Careful Now!

click on picture to enlarge

When I was a little boy my uncle took me to a sugar bush. I talked to the farmer who was doing down the sap. Being a curious kid I had lots of questions. I remember asking him if the sap was pure and clean. He laughingly told me that it was, even though black squirrels sometimes drown in the pails.

Hello? Black squirrels drown in sap buckets? How can that be? Well, they edge their way down the trunk and lean forward for a drink and find themselves balanced on the fine edge of disaster.

I asked the farmer if he throws the squirrel and the sap away.

"Hell no. I throw the squirrel away, but the sap adds flavour to the mix." And with that he gave me a big wink and a laugh.

I decided that this would make a good story painting.

I had fun with this work, particularly gettng the textures right on the trees and getting the right bounce of light off the spring snow.

The picture is 61cm x 46cm. (24"x 18")

The picture has now found its way from my studio into a private collection.  Sometimes it hurts to say goodbye.