It was a cold Easter weekend back in the mid-1960s when we traipsed along after Uncle Lawrence to his sugar shack to see first-hand how he had made the delicious syrup we had poured on our pancakes for breakfast.
My family’s visits to my Aunt Harriet and Uncle Lawrence’s home in Bradford County, located on the New York state line, were made almost yearly during the Easter season.
A big part of my memories was walking through the rural farm and forest areas of East Smithfield, where farm families still drank and sold their own milk and lumber mill owners like my uncle still tapped and boiled maple syrup from their own trees.
Those memories came flooding back to me a few weeks ago when I visited Brian Pfister’s property in Foster Township to see and write about his maple syrup production, which he does as a hobby. Pfister doesn’t produce his maple syrup for professional distribution, but does provide some of the product to nearby Sprague’s Maple Farm in Portville, N.Y.
Sprague’s, which is one of the larger maple syrup producers in the Twin Tiers, is staging its Maple in the Mountains event 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. today and Sunday, as well as the same time every weekend through the end of this month, weather permitting, on the Obi-Portville Road property. The event is expected to include free tapping demonstrations, wagon rides and sugar house tours.
During the last two weekends of the month, in observation of Maple Syrup weekend in the state, Sprague’s also expects to have samples of fresh made maple cake donuts and sugar on the snow.
The sugar on the snow brought back specific memories of my visits to Uncle Lawrence’s sugar shack in the woods behind his house. It was really nothing more than a small clapboard structure with an old cast-iron wood stove plunked down in the middle of a dark room. On top of the stove were a couple old 5-gallon pots, stained black from years of wood smoke created by maple and oak scraps. The wood burned in the stove all day until the sap in the pots boiled down into clear, golden brown syrup.
As we approached the shack, the smell of smoke from the stove’s chimney was fragrant in the cold March air. My brothers, sisters, cousins and I took turns stepping into the windowless shed to see the small operation that required the hauling of buckets of sap by my uncle from nearby trees. Once inside, he gingerly poured the clear liquid into the pots.
For all of his efforts, Uncle Lawrence likely netted a few gallons of syrup each season, which his family valued as their breakfast gold throughout much of the year.
The treasure we children received on those cold afternoons came when my uncle gave each of us a little of the finished product in a small container to pour on a fresh patch of clean snow still clinging to the ground.
After pouring it on the snow, we were instructed to pick up the clump of frozen maple sugar and eat it quickly before it melted. It was better than any ice cream I had tasted in my life. And it has left a lifetime of cherished memories whenever I hear about events at Sprague’s or even smell outdoor smoke from wood stoves on cold spring days.
Maple sugarin’, which is unique to this part of the country, is an experience that children of all ages will undoubtedly enjoy — and remember.
(Email Kate Day Sager at kates_oth@gmail.com)
