“Make sure to bring some food,” Carl had said before we left to go sugaring up at his place. Apparently, he expected a crowd. We drove up with ziti for baking. The dirt roads were a little soft, but the real mud hadn’t started yet. It was Saturday, and it was beautiful after a freezing night, perfect for sugaring.
Abe and I started a fire in the cinder block firebox (called an arch by folks in the sugaring business—I don’t know why), and we tested the evaporating pan for leaks with a little water. Two feet of snow hung dangerously of the end of the house’s metal roof right over the drum I had dug into the snowbank the previous weekend.
It sure was a party. People came and went all day. Carl and Deb, Abe and Lisa, Matt and Hannah, Ooga, Yub-yub, and I, Matt’s mother, and another friend of Carl and Abe’s. In my busy life, sometimes so full of suffocating responsibilities, I have not enjoyed a real party in a long time. As I hauled buckets with new and old friends, I felt nourished in a way that I haven’t felt in too long a time. There may be no greater pleasure than many hands set to a common work.
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