Spring's Liquid Gold

When the sap is rising in our maple, I know it is rising in thousands of other trees as well, and my expectations rise with it - winter is coming to an end.  When the dripping sap slows down or stops, so has the advance of spring.

(Arnosky, Jim. Nearer Nature. Lothrop Lee & Shepard, 1996, p. 44.)

From as far back as I can remember, my family has marked the changing of the seasons, from winter to spring, by collecting the sap of maple trees; boiling it down to syrup.  It was not the thick, goopy, substance sold in stores, whose primary ingredient was extracted from corn.  What we created was precious.  Its main ingredients were time, effort, and patience.  The desired result was liquid gold!

The first stove that we used for boiling down the sap was an old, steel, 30 gallon drum; custom cut and welded with a hinged door - courtesy of the Gaylord High School shop class.  That original was upright and held one large pot to which Dad kept adding fresh sap.  The wood was cut to fit and split to provide the heat necessary that kept the sap at a rolling boil.  Later we improved upon that design with a barrel that laid horizontal and allowed us to use two large pans at the same time; doubling our output.

Our source for the sap were the maple trees along the fenceline surrounding our property; up on the hills north of the small community of Sparr, in the Great Lake State of Michigan.  Those same species of trees supplied our sap when we built a new house and moved to what we had simply called, “The Property;” just west of Sparr and nestled up against the backside of Sylvan Knob Ski Area.  The land behind our home and barnyard was full of maples, in addition to beech, ironwood, hemlock, basswood, and the skeletal remains of the American elm, recently plagued by the introduced Dutch Elm Disease.

We cut our own firewood that we used to not only heat our own home, but to boil the sap in the springtime as well.  Using the hills and gravity to our benefit, we’d roll dead and dried out logs down into the valleys where our Welsh pony, Hercules, would help skid them out to our hidden “Sugar Shack” tucked away in the grove of red pines behind our homestead.  There the hardwood logs were stacked until sap was gathered and boiling commenced.

By then we had gotten ahold of an old 2x5 foot, genuine sap boiler from Mr. Crandall, a teaching colleague of my Dad’s.  All it needed was a little soldering, and some elbow grease with a handful of steel wool, to increase our output.  We suspended the boiler upon cinder blocks that we carefully leveled within the shack.  The shack itself was framed out of cedar logs that were cut from the swampland belonging to the Elenz’s; back beyond the hills and just off Sparr Road - alongside the headwaters of the Pigeon River.  The metal roof was from the remnants of our pole barn that had been built by Bailey Sides (who had been our neighbor and who had also built our house).  The three walls were made of scrap slab wood, graciously given to us by the Meades from their sawmill on top of Sylvan Knob.  The slabs were nailed horizontally to the cedar posts and provided little gaps where you could peek out between the curves in the wood.  In other words, it was a community of gifts, from bartering and love, that helped to put our sugar camp together.  Even the metal sap buckets that hung on our trees were one gallon fruit cans salvaged from the school lunchroom; their individually tuned sounds providing a symphonic chorus in the woods with each fresh drop.

Karen & Becky Collecting Sap
Sparr Michigan April 1981

My Sisters And I At The Sugar Shack - 1981

Karen Next To The Sap Boiler In The Shack - 1981

The whole operation looked like something out of the 1800’s, but we didn’t know anything different, it worked for us, and nobody ever complained when you’d pour homemade syrup on a cup of freshly fallen snow scooped from outside, or onto a stack of hot pancakes while the winds blew down out of the north.

These are just some of my syruping memories that run in conjunction with our family’s history.  There are more stories and descriptions of course, that involve Mom finishing the boiling up in the house in order to properly can it, the mighty swings and broken ax handles, jars of syrup used as Christmas gifts for family members, or evening conversations at the shack while sitting on a stump and surrounded by woodsmoke.

The good news is that those memories that were made, and the experiences my sisters and I had with our parents in the Northwoods, made an impact.  Perhaps that’s why I’ve gotten back into it now as an adult.  It’s part of my heritage, and in my blood.  Maple syrup, that sweet liquid gold of spring!

See you along The Way…

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Back In The Red Pine Grove - Sparr 2009

Owned By Someone Else Now
The Sugar Shack Still Stands
Showing My Kids In 2009 (Jodi & Todd)

A Former Maple Valley Now Grown Into A Tunnel

PICTURES & VIDEOS FROM SYRUPING

2021

Packing A Trail To The Maple Trees
Along The Old Fence Line At School
On The Illinois-Wisconsin Stateline

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF THE SUGARING SET-UP:

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Cindy Helping To Filter Out The
Sugar Sand Before Canning The Syrup

The First Year's Batch

2022

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF TAPPING TREES:

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Taste Testing The Syrup
In My "Beautiful Downtown Sparr" Shirt!
(As it States, "The Center Of The Universe")

Ran A Little More Hot Than Usual

Our Second Year's Batch

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Just Across The Stateline Into Wisconsin
Dad's Still Doing A Bit Of Syruping As Well
From Trees In Their Backyard

Mom & Dad Enjoying a Little Campfire

Dad Used His Classic Coleman Stove
To Boil Down Several Pints

What Makes The Process Worth It

No Matter Where You Are:

A Circus Of Hounds In The Dogwood

There isn’t a cloud in the sky, unless you count the smoke rising from my smoldering fire.  It’s the reciprocal of stars you see screaming down on you in the middle of the night; in the middle of nowhere.  On this day, in lieu of a nighttime celestial setting, it’s the color of blue that makes a lasting impression as the sun flexes its muscles.  Winter is losing its grip and it knows time is running thin.

I’m surrounded by frozen swampland, thick with 8 foot high red-osier dogwood.  The bark of the branches facing the sun is a deep, dark, rich-red color.  It’s a beautiful setting interlaced with clumps of dried grasses from last season and lingering patches of snow from a storm several nights ago.

The Native Red-Osier Dogwood

The dogwood is native to North America.  My firewood is not.  It too has a rich, reddish color deep within its tightly ringed, wood fibers that can easily be seen when it’s cut or split.  I used dead and dried branches of the buckthorn tree to cook a lunch in my iron skillet for my dog Kora and me.  I figure that I might as well put the nuisance tree to good use.

The Core Of The Buckthorn Tree

Making A Fire From Flint & Steel

Occasionally, back to the north, I can hear the mechanical whine of four wheelers or ice augers.  Ice fisherman at a nearby lake are out in full force as their season nears its end.  I counted a total of 75-80 cars and trucks, some in the small parking lot with most lined up and down along the country road.  It was a circus-like atmosphere when I walked amongst the city of ice shanties and into my secluded setting of red-osier dogwood.  Off and on I can also hear a plane overhead or a train in the distance.  Crows caw and chickadees call their own name, repeating the last syllable of “dee” several times afterwards.

Following my second cup of hot cocoa, I shed my thick coat and settled in to write in my journal.  Kora was curling up on her blanket next to me, when suddenly I could hear something running towards us.  No sooner did I attempt to focus in through the thick brush when a turkey ran through our camp less than 15 feet from our fire.  Kora stared off after the velociraptor type bird and then looked up at me as if to say, “What was that all about?”

I threw a couple more logs of buckthorn on the fire, grabbed my pencil and journal, and once again sat down on my foam pad.  It was then that I locked into the distant baying of hounds that I had begun to hear several minutes beforehand.  I had figured that it was dogs from a nearby kennel, aroused by their owner feeding them or something akin to that.  But now the deep throated, and excited bays, seemed to grow louder.  In fact, they seemed to be very close and in hot pursuit of something just outside of my line of vision.  The first dog went by so quickly that I only caught a glimpse of it through the brush.  It was following a trail close to the line made by the turkey.  The second, a treeing walker hound marked much like a long legged beagle, ran right by us; not even giving my dog Kora the time of day.

I rose, grabbed Kora’s leash, and snapped it onto her collar.  I knew that she had no intent of following these crazy dogs, but I didn’t know if the rest of the pack would lay into her once they saw or smelled her.  Another dog, this time a redbone hound of short, tawny-colored hair, came straight at us, literally hopped over our fire, and continued baying after whatever the pack was chasing.  I could see they each had electronic trackers attached to their collars.

I needn’t have worried about the pack of hounds messing with my dog.  They were on a focused mission that was darn near impressive, to say the least, and nothing seemed to deter their pursuit of the unknown quarry.  Their baying continued out in a wide circle close to the shoreline of the lake and then back around.  On their second lap, they swung about 30 feet out from us, and I was cognizant enough to record some of their ruckus.

CLICK BELOW FOR A VIDEO OF THE BAYING HOUNDS:

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I think there may have been a couple more dogs besides the 3 or 4 that I saw, each with their own pitch.  After the second lap I heard the dogs double back, heading towards the origin of their romp, and then after a single gunshot, all was quiet.  I don’t know that anything is in season right now other than cotton-tailed rabbits or coyotes.  Maybe it was a Sunday afternoon run for the pups, and the gunshot was the sad signal that playtime was over.  Regardless, the crazy circus had ended and quiet once again permeated the swamp, although it was some time before the birds resumed their calls to each other.

Kora’s blanket is now saturated and a moat of melted snow now surrounds my once proud cooking fire.  I’ll take the time to pack up and hike back to the lake in the next few minutes.  It was a good afternoon to get outdoors.  Spring isn’t too far away and the tree sap will begin to flow.  One trimester remains at school, basketball season is coming to an end, and my running miles are beginning to ramp up.  But today, this day, was a much needed day.  In the hidden recesses of the red-osier dogwood, and warmed by both the sun and burning buckthorn, Kora and I survived the hounds of the swamp while thoroughly enjoying the circus-like atmosphere.

See you along The Way…

Simply Put

Simply put, it was a hike in the woods.  I had the day off from school and the morning free to get outside.  I didn’t need anything else other than that to motivate me.  The ground held a thin layer of snow, the air temperature was in the mid 20’s, and the skies were overcast and gray; although by the afternoon they could have been classified as partly cloudy.

My destination was familiar; as familiar as any place you have consistently visited over many years.  It was the kind of place that becomes chronicled in your memory bank once its existence is known.  I have many locations like that; whereabouts lodged in my mind that occasionally come to the forefront at seemingly random times.  Often it’s when I least expect it, but need it most.

I can remember teaching a lesson at school decades ago.  I was talking to my students, and writing something on the whiteboard, while at the same moment in my mind, I was wading and looking at a specific bend in a blue ribbon trout stream up in Northern Michigan.  I was engaged with my class, I knew what I was saying, and yet simultaneously I was trying to read the currents of the water to figure out where I should pitch my lure.  Some might categorize this as daydreaming, or if they gave me credit, perhaps they’d say I was multitasking.  But it was deeper than that, or at least different.  While fully engaged in one situation, I was mentally engaged in another.  Simply put, it was transcendental.

Since that moment in my classroom, I’ve mentally camped, hiked, fished, snowshoed, and cooked-out thousands of times; often while taking part in a different activity.  It’s allowed me to partake in an out-of-body visit to my most memorable destinations that are scattered throughout the Northland.  Simply put, it’s these mental trips that help bridge the gap between now and the times when I can actually get there in person.

With that being said, the familiar destination I was hiking to that particular winter morning was not as important as who I was going out with.  My Dad was joining me.  In true dad fashion, he often walks the streets of his neighborhood, the aisles of the supermarket with my Mom, or the trails of a local preserve so he can be in the shape needed to partake in such an excursion.  At 81 ½ now, he’s still got it.  Simply put, our hike gave him an excuse (as if he needed one) to put some gear together in his pack; equipment to carry on his back to add to our outing.

He arrived at our house before 9:00 that morning, and as he parked his car, he texted Mom that he was here safe and sound.  I said goodbye to my wife Cindy, and then we loaded our packs and my dog Kora into the old Silver Jeep.  We drove, and talked, and after reaching the dead end road where we would park the vehicle, set off with packs on our back and walking sticks in our hand.  An open vista, overlooking a wide valley, is where we started before descending into a valley and the forested bottomlands of a frozen river.

The total round trip distance was something like three and a quarter miles.  We set up a day camp, gathered firewood, and on a high bank overlooking the river, made a fire.  I had prepared all of the typical breakfast food ahead of time, and hauled in my iron skillet to cook it.  Classic!  Although it wasn’t any more classic than sitting around the fire afterwards, drinking hot chocolate, and talking about life.

I’m continually amazed, and often wonder, how he was able to be the Dad he was when his own Dad had died when he was so young.  In addition to his Mom (my Grandma), who was it that helped to guide and mold him into the person that he is?  What experiences did he have, and what men stepped up to model how life was to be lived?

Questions like that were the centerpoint of our discussion.  Some of the stories were familiar.  Some of the stories were new.  I need to sit, hear them again, and write them down so that I don’t forget them. They’re important.  Not just in how he grew up, but for me personally; the first generation on the flip-side of a difficult circumstance.  It will be worthy of a journal entry or blog post in the future.  It’s where the boot meets the trail so to speak, when his story becomes my history.

After burning through the collected hickory logs, we put out our fire, donned our packs, and together with Kora, hiked on out.  It was about that time that the skies became partly cloudy, and the sun glistened off the prairie that’s on the backside of the woods that hugs the river.  It was an awesome setting for a memorable experience.  Simply put, it’s another outing chronicled in my memory bank where I can easily access it, and revisit it as often as I like, while doing something else.  At least until we can actually get out into the woods again.

See you along The Way…

Dad Hiking Through A Marsh (Mon: 1-17-22)

Starting A Fire From Flint & Steel

The Dursten Cup Was A Gift From Todd & Emeris
For Christmas - The Spoon Is From Africa

Kora & Dad Enjoying Each Other's Company
And The View Of The Woods

The Remains Of A Green Ash Tree
And Trails Left Behind By The Green Ash Borer

The Hike Out Together