The Sugar Season (21 page)

Judy and Bruce Bascom placing covers on buckets, 1962.

Bascom’s sugarhouse when run by Eric Bascom, Bruce’s grandfather, in early 1950s.

The Bascom sugarhouse after it was rebuilt in 1959, with Eric Bascom standing near the doorway

In the Bascom’s cooler, barrels from Vermont sugarmaker Mark St. Pierre, open and ready for grading.

A weekend in the 1960s, cars lined up at a Bascom sugar party.

The Bascom sugarhouse around 1974, after Bruce returned from college.

Bascom’s logo and sign above the entryway, 2012.

Buckets in the west pasture, looking east to the sugarhouse, 1960s.

The Bascom’s steam-powered evaporator, 2012.

The entryway to Bascom’s after an early-morning ice storm, 2011.

Peter and Deb Rhoades’s sugarhouse during boiling.

The road into David Marvin’s sugarbush, with tubing in the woods.

Maple trees with tubing in David Marvin’s sugarbush.

13

T
HE FORECAST

O
N MARCH
8 the temperature at Bascom’s reached the 60° mark, and Kevin made nearly 1200 gallons of syrup. Bruce had been making deals for syrup, and he told me about one, following my trip to northern Vermont, just after I arrived at the store and he was on his way out to help a customer load barrels.