Why I tap maple trees

In about a month from the time you receive this Dirt - around mid-February - we will begin tapping our maple trees. Since the first of the year we have received catalogs from some of the sugaring supply companies. A definite reminder that we need to order buckets and spouts.

 

Since I came to Rockland County in 1970 I have always been involved with maple sugaring in some way or another. If I didn't tap trees, collect the sap and boil it down into syrup during this time (approximately mid-February until the end of March), I would definitely feel something was missing.

Storyteller Chuck Stead shares a chilly tale with us for this month of January.

Nasty Cold

OK, so it’s cold, its nasty cold. It’s the kind of cold that catches you, face to the wind, and sinks under your forehead to ache your brain. It’s cold. It penetrates every layer by slipping into that one open crack between the glove and the sleeve. It’s nasty cold. A small bird stands too long on an outer branch and becomes a fixed ornament. OK, it’s nasty cold.

Ice-encased pine needles and cone

There was a night when after a supper of soluble leftovers, my dad Walt got a call from his brother, my Uncle Mal, and his voice went quiet on the phone. Ricky Cramshaw and I had just dismembered a broken Kodak camera on the dining room table. We turned screws out of their little black threads and listened to Walt say, “Hello Mal. Yup, I know who Rufus Bumguard is. What?” That was when the quiet came, Uncle Mal's distant voice whispering through the telephone pressed to Walt’s ear.

When Walt got off the phone, he said, “You boys get bundled up. We’re going out.”

“Where?”

He said, “And gloves and hats, too. It’s nasty cold.”

 

More cold, ghosts, blankets, & the end of Chuck's story

Instead of filling out paper enrollment forms, camp families are now able to register for camp online. We're excited to save paper and reduce some of our environmental impact, and to provide an easier, simpler registration process for parents. Families will find information from previous summers already in place, easy online access to necessary camp forms (health history, permission forms), and hopefully, will spend less time and effort enrolling in camp, and more time playing outside! Check it out for yourself and visit our Enrollment page.

Non-competitive and nature-oriented, The Nature Place supports children to be themselves, with their friends, in the great outdoors. Learn more at thenatureplace.com