On The Road: The Bruderhof Community
Until our trip to central New York I had never heard of the Bruderhof Communities.
We went north because Kevin was going north. And Kevin was going north to do video work for the New York Maple Producers. Tim had made a connection with a Bruderhof Community that still tapped maple trees the old-fashioned way – using metal taps and not plastic hoses.
When we arrived at a picturesque community after a short drive from the Highlights retreat center we were warmly welcomed. We arrived at lunch time and were cordially invited to join the community gathering for a group lunch in the school’s tidy cafeteria.
It was a little unnerving to enter a room filled with two hundred people already seated. Two hundred people dressed in similar fashion to one another and eight of us not dressed in similar fashion to one another nor to the two hundred already gathered. It was like the stress of walking into the first day of school in a new classroom – late. Only magnified.
We ate lunch family style – passing the chicken and the rice and the salad bowls. The room was surprisingly quiet for two hundred people – including small children. We chatted with our table neighbors and tried not to feel like a handful of sore thumbs. The food was tasty and the people near us were friendly and inviting and our children thankfully behaved politely and appropriately.
It was a little amusing though. After lunch a sweet lady approached me and spoke with the kids. She spoke serenely and gently of the joys of motherhood and of teaching your children the pleasure of singing praise songs to God and then she specifically asked Piper Finn if she liked to sing songs. To which Piper grinned and said, “Yes.” And then, like some sort of little spirit took over her mouth at that exact moment, the child said, “Only I just love to sing songs from Frozen and my mom gets so annoyed at them.” Which is a crazy thing to say because at that point the six year old had never even seen the latest Disney girl power film. And she hardly knew any of the songs – just like a lyric or two from one. Anyway, the soft-spoken lady smiled and said, “I’m sure you’ll learn new songs for your momma soon.” It was nice, friends. Really a nice mothering moment.
At any rate, our goal was to watch maple syrup being tapped and to participate in the experience and that was what we did.
It’s been so fun to see how maple syrup education has followed us this year. We had that field trip early in the year when we read about Laura Ingalls’ family using maple syrup. We’re talking about maple syrup again with Farmer Boy as Almanzo Wilder’s family tapped their own trees. In New York.
And here we were – in central New York on a cold day with snow on the ground and sap flowing from the trees – a beautiful and fortunate full circle education for our family.
The farmland looked exactly the way you’d want a maple tree grove to appear.
And the sugar shack – where the maple sap is collected and then boiled and then poured into jars – was a work of art. Hand crafted with a tiny sleeping loft above the boiler for long nights of boiling sap in season and wooden shingles cleverly crafted by skilled workmen.
It was sweet.
I couldn’t have orchestrated it better.
Our kids were able to help the gracious and welcoming children from the Bruderhof community as they all gathered sap from the trees and poured the sap into a giant container affixed to the back of wooden wagon pulled by a lovely sturdy horse.
In the sugar shack they were handed popsicle sticks dipped into the boiling sap.
Good grief – I love maple syrup. It’s like nectar from the gods. Or the trees. Or the tree gods. Whatever. It’s nectar. It’s delicious. I want to consume it all day long.
(By the way – how debonair does Otto Fox look in that suit coat for all these New York trip pictures? Somehow, unwittingly, I left his winter jacket hanging on its peg in our hallway and he had no other jacket for the entire high of 20 degrees days. But with a good vest and lots of layers, the suit coat that had somehow been packed instead served him well and he looked like a Dapper Dan the whole journey.)
The folks at the Bruderhof community were so gracious and open and generous with our family. Their kids were polite and friendly and well-spoken. The entire experience was memorable and fabulous.
After we finished filming, the gentlemen who had been our guides and our connection shared a large mason jar still warm and filled with freshly tapped and boiled maple syrup.
I’ve loved that beautiful amber colored liquid for as long as I can remember. My dad took us on a yearly pilgrimage to Virginia’s Highlands Maple Festival every spring. I like maple candy and maple cotton candy and licking the edge of the syrup as it drips.
Hands down, I have never tasted lighter or sweeter or more delectable syrup.
Sadly, this syrup from the Bruderhof community is not for sale. They gather and process the syrup for their own community members.
Which makes the sharing so much sweeter.
