Wanting to bless our daughter and son-in-law with a cooler full of frozen homegrown meat — pork, beef and venison, as well as various cheeses — we opted to drive down to Texas, spending a long weekend with them.

Praying many days in advance for good weather and good health, we called forth angels in the name of Jesus to assist for safe travels. We packed up, gassed up and headed out before dawn one Thursday in April.

As we approach Easter, I truly feel it is the most important day of the year. Our Father God in His great agape love and unmerited grace and mercy, paved a way for us to escape our sinful nature and sure death. He set a plan in place for His Son to pay a penalty we deserved. Jesus did not warrant it but took it upon Himself to pay.

The snow on either side of the trail I was traversing was higher than my four-wheeler. My husband, bound and determined to open a path to reach our sap totes and pickle barrels, had gotten the skidder buried in the drifts.

Dangling my feet off the end-gate of our old white farm truck parked along our ridge, I was waiting for the wand pump to inhale the sap stored in the tote. The totes, placed at the bottom of a south-facing ridge, is the perfect set up for sap collecting and convenient to unload. It’s a hobby my husband and I enjoy. Early spring, as soon as the weather cooperates, we’re up in the woods as often as the trees release their ambrosia.

In the throes of collecting sap again this year — our sixth season — I’ve come to the realization that every single season is different.

Early in February our buyer sent us a text from Florida: “When u tapping?”

“When are you opening?”

“When u have sap!” he retorted.

Growing up on a dairy farm, us kids had a couple of favorite cows and a few kitties. Our dad, when he was a little boy, had gotten bit by a dog, traumatizing him, so we had but one dog, and that was after us four kids cajoled and convinced him we should do this.