I love this fallow time between winter and spring because of all the signs of good things to come.

First the geese arrived. Then I saw daffodil tips breaking through the ground. Bird song has definitely changed to the spring mating variety. But the past few weeks, my favorite sightings—in a dead tie with a skein of geese—are the buckets.

Sugaring buckets have gone up all over the neighboring towns. I don’t think there’s a maple tree in the surrounding forty miles that doesn’t have a tap with a bucket hanging from it. And it’s one of the sweetest sights there is—no pun intended…

We have two sugar houses in the town I live in, busy boiling down the sap. Boy, I can just taste a hot stack of pancakes dripping with maple syrup…

Yep. It’s sugaring time. And yep, spring’s coming.

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