Site Discussions

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.

I feed crows at the college I go to. Today I came out of my class and this crow kept swooping really close to my head. I wasn’t sure if he was bullying me or trying to get my attention or land on me. They always recognize me and caw and all kinds of them will join but today there were only 2 after class. They both landed next to my truck so I rolled down my window and told them i would bring more in three days. One of them bent his head towards his chest and said maa maa. I repeated it and so did he but he had to bend his head to do it. My mother is dead, I asked if it was my mom and his eyes looked silver and it walked away. I love the crows but that was strange.

Dave, thanks for your wonderful writing. I no longer can actively sugar, but I so enjoy hearing how the process is changing and improving.

From horses and buckets to 3/16
Plastic. Wow!

This article and picture pretty much confirms what happened to a young white pine (8-10 year old) that suddenly turned brown this fall. We last had currants on our farm some 60 years ago and removed them after a pine on the farm became infected. No other outbreak until last year. We live in northeast Mass, about 20 miles from NH.

My hubby has milkweed plant growing in his garden and I have noticed that there are monarch caterpillars all over them. I am so excited to watch the whole process!!!! Thank you for this site.

Thank you for this informative article. My children and I are having a nice time observing the mourning doves that have begun visiting our home…now we have a clearer picture of their world. Cheers!

A couple years ago my wife and a niece and nephew rescued a young crow at the Franklin Falls Dam in Franklin,NH. He was caught in a fishing line, hanging by one wing about 10’ up in a tree-over water in the summer. My wife ran to get a ranger from the station that brought him to Henniker for rehab.  He was released later that summer and I hear he was doing quite well. He seemed to fully trust me to gently pick him up and place him in a tote to get him in the rangers truck.  It was a challenging yet, rewarding experience for everyone.

In our backyard operation we tapped three weeks ago. The syrup got progressively darker throughout the week. Last week the bacterial colonies were visible in our buckets and the sap got cloudier.  Because we collect in buckets, it’s easy to clean and re-hang them.  It’s hard to imagine how this is impacting the commercial producers.

I’ve never tapped any trees before, but thought I’d try it with my 9th graders. We knew from the fall colors that there were maples on the property and we looked for alternating branches and found 9 big trees. We put two taps in each, and two days later, we had about 12 gallons of sap. I later found out through some knowledgeable people and a little more research, that all our trees were red maple. We finished our first batch on Tuesday and had it on some ice cream with the class yesterday. It is so yummy, not too sweet, but has a really nice caramel/butterscotch flavor. Perfect for ice cream.

I didn’t know that a good seat starts with a wide plank. There is a lot of shaping and work that goes into wooden furniture. I love the look of pine furniture. It’s so versatile and could be very rustic or fit right in in the suburbs.