Do you remember making maple syrup with a team of horses and a mud (stone) boat in the cold, damp and muddy days of February and March?

I recall coming home from school to find a note on the kitchen table from Mom telling us what to do before we joined them out in the sugar camp far out in the side woods. Our instructions might tell us to peel potatoes for supper or advise us children what snacks were available. (Home made bread with freshly churned butter was our favorite.)

Syrup making usually started in late February before it was really warm--just temptingly sunny with highs in the 40's. We rushed to change into old clothes and always needed boots and coats at this chilly, muddy time of the year.

Once out in the camp "shelter," we could warm our hands over the steam evaporating over the huge sap pans, but our feet were almost always cold. We stamped them awake on the packed ground in front of the fire.

Sometimes, we helped stir or skim the boiling sap; but often we took turns riding the "stone boat" (a contraption made of wood and on skids to slide smoothly over snow or spongy mud). This was pulled by horses through the woods to retrieve and dump the sap buckets into two or three barrels on the sled-like boat. The men had to cut wood to keep the fire going at a good heat--but not too hot or it would scorch the sweet sap as it thickened.

When we came back from a trip of gathering, we could warm up near the steaming pans of syrup in various stages of boil-down. Friend Dorothy remembers this whole thing as a lark! I don't! I will not forget losing boots and sometimes shoes in the sticky, soft earth as we youngsters hurriedly traipsed over to each tree to get the sap bucket to empty into the waiting barrels. (Sometimes we sank down several slippery inches into the wet ground.)

Cousin Eunice recalls that her Mom often did "finishing off" in the house on her wood stove. My, how fragrant that would have been.

Today, I know several Amish families in Holmes County who use similar means of making this delectable syrup. One sugar camp has 800-900 sweet maple trees, some with two or three taps each. From this, they hope to make 200 or 300 gallons of syrup, which will sell for $25 a gallon (1999 price). This particular Amish farm uses recycled buckets and said they thought the season would end about March 25. (1999 season) "When the trees begin to break bud, the sap gets dark," they explained.

One year on a Saturday, two friends of The Wilderness Center in Stark County boiled a small amount of sap in an iron kettle over an open fire as a demonstration. It took both the naturalist and his helper to do the job of both boiling and keeping the visiting youngsters out of the fire. These experts advised me that in a dry winter there will not be much sap. "Muggy, rainy days with the ground still frozen at night are best," they noted.

Once I visited an old-fashioned sugar camp in the Burbank/West Salem area. They tapped about 100 trees and collected sap with tractor, trailer and big, round drums. They divided the sweet concoction among friends and family helpers but did not retail it. "It takes about 40 gallons of sap to boil down to one gallon of finished syrup," they advised.

Another farm in that region, usually taps from 800 to 1,000 trees, but have their sugar camp rigged up so it is not as labor intensive as in the old days. Instead of the old-fashioned spiles and tin buckets, they connect all the tapped trees with soft tubing, which runs to a low spot in the woods and on to a holding tank. Their evaporator is oil-fired and is in their farm sheds. "Ohio is third in maple syrup production and makes about 100,000 gallons a year. It's usually a whole family operation."

Younger brother remembers that we did sell several gallons, but what I reminisce about, is how good this luscious liquid tasted on our sour buckwheat pancakes at breakfast.

If you want a real taste treat, invest in a bit of this superb richness each spring. But don't forget what a lot of work it is! If you've ever tramped through the slush on wintery and spring excursions for this unmatched flavor, you know that this special sweetness is worth every penny the hard-working farmers charge. Right?


© Lucinda Rickett Strine March 1996, 1999

Lucinda Rickett Strine is a graduate of Ashland College and retired in 1992 from 32 years as a school teacher. From 1976-81 she was Mt. Eaton correspendent for THE DAILY RECORD at Wooster. She also wrote a Christian Book Review column for BARGAIN HUNTER for several years, followed by a "This and That" column. With the support of the Mt. Eaton Historical Society, she authored a 121-page book, PAINT TOWNSHIP MT EATON OHIO published by Carlisle Printing in 2003. She has had three books containing one of her stories published as a free-lancer and especially enjoys writing about her happy childhood on the farm homestead outside the tiny village of Nova, Ohio. Presently she writes news for BARGAIN HUNTER and news, nostalgia, and of God's beauty in Nature for FIRELANDS FARMER.

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