Very often, my husband Lloyd and I exchange stories with one another; as we tell stories, we find how similar our backgrounds are. Lloyd is originally from Brighton, Ontario; he moved to British Columbia in 1963, never to return except to visit.

His dad Garnet,and his mom Edith, had a small farm. Lloyd’s dad was very resourceful using his small farm to plant tomatoes. When the tomatoes were ready to harvest Garnet hired native people to pick them, which he then sold to the local cannery in town. Lloyd told me their tomatoes were the best around and were always grade A. They also had milking cows,which Lloyd and his dad would milk every day. Then Garnet bought an automated milking machine,which made the work after school much easier for Lloyd.

Lloyd has fond memories of his childhood and was an only child like me. Lloyd went to a school that had one teacher for all eight grades and said he would walk to school, which was about half a mile from their home.

When I went to visit his hometown I saw the old school building. For fun he used to ride his bike into Brighton with a friend and go fishing on the weekends.

One day, he told me, Mom, that is his name for me, Mom, did you know my dad and I used to gather sap from the maple trees in the spring time?

Oh I said, how did you do that?

Well, Lloyd said, “my Dad had a stone bolt, which was made from wooden planks and a single work horse would be used to haul the stone bolt.”

“On the stone bolt we had a huge 45 gallon drum. We did this early in the spring when the sap was ready. My dad would go to each maple tree and drill a hole about three inches then he would place the special tool called the spiel into the drilled hole, then he would place a hook under the spiel, and hang a pail there to catch the sap as it would slowly drip.” Much later he would return and check how much sap he had. Lloyd said the sap looked clear, he called it, sweet water. He said it took 32 gallons of sap to make one gallon of maple syrup. He and his dad Garnet would gather the maple sap and place it all into a boiler, and boil the sap down until it turned into maple syrup. They did all this on their farm, which was out in the bush. When the maple syrup was ready they poured it into a sterilized gallon jug for their use. After hearing this story about sap and how much it took to make one gallon of maple syrup, I am more conscious of how much work it took to make it and more careful of how I use my syrup now.

Lloyd’s grandmother Mary lived with them; she helped out with the garden that they had. They raised chickens and the vegetable garden and the poultry were used for their food.Once a year Garnet would buy dressed beef,which they would use for themselves. There was a cheese factory, where they bought their cheese, which is huge. When I was there visiting with Lloyd, his Uncle Charlie took us to the cheese factory. The cheese there was so awesome and had so much flavour. I first tasted curd cheese at this factory and it is so good.

My husband has many memories, very much like my own. When we tell each other stories, we have to say, “oh, my Mom or my Dad did that.” Or, “remember, when they did that.”

Spring is my favorite time; everything comes back to life, and it feels like a new beginning.

I hope our memories bring back fond ones for you too.

As Always in Friendship.