Sugaring season in Vermont officially starts on the first Tuesday in March, which is also Town Meeting Day. Sugaring here means maple sugar -- sugar being the word for the sweet sap that can be drawn out of a maple tree at the very beginning of spring when the maple tree draws the carbohydrates stored in its roots once the temperatures consistently rise to above freezing during the day.
The beginning of March is when winter breaks its grip in Vermont. Daytime temperatures consistently begin to rise above the freezing point and daylight is noticeably longer. What feels magical comes from maple trees responding to the warming days.
When my first Vermont March arrived. I came home to find buckets hanging from my trees. In the last post, I noted my loose connection to "my" in "my town." I discovered those trees were a natural resource under the stewardship of Ken Emery who was this generation maple harvester. Ken tapped maples at a number of clusters. called sugar bushes, boiled the sap, and canned it for sale and use during the year. Without any advanced notice, I found out Ken had tapped "my" sugar bush, and he would give me a share of the syrup.
I had already learned from my first hunting season, that Vermonters expected to hunt freely over the now dormant fields and forests -- during defined seasons for taking wild game -- of which I was now steward of a bit of both -- owner? I was the one who got the tax bill. After sugar season, I Iearned a bit of wet land, also included in my tax bill, was gleaned for fiddleheads, typically by young people who sold them in farmer's markets.
Without any defined rate of exchange, I found myself answering my door to offers of a share venison from a hunt, and a gleaner gifted me with a beautiful, and beautifully framed from salvaged wood, charcoal drawing his daughter had done.
By law, I was allowed, as the person paying the taxes, to close off access to my land, to post no hunting, fishing, or trespassing, which would make anyone on the land without explicit permission, a poacher. I learned early that was a "flatlander" attitude, and considered a bit "pinch headed." The previous taxpayers of this land had posted it. They were from Connecticut, and were otherwise well liked for their civic engagement, but I was much appreciated for removing the posting shortly after moving here.
Mending Wall
My friend, Rick, told me if a Vermonter has only two books, they would be the Bible and Robert Frost. Mending stone walls is another spring ritual. Boundaries here because of the rocky soil are piles of stone. Practically, when fields are cleared, stones are moved to the boundaries. Depending on the depth and length of extreme cold and the snow cover, the ground can freeze to a depth of up to four feet. The freeze and thaw cycles create a lot of ground movement. Those piles of stones get shaken, become indistinct and overgrown if not routinely maintained. Between sugaring and planting is the ritual of stone wall repair described in the Frost poem, Mending Wall.
How a guy born in San Francisco, reared in Massachusetts north of Boston, educated at Harvard and Dartmouth, and who found fame while living in England, became the iconic chronicler of New England rural life, is a tribute to his remarkable powers of observation and empathetic imagination.
And, nonetheless, Mending Wall is a miss.
Frost misunderstands the cultural significance of neighbors meeting to repair the cultural artifact marking the boundary of the land under their stewardships. Frost sees the wall as creating an unnecessary separation between them. He resents the wall, and resents his role in maintaining the separation.
"Before I built a wall I’d ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense."
I encourage you to read it, or read it again. Think of mending walls as a rite of spring. Think of it as an opportunity for neighbors to meet after winter's isolation, and engage in the restoration of a cultural artifact and thing of beauty. Think of them not being on different sides, but working cooperatively. Think of it as an acknowledgment in a place where much is shared, there are still boundaries.
It's not the fence that makes good neighbors. It's the sharing, working together, dividing responsibilities, acknowledging the boundaries that touch one another, rather than separate one another, that make good neighbors.
Warm regards,
Francis Sopper
REFERENCED IN THIS LETTER:
Town Meeting Day: https://vtdigger.org/2025/03/02/then-again-vermonts-early-town-meetings/
fiddleheads: https://www.almanac.com/fiddleheads-where-they-grow-and-how-they-taste
Robert Frost: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/robert-frost
Mending Wall: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44266/mending-wall