Site Discussions

This is my first time having mating doves, watching them build their nest, and now sitting on their 2 eggs. At first we were sad when moma bird left the first egg, but after reading your posts, now I understand she wasn’t going to incubate until the second egg came along.I have learned so much from everyone els’s posts, thank you all for sharing your stories. We’ve given her seeds and water, and she looks happy. She even let me sit out on the porch with her for a few minutes. They are so beautiful !

There are soil-injected and tree-trunk injected products. Rather than getting into the specifics of chemicals here I think it best to refer you to some expert literature such as this piece by extension professors from four states: http://www.emeraldashborer.info/documents/Multistate_EAB_Insecticide_Fact_Sheet.pdf

In the article, it is stated that: “EAB can be checked by injecting insecticides into the soil every other year.” What type of insecticide is used? We have several beautiful old ash on our property we would love to be able to save. Thank you.

Thanks for this article, Susan Shea, and for the ensuing discussion. I’m looking forward to reading updates on The Tick Project!

I love a man who can use the word “debouche.”  :)

There is also some intangible “genetic memory” that compels us to seek certain places that speak to us - intangible qualities to the landscape which are hard to define. Places that seem somehow familiar even the first time we visit. What is that place-based energy? Feng shui or some distant tribal memory or affinity?

Glad you found a purpose for box elder…Some years ago, I spent part of a summer working for the state cutting them off of flood levees along the Susquehanna. I never knew the heartwood could be so intriguing. Also, great comments about secondary wood uses…couldn’t agree more. I’ll look into the stroller-forwarder combo. Wood is Wonderful.

The reference to the pile of stones brings to mind a talk I heard last spring on the subject of ceremonial stone structures. A wikipedia reference talks about the subject here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceremonial_stone_landscape

Connecticut has been addling mute swan eggs for a number of years now.  I live on the Mystic River and the swan population has decreased from nearly a hundred birds to one or two pair now.  The river still shows the deprecation of vegetation from the past, but more mallards and black ducks are back in the river now.  Canada geese are now more of a problem than the swan.

For the past 16 years, I have eagerly looked forward to the return of the wood thrush to my suburban DC yard. He filled my days with his haunting and magical song. He has not returned this year. I am lonely and heartbroken.

Just ordered some Night Velvet Shiitake spawn to make use of Red Maple.  This was because of a lecture on changing NE forests.  Really for diversity. Would never cut my sugar maples. Also want to eradicate Norway Maple. Actually thought oyster mushrooms were more aggressive?

how cool is that

Hi Susan,

I came across this video showing a group of otters rolling in the dirt under a tree. It was taken in Singapore. How would you explain their group behaviour? https://www.facebook.com/iJeffTan/videos/10156243303738607/

I tried the check valve spouts a few years ago and didn’t find them to be noticeably effective.  I have no reason not to trust in the official research on them, but I also haven’t heard many endorsements from other sugarmakers as of yet. 

The one season I used them, I noticed that they often became contaminated with a tiny piece of woodchip from the taphole.  The woodchip, or what I would describe more as a particle given that it was really small, would lodge in against the check valve ball and cause the ball to stick in place.  Sap still was able to get out around the ball (thankfully), but it was also able to get back in the hole.  Tapholes were drilled with a new bit and with appropriate care to make a clean hole.

When I pulled spouts at the end of the season, I found that sap in the droplines would often flow out the spout when it was hanging down after just being pulled.  That made me look closer to see what was going on, and that’s when I noticed the tiny wood particles wedged against the balls.

100% clean tapholes would solve this issue, but that is hard to do given that it only takes a fragment of a woodchip to foul it up.

I have a few lines of 3/16 and like how they run, though I will probably continue to lower the tap count on the lines.  I started with 25 taps, then down to 20, and still the taps lower on the line do not run as well as the upper most.  Tim Wilmot recently described in an article that 5 tap runs out performed 15 tap lines, and that agrees with what I’ve seen visually.  Mine tie into my existing system of pumped vacuum where most of the taps are on 5/16.

Haven’t had an issue yet with 3/16 lines getting plugged or gummed up.

Overall 2018 was a good year in terms of final production in our woods.  It was a long one, though, and took a lot of days of short runs to get there.  Thawed out around noon and frozen up by 8pm were how most days seemed to go. 

Enjoy reading your dispatches, Dave, and the comments from others as well.  Thanks.

Dave—

We’ve been using a mixture of 3/16 and 5/16 in recent years and decided to convert everything to 3/16th this year with new drops all around.

I made a little gauge setup that I can use to check the vacuum at each tap hole (unplugging the stubby and plugging in the gauge) and often found vacuum greater than 20 lbs. So that part is amazing, though I also found neighboring lines, identical-seeming in every respect, with no vacuum. My guess is that I hammered too hard and split some holes.

We haven’t been rinsing lines at the end of the season, and my thought was that using check valves to minimize back wash would be cheaper than rinsing. I haven’t had any gumming up issues in the 3/16 so far, though only half of the laterals are more than a season old at this point.

Interested to hear what other people are experiencing with gumming up.

Chuck

Thank you for packing so much detail into this explanation. Gave me just what I needed to know!

Hey Chuck,

We were using check valves—both black and clear. The longer I use them, the less confident I am in them. This seemed like the perfect year for them to help add length to the season, but anecdotally, at least, they don’t seem to have given us any more length than other sugarmakers around here I know who didn’t use them.

By skinny tubing I take it you mean 3/16s? How many years have you been using that and what’s your impression of it? I’ve heard some producers say that they’ve been having problems keeping it clean and unobstructed after a few years of use.

I grew up with butternut trees on our 47 acre”farm” and learned how to crack the nuts open from my father by using a block of firewood and a hammer.

As an adult with my one family we had a few butternut trees on the 5 acres we called home for 31 years and those trees would produce a bushel or two of nuts about one year out of three. Fast forward to four years ago when we moved into a smaller house but with a big enough yard to host two large, mature trees and two that are just barely big enough to produce a few nuts. I was thrilled two years ago when the two large trees produced 15 five gallon pails of nuts. Imagine my delight when in the fall of 2017 I picked up 60 five gallon pails of nuts, primarily from the two large trees.  Truly a labor of love but I enjoy sharing them with anyone who shows some interest and is willing to go through the trouble to crack them. 

If anyone is willing to pay the postage I am willing to ship them some nuts.  I have way more than I can keep up with.

To the person(s) asking for recipes, I will share my favorite which is sure to elicit rave reviews from both butternut aficionados as well as those who have never tasted a butternut and didn’t know what they were missing.  Simply use your favorite pecan pie recipe and substitute butternuts for the pecans. I wager that only a few people on earth have ever eaten a butternut pie!

I have a question. The females seem to stay put after they emerge from the cocoons, attracting the mails to them. If the female cocoon had formed in the wild, the caterpillar would have spun it on or near the host tree/plant. The fertilized female could simply lay her eggs on the plant the cocoon was on. If the cocoon is removed to protect it, or if a purchased cocoon ecloses in a cage, how can we be sure the female will find a suitable host plant?

Thanks.
Charlie

Posted for Candace Neary, submitted to our office:

I just read Susan Shea’s article in the Mountain Times and the Rutland Herald about the salt cravings of porcupines. It brought back

memories from the 1950s. Here in Mount Holly, there were many porcupines…eating and destroying houses, filling the noses of dogs with quills, and attacking the brakes and other salty surfaces underneath cars.  I remember the time when my mother had a near-accident when her brakes failed to do their job, and we headed for the ditch beside the road. I think it was in the early summer.

Thanks to Susan Shea for her informative article.