As he took a break from his work in the sugar house, B. Bear spotted several pair of cardinal in the pine trees nearby. Out among the trees and shrubs, next to the sugar house ,were a large number of chickadees, house finch, junco and other birds that either did not migrate for the winter to the south or had migrated to this area from farther north.
A coopers hawk had been sitting on a high branch of one of the maple trees causing the bird activity to cease for a short time. Once the hawk flew off in search of an easier meal, the small song birds began grousing for food in the tree branches and on the ground around the area.
Soon a family of squirrels walked up to the sugar house, knocked on the door to announce their arrival. B. Bear welcomed them all in and showed them the evaporator and how it worked to boil down the sap into sweet sticky syrup.
"Who wants to try a taste?" offered B. Bear.
"I do, I do, I do", came the quick reply of several young squirrels with great enthusiasm.
"You will all get a turn," added a more mature voice, "let the youngest go first, this is their first taste of the sweetness of spring, remember how it was for you last year."
With a murmur of agreement, several young squirrels stepped aside and a tiny yearling reached up her paw to take the small acorn cap full of syrup from the large, though quite nimble, hand of B. Bear.
"MMMMM!!" the tiny squirrel exclaimed, "this is the best thing that I have ever tasted!"
With that, her siblings lined up for their turns and also gave their approval of B. Bear's syrup, and generosity.
Taking their leave a short time later, the squirrel family thanked B. Bear for his time and went on their way. B. Bear returned to his work bottling his syrup into fine glass containers and jugs that bore his trademark paw print with his initials inside.
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