The Sugar Bush

It happens once a year for a few short weeks.  The weather has to be just right and all of a sudden you wake up one morning and it's time for a visit to the sugar bush.  Maple syrup season has arrived.  March into April is officially Maple Syrup season in Ontario.

The days are warming up and the nights are just cold enough.  Though you can't feel it, there's a stirring underneath us that reaches deep into the cold dormant earth.  There's a quickening, a gentle awakening from a deep winter's slumber.  The maple trees begin to stir and come alive again.  The sap begins to flow through their trunks and a sweet elexir that we have come to enjoy is extracted from these wise trees.  Maple syrup is on its way and the taste of sweet, sticky, golden liquid leaves me with a craving for sugar snow and steaming hot pancakes with melting butter dripping down their tender, fluffy sides ready for every mouthful to be savoured.

Each year, during maple syrup time, I am transported back to fond memories of an excited little girl going to the sugar bush with my elementary school class and making snow taffy with my classmates.  Hay rides with horses taking us through the sugar bush while our peals of laughter rang through the woods as we breathed in the sweet air that wafted out of the sugar shack.  When I go to the sugar bush, it's a pilgrimage of sorts for me as I remember the many fun-filled trips to the sugar shack.  The same eagerness and excitement I felt when I was seven years old takes hold of me as I plan my trip to the sugar bush each season.  Would you like to go to the sugar bush with me?
 
Painting is done in acrylics on gallery canvas.  36 w x 24 h.