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The Refining of Maple Syrup...and Me |
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To order your own maple syrup or to request a price list, please e-mail us at storybkfrm@aol.com |
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Maple Syrup time's arrived again. Even though we've been a member of the Michigan Maple Syrup Association for eight years, we made maple syrup here at StoryBook Farm for the first time this past spring! If you've never tasted Michigan maple syrup you owe it to yourself and your family to order some today. (See side panel for ordering instructions!) Ed was busy, out in the frigid 20 degree weather and less, building a Sugar Shack to house our 'new' 1956 evaporator! It was fun to stand inside with the sticky steam dripping off the ceiling rafters. The mist was so thick at times that you couldn't see the person standing on the other side of the evaporator! The smell was so sweet, people jogging by could smell the maple syrup. As I watched our six-year-old, James, running in and out of the wooden frame, I think back to the last time we made maple syrup.
When we moved from
farmland to a wooded home in Western Michigan in 1991, my husband saw
the perfect opportunity to learn how to make maple syrup. It
didn't matter that our trees were mostly Red, not Sugar Maple.
It would just require a "little more" sap per batch of
boiling. I readily agreed, knowing it would be a great home
school learning experience. As usual, I was the one to get an
education! It was delicious and rewarding to actually enjoy our
own preservative-free syrup. Once we learned how to refine that
natural product so it didn't taste like the fire pit it was boiled
on! It was really fun to serve to guests! My dad, the
sugar addict, LOVED it!
Slipping over the dirty snow path into the woods to add wood one particularly cold, gray morning six years ago, I wasn't thinking about how delicious or how sweet, or how preservative-free the stuff was. Our makeshift cook stove held a 25-gallon square stainless steel pan with a simmering batch of sap over a steel box that held the wood fire. White buckets hung from trees all around the yard, overflowing with the night's offering. More white buckets, full of the sticky sap, stood all around the stove area, waiting to be boiled down. My thoughts were as black and sooty as the bark of the trees and the filthy, smoke-covered snow all around our outdoor kitchen. It wasn't enough that we had an active one-year old, I thought, or that I was trying to teach our 8th and 4th grade girls at home. Daily I was deluged with the work our handicapped son generated. Ed's work took him from home eleven hours per day or longer. Now I was pregnant again, for the 9th time and I felt too old, too tired, and too sorry for myself to handle any of it! The four miscarriages we'd experienced between our nine-year-old and toddler gave me many reasons to worry (as if I needed any). Yet, here I was with nothing better to do than stand outside on a damp, cold, February morning, tending a reluctant fire! As I periodically checked the sap boiling down that long day, and finally took the last gallon in the house to clean, filter and boil down to its final stage, I was struck by the lessons I could learn from this tedious, repetitious process of 'refinement'. Dirty floors called my name while unchecked papers and ironing threatened to burst through the closet door. Jars of syrup vied for counter space with the dirty dishes and pans, filters, ladles and testers.
"Tester"... I slowly realized that's exactly what I was going through: A TEST. How would I view this new life? How would I tell the news about this child to my extended family? Would I shrink in embarrassment for my already out-of-shape body, or being 10 years older that they when they stopped having children? Would I praise the Creator for this new life so silently forming within me? When my body ached from the awful weariness of being up three or four times each night with children, how would my countenance appear? Any further along in the refinement process? Or just like any other weary working woman who is simply overwhelmed with life? NO! That's not how I wanted to be! I truly wanted to echo Job, that wonderful Biblical character, who said during the severest of tests, "When He has refined me I shall come forth as gold." The tedium of the "everyday" is overwhelming in any job, any career. The sheer monotonous discipline of following through, and paying attention to details in your workplace or family is difficult, no matter if it involves normal or special children, home schooling or not, OR an overpowering boss! Being a part of the Family of God doesn't automatically make the job easier! If we are loved as children of God, He told us that there will be a refining process! We determine the outcome of the product... whether we rushed it, avoided it, or simply walked away from it!
When you're just hobby syrup producers like we are, there are so many hours in labor! Dragging buckets to and from the trees, gathering from neighbors, building and stoking the fire, skimming off impurities, filtering and boiling some more. Then testing, many times testing, when you're SURE it's ready! Nope, a few more minutes! Late in the evening when you just want to go to bed, there's always just 'a couple more minutes' until it's perfect. Canning it before it is perfect can only result in throwing spoiled syrup down the drain! Or, if you're not careful, you go just too far, and it's past syrup, to the 'sugar' stage, and you've messed up the whole batch! If you've ever visited a 'sugar shack', you quickly learn to stay out of the way when it's getting close to finishing off! Activity rises to a "boiling point"! There's a reason maple syrup is so expensive! In fact, comparing it to pure gold is probably not that far from fact! Did you know that it takes 30-40 gallons of sap to produce one gallon of syrup? Sometimes, when things seem to be going too fast, and you can't handle it, you can pour in a little fresh sap, and it slows down the finishing off stage... for a 'few' more minutes!
The refining process in me is painstakingly slow, as well. At the close of this past maple season, our oldest son turned 18. A huge, 6'4", 200 pound handsome boy, but with the mind and abilities of a preschooler and the speech of a baby. Each of his birthdays has refined us further as we watch for one little sign of progress for the year. Each holds an ache that grows with the steady revelation of his limitations and losses. This is the refining process for us. In September, we placed Ben into the care of others, in an adult foster care home. He's close to his school and comes home on weekends and occasional evenings during the week, but it has been a painful separation process for all of us; MORE refining! Sometimes the dark future screams at us with all its force, "You'll never make it! It's only getting worse!" Then, in humble desperation, I run to the Lord again. The cool, fresh, life-giving Word comes in and 'cools down' the fire and gives me some extra time to breathe deep, enjoy the moment, and take another look at the wonderful uniqueness of Ben and the gifts he brings to our family! When I relinquish my rights to self pity, fear and doubt, and trust in His perfect plan, and dwell on the Word of God and not the circumstances, I remember that there's an Experienced Refiner there who knows what He's doing. He won't push too far, and He doesn't make one mistake! The fire was stoked several times during that last pregnancy. I entered the hospital twice with kidney stones and finally surgery, then went back many more times to stop premature labor, and was on bed rest for several weeks. This process of refinement and personal purification always affects our families, doesn't it. While I recuperated, my 13-year-old carried a pretty heavy load. Watching her working around me, doing 'my' work, I told her how sorry I was about all the trouble and extra work for the family. She just smiled and said, "It's o.k., Mom. It makes us strong!" That is just one example of how we've watched her and her younger sister, especially allow the Refiner to work in them, rather than resist Him. Their brother, Ben, can take a lot of credit for that! I'm excited about their future. That daughter is now 'fully growed', working full time, and recently moved into a place of her very own. She has become a beautiful young woman, strong in the faith. They've learned at a much younger age than I to allow Him to do His work. To a control freak like their mother, that's pretty amazing!
That baby, James Matthew, is seven now! Now we live further north in Michigan, in our beautiful StoryBook Farm. Our yard is lined with about a dozen sugar maple trees, and there are many others within a few miles, so James carried buckets and wood, enjoying pancakes, and learning about the refining process for the first time. That process of refinement doesn't look all that difficult, in retrospect. His quick wit, and eager mind never cease to delight and enthrall us. What wonderful gifts these children are! I know the memories we make in this new sugar shack will bind us together. Okay, so I am a little sappy... It's my profession!
Now
that we have a 'real' evaporator, and a 'real' sugar shack, |
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