The Journal: Cracked Earth
Page 29
“After watching those two kids playing, I just knew I had to share what we found.” Karen paused to sip her cold beer. Jason had filled a cooler with snow from the north side of the barn, the side where the snow lasts the longest, and packed in a dozen brown bottles. A cold beer was the biggest treat of all. “Step outside with me for a minute, and bring the kids too.”
We gathered outside and watched Karen open the back door of their truck. She mumbled something as she reached in, and then pulled out a Golden Retriever puppy!
“Happy Birthday, Jason!” Karen exclaimed with excitement.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JOURNAL ENTRY: March 14
A puppy! I’m glad the boys have it and not me. Tufts would probably run away from home! Jason has dealt with Amanda’s Shih Tzu puppies before, so I’m not worried about the care. Jacob was a bit leery at first, but it being a puppy, it loved the attention, and it being a dog, seemed to know that Jacob was special. Emilee wants it for herself, of course. Now to find it food! I know we can pressure cook avian bones to the point of them being soft, and add it to other things, like rice. The boys have always enjoyed hunting, and spring is a good time to find grouse. It will be a win-win meal when they do. The humans get the breasts and the rest will be cooked down for the pup.
The puppy is about ten weeks old. The mother was bred a week before the event and gave birth shortly after New Year’s. She really is a beautiful thing, pure bred, and likely would have gotten the owners a pretty penny. Things being like they are, however, they gave away two of the five pups, two died, and the fifth is now Jason’s. In honor of the only other Golden we’ve known and loved, Jason named her Chivas. Kathy will be pleased, as the first Chivas was her dog. Maybe someday we will give Kathy and Bob one of Chivas’ puppies. I’d like that.
The days have cooled back down and the nights are cold. With the bright sunshine during the day though, it’s perfect weather for tapping trees and making maple syrup.
* * *
I was out digging in the small shed when John came looking for me.
“Are you looking for something in particular?” he asked peeking into the shed past the boxes that I had moved.
“You’re just in time! Can you pull these boxes out so we can get this big one out?” I rapped on a plastic box.
He slid one of the other plastic boxes out first and set it on the soggy grass, then put two cardboard boxes on top of it, exactly like I would have done to keep the more fragile boxes dry. I pushed the larger one towards him and he pulled it out of my way.
“What’s in here? It’s not as heavy as it looks.”
“Syrup making gear. Six sets of taps, buckets and tents, plus a brace and a selection of bits,” I answered, wiping my hands on my jeans. “Have you ever made maple syrup?”
“Made it? No, but I’ve eaten it on pancakes,” he grinned. He set the box aside and handed the other boxes back to me to put away.
* * *
I lined everything up on the counter and filled the sink with hot, soapy water, adding the taps to soak, and washing the tents first. They were small pieces of sheet-metal, crimped in half to form a tent to keep debris, snow, and rain from falling in, and had curled edges on the bottom that would hold it onto the bucket. The buckets were galvanized pails with a hole near the top that hooks onto the tap.
“It’s a simple setup, really,” I explained to John. “We’ll drill a hole in the tree at a slight angle, so the sap runs downward, two feet from the ground. We drive the tap in, let it run a couple of minutes to flush out the sawdust, and then attach the pail and tent. Tomorrow morning we will collect the sap and start boiling.”
“That’s it? I thought it would be more involved than that.”
“Well, that’s really only the first step. Once we collect a couple of gallons, and before boiling, we filter the clear sap to get any debris or bugs out of it, then it goes into a pot on the stove. When it cooks down, we keep adding more until it’s condensed to a dark golden color. It will take about fifty gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup.”
He raised his eyebrows.
“It’s worth it, trust me.”
* * *
While we were setting the six taps, two to a tree, I told him a story about one of the locals.
“Charlie couldn’t figure out why everyone else was having a great sap run and his was very little. He had done it all right. He measured up two feet and set the taps on the south side of the tree. It wasn’t until the Spring melt down when he found out his error. He had to get a step ladder to pull the taps that were six feet up from the ground. He had measured two feet up from the snow. We all had a good chuckle, and try not to remind him of that.”
I showed John where I had set taps before, that were now plugged with a branch from that tree, and sprayed with pruning seal.
“These old tapping spots are well healed, so we can drill as near them as we want, otherwise we’d have to move over a few inches.”
“How do you know they’re healed?”
“They must be. I haven’t tapped them in four years,” I said. “Besides, they’re not weeping. One of the tapping traditions I like the best is the coffee made from fresh sap.” I smiled at the thought of tomorrow morning. “It gives the coffee an interesting and pleasant taste. You’ll like it.”
* * *
JOURNAL ENTRY: March 15
I already let Anna know that I will not be on hand when the power comes back at noon. I really want to be at home with my family for this momentous occasion because it is a step back towards normalcy. It seems strange to consider electricity “momentous”, and I feel certain that no one would have thought this way six months ago. Here we were, though, waiting for a light bulb to glow.
Last night we brought in one of the sap buckets, poured the contents into a pitcher and replaced the bucket on its tap-hook on the tree. The sap was slushy by the rapid cool-down from the drop in temperature of the night. By morning, though, it was completely melted and there was just enough for the French press.
* * *
John took a tentative sip of his coffee. The smile lit up his eyes first.
“Good, huh?” I asked.
“We get to do this every morning?” he asked.
“Every morning of tapping.”
“Which is how long?”
“It will depend on the weather,” I answered honestly. “Some years it will be three weeks, others only a week. We can collect sap until it starts to run cloudy, then we have to pull the taps or risk damaging the tree.”
After we savored the flavorful coffee, we headed for the barn to uncover my old cooking stand, the one that I had used in the woods. Jason had made a custom cabinet for me that matched the cupboards in my kitchen. It was slightly smaller and just big enough to hold a twenty pound propane tank, and once the casters were installed it was as high as the counters and easy to work on. I had purchased a single gas burner and the necessary hoses and regulator to fit the tank, so Jason was able to size the opening in the top and everything could be contained inside. The top is unique; he made it a square trough. I had collected all kinds of rocks during my many walks and placed them within a bed of cement poured into this “trough”. The first rocks that I placed were flat and set under the “feet” of the burner so it would be level. The rest were arranged to fit. There were rose quartz and white quartz, sand smoothed glass, stones with red veins, chunks of granite, and the glittery hematite and pieces with smooth holes worn from water constantly beating on one spot. All were selected carefully and they all were very special to me. Once the cement dried and hardened, my river rock table top served as a heat resistant countertop for cooking with propane. Now it’s used only for cooking syrup.
“Why don’t we use the gas stove in the kitchen?” John wanted to know.
“I did that. Once,” I laughed. “Many years ago when I lived in lower Michigan. The steam from cooking the sap down isn’t normal steam. It’s a sugary steam. I had a sticky coating over ev
erything in the kitchen, including the ceiling. What a mess it was to clean up. From then on I cooked outside, and did only the final cooking and canning inside.”
We set the cooking cabinet in the center of the barn after backing the car out. It didn’t matter if the upper rafters got some of the sticky steam, and we needed the wind block that the barn would provide. John brought one of the full twenty pound tanks from the deck and I showed him how to hook it up. From then on, it would be his job to change the tank when needed. We should only go through two tanks, maybe three, and that depended on the length of the season.
When we broke for lunch at noon, we were rewarded with lights! I got my digital alarm clock from the bed-stand, plugged it into a kitchen socket, and set the time. This way we would instantly know if the power went out again for a period, but came back on; the clock would be blinking if that happened.
Having power was joyous, but we still had work to do. After some soup for lunch, back outside we went. John poured the contents of the six collection pails into five-gallon plastic buckets, and filled two of them. Ten gallons is a good first day! I strained enough of one into my largest cooking pot to fill it halfway, and set it to start heating. Remembering how I had two pots going out in the woods, over the wood fire, I asked John to bring one of the plastic buckets inside. I filled my next pot with the cold sap and set it on the cook stove.
“What about the steam?” he reminded me.
“This is just to take the chill off. It’s easier to boil warm sap than it is cold. We’ll take it out and add it to the big pot before it can come to a boil and start steaming.” This was a lesson that I learned that first year in the woods, and made the cooking down go much faster.
* * *
I saw the boys, their children, and the puppy crossing the yard around five o’clock. Jason stopped to examine the pails on the trees, making some comments to Eric. I was about to say something to Jason about rationing when he set a six pack of beer on the table. He produced a bottle of zinfandel, so I figured I could remind him later.
“Uncle Don tapped his trees, didn’t he?” Jason asked.
“Yes, so that equipment should be around somewhere. Maybe in their barn? I know he used the deep fryer burner for cooking. He would always set up the syrup stuff and his beer brewing in that screened shelter you built him.” I visualized my brother sitting out there with a tarp dropped as a wind block and felt my throat tighten a bit. “Are you going to tap?”
“I think so. It’ll give us something to do.” Jason was getting bored. Eric would too, eventually. We all would in time.
I noticed the puppy sniffing around Tufts’ food dish, so I moved it onto the table and sat back down. She scarfed up the pieces that had landed on the floor just when Tufts decided to make an appearance. We all watched with interest, and we wouldn’t let either animal get hurt. The pup went to Tufts, sniffing with playful curiosity. Tufts hissed and Chivas stopped. The cat sat down where he was and so did the pup, but being a puppy, Chivas lasted five seconds sitting still and ventured closer to this big black furry thing. When she got too close, Tufts gave her a healthy swat on the nose with a clawless paw, and sent her scurrying to hide behind a table leg then Tufts slowly sauntered out of the room. I thought their first meeting went very well.
“Why don’t you build something, Jason?” I commented. “Now that the power is back, I would think you’d be anxious to fire up your workshop.”
His head came up sharply, and he turned toward the clock with its red digital numbers shining brightly, like he was seeing it for the first time.
“I forgot that today was the day. Yeah, maybe I’ll make something…” he trailed off, lost in thought. He turned back, smiled, raised his beer and said, “To electricity!” He still had that faraway look in his eyes. Eric was preoccupied with his daughter. John was silent, staring out the window. Something felt very wrong with my family.
* * *
Later that evening after the boys had left John asked me if I missed going to work.
“In a way, yes, I do miss it. Massage is a calling to me, it’s how I help people,” I said, then something occurred to me. “Are you asking for a massage?”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I was getting at,” he said with a hint of embarrassment. “I was thinking that with the power back on and things getting back to normal, you might be called back to the resort.”
“That’s always a possibility, though things aren’t back to normal, John. We just have electricity back, that’s all. We still have a gasoline shortage, and I don’t know if there will be propane deliveries or not. There still isn’t any food coming to Fram’s. I doubt that Mack’s has been fully restocked either.” Something else occurred to me. “Do you miss going to work, John?”
I was afraid to hear his answer.
“Working at the mine, or rather, for Green-Way, had some advantages. I would get up, be driven to the mine, work a twelve hour shift, be driven back. I ate dinner or breakfast and went to bed. The next day I did the same thing. Seven days a week, for six weeks straight. I never had to think about my day or what I had to do. It was always the same. I never had to think, so I had no worries.” He had a shadow of sadness in his voice. “Of course when I was at the mine, I was always thinking about the job, what we were doing, what could happen a mile underground, and I was very good at what I did. Very good. They paid me exceedingly well for that. Sometimes I think they paid us so well because we had no other life. It was a way to keep us content— a big paycheck. The only break, the only thing I ever had to look forward to was you, once a week.” He smiled at me, but there was pain there, in the back of his eyes.
* * *
JOURNAL ENTRY: March 16
Once again we brought in some slushy sap and made a small pot of coffee with it. Fresh maple sap with fresh ground coffee. It can’t get any better than this. All this ran through my mind as we went through the process and the motions of plugging things back into the grid, setting the cell phones, the 4G, the Bluetooth, and the tablet on their chargers, powering up the satellite receiver on the TV and setting the clocks. How quickly we are reverting to those old ways. I felt saddened by this for some reason. I should be glad, shouldn’t I? Things are on the way to being back to normal, right? Was I happy with the old normal? I think that I almost prefer my new normal. It isn’t less stressful but I think I am happier, or at least more content in some ways. Maybe it’s just that I was more needed.
It’s Saturday, no school for the kids. I called Jason on the phone. Wow, does that feel strange. I made arrangements for Emilee to come over while I make bread. She’s ten and it’s time she learned how. I’m hoping Jason never finds Nancy’s electric bread maker! Some things are just better by hand. Another interesting revelation is that I keep mentally deferring to Jason as being in charge over there, where Eric is actually the older of the two. I wonder why I do that.
* * *
“So, Emi, did your mom ever make fresh bread?”
She stood there grinning in the blue denim apron her uncle had made me when he was a few years older than she is now. I had required both boys to take a home economics class when they entered high school. Jason chose to make me something in the sewing segment. My four “requirements” had served them well: home economics, drafting, typing and shop. They both could cook and do basic sewing, they both follow patterns and blueprints when building things, they learned do many basic household repairs, and typing. It’s the way of the world with computers. Eric even called me one time from a training session while he was still in the military to thank me for making him take typing. Those were some wonderful memories for me.
“Only once, and she used the bread machine Grandpa Jim gave her,” Emilee said wistfully, stirring the flour with her finger. “It tasted really good!”
She smiled, although I could tell she was thinking of her mom.
“Well, I’m going to show you how to make the same yummy bread without using a machine. Would you like that?”
“First we put a cup of warm water in this big bowl. The water can’t be too hot, and not too cold. Here, stick your finger in to feel the temperature. You did wash your hands didn’t you?”
Looking down at my granddaughter, I couldn’t help but think of a framed picture hanging on my wall of Emilee at the age of eight, set into a picture of me at the same age. Except for one picture being in color, the other in black and white, we looked like twins. It was uncanny.
“How does the water feel?” I asked.
“Warm, not hot,” she answered. We added two teaspoons of sugar and the same of yeast, and then she stirred it, and we waited until it began to bubble and foam. Then she added a teaspoon of salt and a quarter cup of oil, measuring it all carefully. Next in was a quarter cup of instant milk and one cup of flour. I let her do all the stirring. I don’t know how she got flour on her nose and on her chin, but there it was. My heart swelled. We added flour until she couldn’t stir it anymore, and then I took over. Emi added flour a bit at a time while I stirred until the dough was stiff. I sprinkled some flour over the top and worked it into a sticky ball with my hand, while she put more flour on the countertop. I dumped the dough into that and scraped the bowl.
“Are you ready for the fun part?” I asked.
Her eyes got big. I started kneading it, first pushing it with the heel of my hands, then pulling it back with my fingers, and then I let her try. She got the hang of it pretty quickly. I was pleased.