For years, I’ve been able to tap the maple tree on my front lawn. It brings a bit of joy to our urban environment. But the city put a stop to it, Richard Lachman writes
On my downtown Toronto block, spring sneaks up on us. The undetected hole in my boot was proof against the snow all winter long, but it’s powerless against the meltwater lakes of the local crosswalk. The overnight freeze/thaw cycle leaves street-parked cars sunk into troughs of ice, studded with shattered plastic from futile attempts to dig them out with snow-scrapers.
For years now, each spring, my kids and I tap the city-owned tree in my front yard to make maple syrup. Silver maples are not like the more prolific sugar maple of professional producers, but they still makes a mighty fine product. We pour each pail of the thin sap into a cast-iron pot on the front porch, and, when we have enough, boil it down on the kitchen stove.
But the process, still, seems like magic. Like something from nothing. In the same way that vegetables from the garden seem like they’re free, despite hours of effort and hundreds of dollars at the gardening store – getting something precious without directly purchasing it is a powerful novelty in the modern age. I’ve heard someone describe libraries as the last place in the world you can sit in the winter without having to buy or believe in anything.
But this is the last year we’ll be able to have our mid-city sugar bush: A neighbour phoned the law on us. A city bylaw officer stopped by and wrote us up, threatening a fine if we kept up the tradition. Apparently, their policy is to disallow tapping or anything else that might harm a city tree.
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