Remember that time I took you and Mom for a drive up the road, not too far but off the main road, one dirt road after another, to a patch of woods among other patches of woods and back pastures. It’s a maple woods that belongs to a friend of ours, and at one time, forty or fifty years ago, they had a sugaring operation going on in there. The old sugar house is still standing, though the arch and all the other sugaring apparatus is gone.
The doors are held shut by simple blocks of wood: turn one of those blocks on its nail and that door swings open. Behold, an earthen floor and sunlight filtering through windows thick with dust. The rich humus smell of damp earth, dried leaf litter and who knows what. The racoons have certainly had their way with the place.
The sugar house is partially dug into a bank of earth, and the woods road passes along the top of that bank so that the collector tank, horse drawn, could be siphoned off and gravity would feed the sap down into the holding tank, then into the arch. The woods road, a track, really, with tiny flowers blooming down the middle of it in April, winds along through the bush then circles around to the front of the sugar house.
There’s a lively little brook that winds its way through the bush, and where the brook widens out, marsh marigolds and wild leeks grow in the wet, boggy ground. The track itself was firm enough that I could drive in a ways, then we got out and walked up the track. Mom, too, at that time, could walk it, the track being level and with no rocks or roots pushing up to trip one. You and I were armed with digging implements: a pry bar for me, a small trowel for you, and bags. We’d wander off the track into patches of wild leeks, or garlic, or ramps – whatever you choose to call them – and we would carefully dig out some of the plants, being highly selective and frugal. We’d bring home just enough for a good feed or two, but no more. The plants must be allowed to proliferate, and thrive, so there will be some to pick next year, and the year after, and ten, twenty, forty years hence!
We found the occasional trillium, not yet in bloom, and the unmistakable trout lily, its leaves speckled trout-like, just about to bloom. And tiny little white star flowers. And, there was birdsong. The white-throated sparrow, companionable chickadees, possibly a vireo, and from deeper in the woods, the cry of the pileated woodpecker. We kept an eye on Mom who was quite content to stroll along the track. We’d call out to her, and to each other, so she’d know where we were. Her eyesight was rapidly failing, though there was light, spring sunlight, filtering through the branches of the trees. No leaves yet but buds, just waiting to burst open.
Was it magical? Is that what you’d call it? Oh, yes. Pure magic. That wasn’t that long ago. Four years? Five at the most. We brought leeks home, flushed them clean under cold water, chopped them, sautéed them lightly in a little butter, spread them on hot buttered toast. I don’t think you were terribly impressed with them, nor Mom for that matter! But such a memory. Such a fine memory.
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