The wood man delivers me green firewood, wood I plan to burn next year, God willing. He brings bees, too, or maybe the creatures simply appear magically from my gardens or trees, hovering on this sweet-smelling-of-sap pile. The day’s flawlessly sunny, and we stand beside the wood and butterfly bush my daughter bought me, talking. His truck is 40 years old, older than him, and he yarns on from there, telling me about his sugarbush and the taps he leases and how much syrup he made last year and the year before. A former sugar maker myself, we talk the talk about reverse osmosis and arches and how he nearly but not quite burned his front pans last year. We talk ropy sap. We talk how long it takes to fill a 40 gallon drum.
I write him a check for a week’s worth of my wages. He heads out, still laughing, leaning out his window, telling me his wife expects him home for lunch.
When he’s gone, I lift a piece of maple, heft its weight, breathe in its smell. This wood man’s given me good weight.
Stony Soil Vermont 
My father is a long time sugar maker, now he is 80 years old and struggling with Parkinson. The other day he told me, next spring I want to make sugar, I though it was heartbreaking and beautiful at the same time.
Thank you for sharing this story. How hard aging is….
If you enjoyed this nice entry on the heft of the maple and how a wood burner relishes the wood being non-doty, do consider the supremely wonderful Norwegian Wood by Lars Mytting. Thanks for the ode to firewood Brett. GT
I have always meant to read that book! I was thinking of that while I was stacking yesterday. Thanks for reminding me and giving a good recommendation.
No problem, and as you read do not gloss over the poems by Hans Borli, the pre-chainsaw Norwegian lumberjack by day and poet at night. Now, THAT is a real combo! Enjoy, and perhaps pass your copy or suggest one to the wood man.
Now you’ve really piqued my interest!