With a little help, the first step was easy ~ March 19, 2001

David Heiller

Collin and I headed for the woods late on Saturday afternoon. A fogbank had lifted from my throbbing head. The beauty of the day was suddenly revealed.

Mid-March. Temperature forty degrees. Sun shining. Duh. It’s time to tap trees.

I couldn’t quite muster an exclamation point behind that last sentence, thanks to a nasty cold and the thought of all the work that lay ahead. I don’t have a spring in my step when I tap maple trees anymore.

Collin and David with Rosie, 2003 or 4.

But I did have a helper at least, a nephew, age eight, who is always on the prowl for projects like this. Usually they involve building things like forts, scooters, or the Taj Mahal. Tapping maple trees would do just fine for him, and that was just fine with me.

Why is it that a mundane job is so much more enjoyable with a kid around? I carried a hammer and bucket and one tap. Collin carried the brace and bit. Our dog, MacKenzie, went along. We walked single file on the snowshoe trail. We didn’t sink down, until we came to the first sugar maple on the edge of the woods. Then we stepped off the hard trail and into 30 inches of snow. But we waded through it, maybe even with a spring in our steps. This was an adventure, remember?

And we were eager to see if the sap was running. I was a little skeptical. “It’s a little early yet,” I had told Cindy in my best imitation of someone who knows what he is talking about. But Cindy insisted it would be flowing.

I drilled a hole into the tree, tapped in a metal spigot, and a few seconds later sap started trickling out. There are times when I don’t mind when Cindy is right. This was one of them.

Noah getting sap straight from the source,
when he helped out with the project.

I leaned over and slurped up some sap. Early sap is always the sweetest, and this was no exception. Collin had a taste too. “It’s sweet,” he said with a bit of surprise in his voice.

We walked back to the house, grabbed more buckets and taps, and hit half a dozen more trees before we ran out of time and had to head in.

“Well, the sap is running,” I said in a matter-of-fact voice when I saw Cindy in the kitchen. She just smiled.

MacKenzie, Collin, and I returned to the sugar bush the next morning carrying 10 more buckets. This time we wore snow shoes. Collin fit into a spare pair. They were almost as big as he was, but after a few tumbles he learned how to handle them. I could see that he was proud of himself. The snow had a thick crust on it that held us up. That made the job a lot more enjoyable. It was a heavenly morning, sun shining, temperatures in the twenties. We were on top of the snow, and on top of the world.

We came to a dead basswood tree. The snow underneath was littered with wood chips. The tree looked like someone had scooped deep trenches in it. Collin asked about it. I told him that a pileated woodpecker had done it. We both felt that the woodpecker must have eaten well.

After we finished tapping, Collin wanted to keep walking, so we hiked through the woods, MacKenzie by our side and very happy to be on top of the snow instead of up to her belly.

We talked about other hikes we had gone on. We talked about fishing, and exploring the river by his house. Important things. There really isn’t much in this world that is finer than walking in the woods with a nice kid and talking about things like that.

Collin: David's fishing buddy,
and maple syrup pal!

We walked back to the house and had dinner, then Collin and his family headed home.

I still had about 30 taps to put in, so Mack and I walked back out. The snow had softened, and the snowshoes no longer held me or the dog. I slogged through it, tapping tree after tree. Slow and steady wins the race when it comes to making maple syrup. You can’t rush Mother Nature.

That’s one thing I like about it. It’s a job with a nice, easy pace, something that the rest of my life doesn’t always have.

It is a lot of work, but satisfying when you smell the sugar in the air and taste the first syrup. It’s a time for the family to work together. Cindy and I do most of it. Our two teen-age kids will help gather and fire and boil and can too, although they aren’t exactly willing workers.

Collin hasn’t reached that lovely stage of life yet. That’s why I felt happy and a bit honored that he had helped me with the first leg. The first step is sometimes the hardest. He made it a lot easier. I have a hunch he feels the same way.