Maple Sugaring Time

On Friday afternoon Mary Byrom and I packed up our gear and drove an establishment called Maple Moon Farm. http://www.maplemoonfarm.com/  locate in the beautiful rural Maine town of Lebanon. Mary was invited by the owner to come and paint the new sugar shack.

Frank, the owner of farm, is a part time physician's assistant in Newburyport and spends his other time managing and operating the 130 acre farm complete with a sugar bush, apiary, chickens and an airBnB.  We also had the opportunity to meet his very sweet, rescued Bull Mastiffs (3) and a German Shepard.

With about 18 inches of snow on the ground, we stomped through and followed tractor tracks to a spot where we had a great view of the sugar shack surrounded by many maple trees which were tapped and hung with sap buckets.

With more snow falling, our umbrellas went up to protect our easel and palette while we painted.  At last the paintings were complete. We shook off the snow dustings from the umbrellas and began to packed up our gear.

At the same time, Frank came out with a small pot of hot maple syrup and poured the hot, golden liquid in a bowl filled with packed snow and made us some 'sugar on snow' .  

Now that was a memorable and delicious way to end a day of winter painting.