Site Discussions

Dave,

I’ve been working off and on the last month at a sugaring operation of 27,000 taps in Underhill. Been tapping for weeks now to get done in time. I was coming out of the woods last night, watching the sunset over the Adirondacks and I realized it was well past five o’clock and it was still light. It was not only a wonderful view, but also a cheering feeling of satisfaction to spend a day in the winter woods and know that spring would be here soon enough. The changes of the seasons is one of the holds that Vermont has on me. And as I age, I find it easier and comforting to revel in each one as it comes and goes. I wouldn’t say I want winter to last longer. Sometime I think God made March in case eternity proves too brief. But I know that each winter here is one that adds to my list of challenges met, and memories to cherish.

Hoping the Sap is Sweet,

Bill

I am gratefull for my partial retirement that allows me to persue my favorite winter recreations of backcountry skiing and nordic ice skate touring and exploring, both of which have had fairly spectacular windows this season so far…we’ll have to see what’s in store for Feb., Mar., and beyond….I am not near ready to give up on winter!

Around here, everything is frozen solid so that it’s almost impossible to get out and do anything.  My spiked shoes , snowshoes and Yak Trax don’t even do the job so it seems like a time for hibernation.  Think I’ll go take a nap!

Collect mantis cocoons during the winter fr my garden. Not for pest control but because they are so cool to watch. One day my girlfriend came in from doing some weeding and asked. “How often do butterfly’s shed their wings” I laughed and said every time the mantis eats one. I looked and there were about thirty yellow and white wings around one bush.

Ditto to all your comments including sleeping cats, Laurie. I’m 71; started with wood stove and fireplace as a baby (not literally) at a summer place in the Great Lakes, and now 46 years with a kitchen range and living room glass-front Osborne.
There is nothing like wood heat, and this old house from around 1870 really requires wood heat to be comfortable.  As a kid one of my favourite activities in summer was walking the woods collecting birch kindling; still one of my favourite things to do, and it gets me out and rambling.

Hi Jeremy,
You are correct, it’s quite a way from the Winooski River to the nearest salt marsh.  Greenheads are in the same family as deerflies, but a different species.  They are mentioned because the coastline is a good marker against which to measure flight distance.  It would be much harder to do this with deerflies unless you could identify a single pond with no others in an area.  Thanks for your comment.

Bring the flying squirrels you trap to the wildlife rehabber. They will take them from you and care for them until they can safely release them. Every state has wildlife rehabbers through Fish and Game.

Irwin’s lasting legacy is a notion that provides a little comfort, for while I am so not ready to say goodbye, I know he will always be with me. I first met Irwin in print, where I appreciated his technical approach and his ethics toward the land. Later, when he and Melissa moved in nearby, he soon discovered I was lacking tire chains for my tractor, and he happened to have a solution in the form of an old set of skidder chains, a cutting torch, and handfuls of shackles. It took an afternoon’s work and quite a bit of acetylene, but I came away with not only the best tire chains I’d ever had, but with a dear friend and mentor. His willingness to wield the cutting torch is somewhat symbolic of how his mind worked, to not be bound by how things currently are, but to see them as how they might become.

Irwin’s greetings always came with an exclamation point, a big smile, and a hearty handshake. His advice, time, and use of equipment came easily and freely, and when it came to materials we bartered beef and labor for lumber extensively. There is a 24 foot 7x8 Hemlock sill from his mill on our house’s foundation, thousands of feet of ship-lapped White Pine siding our barns, and a raspberry patch transplanted from his and Melissa’s garden here. He played a large role in my forest management plan, and I see him everywhere I turn out there. Perhaps what I will ultimately benefit the most from is due to his passion and engineer’s meticulous approach to safety; he is in my head when I fell a tree, when I work from heights, or fasten a load. It is an admirably legacy, which I will cherish and do my best to honor.

I have tapped in Jan, Feb, March doesn’t seem to make much difference.

Laurie, loved your memories and comments about wood heat. My friends and I believe that wood heat has a special radiant wave length not possessed by other fuel forms such as gas, oil, and electric etc. The burning wood imparts this very comfortable wavelength to everything it heats, which in turn projects it to everything surrounding it. I have a friend with a combination wood or oil heat furnace. You can definitely tell the difference when the forced air furnace is in the wood heat mode!!

In winter the branches of the Colorado blue spruce, Engleman spruce and sub alpine fir appear smaller as if they have shrunk. Is this a result of water leaving the needles or some other phenomena? Or an illusion?

Nice!

It was an absolute shock to hear Irwin’s passing away…We can’t believe such a gentle, kind and loving person leaving us so early. We were hoping he’d recover soon and to see him again this summer!

Irwin was a person who has a special talent to truly put his mind and hands together - just look at the “little” charming business he operates. We vividly remember he brought our super excited 7-year old Aaron onto his gigantic machines and demonstrated how these monsters worked. Irwin was talented in so any aspects - as a skier, as a ski instructor, as a professor, as an engineer, as a business owner, as a community volunteer, a loving son/father/husband, and the list goes on and on… He certainly didn’t waste his talent as he had helped and influenced so many others.

Irwin will be dearly missed by us, as a friend and a source of inspiration.

Hi Laurie. We’ve heated with wood for 35 years now. First in our condo in Williston for 8 years and then in our house in Cambridge. We have a wood furnace. Her name is, of course, Woody. When it’s our turn (my husband and I) to go down and feed the creature we always say, “Going down to feed Woody.” There is nothing like wood heat as your article portrays. However, by the time April rolls around I’m ready to ditch the ashes and splinters in my fingers to flip the oil switch but we never do. The ashes go into the compost and garden. It always gives not just heat but fertilizer and comes in real handy when there’s ice on the road. Melts ice better then salt. We’ll heat with it until we keel over. Hope we can do it.

Thanks-a lovely piece. I’ve been trying to figure out why I don’t hear the pack at night now that it’s winter. Used to hear them every night in the fall. I miss hearing them but at least I know now that winter-quiet is normal. Thank you!

In the late 70’s within the Manistee National Forest near the town of Irons we would camp along the Little Manistee river where the Wood Thrush song could be heard as if “echoing.” now living near Rockford MI, only on occasion every year or so will we hear the song. The decline is noticed but I keep a keen ear out for my favorite Bird.

Great article. I want to try dry aging some venison next season- this was the first season my husband started hunting again after a few year hiatus. I think we’ll both hunt next year and my biggest goal is always to honor the meat the best it can be… my honey got his last deer of the season yesterday. He completely de-boned and processed same day and I spent the evening making a bone broth- today I made dumplings with veggies and the bits of meat that cooked down off the bone and some of the marrow. Soooo soul warming! ...next year, dry aging!

Irwin was a wonderful man.  He lives around the corner from us.  We have purchased our firewood from him for years.  When it came time for our daughter to be granted a wish from the Make-A-Wish Foundation, we chose to build an accessible trail through our woods.  Irwin provided the wood for the bridges and, with one of his sons, helped build them.  He welcomed local school children to his saw mill operation and let them pick out wood to take to the school for a Loose Parts playground.  He cared about the woods but he cared about people even more.  He will be missed.

A visit to Irwin’s lumber mill was a wonderful opportunity to learn about wood, trees, communities, respect, and so much more. His wisdom will be missed.

I second Marg’s Norwegian friend’s comment about surviving summer. I am also of Scandinavian descent—love winter and become positively nonfunctional in hot, humid weather.