The Sugar Maple
- Hilda Berlinguette
- May 11, 2024
- 2 min read
Updated: May 12, 2024
Springtime in New Hampshire brings a flurry of activity as cold nights lead into warm days and the sap begins to run in the sugar maple trees. There are many farms in the state where the maples are tapped so that the sap can be collected and boiled down into syrup or further into maple sugar candy. When I was young the farmers drilled holes into the bark of each tree where spigots were plugged in and pails were hung from the taps. These pails were checked and emptied several times during the day and the contents transported to the sugar house for boiling. For many years now farmers have been using plastic tubing to connect the sap directly to the sugar house, eliminating the need for pails and frequent checking.
The Fairbanks house on Old Homestead Highway in Swanzey Center, New Hampshire, was a large, white, square building with a wrap around porch and large attached shed and barn. In the front of the house stood a huge sugar maple. One year my Grampa, George Fairbanks, tapped the tree and my Grandma Bertha boiled down the sap to make syrup for our Sunday morning pancakes. It is amazing how much sap it takes to make a little syrup. (I just checked and it is 40 gallons of sap to make a gallon!)
The tree seemed huge to me as a kid and I remember what wonderful shade it provided for the screen porch in the summer. Fall came and all the beautiful red and gold leaves dropped and were such fun to rake into a big pile and jump into. The tree and the house seemed to have shrunk years later when I visited Swanzey. But I’ll always remember the sweet taste of the maple syrup from our own sugar maple. It remains my favorite sweetener.
This sweet memory was written by Hilda Berlinguette, a member of the Fairbanks family who was raised in Swanzey along with her brothers, Bruce and Gary, and her cousins, my mom and her sister, Lucy. ~ Mark
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