun that we should continue the tradition. So far we’ve been on sister trips to Charleston, SC, Dahlonega, GA and most recently Amelia Island, FL. This last trip was a 50th birthday present from Meg to me and as usual, she took care of everything.

     We met at the Atlanta airport and because my plane was running a little late, I was in danger of missing the connecting flight to Jacksonville. No worries. As I huffed and puffed my way down the long corridor there was Meg waving a ticket at me. “Here, take mine and get in line,” she directed as she handed me her ticket and took mine. Because she’s a frequent flyer, Meg has privileges that allow her to board each flight early. The plane was crowded and getting on first allowed me to find a place to stow my bag before the bins all filled up. It was fifteen more minutes before Meg boarded and sat beside me. The whole trip was full of small courtesies like that. When we debarked in Jacksonville, there was a rental car waiting and Meg drove us out to Amelia Island where she had booked a hotel for three nights. We spent the sunny days in between roaming the beaches where we gathered starfish by the dozens as they washed ashore, rode bicycles on secluded paths, toured the island shops and galleries, and finally galloped through the surf on horseback. At night, we sampled some of Amelia’s finest restaurants and wine. Like all of my adventures with Meg we moved at full speed until falling into bed at night. I could barely walk when we landed back in Atlanta. But, it was worth every minute.

     We talked about our fears, our dreams, our families and our frustrations. When we finally separated at the Atlanta airport, me headed to Richmond, Meg headed home, I cried. While the sister trips are fun to plan and even more fun to enjoy, the best part of all is just spending time with my big sister. A sister who is your best friend is a treasure beyond counting. I have riches beyond measure.

Best Friends

When mom
banished us
to our rooms
for fighting
we
dangled a string between
our separate windows
and sent secret messages
clotheslining
across the warm brick
then,
growing up
split us apart
leaving the line
between our rooms
to sag
in the wind

now that you live
five hundred miles south
I miss you
and long to
instant message you
with that
tender string
again.

Date Night

     The barn was quiet tonight when we pulled up to check on the sheep. The first group of forty ewes is just about finished lambing, but Joe wanted to make sure there would be no lamb surprises in the morning. This has been an interesting lambing season. One ewe dropped her lambs out in the pasture bottom in the snow and they died before we discovered them. She wasn’t supposed to lamb for another month, but apparently the buck jumped the fence. Two other ewes have lambed out there, but Joe found them in time to bring them back to the barn where they enjoyed a snug stall until the lambs were ready to be turned out.

     Another ewe gave birth to quadruplets. Four strapping lambs that made us wonder how in the world they all fit inside. She dropped the lambs out in the small meadow where the imminently expectant ewes spend their days. The quadruplets are several days old now and so far we haven’t had to supplement their mama’s milk with a bottle. As big as a child’s-size basketball, her udder is well…udderly fantastic. The lambs take turns ducking under and butting at it before they latch on and suck. It seems she never gets a moment without at least one lamb bumping her and grabbing on, but she bleats contentedly in her stall, and the lambs are full of pep. I’m certainly glad my boys didn’t have to butt at me that way. Sometimes, after the lambs are about a month old, you can see them out in the meadow hitting mama’s udder so hard that they lift her back end off the ground several inches. Ouch!

     Joe has spent almost every afternoon in the old barn, numbering and docking lambs. The mothers wear numbered plastic tags in their left ears and their babies get the same number painted on their rear ends. Tonight I am along to help. Joe catches the lambs and hands them to me where they dangle from my arms with their bellies facing him. If the lamb is a boy he gets a band on his testicles and one on his tail. If it’s a girl, just her tail is docked. After the banding, I flip the lambs around and Joe dips the metal branding irons into the red paint and presses them onto the lamb’s left hip. Then they are placed gently back into the pen with mama who has been nickering softly in concern. The banding hurts the babies for a little while, so they usually lie down in the hay until the pain subsides, but in an hour or two, they will be up and butting at mama for more milk. Banding prevents poop from accumulating in their tails. I’ve seen undocked sheep in the summer, their long tails covered with brown feces. This creates a breeding ground for maggots, so it’s healthier for the sheep to be tail-less. And of course the little boys can’t have all their parts because they can begin to breed at a fairly young age. This would lead to continuous in-breeding and weaker stock.

     When we finish, I stand for a minute in the feedway, just admiring all the history in the hand-planed, wood pegged beams that hold up the massive walls. This barn is almost a hundred years old, and looks ready for another hundred years. Then we turn off the lights and climb back into the warm car. It’s been another wonderful date night on the farm.

Midnight in the Barn

steam rises
animals exhale
a quiet breathing
sheep bleat
cows moan and
hay shuffles
as kine and swine
turn
shift
stretch
and recline
in
summer’s leftover
pleasures

A Proper Hunger

      For just a moment last Sunday, I glimpsed grace which floated into the small wooden sanctuary of my church and settled on the windowsills with a sigh and glimmer like dust motes in the morning sun. It lasted less than a minute, but its impact still resonates. Holy moments, when they occur, are worth thinking on. There was nothing special about the service other than it was the fifth Sunday of the month, so my friends from all the churches in the area were gathered in the same sanctuary. It’s a tradition I cherish. I had just finished leading worship and a visitor was explaining plans that are percolating for a youth center in town. As I listened to her, that’s when I felt it. Grace. I’m not sure if anyone else was aware of the sudden clarity that made the air in the sanctuary feel like a baptism in a clear mountain stream, but I was and it stayed with me the rest of the day.
     My heart may have been ready to feel that grace because I had spent the day before with a dear friend on a road trip to Bristol. Mary Lou and I went there to see the play “Bridge to Terabithia” and hear its author, Katherine Patterson talk. Mrs. Patterson said that we’ve “lost what is beautiful and joyful, and the best books for children help them look at the world with a sense of wonder that puts them in awe of ordinary things.” She said “a taste of wonder may well give the soul a proper hunger for the Bread of Life.”
     I taste wonder every day when I look out my windows at blue mountains against bluer sky, or drive to work down a valley road lined with white barns that glow pink in the early morning light, or lift my eyes from my desk to see a dogwood tree full of black birds and red berries. But, I taste it best when I am with friends and family who love God. I also glimpse God’s grace best in their company. On Sunday morning my plain clapboard church was full of plain folk worshipping, and worship is the language of wonder and grace.
     I looked up the word "worship" in my thesaurus and it gave me adoration, love, reverence, respect, devotion and prayer. On Sunday all of those things danced together so beautifully that the sanctuary glowed with it. My friends smiled and lifted their faces in joy and I knew. Light has come into the world and the darkness cannot overcome it.

Shopping

     Joe just came inside and a bit of the bitter cold air followed him through the door. But when he reached into his coat pockets he pulled out summer and fall: an orange, a grapefruit and an apple. Fresh fruit in the midst of a bitter cold snap. He hadn’t made a trip to the grocery store for it, but rather a quick trip to our root cellar. We always buy a bushel of oranges from the FFA kids and two bushels of apples from a local orchard. They provide our winter fruit. He asked me which piece of fruit I would rather have and I chose the orange. It was cold and firm. I peeled it slowly, savoring the sweet smell of sunshine and citrus. I ate it deliberately thinking about the boxes of fruit and other good things stored in our cellar.
     Joe and I drove to Staunton yesterday for a load of chicken feed and of course made a trip to the grocery store. It took us six hours to complete this odious chore and when we got home, I was more tired than if I had spent the day shoveling snow. I craved a nap. I appreciate my root cellar most on days like yesterday because it keeps me from having to drive for groceries more than two or three times a month. Putting up jars of beets and tomatoes and beans and pickles and peaches and relishes is time consuming, but pleasant, fulfilling work in a light filled kitchen. Walking up and down the aisles of a grocery store, overwhelmed by aisles of choices is drudgery to me. Why in the world would anyone need an entire aisle dedicated to cereal and another just for toilet paper? I hate shopping most particularly because of the overload of information I must sort through to find what I need. And just when I’ve memorized where things are in a store, the chain decides to rearrange things so I’ll be tempted to buy more as I search. I much prefer my tiny root cellar with its tidy rows of jars. Shall I have beans or beets? Whatever I choose, there’s only one variety to tempt me, so I can save my time for more valuable pursuits than reading labels.
     I often wonder if I would feel the same revulsion towards shopping if I lived where I could do it on a whim. If I could jump in my car and be at the mall within ten minutes would I spend more time there? Would I, like my mom, shop each day for what I planned to eat at night, thus spending no more than fifteen minutes on the whole operation? I don’t know. I only know that when a trip to town always includes a mandatory trip to the grocery store, the drug store, the feed store and any other store we should add to the list so we don’t have to come back soon, it wears me out just to think about it. I hate shopping but, maybe in a world gone mad over materialism, that’s a good thing.

It's a Dog's Life

     Four weeks ago Joe ran over one of the rabbit beagles. We had just come home from finishing chores in McDowell and it was already dark. He dropped me at the front gate and then pulled around the side of the house to park the truck out of the way. I had just opened the gate to go inside when I heard a shrill yelp. I ran around to the side of the house and found Cindy Dog lying at an awkward angle in the snow. Joe’s windows were up and so he didn’t even know he had hit her until he walked back up the snowy driveway. The best we could figure is that she slipped on the ice and slid under his back wheel as he drove past.

     I scooped the dog up and carried her gently to the house. She tried to bite me several times, so I knew that she was in a lot of pain. Our neighbor is a retired vet so I called him and he agreed to meet us at his house. Without an x-ray, he couldn’t be sure, but it appeared that she had cracked her pelvis. He said the best thing we could do for her was to keep her in a very small area for six weeks while the pelvis knitted back together.

     When we got home, I prepared a thick pad of papers and old towels for Cindy and set her up in the kitchen. She had to be carried outside several times a day to take care of her doggie business, but other than that she sprawled on the linoleum looking miserable. Then a friend offered a small cage, so we set her up in the shed outside, surrounded by blankets. That worked pretty well, because she could do her business on the dirt floor, so there was less stress to her hip from being toted outside, but I felt bad for the dog. It’s cold outside. I was sure she must be freezing. Within a week I had hauled her back in the kitchen, where she spent her days looking sad and miserable. I assumed it was because of her hip.

     Then, a funny thing happened. Joe set her outside so she could go to the bathroom and when he went back out, fifteen minutes later, Cindy Dog was gone. In spite of the fact that she couldn’t even walk five steps to her water bowl, the dog with the broken hip had smelled a rabbit and with her hunting pal, Sandy Dog, was off on a three-legged adventure.
     I searched frantically all day for my dog, sure that she had fallen and couldn’t get up. I even went out into the dark with my flashlight and scanned all the fields around the house figuring the light would reflect off her eyes. I was right. It did. I found her curled up in her doghouse. I carried my naughty beagle back to the kitchen and placed her on her snug bed. She stared at me with sad eyes asI held the bowl to her tired little lips and worried about the damage a jaunt in the woods must have done to her unhealed hip.
     The next day, when we set her out to go to the bathroom, Cindy disappeared again. And again, I found her at dark, curled in her dog house. The same thing happened each day for the next three days. The pitiful little dog in the kitchen, who spent her days curled in the corner making sorry suffering puppy eyes at us, would disappear as soon as she was set outside.

     Three days ago, we gave up and tied her outside. It turns out that’s what she wanted all along. When I go out to feed her, the dog who could barely wag her tail or stand up to drink from her bowl comes bounding out of her little house balancing on three legs and wagging her tail so hard it throws her sideways. She’s happy to be home. I’ve always felt bad about having to chain my dogs, but I’m seeing it in a new light. Given the choice of a warm bed inside with a view of four walls, or a chain and doghouse outside, this dog chooses the chain and the wide outdoors. I’m sure there’s a lesson in all this. If anybody figures it out, let me know.

A Holey Tradition

     When I was a little girl, my grandfather used to take his shotgun outside the old farmhouse and shoot a hole in the sky to help the arrival of the new year. Here in the mountains, I’ve discovered a new way to poke a hole so the year can come through. My friend Caroline is hosting her annual doughnut party and the holes we will make are sweet. Doughnuts at midnight are a longstanding tradition for her family and it’s one I’m delighted to share with her.
     Friends and family start to gather at Caroline’s hilltop house at about 8:00. Everyone arrives with at least two plates of finger food, but there’s not much time to stand around and eat. It’s doughnut cutting time. Caroline and her mother spent the day housecleaning and then mixing and kneading two dishpans full of doughnut dough. The square pans are over by the gas wall heater and the dough inside has already risen above the edges. Caroline lugs the first pan to the kitchen and her son-in-law grabs a softball sized hunk and with firm hands rolls the wooden pin over it until it’s less than a quarter inch thick. Then several women grab doughnut cutters and with deft twists of their wrists create the rings and holes. My mom and Dad have driven up from Richmond to celebrate with us, so she and I take charge of moving the floppy dough rings onto trays to rise. Then we carry the trays of doughnuts out to the other room and set them on every available surface . The other guests, who are laughing and gabbing, jump up to help place them. There are trays on top of the piano, trays on chairs, trays on the steps and even a tray on top of the TV which is on so we can watch the ball drop later. I estimate we’ve cut out over a hundred doughnuts.
     By the time we finish cutting out all of the doughnuts, the first ones are ready to fry. Caroline fills a large pot with about six inches of oil and when it’s hot enough, she begins dropping them into the sizzling pot, six doughnuts at a time. They bobble and twirl for three minutes on one side and then Caroline deftly flips them with a slotted spatula. Three more minutes and then, like pleasantly plump ladies emerging from a tanning bed, the winter white doughnuts are tantalizingly brown. The first four dozen are cooled and then shaken in a mixture of plain and powdered sugar. The next forty-eight take a bath in a maple syrup glaze and the last ones get a dusting of cinnamon and sugar. For the next hour, stainless steel bowls as big as washing tubs full of warm doughnuts make the rounds of the teen-aged card players and their aunts, uncles, mothers and fathers who are gathered in the living room. My son, who has a date later, has elected to come to this party with us first and he stays until he’s played enough Rook and eaten his fill of doughnuts. When he leaves, he wraps four more in a napkin and stuffs them in his coat pocket to give to his girlfriend later.

By midnight every guest is stuffed. “Just one more,” we say as the bowl makes another round. After all, this is the last sweet hurrah of two weeks of overeating. Tomorrow, we’ll diet.