Sweet Sugaring Time

   With the changing of the season comes the lingering light. The sun warms the frozen ruts to mud and the promise of life and sweetness is in the air as the maple trees turn their faces to the sun.   Sugaring time is a flowing and filling time. It is a time of working and waiting.  Holes are drilled, taps are tapped, lines are strung and buckets are hung. The wait for cold nights and warm days to flow the sap has begun.  

The sap flows and again a wait for buckets to fill.  The buckets fill and the lines flow. Fill and empty, fill and empty, the sap pan, the wood box, the fire box and the bench against the wall.  Sweetness fills the air as the bench against the wall fills and empties, friends come and friends go.  They sit awhile and conversation flows. They sit  awhile in quiet companionship. The laughter and the silence comes and goes. Work. Wait. Fill. Empty. The sap flows and the fire burns. Boil. Steam. The fire does it's work.  It's work is sweetness.  The refining of the sap to the sweetness of syrup. Then, to the further refining of syrup to pure sugar, sweet and satisfying.
   Our lives have sugaring seasons. Times of working and waiting while the fires burn. The fire burns hot. Empty. Fill. Flow. We want to quench the fire. We struggle, we wrestle against the heat, the emptying, the waiting. When we turn our faces to the Son we find the promise of life and sweetness.  When we wait in silence and sit in quiet companionship the fire does its work, the work of sweetness, the work of refining. Wait. Fill. Flow.

A season  of sap

a season of syrup,

and a season of sugar.

 To be sugar takes time. Time to work. Time to wait. Time to be still. The hair is white, the hands are gnarled, the shoulders are stooped, the heart is right and the smile is sweet. 


I love you bunches and sweetness - Pat