Maple Fire Anonymous

So it is often lonely doing things the hard way. (I think that Sarah Palin calls this "being a maverick") While most Americans are shopping on Saturday, or having their nails done, or visiting art galleries, I'm still out here dragging firewood from up and down the road, and yes, off the collapsing barn. (see last post)

So it was wonderful to realize that last night, what had been billed as an art opening, turned out to be a secret gathering of "Maple Fire Anonymous" people. I was not the only one there smelling faintly of smoke, with dry chapped hands, and smudges of soot behind my ears. I was not the only one there out early on cold mornings to skim the ice of the buckets, and to empty full ones. I was not the only one there who had been too busy with sap for the last month to spend much time "in the studio" as they say.

How important to have acquaintances and friends who say helpful things like, "well, I just use old scraps of sheet metal to block the wind", and "It's supposed to go down below freezing again tonight."

These friends are wise about more than just making maple syrup too...one of them stated with certainty that wearing glasses at our age just weakens the eyes, and as we stepped up close to look at paintings in the show, he did not produce glasses. He said the key is to look at small things under very bright light. So today, in addition to continuing the maple fire, I did not wear my glasses all day until evening when I kept trying to see what page to find"crepes" in the "Joy of Cooking" index. It looked like pg 690 at first so I tried that but got "About fruit pastries", then I tried 590, but got "About flavoured oils". After one more failed attempt, I admitted defeat and borrowed my husband's glasses. Oh, no wonder; I had been reading "crisps" as "crepes".

Still, I plan to take the taps out tomorrow as it is certainly time to clean the house and work on some other projects....