“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want – oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” ~Mark Twain

While sitting at my desk late last night, more accurately, early this spring morning, researching marketing ideas for temporarychef.com, I came upon a missive penned by Elanor on Ethicurean. Please take a moment and enjoy the word portrait she paints of a small New Hampshire farm just down the road from me.

Yes, it’s spring and the winter past is left only in my memory. Easier, then, to recall the snow mantled serenity and beauty of a season that challenges.

Mark and Cindy Eldridge are in attendance to stoke the fire and check the progress of the sap reduction. It’ll be ready later for bottling.

I’ve commandeered one of the chairs, enjoying the sauna-like atmosphere perfumed with the maple essence of the sap. Absorbed, with eyes closed, in the zen of the moment I drift a bit. As Mark tends to the sap Cindy and I are talking about food, recipes, and the price of groceries. We all agree that the boxes get bigger – the contents get smaller – and the prices just keep on going up and up. It’s a squeeze for sure.

It’s getting warmer as the fire builds and the talk turns to politics. The core of the conversation is a consensus that our representatives don’t seem to give two whits about us but maybe, just maybe, there’s change in the wind with that Obama fella. But none of us allow our hopes to get too high – disappointment has a very bitter taste.

Heading back to my cabin now. More from the sugar shack later.