a bank into which a stonewall had been built—probably in the 1870s, Peter thought, after evaporating pans came into use. The placement against the bank allowed them to back a truck or tractor—in the old days a sled or a wagon—up to a sap tank that was on a level above the evaporator so the sap could easily flow down to the pan. There are still, after all the years, indentations in the ground in front of the sugarhouse from when the horses, before them the oxen, came down the hill and looped back around to the road. Where the narrow road to the sugarhouse joined the road that ran from Aunt Margaret’s to Peter’s mother’s house was a parking space, a 6000-gallon tank, and a shed that housed a vacuum pump and wiring. They were at the bottom of a ravine, and you would never find this place unless you knew exactly how to get there.
The sugarhouse itself is made of castaway boards and timbers. The support beams by the door are notched barn beams that were in a dance pavilion in Alstead before they came to the sugarhouse “and had probably been somewhere else before that,” Peter said. There aren’t many straight lines in the place. There had been fires there, roofs repaired—so many repairs that not much remained from the original structure. “It’s like George Washington’s axe,” Peter said, “with three new heads and five new handles.” There is a small window that looks out onto the brook. The door, made of plywood and braced with timber slabs, has old-fashioned metal latches that flip up to the touch and clink and that were part of the original structure. Inside is a bench along one wall and under the window. It is the only place to sit andwhere, at the end of the window, Peter and Deb filter their syrup and pour it into containers.
At the end, near the firebox door of the evaporator, they stack wood, mostly pine and hemlock because it’s a good use for those woods and because they burn fast and hot. Peter keeps two piles in a field up the road, tall and narrow stacks, nine feet high and thirty feet long, that Peter props up with poles so the wood can catch the wind and sunlight and be dry to burn.
On the far side from the window, and by far I mean eight feet away, is a short set of stairs going up to the sap tanks. It’s a good place to get away from the heat of the evaporator; Petey liked to climb up there.
In the center of the room is the evaporator, a Grimm model manufactured in the late 1930s, a duplicate of the Grimm Peter’s grandfather bought in the late 1930s. It is a traditional wood-fired model, three feet wide and ten feet long, with a seven-foot fluted flue pan and a three-foot finishing pan, through which the syrup travels on the gradient path until it’s drawn off through a pipe and valve outside the pan near the firebox doors.
Peter said of the sugarhouse, “It’s totally inefficient, but as long as the building doesn’t fall down, we’ll use it. We’re here because of the history.”
He described how it looks during the boiling time, at night: “When you walk up that road, and it’s totally dark and cold, and then you see the light through the planks, and come in here and it’s all rosy and warm.” He spoke those words, and I hoped to see that someday.
Like so many sugarhouses, for that brief period of the year it is a social place. Peter talked about how, when he’s boiling, friends will drop by to get some syrup or just towatch the boil. “It’s the time for seeing each other and for catching up.”
It was the same when Peter’s grandmother boiled there. “She boiled for her generation,” Peter said. And when he was in school, walking down the road toward home after school, he would stop in to see her, with his sisters, during the sugar season.
Peter lit the fire in the evaporator as the sky was growing dark.
“There,” he said, “off and running.” Petey left to stay with Aunt Margaret until his mother picked him up. The room filled with steam that hung
The sugarhouse itself is made of castaway boards and timbers. The support beams by the door are notched barn beams that were in a dance pavilion in Alstead before they came to the sugarhouse “and had probably been somewhere else before that,” Peter said. There aren’t many straight lines in the place. There had been fires there, roofs repaired—so many repairs that not much remained from the original structure. “It’s like George Washington’s axe,” Peter said, “with three new heads and five new handles.” There is a small window that looks out onto the brook. The door, made of plywood and braced with timber slabs, has old-fashioned metal latches that flip up to the touch and clink and that were part of the original structure. Inside is a bench along one wall and under the window. It is the only place to sit andwhere, at the end of the window, Peter and Deb filter their syrup and pour it into containers.
At the end, near the firebox door of the evaporator, they stack wood, mostly pine and hemlock because it’s a good use for those woods and because they burn fast and hot. Peter keeps two piles in a field up the road, tall and narrow stacks, nine feet high and thirty feet long, that Peter props up with poles so the wood can catch the wind and sunlight and be dry to burn.
On the far side from the window, and by far I mean eight feet away, is a short set of stairs going up to the sap tanks. It’s a good place to get away from the heat of the evaporator; Petey liked to climb up there.
In the center of the room is the evaporator, a Grimm model manufactured in the late 1930s, a duplicate of the Grimm Peter’s grandfather bought in the late 1930s. It is a traditional wood-fired model, three feet wide and ten feet long, with a seven-foot fluted flue pan and a three-foot finishing pan, through which the syrup travels on the gradient path until it’s drawn off through a pipe and valve outside the pan near the firebox doors.
Peter said of the sugarhouse, “It’s totally inefficient, but as long as the building doesn’t fall down, we’ll use it. We’re here because of the history.”
He described how it looks during the boiling time, at night: “When you walk up that road, and it’s totally dark and cold, and then you see the light through the planks, and come in here and it’s all rosy and warm.” He spoke those words, and I hoped to see that someday.
Like so many sugarhouses, for that brief period of the year it is a social place. Peter talked about how, when he’s boiling, friends will drop by to get some syrup or just towatch the boil. “It’s the time for seeing each other and for catching up.”
It was the same when Peter’s grandmother boiled there. “She boiled for her generation,” Peter said. And when he was in school, walking down the road toward home after school, he would stop in to see her, with his sisters, during the sugar season.
Peter lit the fire in the evaporator as the sky was growing dark.
“There,” he said, “off and running.” Petey left to stay with Aunt Margaret until his mother picked him up. The room filled with steam that hung
Similar Books
