Sugaring season in Vermont is a short but sweet window in the last licks of winter—or, if you’re a glass half full person, the earliest days of spring. The daily temperatures are key for the gathering of maple sap: The nights must be cold enough to fre…
Sugaring season in Vermont is a short but sweet window in the last licks of winter—or, if you’re a glass half full person, the earliest days of spring. The daily temperatures are key for the gathering of maple sap: The nights must be cold enough to freeze and the days warm enough for the sap to run freely.
I am lucky enough to be married to a born-and-raised Vermonter, where visits to our friend’s sugar shack at the Bunker Farm in Putney, Vermont during these precious sugaring weeks are a highlight. The work of sugaring, like all things on a farm, is hard work and requires a great deal of love for the sport, as they say. Sleep schedules are thrown to the wind, other tasks of less immediate importance are saved for another day, because once the sap is running, it’s boiling time. For the hours spent standing near the evaporator in a maple-scented steam cloud, it's hard not to talk food, and dream up the things you’ll eat with the fresh syrup. Or talk about the great meals you’ve concocted with the syrup (or just drink some warm syrup directly from the evaporator).
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