Full.

Full moon, full buckets, full boil… the word of the week is full.

The “Snow Moon” on Saturday February 24 reflected its light over a snowless landscape this year. I joined the Allamakee County Conservation Board’s “full moon” hike at the Luster Heights unit of Yellow River State Forest on Thursday night. Even without snow, the near-full moon hanging over the Mississippi River was a beautiful sight to take in.

The much-anticipated return to “normal” winter cold temperatures has only peeked in with a few short bursts of temperatures down into the teens. Maple sap flow has taken a few breaks during the periods when temperatures were too cold or too warm, but the sap accumulating in the buckets has been quite steady since the beginning of February. On a good run to the woods, I come back with a Ranger full of 5-gallon buckets full of sap. After we run the sap through the RO (Reverse Osmosis) to take out some of the water, I bring it to a full boil for hours. As the steam rises, the wood-fired boiler constantly calls for more sap. It takes my full attention to keep the fire fed and to make sure the syrup boils down to just the right concentration.

As I watch sap boil and think about the abundance of this Mississippi River valley, I hear the symphony of the migrating birds in the backwaters. The melting ice on the slough shimmers in the sunshine. The eagles soar over the valley. My heart is full.

Until next time…