Site Discussions

I have a question. Usually on my first boil of the Season I produce light maple syrup or otherwise known as gold and delicate. However that is usually the only time it happens. After that my syrup always moves into the medium grade. I can’t believe that my stuff gets that dirty just from one run. Any suggestions?

Thanks, Gib! It really is one of the great pleasures of early spring. Our woodcock just returned yesterday (4/4) so “Pete” should be arriving at your place any moment now!

Nice article Elise,

My wife Sue can’t wait for “her” woodcock to return every spring. At the end of the day, in the spring, after barn chores, she will often head up into our meadows behind the house, and start ” peenting ” for Pete. That’s her nickname for what she believes is the same woodcock that comes back year after year to show off to her. It really is comical how he will display so close to us as we sit still in the field, even when we have our Lab with us. As we boil away this seasons sap, we know it won’t be long before “Pete” shows up, and entertains us with his dance and song, if that’s what it is, a song?

Thanks, Gib

The same mourning dove couple that had two babies here on our porch last year just returned about a week or two ago. We had left the nest so they built it up a little more and hung around for a week and a half. Two days ago the wasps started up on my front porch and my husband sprayed a chemical on the stairs leading up to the porch to kill them since my grandsons were staying with us. The mama dove was sitting in her nest but no eggs yet. Later that night, they took off and we haven’t seen them since. I hope the spray did not scare them away. They were such a joy for us to watch. I just feel terrible. Do they ever go away for a few days and return? I remember them doing that last summer but it was in July or August. Thanks for your response.

Steve: Yes, good luck! Dave: Check out this piece i wrote a few years back exploring just that. http://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/how-much-sap 

To answer your question directly, if a sugarmaker is using best management practices, all the research suggests that there is no adverse affect. Of course tapping can be overdone, and the science into this ongoing, so it’s hard to give an unqualified answer. In our woods that has high-vacuum we use one 5/16ths tap per tree, regardless of diameter. We’re happy with the yield, and happy with the rate at which the tapholes heal—a good measure of tree health.

To highlight Jackie’s question above: How do wind-pollinated species ensure a good enough mix of genetic material (Eg. Birch). Do they not all end up as clones of their parent tree?

In your opinion, can this high tech and high volume maple syrup production adversely affect the health of the maple tree being tapped?

I have only 35 buckets in my “operation,”(enough to sweeten my coffee through the year!), but I’ve been sugaring for 16 years and have witnessed the wild weather swings each winter/spring.  This year I’ve only made 3 gallons so far, and I doubt I’ll get up to the 8 I usually make. I do have a question:  does removing and tossing aside the frozen sap significantly reduce the amount of syrup made?

Syrup pricing:  In the late 1940’s and early 50’s top price for fancy syrup was about $8 or so a gallon, based, I was told, on what it cost to hire labor for 8 hours work. Given that guide, imagine what a gallon would cost today! - $80 to $100?

Great article as always Dave.  “Tech seduction”... the weakness of many a sugarmaker.  Me, I’ll try my best to resist favoring instead natural vacuum, raw sap, and wood-fired evaporator.  Wish me luck!

Had an old timer (now also sadly gone) who sugared in our watershed caution me 25 years ago about getting “sap greedy”. Old Charlie Hosmer said “it’s just work to get from winter logging to spring dirt work”. He never wanted to expand or sell syrup or sap, he gave it as Christmas gifts mostly.

I think about that every time I drive too fast past his now shuttered sugar house.  He was right of course.  Just as you’re suggesting, the sugaring lesson is: bigger and faster is NOT always better but it’s been the “American way.”  Same with woods work logging.

So prompts issue of scale and personal sustainability.

Tx for comments above. Have a 70’ high oak 16” dia slight crown above the 40 ’ mark, like the tree above Lean is a few ft South, the crown is leaning SoEast. I want to fell it East. It’s a side lean..Any special tips on the side lean and how thick to keep the hinge. Was going to use a 4ton and 1ton come along with 5 tons ropes to guide, attaching them to small trees. Any thoughts on that?

This is really interesting information. Thanks for sharing.

In the photo above with the caption: Melvin Parks, at right, was a scaler for the George I. Treyz company.  In the photo, the person on the right is John Jones, a local Cooks Falls resident who did dozer work for Treyz; Melvin Parks is on the left standing with Johnny on the dozer. The image must have somehow gotten flipped from the original photo.  Things like this would completely change the actual real historical facts if someone hadn’t caught it.

Just felled a 16” diameter back-leaning tree—lean was about 4 feet. Made the back cut first and inserted two 8” wedges on either side of the back cut, banged them in a bit to set them, then made the face cut. After that, I worked on banging the wedges in, alternating each side. Had to double up on one side by placing another wedge. Once the lean was overcome—and the tree was letting me know about the progress here and there—it went over in the direction of the face cut as planned.

Sounds like most of them are being spotted in the Connecticut River Valley where it is often warmer than further east in NH. We just spotted one in Hancock which is in the colder Monadnock region.

One possible advantage my son suggests is that the leaves on these trees seem to be more completely “stripped” down to a pale, low weight version of the leaves that come down in autumn—could the trees also be taking more from them?

At my summer cottage in Michigan (about the same latitude as Monson) we have Mergansers. They are causing problems with “swimmer’s itch”... Is this something that happens around here in Maine?

Thanks for including my “not ready” lament. Reading this latest dispatch gets me musing about the resiliency and adaptability of sugarmakers and the rate of innovations. See previous comment from an old-timer. We have to wonder if we can continue to adapt and to change practices as fast as the weather and climate seem to be changing. Seems like the race is clearly now on!

The tire trick is wonderful, especially if you do some final splitting indoors. My woodstove is in the basement. I keep a low stump and tire in my basement next to my stack of split wood for last minute kindling production. Be forewarned, a misguided swing that strikes the tire may propel the butt or poll of your maul or kindling axe back up toward your head. This can be an immediately sobering experience first thing on a cold winter’s morning.