Michael,

You are the real Forest Gump, aren’t you?

Best,

Leland

 

 

I made syrup one winter with Ol Tom a New Hapmshire hard scrabble farmer  way up on the Maine border near Freiburg .
We worked a pair of Belgiums all of a late feb and  March in the deep snow with a work sleigh ;The Belgiums were magnificent in the snow ; go anywhere pull any thing .
We worked long beautiful days in the sun going maple tree to maple tree in the waist deep snow  wearing snow shoes ;and sun glasses  while collecting the sap  from galvanized buckets that seemed  designed for that purpose 
Ol Tom said the  conditions had to be just right ; cold nights and warm days to get the sap running good
We would work the  paticular sun sides of the mountain; then  after we collected the all sap we would bring it to a sugar shack to "berl " it  down .
The chap who ran the sugar shack was an alki with a frozen nose who ran a little shine on the side
There you could get  a shot of shnapps and then get caught up on all the local politics and the latest bit of wife swapping 
When they weren't busy  running down Washington or the revenuers According to Ol Tom and the alki confided to me that the  best syrup was the dark
darker the better "( nutty taste and  smooth finish)  while the grade A Fancy
was for tourists and country club types  who didn't  no shit from shineola >Py


and got the scars to show for it (put a knife through my hand cutting tubing for the sap ) there wasn't any stone work as it was all buried in snow ; so my friend Tom hitched up the Belgiums to a work sleigh


**************
Create a Home Theater Like the Pros. Watch the video on AOL Home.
(http://home.aol.com/diy/home-improvement-eric-stromer?video=15&ncid=aolhom00030000000001)

-- To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to: http://listserv.icors.org/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html