The Daily: 14 March 2025

The fifth moon of my solar year is the Sap Moon, which was spectacularly full in full eclipse at 2:55am this morning.  The fifth moon is new between 24 February and 24 March, full between 10 March and 7 April. This is a period of rapid change. The Sap Moon rarely sees the same weather from year to year. When it’s early in the solar calendar, this month is dominated by mud and melt, if not snow and blizzards — like this year, even though this is not an early full Sap Moon. When late, there may be daffodils blooming. When it is close to the equinox, we may have blooming snowdrops, though nearly all the other bulbs and spring ephemerals are green shoots not more than a couple inches tall. But it’s just as likely that the full Sap Moon will be shining down on two feet of snow in my part of the world, which is about what we have on the ground this year. Still, in most places to plant out hardy veggies for the first time during the Sap Moon. This year, I can see the garden’s outline under the melting snow, but that’s about it. I hope the weekend’s warm forecast will prove accurate so I can plant the peas.

However, I don’t want the cold to go away entirely yet. We need those cold nights paired with warm days to get the sap flowing or this won’t be much of a Sap Moon. Which is just wrong. Maple sugar is one of the few spring traditions in New England. Sugaring season is spring here.

The collection and concentration of sap was already an industry before Europeans arrived with their metal tools and cooking implements. Sugar was trade currency, a condensed, easily transportable form of delectable energy that could be stored for months. Sugar season began when the first crow appeared and lasted until the frogs began to sing. Each family matron had her own sugar bush and directed the entire village in gathering and boiling the sap in this time of year when not much else was available from garden or forage.

The colonists brought pots that could boil off the liquid more efficiently than the previous method of putting heated stones in a hollowed log filled with sap. They also introduced the spile, a somewhat gentler way of reaching the sap. This was originally just a wooden tube with one spiked end. It quickly evolved to a metal tap that could be reused from year to year, and it hasn’t changed much since then — though these days, the taps are connected to tubing that empties into a central collection bin.

The locals also showed the new-comers one of the delights of this season — sapsicles. Branches that are broken in winter storms don’t tend to heal until the growth season gets underway. So during sugar season any broken wood is liable to leak sap. After a few rounds of night freezing and day thawing, these drips form frozen slivers of sugar water that look much like icicles — candy, free for the taking, a spring favorite for kids in this part of the world for thousands of years.

The generosity of the maple is truly astounding. Maple is a grand old mother tree who keeps giving and giving and giving. Maples can be coppiced and pollarded and will repeatedly produce new growth around the cuts for decades, perhaps even hundreds of years. Maple wood can be formed into all manner of tools and household uses. It is not particularly rot-resistant, but it is very hard and will last for a long time if kept dry. My 19th century house has rock maple woodwork, and I can confirm that it is stony. Nothing penetrates it. In the woods, maple trees will remain standing for decades after their branches and bark have been shed. Most of the dead trunks in my jungle are maple, and all manner of creatures make these old trunks their home. They are riddled with woodpecker holes. Owls and bats and swallows and many other wee beasties live in these excavated apartment complexes.

But this year, the weather just isn’t cooperating with the trees. We haven’t had enough thaw to get the sap flowing. I don’t know how the vacuum tubing systems fare in this relentless cold, but the buckets are not getting much. I’ve also not seen much evidence of boiling. Usually, by middle March there are sugaring off parties everywhere you look, but I haven’t heard of one this year. And while Morse Farm has started its Sugar on Snow, nobody I know has gone yet.

Again… hopefully, this weekend’s forecast proves accurate. It’s just not spring without sap.

And if any of you know any good weather magic, please waft it our way.

A Full Moon Tale for the Sap Moon

It is flowing.

The lethargy burned away in the growing light. The ice receded from the brook and darting silver minnows sparkled in the waters instead. Birds called from the wind-tossed pines, intent on home-making. Bold bloodroot and the first shy buttercups opened white and purple faces to the dawn. Time for the awakening.

She rambled from tree to tree with her pail. Third time for the day. Perfect sap weather, bright sun warming the buds, then an overnight plunge back into winter. But it was ending, she could tell. The buds were opening. Soon there would be peepers chorusing in the bogs. No sap after the frogs sing. She would collect as much as she could today. Maybe tomorrow. After that, maybe not.

The village had collected enough. They would begin boiling it down at the full moon. She guessed there would be plenty of sugar for her people and still many more boxes to trade. She hoped the coastal people came with their seal pelts. She needed to make a new pair of leg coverings for each of the twins. And her winter robe was worn so thin it might be good as a storage bag if she stitched it shut, but it did not do much to keep the cold off her shoulders. A cake or two of sugar would mean a warmer winter.

She brought her pail back to the village and poured it into the barrel. Then she went back out to look over her snares. As the sap flow slowed, planting season approached. She’d laid out traps around the clearing, hoping to irritate the garden marauders and maybe catch something good for the pot with the same snare. She’d brought in a few rabbits, a porcupine, and a very skinny woodchuck. In the lean spring months, none of them were good eating, but meat was meat. And not a great deal of effort to get it either. She thought there were fewer tracks around the clearing now. Perhaps they’d leave the seedlings alone. Still, the twins would be put on watch again this year. They were irritating to everybody, even the crows kept their distance.

Nothing in the traps, but a doe and twin fauns walked through the clearing while she was checking. That would need to be fixed. Deer would eat through the whole garden. She didn’t like hurting infants, but she couldn’t let them learn to eat from the village garden either. They’d been using this plot too long, she supposed. It was time to move on and let the birches and maples return. But they’d make do for one more season. Maybe put more children out here. 

She returned to her village and picked up the grinder. She had some dried marsh roots that she pounded together with acorns and the last of the woodchuck meat. She worked the mash into round cakes and set them to cook on slate stones by the fire. As the meal cooked, she absentmindedly wove the marsh grasses into sunshades for the twins. Her fingers knew the motions; she could think on the deer problem.

Perhaps she should have the twins gather all the hunter scat they could find. They did seem to have a talent for finding it. Not always with intention. But there was that cat prowling around the maple wood over the winter. Deer hated that smell. Well, who wouldn’t? She hated the smell also. Her boys didn’t seem to care. They came home from adventures reeking more often than not. 

That would have to do for now. After the sugar boil, she would start looking for a new place to garden. 

From the Book Cellar

One of the best introductions to making your own maple syrup comes from Martha Adams Rubin in her Countryside, Garden & Table: A New England Seasonal Diary (1993: Fulcrum Publishing).

In Full Moon Feast (2006: Chelsea Green), Jessica Prentice dedicates a whole chapter to sugaring, and she talks about all forms of sap collecting — from her grandparents’ sorghum to maple to palm trees. She includes recipes and techniques with her history and culture lessons.

And while there is discussion of sucking stressed trees with vacuum tubing, the March chapter of the Vermont Almanac, Stories from and For the Land, vol.III (2022: For the Land Publishing) is a nuanced portrait of the maple tree in this part of the world. And it includes a heavenly recipe for Maple Cream Pie that uses black pepper to add a bit of complexity to the simple sweet.

Here are three more books on making and cooking with maple syrup:

— Backyard Sugaring: A Complete How-To Guide by Rink Mann (1991: Countryman Press).
— Maple Sugar from Sap to Syrup by Tim Herd (2010: Storey Publishing).
— Maple Syrup Cookbook by Ken Haedrich (2001: Storey Publishing).

There are quite a number of wonderful picture books on maple sugaring. All of them feature amazing art and storytelling. A few are award winners.

— Sugaring Time by Kathryn Lasky, photographs by Christopher G. Knight (my version is from Aladdin Paperbacks and dated 1998; original copyright is 1983).
— Sugaring by Jessie Haas, illustrations by Jos. A. Smith (1996: Greenwillow Books).
— At Grandpa's Sugar Bush by Margaret Carney, illustrations by Janet Wilson (1997: Kids Can Press).
— Maple Moon by Connie Brummel Crook, illustrations by Scott Cameron (1997: Fitzhenry & Whiteside).
— Pancakes for Supper by Anne Isaacs, illustrations by Mark Teague (2006: Scholastic).
— The Sugaring-Off Party by Jonathan London, illustrations by Gilles Pelletier (1995: Fitzhenry & Whiteside).
— Sugarbush Spring by Martha Wilson Chall, illustrations by Jim Daly (2000: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books).

And last but not least, there is Jane Yolen’s tender depiction of her daughter and now-deceased husband learning about nature in the cold nights of earliest spring. There is no maple syrup, but there are maple trees — and owls! Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, illustrations by John Schoenherr (1987: Philomel Books).

©Elizabeth Anker 2025