by hatfield13

It’s Sugaring Season!

Where I live, these early April days caught between winter and spring bring a sweet gift. 

Cold nights and warm days mean the sap is running in the sugar maples, and that means old-fashioned pancake breakfasts that put the fanciest hotel brunch to shame. 

We had our annual pancake feast Saturday at Sanger’s Sugar House, where five dollars bought all the pancakes you could eat, plus homemade sausage, applesauce, milk, and coffee.  They put up a big tent attached to the sugar house. And yes…that’s hay on the ground.  It’s so you don’t get your shoes all muddy. 

I love events like this, that are so much a part of a place, and I love the details they can add to the setting of a book.  I was so wishing I’d remembered my notebook Saturday, especially since my new middle grade novel SUGAR ON SNOW is about a girl who lives on a maple farm.  The manuscript is off my desk for the moment and out on submission with one of my editors, but while I wait for news, I’m already thinking about that next round of revisions.  I scribbled down tons of notes when I got home.  The fresh summery smell of that hay. The aluminum pie plates they use to keep the pancakes warm while they go around to see who wants seconds.  How after a while, just about everything feels sticky with syrup.  And how the sweet smell of that syrup stays with you, even as you head back outside into not-quite-spring.

15 Replies on “It’s Sugaring Season!”

  3. Oh, this reminds me of the pancake breakfast on our street in Calgary, held during the Calgary Stampede in July! Some of the haybales would be set up in our front yard and, after the last cowboy/girl had gone home, we would sneak one of the bales into our backyard. It made excellent compost! Prickly to sit on, though.

  4. That’s a great deal (and setting). Now I’m hungry for pancakes… :>)

    I was reading about Canadian pies with maple syrup, extract, and liqueur. Mmm!

  6. random commenter

    that does sound like a lovely event that would insite some wonderful writing, looks like fun!

  13. Wow!!! I so want to live where you live for one day!!! Prefereably the pancake day . . . .:D

    I tell you, i hate the cold, but I LOVE to read your posts about living in the cold.:)

  14. I think the thing about living in a colder climate is that spring is that much more of a celebration when it finally arrives. Maple syrup is one of those things you can count on, year after year, and pretty much everybody shows up for the sugar house breakfasts to be part of it. (Also, I’d love it if you were here for pancake day!)