Just finding her posed a bit of a problem.

Rummaging around in the cabin shed that spring, the spring after the divorce, I’d discovered the former owner’s sugaring supplies. The old timer kept the sturdy versions — metal spouts, buckets, even a beat-up but solid evaporator pan welded together from patchwork junk leftover from other projects.

With all the optimism and can-do determination I could muster, the eight-year old and I set out to tap some maples. Warming to our new life, we could sense the trees beginning to flow too. But we hadn’t marked the trunks last fall, having no idea what approached us that winter, and now how did we know which trees were which?

Even after a lifetime among them I still mixed up the hardwoods. Small beneath the tall varied canopy and slipping on hidden patches of ice on the steep incline, we recognized in our footsteps a message. We could look on the ground for residual, maybe rotting but recognizable skirts of leaves. If loads of them circled a trunk, surely that one must run maple in its veins.

Lugging the drill and buckets, boy wonder tracked the fallen. “Here. Here. The star shape.”

Sure enough, if we squinted and looked waaaay up top, we could see an attached maple leaf. Huzzah.

We felt around the trunk. Looked where the bark seemed open enough to accept a small intrusion. We talked to her too. Assured her we’d studied the university extension pamphlet and knew if we took care we wouldn’t hurt her or leave lasting damage. My son’s eyes lit with the adventure of it. I worried for the tree. Worried that she’d already given so much and just when she needed to rise we’d sap her strength.

But we spoke kindly, thanking her for the gift, marked the site and slowly drilled the hole. Clear liquid flowed immediately. We tasted it. Watery and faintly sweet. Miraculous. We managed somehow to put in the spout, attach a clean hose and run it to an old metal minnow bucket. As we worked our way around the trunk placing another couple taps the sun came out for real. Everything flowed with possibility.

We used all our stints on that one tree, the only one we could recognize. The next morning all the buckets brimmed. We kindled the fire within a large leftover steel wheel we found in the woods, hauled out the old evaporating pan, and began again.