sweetest season
This past weekend our family was planning on doing our first batch of maple syrup for the season. With the plan set, we invited my parents. Soon, I invited a friend and her little boy. My husband informed me he invited a few work friends to help chop wood and work the fire. Over dinner Friday night, another friend invited. By Sunday, we had more than 30 people at our house.
It was perfect. I threw on a pot of soup and whipped up a salad, II didn’t have enough paper plates, bowls or even silverware. But it is all well, things wash up quick and no one was afraid to grab some soap and get what they needed. What came together was community in the truest sense of a sap boil.
Historically the “Sugaring Off” is a social and cultural tradition that marks the end of the winter in this labor-intense chore turning it into a community celebration! That maple syrup you enjoy on your pancakes is a labor of love. My boys had spent the previous two weeks hauling buckets every day after school to collect the total 55 gallons of sap, which will yield just over one gallon of syrup. That one gallon of syrup took us 12 hours of sugaring off. A sap boil fosters community in its truest sense of “many hands make light work”
As a social tradition it connects people to the land. It connects us to the rhythms of nature's flow and is the “sweetest season”. This past Sunday was our second false spring with 55 degree temperatures and we all were in high-spirit! I actually left the weekend with a sunburn.
Winter is an isolating season and a sap boil brings people out of their homes and into the woods for a day spent outside. Children of all ages run and play, from climbing trees to finding frogs (yes, it was that warm- one friend peaked out of his slumber). This unstructured day provides opportunities for kids to create, laugh and be joyful as only an early warm day can do. Again, “many hands make light work”, the children took care of one another which left adults to their own peace. The older folk found communion around the fire with nothing but time and literally watching water boil. With full bellies and content children we are fff for a walk in the woods, or along the lake shore, camaraderie is built. As there is chatter that we are losing community, maybe all we need is a sap boil to come together in laughter, kinship and the simple joys of life.
This Week’s A Door Within:
How can I encourage community?
Where do I find kinship?
What is a tradition that brings my people together?
