Summary

The next section of Braiding Sweetgrass is called “Tending Sweetgrass.” “Maple Sugar Moon” recounts Kimmerer and her daughters’ experience making maple syrup by tapping the trees behind their house. Kimmerer marvels at the way the trees produce their special sap at exactly the time of year when humans need it most – when most other hearty food sources are nowhere to be found. Kimmerer says that to produce such a wonderful thing as maple syrup, the “responsibility does not lie with the maples alone. The other half belongs to us; we participate in its transformation. It is our work, and our gratitude, that distills the sweetness” (69).

The next chapter, “Witch Hazel,” recounts Kimmerer’s friendship with a green-thumbed neighbor named Hazel when she lived in Kentucky with her family. Hazel, an elderly woman who had moved in with her disabled son and pined for...