Maple Sugaring Grove In Spring

Bare maple trunks rise through patches of melting snow, each tagged with a metal spile and a hanging bucket collecting sap. A red fox pauses on the thawing path, watching from among daffodils, crocuses and violets pushing up through the last snow, while a barn owl perches silently on a branch overhead. Deeper in the grove, a wooden sugarhouse with a tall chimney sends a plume of steam into the blue sky, and families in winter coats carry buckets toward its open door, some children skipping ahead. Mossy boulders and a melting stream mark the low ground between the trees, and evergreens stand along the far ridge. Snow lingers only where the flowers have not yet claimed the ground, marking the grove's own quiet shift from winter into the first sap run of spring.