Maple Rituals
The beginning of another year and thoughts about the little ways we mark time
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We tapped our maple trees yesterday.
For some of you, this will evoke pleasant thoughts and memories. Some of you reading this have been here for a while and might remember me writing about tapping my maple trees to make syrup over the years. A handful of you reading this have even tasted my homemade syrup.
But the readership of this newsletter has also grown much bigger over the last year, so for many of you, the notion of making backyard maple syrup is novel.
I texted a photo of my kids helping me install the taps to some of my family, and my mom responded with “Wow! Already?”
Maple season is a big deal in our house, but it’s always humbling to realize that so many people enjoy following along with our process as I share it in this newsletter and on social media.
I wasn’t sure if it was even worth sharing the start of this process in today’s newsletter as nothing much has happened yet. I collected about four gallons of raw sap yesterday, and in a few days, I’ll light a fire and begin the first boil. But the first few days are usually uneventful.
Still, I realize that for some of you, there is an excitement in reading about this process and a tradition that we have shared as writer and reader around my family’s ritual. You might not be circling this week on your calendar, but it may be some kind of marker for you just the same. A reminder of this time of year when the snow begins to thaw and spring starts peeking through in subtle ways.
I’ve been thinking about those little markers and rituals in my own life lately too.
My daughter went to a private school for first grade, although the spring of her first grade year was when the pandemic started, so she finished the year remotely. We ended up homeschooling her for second grade and then found a different school after that.
Still, we are still on the mailing list for her first grade school, even though we haven’t attended it in four years. The school always schedules their weekly news email to deploy on Fridays at 2pm. It’s like clockwork.
Sometimes I’ll find myself buried deep in work on a Friday afternoon, but when that email comes in from her old school, it helps provide me with a time check in a different way than reading a clock does. I should unsubscribe from their mailing list at this point, but if I did that, I worry that I would miss that silly little ritual of having a time check in my Friday email.
Similarly, I always expect to see a Friday morning email from
. Like clockwork, his publishes a Friday email with links and the subject line “New and Old” followed by the number of the issue.
At the end of each calendar year though, he publishes the “New and Old” email on Thursdays, with the last Friday of the outgoing year being devoted to his Top 10 posts of the year. Receiving a “New and Old” email on Thursday throws me off every time. I always look at my phone and think “wait, is it Friday?!”
I live within walking distance of a small post office that is only staffed by one person (the post office is closed for an hour midday for a lunch break). Most of the time, it’s the same man working there, but I’ve learned that Wednesday is his day off. I don’t know this from talking to him or even from going inside. I’ve learned this postal worker’s schedule because when I walk my dog past the post office, I always observe who’s car is parked in the parking lot. A gray truck is the usual guy, but on Wednesdays, it’s usually a red SUV.
It’s interesting how important these small moments can be in helping us chart our day, week, month, or even year, whether they come from external sources or our own internal traditions and rituals. They help ground us and give us a sense of time.
Making maple syrup started as a homeschool project with my daughter and me. I had produced a story about it for Ask This Old House several years earlier, but never had the time to devote to trying it. When my daughter and I were both home, it seemed like a fun science project.
As my son has gotten older, he has also taken an interest in getting involved, and it’s now become a full blown part of late winter for all of us. He is now the age his sister was when this hobby started.
Each year marks a new chapter in my kids’ childhood. It’s sometimes difficult to notice them growing up day by day, but when you do the same ritual year after year, it’s easy to notice a big change. They both help me with the cordless drill now to make the holes. They are taller than they once were. I wonder how much longer the simple pleasure of collecting buckets of sap will thrill them.
If you are somebody who has been reading about my maple syrup journey over the years, welcome to another year of it. I hope sharing my family’s little ritual with you gives you some sense of time.
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Related Reading
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