16 gallons

of maple elixer, dripping generously from 15 trees in the woods behind my house. Like Thornton Burgess's Peter Rabit, I run and jump a little on my path between the trees, because it's 45 degrees and feeling like spring. Because buckets, neglected yesterday, brim with clear sweetness today. I thought February was the longest, dreariest month of the year? This year spring touches us early, and I relax my worry that our March vacation will take me out of the country during the most generous maple week.

Basement woodstove stoked to its hottest means windows upstairs can crack open and let some freshness into our closed winter home.

Maple season, my heart flips with love and fills with singing.