'Gala time' in the 'sugar bush'

"Sugar shack,'' where the sap is boiled to produce syrup, surrounded by its "sugar bush''.

"Then 'sugaring off' was a gala time, with parties in the "sugar bush,'' where dippers of syrup were poured into the snow to harden for the guests....Sweet, sour pickles were often served to whip up jaded appetites. They ate sugar between the buttered layers of pancakes four tiers thick; and songs were sung and jokes were cracked and even the most dour old farmer became genial at the thought that the long cold mountain winter was over and spring would soon be there.''

-- Ernest Pole, on the sugar harvest after the 1938 hurricane, in his book The Great White Hills of New Hampshire (1946)