Out In The Mountains : Views - Working the Sugarbush

     It’s early March in the foothills of Mt. Mansfield, and I find myself sitting in my office humming “It’s the most wonderful time of the year. … It’s the hap-happiest season of all!” The smell of hot syrup and woodsmoke wafts in whenever someone opens the door, and I find myself craving doughnuts all day long (not that this is unusual!).
      I work not at the Waffle House, but at the Proctor Maple Research Center, an Agricultural Station for the University of Vermont. I’m a post-doctoral research associate, which means that I have my doctorate, and I’m working at a temporary (2-year) research job while waiting for that oh-so-elusive faculty job to come my way.
      The sugaring season at Proctor is a little different from other places. We aren’t out to maximize our profits or the gallons of syrup we produce. Instead, producing syrup is a part of our research effort to improve the quality of syrup and test new sugaring technologies. For example, we’ve been involved in research investigating and eliminating sources of lead from the sugaring process. One of the first mantras I learned when answering the phone (and which even my partner, Stina, repeats) is “There’s no lead in the trees!” Many sugarmakers are convinced that the lead in their syrup has to have come from the tree itself. Instead, the lead is introduced via buckets, pumps and evaporators. While lead in syrup was never a widespread problem, educating sugarmakers about how to get the lead out has improved syrup quality region-wide.
      We also have been working on the effects of the 1998 Ice Storm on the sugaring industry. In some areas of Vermont, New York and Quebec, farmers lost 50 percent or more of their trees. Ironically, the farmers who followed pruning and thinning guidelines – set by forestry managers to maximize sap yield – were hit the hardest. It turns out that in unmanaged stands, the trees that were growing closer together had their branches more intertwined, so when the ice storm came, they were able to support the weight of the ice together, and not break. Trees in managed forests were more isolated, and thus more prone to damage to their branches by ice loading and exposure to the wind. I’m sure there’s a lesson in there about the importance of community – it seems to work for trees as it does for people.
      Sadly, my job rarely involves the sugaring process directly. I mainly deal with factors affecting the health of maple trees (e.g. acid rain, insect outbreaks, ice storms, etc.), and focus on the seedling and sapling stages of the life cycle. But occasionally my co-workers let me in on the fun. Sometimes I think they just want to see what the transplant from Oklahoma will do next.
      My first day working at Proctor, everyone was called to the sugarhouse. Once a year the evaporator pan [about 6’ x 12’] has to be turned on end and washed out with a hose. Everyone was strategically positioned around the pan, and as we all lifted the pan off the arch (where the wood is burned), I noticed the underside of the pan was black with soot. Everyone looked at me and smiled. I looked down, and I, too, was covered with soot. Since I knew I wasn’t doing fieldwork that day, I had come to work trying to make a good impression – well scrubbed and wearing a new pair of white overalls. I still think they picked that day on purpose. The overalls are now white with black spots, so maybe I’ll use them for camouflage in a cow pasture.
      My first day tapping was another prairie-girl-in-the-forest experience. In February of 2001, we had almost two feet of fresh, soft, fluffy powder on top of an already-deep snowpack, and I strapped on my brand-new snowshoes and went out into the sugarbush to “help” one of my co-workers tap some trees for a study on a new spout design. Happy to be out of my office, I tromped through the woods until we reached the first tree. He drilled the hole, and then let me tap in the spout. The familiar sound rang out and reverberated back through my hand. Easy! Fun! No problem! So I went blithely along to the next tree, and the next, until suddenly, the land dropped off steeply.
      “The next tree is down there?” I said, pointing down the ravine. My co-worker simply nodded, smiling.
      Getting down was no problem. I managed to slide to a stop next to the tree, and put on the block, tap and bucket. I looked up at the now smooth path I had flattened when sliding down on my backside, and made a vain attempt to step back up the path. Even with metal spikes on my snowshoes it was no use. After several failed attempts that left me wet and frustrated, I grabbed for the nearby mainline tubing and I was able to hoist myself up with that, or I’d have been there until spring.
      This year I haven’t had any problems getting around in the sugarbush. Last year we had so much snow that all the saplines were buried, and we spent days on end digging out the saplines in the hopes that the sap would thaw and flow down to the sap shed. We usually make between 800-1000 gallons of syrup, but last year we made only 300. The main factor that separates a good year from a bad year is the temperature difference between day and night. For good sap flow, you need temperatures above freezing during the day, and below freezing at night for several days in a row.
      As amused as they are at my misadventures in the sugarbush, my co-workers have been nothing but supportive of my partner and me. It really is a non-issue that we happen to be a lesbian couple, which is the way it should be. Stina is invited to all the functions and parties, and is treated as any other spouse would be. My coming-out at work was a gradual process at first, as I was a bit trepidatious because I was hired during 2000, when the political atmosphere in Vermont was crackling with the fear and hatred surrounding the “Take Back Vermont” movement. I wasn’t sure which side my co-workers were on.
      I had to drive past a huge display of signs on Route 15 on my way to work every morning, and when I asked my co-workers about it, they said that the family was pretty much considered crazy, and no one paid the least bit of attention to them anyway. After that, it was fairly easy to casually drop comments into the conversation about my partner, and they all seemed to clue in rather quickly. One of our current topics of lunchtime conversation is the menu for my upcoming civil union, and what flavors of Ben & Jerry’s should be served at the reception. Everyone and their families will be there, and I can’t imagine celebrating the day without them.
      My only work-related homophobic experience happened during our outreach work at the Champlain Valley Fair in the maple building in August. I volunteered two days of my time to make cotton candy, frost doughnuts and make sugar-on-snow. (It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it, right?) My first time was in August of 2000, just before the primaries for governor. Everyone at the fair was sprinkled with political stickers and buttons, and one the other volunteers came back from lunch wearing a “TAKE BACK VERMONT” button. (If only I had brought my “What Would Xena Do?” button!) There was some discussion among volunteers about whether the button would alienate customers, and the woman with the button piped in, “There can’t be that many of them, can there?”
     That line echoed in my ears later that day as I handed cotton candy to two women with rainbow studded earrings and matching wedding bands, and their two kids. They glanced at the woman with her button, and then at me, and I rolled my eyes expressively. We passed a knowing smile as if to say, “we are everywhere.”
      And we are everywhere. Even in the sugarbushes of Vermont.

Elizabeth Hane was Mountain Pride Media’s Community Hero for 2001. She lives in Underhill Center.

advertisers | the source | archives | links | contact us

weather | calendar | classifieds