Sentimental sugar house tales
Toolbox
Burr Morse - Published: March 15, 2010
Awhile ago Eric, the young man who manages our ski center, asked if he could fix up the little sugarhouse over on the hillside maple grove west of here. "That sugarhouse is still fixable?" I said, surprised and flattered at his interest. You see, my grandpa Sidney had built that sugarhouse a long time ago and although it still holds sentimental value, I had not been over there for a long time. We were standing down in our lower parking lot at the time, a place within sight of both Sidney Morse's original grey farm buildings and the little sugarhouse.
My grandfather bought this farm back in 1948, the year I was born. He viewed it as a flatter, more farmable piece of land than the rocky sidehill place he hailed from eight miles up the road. He immediately started making improvements on both the buildings and the land but buildings were his specialty. The farmer before, Mr. Bliss, had done his best with maintenance but when Grandpa Morse arrived, he left "no stones unturned" with roof repair, shoring up, and applying paint … grey paint, his trademark. He also built a huge new barn and several smaller buildings to support his dreams for farming this place at "high speed." When he was done, the Morse Farm was one of Vermont's best dairy farms … a show place, it was!
Fast forward to the year 2010: What's left of Grandpa Morse's buildings sit begging for repair and new paint, and it all happened "on my watch." I feel especially bad when some old timer comes along and remarks about how it used to be. "Looked like it jumped right outa Vermont Life Magazine it did," he'll say, and punctuate it with a "too bad, tsk, tsk, tsk." Yup, those comments would really get me down but for a soothing feeling that always steps in, a message that I know comes from straight from Grandpa Morse. "Don't worry, Burr, times have changed and dairy farming's been bad for a long time. I understand."
That's the way he was, always understanding and accepting of "changed times." Grandpa Morse was my idol, a small man with a big heart and a gait so soft that it seemed his next step would "be on water." He was able to retire early and by the time I joined my dad on the farm in 1971, Grandpa Morse was here doing odd jobs. I remember his love for maple sugaring, the focus of our new diversified farming venture. I can still see him standing over a plank bench using an enamel pitcher to can every drop of syrup we made! He and Grandma tried Florida for a time but he didn't make it as a snowbird, especially when spring approached; the sweetness of sugarin' always beckoned even before its time on the calendar.
One summer he started this project across the field over in the little sugarbush to the west. We'd see him head out early in the morning carrying miscellaneous lumber, tools, and a dinner pail. That was the year he told Grandma he was done with Florida; if she wanted to go, she could go without him. He chipped a shelf into the hillside ledges and then built the sugarhouse using scraps of lumber and flat stones from the chipped ledges. Grandpa sugared there the following spring and had the time of his life. That fall, however, he started having problems with his stomach and by February, he was gone. Except for a couple of minor attempts by family members to sugar over there, Sidney Morse's little sugarhouse has been out of use for nearly 40 years now.
Eric, it seems, had an ulterior motive in fixing it up: He wanted to propose to his girlfriend, Heather, there! He spent some time taking out the rusted remnants of an abandoned sugarhouse, put in new windows and battened up the walls but he especially remarked on the floor; Grandpa Sidney had laid up a beautiful slate floor by coaxing large flat stones in with levers, and block and tackle. When Eric described the floor to me, I said I wasn't surprised. "Sidney Morse was a genius with block and tackle. Slowly but surely, he could move anything," I said. After Eric finished fixing up the place, he added some special romantic touches which included spreading flower petals from wall to wall. One moonlit night this past February, he "seeded" the sugarhouse with a few special friends, got Heather over there under false pretense, and popped the question.
I'm convinced Grandpa Morse was watching that night. Yup, we've felt his presence around here since he passed away so long ago. Even though his dairy empire has "crumbled," for some reason his last building project, the little sugarhouse, has weathered the years to serve again. Oh, by the way, Heather said "Yes." I have a great feeling about their upcoming marriage. It'll be blessed with a "sweet" beginning, lots of creativity, and most importantly, by a great man like Sidney Morse.
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