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Farmer-At-A-Glance
Laura Rickard recently
graduated from Brown University with a degree
in environmental studies. She is currently in
the middle of a 12-month farm/garden internship
at North Country School/Camp Treetops in Lake
Placid, New York. For more information on North
Country School, visit http://nct.org. |
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April,
2005. I once tried to explain maple syrup
to my Ecuadorian host parents. Thinking myself the “ambassador
to New England,” I had wrapped a few plastic jugs of
Vermont Fancy in several t-shirts lining the bottom of my
backpack. This was the first week of a four month-long stint
studying comparative ecology—I lacked the vocabulary
to explain a flat tire, let alone a Northern hemisphere biological
process. So I did my best, pointed to the only tree in their
tropical front yard (avocado), and strung a few haphazard
Spanish phrases together. From then on, the miel de árbol
(their phrase, meaning tree honey) was rationed stringently
by my mamá, who would bring out a tiny pitcher of syrup
along with the papaya juice only on exceptionally special
mornings. The whole family developed a taste for it and unabashedly
dropped hints that I should whip up a batch of pankekes for
them. In the land of mangoes and passion fruit, I had wanted
to introduce my new family to the nectar of the Northern hardwoods.
I considered this cultural exchange a success.
And so sugaring season has just recently ended here in the
North Country. A few days ago we had a particularly brisk
morning, and I walked through the bush watching the crowns
of the sugar maples stretch their limbs skyward. I heard the
hollow knocking of a pileated woodpecker, later spotting his
red cap flashing in and out of a gnarled snag. I could stop
walking, close my eyes, tune my ears to the steady patter
of sap dripping into aluminum buckets…and for one transcendental
moment, there would be no seedlings to water, soil to mix,
GREs to study for, animals to feed, children to teach, compost
to shovel. There would be just this collection of trees framed
against blue sky, the snow-scraped nose of Algonquin Mountain
peeking in. Luckily, 4th graders are good for interrupting
daydreaming interns. I stopped gazing lovingly at the trees
and organized my crew.
I had recruited a large, rather boisterous crew to collect
sap from the 300+ buckets scattered in the several acres between
the sugar shack and Round Lake. Children flitted through the
woods like small birds. Others shuffled slowly towards the
collecting tank, dragging their sloshing sap buckets awkwardly
between their legs with two arms. Most everyone had a saturated
pant leg or jacket sleeve. I looked as if I had wet my Carhartts,
but I couldn’t have been happier. The sun was shining,
the sap was flowing, and our 400-gallon collecting tank was
brimming full.
I remember John (my boss) telling me, “There’s
something magical about sugaring when children are involved.”
The magic is palpable: Libby’s 7th graders, running
from bucket to bucket with hydrometers, measuring Brix level
as part of a math lesson on percentages. A 4th grader scoops
a shiny beetle out of a sap bucket for further inspection.
Two students man the sap pans, skimming foam off the boiling
liquid. Jeremy, our maintenance guru, stokes the fire underneath
the evaporator while 7 year-old Alex passes him red pine logs.
And, perhaps, the most magical occurrence of all: the tree
honey itself, a marvelous solution of sucrose and glucose
that, when boiled, renders the sugar shack a steamy lair of
intoxicating fumes. As the official “canner,”
I hand out Dixie cup samples to everyone after each “draw”
from the syrup pan. When boiling days keep us in the sugar
shack far past the lunch bell, we sneak extra samples for
our coffee. Jeremy seasons his hard-boiled egg with sap, and
John even dunks his grilled cheese in syrup. I, however, prefer
our medium amber straight up.
Lugging several quarts of syrup from suburban Connecticut
to south of the equator seemed an arduous task at the time.
Little did I understand the work involved in producing that
syrup! The process began in earnest back in August, when campers
helped split and stack several cords of firewood. The school
kids took over in September, transforming a pile of telephone
pole-sized red pines into 3-foot logs. We let the wood dry
out over the winter, sheltered in the sugar shack from the
tall drifts of snow. By the last week in March, with the help
of students, we drilled tap holes and hung buckets from spiles.
To date, the children have hand-carried more than half-a-ton
of sap from trees to collecting points, not to mention the
boiling, skimming, filtering, and grading they have also been
part of. We have filled, washed, polished, and labeled the
50 gallons of syrup produced. Just thinking about all that
work makes me feel justified in haranguing any student who
leaves a puddle of untouched syrup on his breakfast plate.
If I have any regrets about being involved so intensely in
the sugaring process, it is only that I have been missing
other excitement around the farm. For months, it seemed our
most newsworthy event was the free hat included in our Johnny’s
seed order…and now I am pulled in myriad directions.
In the greenhouse, there are my babies—these, the delicate
cotyledons of lettuce, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, cabbage,
broccoli, spinach, and onions. When the fire dies down in
the sugar shack, I run down to water the seedlings, transplant
the 3/4-inch blocks, and mix together more potting soil. If
there’s time, I’ll visit the barnyard, too. I
owe a hello to the nine newest members of the sheep flock,
just old enough to nurse and nap in the straw next to their
mothers. 
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