Rob and Chloe's Maple Syrup - Since 2009

This weekend, as I dipped my finger into delicious homemade maple syrup, still warm and subtly smokey from the fire on which it was boiled, I had a sweet revelation:

If you're always waiting for the 'perfect time' or 'perfect situation' to do something, you might just miss out on something sweet.

Let me explain. A few years ago, Rob and I decided that at some point in our lives we would make maple syrup. This idea didn't just come out of thin air. A few generations ago, Rob's great grandparents bought a piece of land on a lake in the Muskokas and started to build. Like his grandparents and parents, he grew up spending large parts of each year at this second home; the cottage. Family ties and cottage friendships that were forged generations ago remain strong and many traditions developed early are still recognized and enjoyed today.
For Rob, maple syrup from the sugar bush just down the road was synonymous with "the cottage". The big orange can with the drawing of the horse and log cabin with smoke billowing from the chimney and the man in the plaid coat that is impossible to pour without spilling...well, there was just nothing better, no taste that better defined what 'cottage' meant - sweet, simple and even better than you remembered it.
Which is why it was so sad when the owner and family friend, passed away....so sad when the sugar bush just sat idle that first year...and so sad when the realization that a piece of history, a piece of tradition had been laid to rest.

I didn't take long however before Rob started pondering the possibility of running that sugar bush himself...and that's when the dreaming began - one day, we would run that sugar bush. We would ask for permission to borrow the land and small cabin. We would live at the cottage and chop wood and collect sap and boil down and sugar off - we would live the perfect life for a few short weeks, maybe a month if we were lucky. One day we would run the sugar bush, one day we would make our own syrup . . .

But then years passed, seasons went by and still, not a drop of sap was harvested. I would still think about it, even talk about it regularly with Rob as we drove by the bush on the way to the cottage.....one day, I thought....we would run that sugar bush....when the time was right.

So when I retrned home from dog sledding and Rob said "I'm making maple syrup". I was totally confused. How? What? When did he ask for the land? We didn't have time to live up there for weeks right now? We didn't even know HOW to make mayple syrup.

But Rob was one step ahead - he had already borrowed, collected and scavenged everything we needed to run our very own backyard sugarin' operation - including the trees! He had already read 'Backyard Sugarin'' and had plans and materials for the construction of an evaporator to boil down the sap. He had even been given all the mason jars a guy could dream of from his mom and grandma to store the maple goodness!

In fact, he was already tapping trees around the place that he was working!

Sap was already flowing!


By the time I got my butt up north, there was already 1 cup of first sweet dark syrup in a mason jar in the fridge and 180L of sap waiting to be boiled down. Although that might not sound like much, it was quite the accomplishment for a solo backyard, first-time sugarer. Rob was on top of things in his make-shift sugar bush. Anything he didn't know, he would refer to the 'Backyard Sugarin'' book for. Just like that - a dream had become reality. I had made it just in time!


As we sat waiting for our last batch of the day to do it's finally rapid bubbly boil (after 12 hours I might add!) and as the sweet aroma of maple syrup began wafting from the pan, I couldn't help but be a little reflective.

It wasn't the way I had pictured it all coming together. Conditions weren't perfect - there was no picturesque cabin in the woods, no professional set up for the boiling off and no fancy means of collecting the sap. It wasn't in 'our' sugar bush - the one we had always pictured ourselves in and we didn't have weeks on end to spend in the forest.

I have to admit, if it was up to me, I would have still been waiting for the perfect time. I had put that future experience into a tidy little box, with such strict guidelines and regulations for success that it really would have been a miracle if we ever got a drop of sap, let alone syrup.

But there we were, the two of us, sitting in the warm sun on a beautiful spring day, the smell of wood smoke heavy in the air and just moments away from having our first real batch of our own maple syrup!

What I realized in that moment, was what a shame it would have been for us to keep waiting for that 'perfect spring' to embark on our maple syruping - the perfect time to bring the tradition back to life. Who knows when and if, it ever would have come. Instead, Rob thought outside of the box....or bush...just went for it....and the results were sweet!

He's started a new tradition, our tradition, and who knows where we'll be sugaring off next year!