Site Discussions

Delighted to see your ‘column and remarks’ continued.  Your stories are always my favorite and I look forward to sharing your signs of spring with my family members.

We’re dealing with the same issues, Val. I don’t trust anyone who’s completely sure of anything—especially Ag related—so my suggestion is to wash all your equipment well during this cold snap, empty your pans of all the old sweet that’s in there (you can save it and finish processing when you know the sap’s going to be off), process your next batch of sap when you get it, and hope for the best. The flavor might come back. That said, if you live in southern NY, there’s a good chance the physiology of the trees have changed and the sap is going, or has gone, buddy. Once this happens you’re usually stuck with off-flavors.

Our season is far early and inconsistent. I am always happier with temperatures too cold rather than too warm. Wearing long underwear to insulate against the evaporator’s heat makes for an uncomfortable sweat in a 90 degree sugarhouse due to a 70 degree day. My move to 3/16 tubing has been helpful in moving sap more quickly through the lines and in extending a warm weather run due to the increased vacuum. Yes, the red-wing blackbirds arrived almost a month early, the ants have been present, and the maple moths are swimming, some poplars are in bloom, and the peepers have sung. I am carefully tasting the most recent batch of syrup for taste. My students are scheduled to come for a day of sugaring this Tuesday. An early March date used to be too early, yet now it is almost too late! But as I always answer, “I will better tell you in April.”

sap in the gathering tanks gets cloudy during the warm days. we’re making dark syrup only.

we don’t have an r.o. perhaps that would reduce the problem

We are familiar with the saying “the devil is in the details.”  The study pertained to the Northeast while totally ignoring what is going on in the southern U.S. where widespread clear cutting is going for supplying pellets for European power generation.  Please address this topic in the future.

Heating my home, I try my best to minimize our “carbon footprint.”  I cut only dead, dying, and downed trees for fuel.  Often they are partially held up from the ground and are already partially seasoned.  With the level of disease currently in our forests, this isn’t too hard to do.

Thanks for the interesting article. This is another bizarre syrup year, 68 degrees a few days ago and 16 today. My first two batches are dark, dark, dark with an off flavor. Question since I’m new: if I note the sap coming out of the tree with a slight yellowish tinge, is this ALWAYS an indicator for bad tasting, dark syrup? Should I just pitch any sap on those extra warm days/nights?

I observe doves all day long. They even nest in my courtyard. There are aspects of their behavior I’ve havn’t found anywhere. During the day when the male is on the nest and the female is feeding in my yard and there happens to be a single male, it seems to leave the female alone and the female also will show some aggression towards the male if it happens to be standing a little too close. Where as single females are constantly taunted by single males. Never understood how a male can get a female by annoying it severely. Is it like breaking a horse, you ware the female down to the submissive state?  Another thing is I’ve heard two different calls coming from the male. The typical cooing seems to happen during mating season. The other call, a sad short two phrase call I’ve heard when the parents loss their nest to a predator. Has anyone experienced this or know anything about their calls that could shed some light on this. It’s the little things I find interesting in birds. Thank you.

I was delighted to spot an opossum feeding in the grass in my backyard one night last fall. It might have been eating leftover parrot kibble that I put out for squirrels and ground feeding birds. Opossums may eat thousands of ticks every day in warm weather so having them in or near one’s yard is very beneficial.

Anytime it gets above 50 the microbial loads in your tapholes and lines multiply, which will eventually cause your taphole to slime over and stop running. This doesn’t happen right away, though. My advice would be to wait and see what happens. It’s early enough that if you get good sap weather again (ie freezing temps at night), the holes will likely start running again. Generally speaking, it’s not good practice to redrill your holes. Not only does it stress the tree, but once the weather has been sufficiently warm to slime up a taphole, the tree’s metabolism will have changed in a way that’s not conducive to making good syrup. You might get another run or two out of the new hole, but the syrup you make will likely be off-flavored and not worth your time or the added tree stress.

Enjoyed a great tapping week in early Feb. 2017.
Then temps hit 50!s/60’s, including warm nights.
Tap holes appear dry.
Predictions now are for good hi/low temps for at least a week.
Can I use same holes?
Or should I make new tap holes?

Yikes! Absolutely beautiful! What a privileged little person. Thanks for letting us all in on such a personal message!

Most lawn grubs are beetle larvae. They frequently are C shaped; white; brown headded and more damage is done by skunks digging for them than is done by the grubs. Thanks for the question!

Brave leap, Dave Mance. Waited for the hard shift from reverse gear and rear-view mirror to first gear and you jumped right to fifth! Good editorial gives me something to think about for a while.Thinking about my dad (who never owned forestland) and my son (who will).  By mentally ceding management priorities for small - and yet much beloved - family woodlot to our heirs, we better manage with their best interests foremost so as to not diminish their modest inheritance. We also need to make fond family memories on the family tree farm so as to remain in love with the place. Need to get next generation to do likewise. Then I have less fear for what we might do and they likewise. Managing for next generation seems the conservative approach.

PS - tried to write this without an “I” in text. Failed.

Great article.  This guy definitely knows the business.

I have a twenty acre farm and market myself as a choose and cut farm.  Here are a few helpful hints:

-Use branches from unsellable trees to make wreaths and sell to florists

-Sell Christmas tree stands

-Rent out your farm to photographers in the fall for Christmas card photos

-Buy a sub-compact tractor with a loader and a backhoe ( stump digging).  It will pay for itself ten times over.

-I cut the grass and fertilizer with a 175lb tow behind spreader at the same time

I’m not your average reader on trees. (Although, this article does explain why my Weeping Willow survived Oreo the cat’s near destruction).  However, in doing research for my new book I found your article here very insightful and helpful in understanding the unique “healing” properties of trees. It’s created and built in. I’ll be using this helpful information to further explain how humans are also created to heal but we need to “contain” our wounds for further growth. Thank you for your help.

Ever since I was a child, I’ve loved the morning calls of mourning doves. Not quite sad, but very peaceful and calm. I love how the song is fleeting as well—a handful of minutes, perhaps, and that’s it for the day. But I’ve never in all my years heard them in winter… perhaps it’s a sign of our changing climate, who knows? But I’ve heard the mourning doves these past four mornings, right in the middle of the city of Providence. A sign of spring? Have they been here all winter but only warm enough now to sing? I’m fascinated…

We’ve had ruffed grouse around our acreage for as long as I can remember.
However, this fall there were more than ever before.  I was going to pick apples from the two trees infront of the house.  I counted 13 birds that flew out of those trees.  We have often seen groups of 5 or 6.
Tonight when we came home we had 4 feeding on the bird seed my sister puts out for the chickadees and nuthatches.  A drake and 3 hens.

I’m very interested in why some of our local sweetgums grow to immense size and advanced age and not others. We have one which dates back to the 1800s and is too large to cut because there is nothing commercially available that can handle that size log. I thought they only lived seventy years or so?

I love this editorial. It so respectfully walks the middle ground. I have been pondering this issue a lot. I am pained by the fractured dialogue or is it a series of monologues? But - there are some places where there is so little room for error. I refer to the issue of climate change. If we do not move forward decisively then everyone loses. I agree that blaming cows or chainsaws misses the point but how do we come to wise and knowledgeable agreement quickly?

I am an asst. historian and have a family name that goes back to the Tannery Business. Horton Tannery, I believe, was in Sullivan Co. N.Y. My grandmother was of the Horton Family lines. Also High View had a tannery that made drum heads. Rogers Tannery and one Rogers family buried in Or. Co. Bloomingburg Rural Cemetery.
This was a delight.