One day at the sugar shack that I won't forget
I have this stark memory of being six years old, sitting on
the school bus, ready to go home. Something catches my eye through the
window on my right. I look out and see my mom. What?! Why on earth would
my mom be here at school when I am taking the bus home?
As the bus driver turns on the engine, my mom starts miming frantically. First front crawl, then breaststroke. She looks like a fish out of water (literally), and then it hits me. Swimming lessons! I am not supposed to take the bus on Wednesdays, because my mom picks me up and takes me to swimming lessons. My face hot with embarrassment, I spring into action and hop off the bus, just before it pulls away.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: I am forgetful. There is no getting around it – over the course of my life I have proven time and again that no matter how often I am reminded, if it is out of my normal routine, I will forget. I’m sure that my mom told me three times that morning. “Don’t take the bus home after school: you have swimming lessons.”
Had she written it on my forehead, or on the side of the bus, sure, I would have clued in. Instead, I hopped on the bus to go home, just like every other school day. Completely oblivious.
Through the years, I have developed coping mechanisms to hide this affliction. I leave notes in my shoes, put objects in front of the door and write myself emails. These things work, to a moderate degree. Unfortunately, the mechanism that sticks the best – the one thing that is absolutely foolproof - is making a mistake. As my mom will attest, I never forgot a swimming lesson from that awkward-charades-on-the-side-of-the-road day forward.
---
Aside from the Canadian curling championships, there is only one thing on my mind at the end of February and for most of March: Maple syrup.
The backyard sugar shack that I run with my Dad started as a one-tree show five years ago. The end result of our first year of production – a runny, maple-tasting liquid – was not a selling point for continuation. Nor was the process: cooking down 40 litres of sap over the stove turned the house into a sauna. It may have been good for our skin, but the cupboards and walls were not happy.
Making maple syrup is, in theory, quite a basic thing. Gather sap from maple trees as it runs from root to branch for about three weeks in late winter. Boil it for a really long time until you’re left with sweet, thick syrup. Put it in a jar and enjoy all year long.
Our foray into maple syrup production was motivated by this very perception of ease. There are 25 mature trees on my Dad’s property, and the local hardware store sold all of the equipment we needed. Why not?
Over the years we have gradually expanded production, with 24 trees now on the go. In a good year, this will yield 960 litres of sap, which will cook down to 24 litres of syrup. We got primitive, building a fire pit in the yard to boil the sap outside. This not only saves on fuel costs and eliminates in-house condensation, but leaves a lovely roasted marshmallow scent on anyone who stops by to help.
We have mastered the art of when to tap (this involves watching the thermometer) and bought a refractometer, enabling precise measurement of the sugar content, which means thick, crawl-out-of-the-jar syrup. As lessons are learned, new systems are put in place and each year we pat ourselves on the back, saying, “We finally got it right.” At the end of each season, we sit back and marvel at the bottles of sweet goodness that we worked hard to produce, using little more than elbow grease, firewood and the trees out back. It’s a magical feeling.
And then there was the crash of 2010.
Left alone at the sugar shack one weekend, I was in charge of the entire operation. To be clear, the act of solo maple syrup production is not easy; it requires memory and multi-tasking. The fire has to be stoked, firewood split, buckets of sap checked and emptied frequently on a warm day. Most importantly, though, the sap, whose sugar content rises as the water evaporates, has to be monitored and topped up.
This is precisely where the making of syrup became a challenge for me. The multitude of distractions and tasks preyed on my weakness, enticing me to forget.
I knew that things had gone sour when I smelled sweet, burnt candy. I don’t remember what I had been doing, but I was away from the fire long enough for disaster to strike. The sap had gotten very concentrated over the heat of the fire, and gone past the stage of syrup, foaming over the sides and becoming a massive candied explosion. By the time I reached the fire pit, there was nothing I could do. It was a mess.
I lost three litres of maple syrup that day, which represented 25% of our total harvest that year. I ruined a cooking pan, learning that scrubbing burnt sugar off of stainless steel is virtually impossible. Though I am familiar with the sting of having forgotten something important, I suffered second-degree burns to my pride.
But you know what? There is a bright side to my forgetful maple syrup mishap: it won’t happen again.
Born and raised in Kingston, Jen Valberg is co-owner of Fat Chance Farmstead. When she's not in the garden, you can find her in the kitchen, behind the sewing machine or making noise on the piano.
As the bus driver turns on the engine, my mom starts miming frantically. First front crawl, then breaststroke. She looks like a fish out of water (literally), and then it hits me. Swimming lessons! I am not supposed to take the bus on Wednesdays, because my mom picks me up and takes me to swimming lessons. My face hot with embarrassment, I spring into action and hop off the bus, just before it pulls away.
I learned a valuable lesson that day: I am forgetful. There is no getting around it – over the course of my life I have proven time and again that no matter how often I am reminded, if it is out of my normal routine, I will forget. I’m sure that my mom told me three times that morning. “Don’t take the bus home after school: you have swimming lessons.”
Had she written it on my forehead, or on the side of the bus, sure, I would have clued in. Instead, I hopped on the bus to go home, just like every other school day. Completely oblivious.
Through the years, I have developed coping mechanisms to hide this affliction. I leave notes in my shoes, put objects in front of the door and write myself emails. These things work, to a moderate degree. Unfortunately, the mechanism that sticks the best – the one thing that is absolutely foolproof - is making a mistake. As my mom will attest, I never forgot a swimming lesson from that awkward-charades-on-the-side-of-the-road day forward.
---
Aside from the Canadian curling championships, there is only one thing on my mind at the end of February and for most of March: Maple syrup.
The backyard sugar shack that I run with my Dad started as a one-tree show five years ago. The end result of our first year of production – a runny, maple-tasting liquid – was not a selling point for continuation. Nor was the process: cooking down 40 litres of sap over the stove turned the house into a sauna. It may have been good for our skin, but the cupboards and walls were not happy.
Making maple syrup is, in theory, quite a basic thing. Gather sap from maple trees as it runs from root to branch for about three weeks in late winter. Boil it for a really long time until you’re left with sweet, thick syrup. Put it in a jar and enjoy all year long.
Our foray into maple syrup production was motivated by this very perception of ease. There are 25 mature trees on my Dad’s property, and the local hardware store sold all of the equipment we needed. Why not?
Over the years we have gradually expanded production, with 24 trees now on the go. In a good year, this will yield 960 litres of sap, which will cook down to 24 litres of syrup. We got primitive, building a fire pit in the yard to boil the sap outside. This not only saves on fuel costs and eliminates in-house condensation, but leaves a lovely roasted marshmallow scent on anyone who stops by to help.
We have mastered the art of when to tap (this involves watching the thermometer) and bought a refractometer, enabling precise measurement of the sugar content, which means thick, crawl-out-of-the-jar syrup. As lessons are learned, new systems are put in place and each year we pat ourselves on the back, saying, “We finally got it right.” At the end of each season, we sit back and marvel at the bottles of sweet goodness that we worked hard to produce, using little more than elbow grease, firewood and the trees out back. It’s a magical feeling.
And then there was the crash of 2010.
Left alone at the sugar shack one weekend, I was in charge of the entire operation. To be clear, the act of solo maple syrup production is not easy; it requires memory and multi-tasking. The fire has to be stoked, firewood split, buckets of sap checked and emptied frequently on a warm day. Most importantly, though, the sap, whose sugar content rises as the water evaporates, has to be monitored and topped up.
This is precisely where the making of syrup became a challenge for me. The multitude of distractions and tasks preyed on my weakness, enticing me to forget.
I knew that things had gone sour when I smelled sweet, burnt candy. I don’t remember what I had been doing, but I was away from the fire long enough for disaster to strike. The sap had gotten very concentrated over the heat of the fire, and gone past the stage of syrup, foaming over the sides and becoming a massive candied explosion. By the time I reached the fire pit, there was nothing I could do. It was a mess.
I lost three litres of maple syrup that day, which represented 25% of our total harvest that year. I ruined a cooking pan, learning that scrubbing burnt sugar off of stainless steel is virtually impossible. Though I am familiar with the sting of having forgotten something important, I suffered second-degree burns to my pride.
But you know what? There is a bright side to my forgetful maple syrup mishap: it won’t happen again.
Born and raised in Kingston, Jen Valberg is co-owner of Fat Chance Farmstead. When she's not in the garden, you can find her in the kitchen, behind the sewing machine or making noise on the piano.
