Site Discussions

Hi Barbara, sweetfern is often listed as a winter food for deer, so I’m thinking it’s probably not a great option if you have heavy deer browsing.

A suggestion - contact New England Wildflower Society and ask them for suggestions. They sell a variety of native plants that can be used in landscaping.

Could I use (affordably) Sweet Fern to replace a large area where the deer have eaten all the Ivy leaving an ugly tangle.
Any ideas?

Beautiful.

In theory, Dylan, someone is going to eventually come up with a way to harness all the steam energy that boiling sap creates. Word out of Canada has it that there are electric evaporator protoypes that recycle the steam and be operated for around.15 cents per gallon of syrup produced. If this proves true, it seems like many large producers would opt for this approach.

As for your question on demand, Carolyn, you’ve touched on the million dollar question. While the packers talk about single digit growth, anecdotally anyway, it seems like the industry is growing a lot faster than that. Will demand keep up with supply? I have no idea, but do know that the maple marketers had better get busy.

This stuff may be a better solution for the environment, but it’s a lousy solution for vehicles. The liquid penetrates more easily and thoroughly into parts and worsens the rusting problem inherent in this region. It also makes things more slippery in certain conditions. Our town used a lot of fine gravel this winter, and traction on local roads improved significantly, whereas all the saline-salted areas just got messier.

What accounts for such a rising demand for maple sugar/syrup in this era when so many people are cutting back on eating sugar and carbohydrates?

I once spent a few hours watching a few bald eagles teaching a youngster to find fish in an estuary off Nova Scotia - awesome day in my life.

Nice article, think your crystal ball might be a bit cloudy. Take away cheap oil and big maple gets a lot smaller. RO especially is a high embodied energy product that has a complex production stream behind it. What’s the alternative? Buckets and lines, more employment. Win win.

Some of the best syrup comes from tiny sugar shacks worked by old guys eating Cheddar cheese that numbs the lips. Not as much product, but really, really good.

Sure, Big Ag runs not one, but a fleet of monster, self-driving combines chopping corn. How often do you hear, “Man, that corn from the lower 40,000 was outstanding this year.”  You don’t. ‘Cause bigger isn’t always better. Or even as good.

While it will hopefully not become an issue for New England, in areas where fracking brine is available it represents a cheaper alternative to salt brine, but brings with it all the other fracking chemicals.  Caution is therefore needed in embracing the whole brine idea.

Good explanation of the ecological benefits of CWD.

I would have preferred that the closing paragraph was placed inside the article in place of the paragraph that states “In an intensively managed forest, ....” because the point was already made that being a “neatnik” in a patch of woods was detrimental to forested ecosystems.  And, it was made in a positive, almost humorous way.

In terms of nutrient cycling, no one can predict the amount of nutrient loss over three of more rotations of a forest which could be as long as 300+ years nor should any one even speculate what might be going on ecologically in any managed forest in the future based on past forest management activities.

It is really the responsibility of a forest landowner to determine how his/her forest is managed. 

And, an intensively managed forest does not preclude the possibility of generating or leaving CWD on the forest floor and standing dead snags.

The same can be said of a properly managed chipping harvest operation or any timber harvesting operation that is based on an ecologically based silvicultural prescription.

Where to draw the line between leaving dead wood and creating a fire hazard?  Especially in these dry conditions? And what about after a large wind incident?  Is there a reasonable percentage?

The 3 foot nest is probably Osprey.  I’ve seen them nesting in Colorado. My question is what bird lays white speckled eggs smaller than a dime in an enclosed nest shaped like a football with no hole.  I found one dropped at a park with 5 eggs.

I am wondering why there is a mourning dove in the tree outside my window cooing during the night time.  I have tried searching and can’t find any educational site stating that this is a common habit.  I don’t hear or see this dove during the day… but every night I enjoy listening to it’s song.  I wonder if anyone else has heard mourning doves sing at night?

Just a quick note on this… I have spinal cord damage and an unsteady walk and limp… I always have mountain lion problems with hunting elk in Colorado, but this last winter, while walking (limping) to my deer blind here in Indiana, I had one (coy wolf) pick me up and stalk me all the way to my blind…  Clearly too large for Canis Latrans, this one had all the characteristics of Canis Soupus.

Hi, I’m looking to make my first axe handle. I was able to hunt down a ~35″ circular log of hickory that is about 3″ in diameter. If I whittle this to the desired shape will it work? Everything I’ve seen starts with an already split piece of wood (as done in this post). I’m mainly concerned with the strength of the handle.

Thanks.

While I liked this article, I thought I’d offer one additional bit of info about Hobblebush that it doesn’t mention: the berries are edible.

There are no poisonous species in the genus Viburnum.  While several of the viburnum species native to the Northern Woodlands, (like maple-leaved viburnum, Viburnum acerifolium, and smooth arrowwood, Viburnum dentatum, produce fruits that are inedible, i.e., they don’t taste good, there are at least five Viburnum species native to to the region that produce palatable fruit. These can be separated into two categories: those with prune-like fruit, and those with cranberry-like fruit.

Into the prune-like fruit category go the species wild raisin (V. nudum), nannyberry (V. lentago) and hobblebush (V. lantanoides, formerly V. alnifolium).  All of these species start out with white flowers in flat-topped or rounded clusters (characteristic of the genus), followed by berries that start out green, and redden as they ripen, but are not fully ripe until they turn a bluish-purple or darker color, and are soft to the touch.  The ripe fruit of all of these species have a prune-like consistency and flavor.  Also characteristic of the genus, the fruits of these species have large, flat, cherry pit-like seeds in their centers, these are easily separated from the fruit in your mouth and spit out (on the ground, or into a bag for saving and propagating elsewhere). In my opinion, the fruit of the hobblebush is the best of the three, having a clove-like, spicy flavor.

I too had the impression at 12 years old that baby skunks couldn’t spray. I had unintentionally killed a mother skunk with a sickle bar while mowing a field, but the little ones were low enough to earth that the bar went over them.

Imagining some new wild pets—of which I had had a number, to my mom’s chagrin—I rushed off and got a burlap sack to haul the tiny trio home, assuming, of course, that my parents would cheerfully pay for their de-musking.

I bent to gather the first, and…Well, baby skunks CAN spray, I assure you.

I have an essay that can be Googled called “Unskunked,” of which this episode is a part.

Thanks for the “tree in the forest”. I remember in the second grade I was tripped up by this question, and thought something was wrong with the explanation that sound “requires being heard” to be called a sound. Years, later, as a science teacher myself, I taught my students that this is a trick question invented by someone who made up a definition of sound.

Dave - we’re finally off to the races in central Vermont, boiling 12 hours out of 24 for the past few days. 3/16 tubing has been great for us this year. I don’t have enough instrumentation for hard data, but comparing tubing flows with the filling of nearby buckets, the 3/16 is providing 2x to 3x what the 5/16 did in previous years, compared with the buckets. I’ll stick with the skinny stuff in the future for sure.

Now if I could just remember the new grade names when people ask…

—Chuck