Site Discussions

Hello, Seventeen years ago, volunteers and I erected a nesting platform in a wetland just outside of Orleans, VT, off of interstate 91. A week ago, I saw my first osprey on the platform and now there is nest material and a pair! Nesting pairs are not numerous in NEK and so I have been just elated to see this activity. One of the ospreys appears to be a young bird with darker plumage underneath the wings. Keep you fingers crossed for a successful nesting season without human disturbance.

so if your given 50 acres alongside a montain side you would take the measurement from the arial view, not the actual walked off square footage alongside the slope?

According to the game warden stories I used to hear as a kid, (my dad was a Vermont game warden) skunks can’t spray unless their feet are on the ground (or they have ahold of your pants leg). I have also heard that they won’t spray if they’re out of range, or if they don’t have a target. I never tested any of these theories myself. I have nearly stepped on or tripped over a skunk a couple of times in the woods at night, but they just scampered off without spraying.

Skunks themselves are pretty much odorless. Their two spray nipples are surrounded by small hairless patches, and invert (like inflating a rubber glove and pushing a finger inside the glove) when not in use, so the oil is well contained and they don’t get it on themselves when they spray. They are an interesting animal to watch. They are very smart and curious, with excellent powers of smell and hearing, but not great distance vision. They are easy to trap, and get hit by cars often, not because they are stupid, but because they are fearless. It does not occur to them that a car is anything to be scared of. They are always very interested in eating. A friend had a descented pet skunk - if anything got spilled on the carpet, the skunk would smell it and start to dig a hole in the carpet to find what he thought must be buried there. They have very nice high quality fur, which used to be marketed as “American Sable”. When the laws changed and the fur had to be accurately identified, demand for skunk fur went down, though it is still used for trim.

Hey Dave-

I loved reading this blog!  Felt like I was there with you guys, and learned a lot about sugaring too.  I’ll be in VT in August.  Hope to see you!

Its not that all the ‘environmentalists’ are anti wood burning, after all, it is cheap and effective. But if you can upgrade your old system to one that is cleaner and more efficient, then why the fuss? Less wood to cut, less smoke, more heat. Makes sense right? Credible facts:

“Even when used properly, OWBs emit, on an average per hour basis, about four times as much fine particulate matter pollution as conventional wood stoves, about 12 times as much fine particle pollution as EPA-certified wood stoves, 1000 times more than oil furnaces, and 1800 times more than gas furnaces.”
-Taken from a report by the Office of the Attorney General Environmental Protection Bureau

OWB = outdoor wood boilers.

In the 1930s my uncles used to catch skunks by hand in the fall by shining lights in the orchards at night.  They would walk up to the light blinded skunk, reach over to grab their tail and pop it into a burlap bag where it would not spray.  A friend once persuaded my uncle to let him help.  He was warned not to let the skunk grab onto his body as that would allow the skunk something to tense their legs against so they could spray.  The very first skunk sprayed and blinded the poor fellow and my uncle had to lead him by voice to a mud puddle so he could rinse off. My uncle is 93 and there are still a few good stories left in him.

What wood burning, air force furnace would you recomend, one that ignites wood gases and uses no water, one that haves a secondary chaber to burn wood gasses, a gasification unit or a unit that uses water and has gasification system ?

We will all miss Mike Greason A smart caring and honest man !  If anyone can fill his shoes God bless them.

Bill—

Thanks for your comment. We’ll take a look at the papers you mention.

Climate change is a topic that we struggle with mightily and, amongst us editors, heatedly. It’s clearly the most significant ecological story of our time. It’s also a story replete with hyperbole and mis-information. We need to cover the story yet we aren’t always sure how to do it accurately. In the case of maple migration, it’s possible that the migration has yet to occur because climate change has only just begun to take hold. It’s also possible that no significant migration will take place because other factors are more significant controls on the species’ distribution than climate.

Either way, thanks for looking out for us and helping to point us in the right direction.

—Chuck Wooster

My first time stopping here, and I fell right into a great post. Just when I was contemplating some of the exact questions you ran through in your post.I really appreciate that.

Thanks for sharing information and ideas with us.

Thanks again for you and your family giving my grandsons the royal tour, it was great and I’m sure they will be back every year and appreciate sugaring in Vermont as we all do.  Brings me back to gathering sap with my Uncle Andy and hauling it in to the saphouse by horse and sled followed up with sugar on snow at the end of the day. Sweet memories!

This letter came in as a Letter to the Editor for the printed magazine.

Dear Northern Woodlands,

I especially enjoyed Michael Gaige’s “A Place for Wolf Trees” in the Spring ‘11 issue. I’m a wood turner with a number of wolf trees, mostly on ridges and fence lines, on my ninety-acre woodlot, and in addition to wildlife habitat, their broken and fallen branches are a major source of spalted maple and beech from which I turn colorful bowls in many sizes (see attached).  The broken branches of a still living wolf-tree, dead for a long time, but still attached to or leaning against the tree, off the ground and dry, rot more slowly than wood lying on the ground. Hence, such wood, harvested before fungal action reduces it to punk, makes bowls, plates, platters, lamps, and candle holders with more highly-figured patterns than the healthy wood of surrounding trees. Newer wood without decay lines, discoloration, and worm holes is less challenging to work with and less interesting to look at than the gnarled remnants of wolf-tree wood.

Toby Fulwiler
Fairfield, Vermont

Possibly we should temper these results by the years of migrational research in New England showing no appreciable change in elevational/geograhical distribution as well as the role of migrational theory. Leak,2009, North. J. App. For. 26:164-166; Leak and Yamasaki,2010,Northern Res. Station Res Pap. NRS 13;Leak and Smith, 1996, For. Ecol. Man. 81:63-73; Solomon and Leak, 1994, Northeast. For. Expt. Sta Res. Pap. NE-688; Solomon, Leak, Hosmer,1997,NATO ASI Series I 47 Springer-Verlag; Leak and Graber, 1974, Ecol.55:1425-1427.

This letter came in as a Letter to the Editor for the printed magazine.

Gentlemen:

Regarding your article on Wolf Trees (Spring ’11 pg 28):

You correctly explained the etymology of “Wolf Tree” as reflecting the fact that it is undesirable, a predator, and a parasite.

Your discussion of aesthetic and altruistic reasons for them to have been left standing, however, is not generally correct. The actual reason is the simple, pragmatic fact that a Wolf tree is not worth the cost or effort of cutting it down. People who give more romantic reasons are almost always those who do not have to do the work or pay the cost. This is important, because you also print deeper articles about the organic chemistry of the carbon cycle, and so you must be careful to get your facts straight—- always. And understand who pays.

Sincerely,

Nicholas Ratti, Jr.
Bristol, RI

This came in as a letter to the editor for the printed magazine

Dear Mr. Mance,

I very much enjoyed your “Bobcats on the Comeback” story in the Spring ‘11 issue of Northern Woodlands. I am a wildlife biologist retired from the US Fish & Wildlife Service and have a strong interest in New England wildlife. I am aware that our bobcat population is on the rebound and have “unscientifically” assumed that an important supporting factor is the remarkable success of wild turkey restoration. My assumption is that the abundance of turkeys provides a reliable food source for bobcats. However, your story does not mention this as a factor.

Did you come across information during your research that either supports, or does not support, my assumption?

Thanks for the outstanding job you do with Northern Woodlands; I always look forward to receiving and enjoying my copy.

Curt Laffin
Hudson, NH

March 1, 2011- My husband and son were driving north on Rte. 100 just after midnight.  As they were approaching the Penny Ave. intersection, they both saw about 100 feet in front of them, a tan colored, very, very, large muscular cat, with a long tail run from Penny Ave. across Rte. 100, then bounding up and over the snowbank, into the forest.  Once they arrived home, they researched all different types of cats in this region.  The only one matching the cat they saw was the Catamount.
My husband has always been skeptical of the reported sightings.  He now knows catamounts exist in Vermont. But, he has no desire to report the sighting.  I, on the other hand believe it is a duty to report the rare sighting of catamounts.

I saw a catamount in the field near Molly’s pond on the left side.  1:00 PM on 3/12/2011

Great Blog. Must be some more Non producing wannabe sugarmakers out there Like me that hang on every word. takes me back to childhood at my Grandmothers and the smell of the woodsmoke and sweet steam.

Keep writing, I learn something each entry , Now when I talk to my buddies about sugaring I sound like I might know something.

Here in SW Connecticut (about 30 miles north of NYC) we have been going since Valentines Day, which is normal for us down here.  We’ve had a great season with some great long runs and a high % of sugar in our sap.  As the end is near for the season, I already think of what next season holds and all the work I have to improve the sugarbush and our operation.

I enjoyed reading your accounts of daily progress towards, “I’ll tell you in April….” We have boiled seven times o far from our 325 tap family sugarhouse. yesterday was our best run as it ran overnight.

My ECO students in school are engaged in studying sugaring through reviewing literature of all sorts, visiting websites, viewing videos, writing stories, creating brochures and PowerPoint shows with a sugaring theme, and of course, tapping trees and boiling sap and visiting sugarhouses. Five of them took home buckets and taps today to try their hand at home. Two former students have their own sugarhouses. On March 31 we will gather with our families to enjoy a pancake supper. Learning!!!