Sweet winter memories..

I remember going on a trip to a sugar bush in Quebec when I was about eight years old. A sugar bush is a forest of sugar maple or black maple trees where the tree sap is harvested for maple syrup. It was in mid to late March and a late snow had the area looking like a winter wonderland. We arrived at this weathered old looking barn house. The interior was open and filled with long tables and benches where we enjoyed a tasty meal of maple cured ham with all the trimmings of carrots, peas, potatoes,maple pies, cookies, and fudge. We then went on a sleigh ride through the maple tree grove. The sled was made of wood it was red and we sat on benches that ran along either side. It was pulled by two large horses guided by the driver of the sleigh. There were two tin buckets hanging about two feet from the bottom of each maple tree. A special grooved spigot was tapped into the trees large enough to yield sweet sap which dripped into the hanging buckets. I saw another horse drawn sleigh with a large metal collecting vat or barrels. This was about 1968 and they would carry each bucket of sugar sap and pour it in this receptacle. After the sleigh ride we went to a long snow packed table out by the sugar shack they would boil a special batch of syrup down to a soft taffy and ladle it in strips onto the snow table. We had large popsicle sticks that we used to lift and twirl this sweet wonderful treat from the maple trees. Sweet heavenly pure maple syrup taffy! A sweet memory that would one day inspire an artwork called Sugar Bush Sleigh Ride!