Sugaring off and spring

Sugaring off#

Sugar maples grow in the warmer woods, mixed in with the birch and pine; Inspect tells you which is which. Late in winter, when the days thaw and the nights still freeze, the sap runs. With a pail in your pack, tap a maple and you get 2 sap. Each tree needs a while before it's worth tapping again, so work along a stand of them.

Boil the sap down at a fire, 8 to one syrup, and boil syrup hard for maple sugar, which keeps. It's a lot of sap and a lot of firewood for a little sweetness, which is exactly how it really goes. The Lantern tells everyone when the sap starts running.

Breakup and the thaw#

Late in winter the ice goes out, on the rivers first and then the lakes. Stay off it once the Lantern says it's breaking up. Boats that were frozen in come free. Then the frost comes out of the ground and it's planting weather.

The log drive#

Logs you've piled on a river's ice over the winter float off when the ice goes out, and the river carries them downstream until it slackens. Then they fetch up on the bank, still yours, and you're told where. It's the old way of getting a winter's cutting down to where it's wanted without hauling it there. Only wood floats, so keep anything else off the ice.

Mud season#

For a while after the snow goes, the ground is soft. Off paving you walk at 85% of your pace and wheeled carts at 70%. Any Paving and garden beds you've laid earns its keep now.