Site Discussions

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!!!

What a great article.  Art Whipple had a trap on land in West Swanzey that I am managing for a friend.  I had Derek Broman give his presentation in Stoddard (sponsored by the conservation commission).......it was an absolutely riveting presentation.  I highly encourage people looking for an evening presentation to contact Derek.

The only small error in the article:  John’s last name is Kulish (not Kallish).  John was an early professional acquaintance of mine.  I went on many a bushwhack outing with him looking for cat sign.  In his late 70’s, he could out walk most men in their 30’s.  His book “Bobcat Before Breakfast” is a must read for any outdoor enthusiast.

One of my favorite sections was a distillation of his hunting cats:  “Hunting cats is a grueling and lonely task.  From dawn till dark, day after day, week after week, for more than three months, the one human voice I heard was my own.  There was only my dog to talk to, or a cat to curse.  By the end of March, when the snow began to melt, my clothes hung on my frame.  The best we had as a man and a dog was pitted against the best they had as cats.  Wary, unpredictable loners, I never so much as caught a glimpse of any bobcat, unless it was driven by one of my dogs.
 
When trailed by a hound, a red fox utilizes open country, stone walls, fields, roads, barways….even a half-mile of railroad track to make good his escape.  A bobcat does the opposite.  His trail is a heart-stretching obstacle course.  When forced to cross a road, cats pick a section bordered on either side by outcroppings of ledges, or better yet, wherever a spruce swamp barely allows a road to dissect it.  When going cross-country, they choose the swampiest swamps, the rockiest ridges, the thorniest thickets.  Between mountain ranges, they go through every tangled blowdown.  Do you want to undertake the pursuit?” —Geoff Jones, forester, Stoddard, NH

This was posted to our Facebook page

Mike Ghia I am hoping that we finally start boiling in Saxtons River on 3/5 or 3/6. Been frozen pretty hard here.

This was posted to our Facebook page

Northwoods Farm and Forestry Heavy ice in Newfane as well. Looks like we’ve lost a few trees in the sugarbush we thinned this winter. Lots of limbs and branches down elsewhere.

Hi Tii,

Thanks for the great article.  I am planning on installing a small (maybe 3ft x 4ft, by 3ft deep) frog pond in the garden this year, no fish, with a liner.  I have read that many people keep a de-icer in one spot, otherwise and dead frogs from “suffocation” by the ice or from putrefying organic matter is a major problem.  I hadn’t intended using any electrical devices over the winter.  I haven’t been able to find a good article addressing these potential problems for our part of the (very cold) world.  Is putting a small pond in the garden that is not maintained over the winter safe for our local frogs?

Thanks so much,
Jennifer Loros

HOPE It is the lightness of my heart when the light changes, when the days grow longer and when young and old, men and women march together for liberty. It is a kind of sweetness that goes behind a cloud but always comes out on the other side.

I live on Hawks Mountain in Baltimore.Last year after losing a fair number of chickens, I noticed a large cat lumber over a nearby wall. I grew up in Northern Vt where I had seen bob cats.  This was not.  It was larger, hunger closer to the ground and was tawny colored not speckled on the legs. I called FWS, and was told it most be a bob cat.  No. The cat took more than 5-6 chickens and left carcasses nearby, picked clean.  What I saw certainly resembled what I thought was a catamount until I was told they no longer exist.  Carol

I have land in tree growth and have always had a love for my big old trees.  This beautiful article re-inforces the value in nature they have and gives more purpose to my conviction that they need to be preserved.  Northern Woodlands is a publication well worth the subscription price.

does anyone have more information on exactly where Alexander Cromwell shot the Catamount in Barnard?

VERY INTERESTING AND INFORMATIVE ARTICLE. THANK YOU. I LIVE NEXT DOOR TO CHIP KENDALL, OWNER OF KEDRON VALLEY SUGAR MAKERS HERE. I KNEW HE AND HIS CREW WORKED PRETTY HARD TO PRODUCE THEIR SYRUP BUT NOW I HAVE AN EVEN GREATER RESPECT FOR THAT LITTLE JUG ON MY BREAKFAST TABLE AND WHAT IT TAKES TO GET IT THERE!

We’re a 24-tap, buckets and barrelstove operation, that is taking this spring off. We too noted last spring’s op/ed on red maple, and ran a test by offering small samples of a 100% red maple run to friends.  They loved the taste!  We love your magazine and website.

Bill and Helen Relyea

Thanks for starting my day with pleasant thoughts and memories… I chuckle at the idea of looking back ten years when I realize that I look back over 55 to memories of gathering sap with my Dad. I guess we were one of those “rosy-cheeked rural stories.” The tools were bit and brace, an old truck with a tank on the back, new metal buckets picked up at the railroad station… Thankfullly, the one thing that hasn’t changed. is the incredible smell from the boiling.

Very nicely done, an accurate and real-life-experience story.  There’s a certain charm and achieved sense of belonging, a fitting-in that goes with all this.  To adequately compensate producers, maple syrup really ought to be worth $200/gallon.  Perhaps the difference between $200 and current pricing is made up for by the “belonging” experience - priceless, as is said.

Thanks for the fascinating and informative reports. I’m an ex-suburban person to whom all agriculture is magic, especially after a decade of trying to grow vegetables in a 4’x10’ plot at 1300 ft. So it’s a treat to learn what it’s really like to grow, harvest, or otherwise process foods as well as to handle livestock. Keep the stories coming!

I’ve been around the woods since I was 6-7 years old. My father had one of the first chainsaws in this area. I had a tree business in Massachusetts for over 40 years. I built a post & beam house in Franklin in the ‘eighties, but would like to try my hand at something made from logs - wood shed or an extension on the house. We have some nice red pine on the lot. My father peeled pulp in the ‘forties, so I am familiar with the procedure. Also have a bark spud. Been giving my age of almost 70 years. I’ll need some Red Bull. Thanks.

Hi Lois,

I talked to a friend up here who does this kind of work, and she said that they charge $52/hr for assessment work, and that for a lot your size this would take approximately 2 hours for field work and 3-5 hours to do a map and a management plan. This obviously doesn’t include the cost of treatment. She spoke highly of a guy named Chris Polatin at Polatin Ecological Services in MA. You might look him up and ask him what he thinks.