Site Discussions

Hi Juan - this website should be very helpful in giving you everything you need to know about forest tax law: http://www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5236.html

Good luck!

I do love the descriptions and pictures so much.

Hi, I am interested in offsetting my taxes which are twice a year Sept. & Jan. I have almost 40 acres and am interested in keeping my forest natural and maintaining its wildlife habitat and protecting its environmental integrity, which is providing a ecosystem service. I have been doing it for 19 years now by myself and need tax relief to continue. How can I apply for this tax benefit?

I’ve got to say, good reading.  I just bought a Truper brand 6lb. maul because I got a new saw for Christmas and probably dropped a few more Ash trees than I feel like processing.  We had the Asian Ash Borer Beatle blight here. 

Anyway, out of necessity, I’ve found that the straight grains, Ash, and especially wild cherry, will make you look like an Old Testament god with nothing but a light single/double sided ax. The maul is invaluable, but if things are frozen, or the wood is right, with a little practice you can almost plank the pieces as you go. 

It’s been ages since we had chestnut here in any number, but I’ve uncovered one rotting into the ground and a few inches in is beautiful wood.  That and walnut, I’d love to have more.  But if you hunt these along with barn wood for craftsmanship, the log rotting on the ground may just be what you are looking for.  Find somebody with a mill and a planer and you’ve got it.

I planted a maple tree in November. It’s late April and nothing is showing growth.

My grandfather, William H. Palmer, was the finishing room superintendent at Cascade when he retired in 1947-9.  My mother and father both went to Berlin High School. My other grandfather was Treasurer of the Berlin National Bank until the Bank holiday of 1933.
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All five of my uncles went to BHS. Art designed machinery for the tube mill. Bill, the youngest, lived in Berlin with Art until he finished high school.
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I clearly remember the “money smell” when I visited as youngster in the Fifties!  I was lucky enough to hear the Sunday bells of the Russian Orthodox Church when I visited the family home at 125 Shepard St.
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I have to consider myself quite lucky to have a family that had such strong connections to Berlin—a fascinating place!

Good info, thanks!

What kind of deworming medication works on moose?

I believe Giovanna Peebles’ Iceland discovery unknowingly strengthened the connection of North America to Atlantis…
“In a 1954 issue of Geological Society of America, Bulletin, Bruce Heezen and others reported on a seamount - an underwater mountain - that has been named Atlantis by geologists and is in the Atlantic Ocean. It has been found to have been an island about 12,000 years ago.”
https://yourspaceyourlife.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/synchronicity-iceland-and-huh-atlantis/

One year we (we?, some stacking help from the wife and kids) bought 120 cords of log length wood. All the wood was cut with a chainsaw, split with a mechanical splitter, and stacked by hand in a hay field. After 6 months of drying the wood was loaded on to a 3 cord truck and delivered. That was the most ever done in a single season. The lesson learned during that season was that pretty stacks don’t earn you any extra money!! Just get it off the ground.

I’d estimate it takes about an hour and a half per notch, Paul. Too many variables to answer how long it takes to build a cabin, but the short answer is a long time. There’s a reason why those scribe-fit log homes cost so much more than stick-framed ones: it’s all time, time, time, time, time.

This past week a Northern Flicker discovered the awesome resonance of my two metal roof vent caps (kitchen and bath). I’m pretty sure it’s louder inside than out!

My husbands grandfather worked for George Vanderbilt and Dr. Schenck.  His parents spent time with Dr. Schneider and he has built his own Biltmore stick. Many stories he could have told.

I was walking my dog on the Chesapeake Bay in fall of 2012 when I was standing in the middle of millions of dragonflies going south. 

The best part about it is they flew right around me & my small dog without even hitting us.

I consider this one of the greatest events in my life!!!

I’ve been sugaring for almost 50 years in 3 different states. Technology has changed things a lot over those years. The news media will often say that earlier tapping/boiling dates means spring is coming sooner and is caused by global warming.  That is certainly part of the equation, but the news media doesn’t mention that a lot of the earlier boiling dates are a result of technology changes.  Good sanitation, high vacuum, replacing spouts yearly and drops every 3 years has really changed things for the better by extending the season on both the front and the back end.  Sap sugar content was low this year, but I still was able to get over 28 gallons of sap per tap, which yielded .5 gallons syrup per tap.  Its my best production in 30 years here, yet most of the crop was A medium or A dark (to use the old grades).  Another producer nearby made 90% A Light and no dark, with no RO to speed things up.  Go figure.  I sum up sugaring by saying this:  The more we know about maple sugaring, the more we realize how much we don’t know.  Its Mother Nature keeping us amazed and amused. . . . and sometimes confused.

Very helpful information. Wish I had found this before brewing my first batch. Now I have a mission - get more twigs and try again. I know the flavor will be improved because on my first attempt the aroma was amazing till the water started to boil. Thanks again!

How long does it take to do one notch?  Times two per log plus time to debark times however many logs it will take?  How many man hours to build a cabin average?

Our environment has been “burned” so many times by introducing species from other parts of the world. How many more times do we have to introduce an exotic species before we learn we are inviting another disaster?

Removing certain dams can be serious problem, as there is usually a huge pile of sediment that has been building up over the many years that it has been there. Some dams are simpler to remove, due to their placement in the river.

As Central Vermont Public services’ last hydro electric engineer, I have had several years of experience doing this kind of work - and some of it is not easily accomplished

I always enjoy these updates, and now with 6 years of sugaring under my belt, I feel like I can add my own 2 cents.

I’ve done research on maple sap at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA since 2012. I find it interesting that this coincides with the period that Dave describes as “weird”. I concur that 2017 continued that trend for us as well, with most of the sap collected in the first two and last two weeks of the season. I also agree that overall the season turned out fine. In fact, at Harvard Forest, most of the measures of the season - sap sugar content, sap collected, number of days we collected - were all about average (for the past 6 years - which is a big caveat as Dave’s longer stretch of data shows).

The research I do at Harvard Forest is part of a larger effort to collect data across sugar maple’s range undertaken by ACERnet (Acer Climate and Socio-Ecological Research Network - blogs.umass.edu/acernet).

ACERnet is also interested in how sugar makers respond to the kind of variability we’ve experienced over the past 6 years, and we are asking producers what they might do in the future under different climate and market scenarios. Producers who want to learn more or participate in our survey can access it here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/maple_management