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By: Jim Fitzpatrick |
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Email: jim@nunica.com |
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Local Farmer in Polkton Township writes for the Coopersville Observer. |
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Along Brandy Creek By Jim Fitzpatrick
The Coopersville Observer March 19, 2007- - No. 87 |
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Winter has hung on well into the second week of March. The farmland remains deep in the cover of snow that blew in "like a lion" during those first days of the month. A full moon hangs high overhead illuminating clear frosted nights. And the Big Dipper stands on it's handle in a twinkling northern sky. The shuttered windows of the sugar shack along Brandy Creek remain closed longer than usual this year.
Days grow longer and the clock is turned ahead one hour. The snow on the ground settles under clear sunny skies. Creeks and rivers break loose from their frozen crusts; swirl icy waters over snow covered banks. Sand Hill Cranes chuckle their ancestral migration song, high overhead in passage north. Finally, the maples at the back of the farm drip spring's sweet sap into buckets hung from awakened trunks.
The shutters are opened and the place all spruced up. The maple woods comes alive with the activity of collecting sap and boiling it down into pure maple syrup. A fire in the evaporator burns through the day and on into the night. A fog of steamy air billows from the opened windows and every crack and opening in the place. The mom and the dad and the boy and the girl keep the path well worn, down through the woods that leads from their house to the sugar shack. |
