When I was a child spring meant a lot of things. It wasn't just relief  from snow or pretty flowers starting to wedge there way up toward the air and sun.

 When we heard mom call,"Grampas Making syrup!" We knew we were  in for another trip north. My parents families had settled in the northern tip of the little finger of Michigan and being from Vermont syrup was in their blood .It is part of why they chose to settle there. The abundant sugar maples along with new property had brought my great grandparents there and the family stayed for several generations until they began to journey out looking for a better life and headed toward the industrial part of the state.

Today syrup making is a scientific process with miles of tubing run from tree to tree and then to a collection point. They use filters, hydrometer, heat controllable fires and fancy jars.

When Grandpa made syrup he started at very first thaw to check the trees. He tapped each one by hand, then hung a copper or aluminum bucket were the hooks were just below the tap.

Each Day a check was made of the buckets. When they were ready (about 1/3-1/2 full), it was time to fire up the sugar shack. The sugar shack was just an old wood frame a long metal table in the center, suspended about a large roaring wood fire. Firewood was chopped the fall before to allow it time to "cure" all winter so it would burn.

The buckets of sap emptied into larger buckets or kegs on a wagon and Grandpa always had a mule to pull it. The sap was hauled to the shack and carefully dumped into the tray of the table and the slow, steady process of cooking would begin. The fire was watched and stroked with a long handled metal poker with a hook on one end to turn the wood. Wood was added to keep the fire at just the right time to keep the sap at a slow steady boil.

When the syrup was finished it was hand dipped and run through a filter and then funneled into canning jars and metal cans. Grandpa always gave his regular customer a discount if they returned the precious cans in good condition with the spout top attached. He sold a lot to vacationers that came to fish and climb the "Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes".

I loved to help him. To walk along among the trees as he lovingly checked for any bad taps and the level of sap. He always stressed how important to tap them at just the right time. And the right place, not too high, and not too low to keep out "critters".

It amazed me how his mule always remembered which tree was next and would slowly walk on ahead and wait beside the next maple.

The Best part of course was settling down to a big stack of Grandma buckwheat pancakes piled high and soaked with the sweet nectar from the trees and Grampa's Hard work.

It was a lot of Hard work with Sweet reward!

These are actual pictures of Grandpa's Maple Syrup Shack.

Behind the shack is a big hill that many called "Trumbull Hill" after my mothers ancestors.