Site Discussions

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.

Thanks for nailing down the pronunciation of adelgid! I love the story of the bug detectives fanning out and nabbing the bug perps of the Connecticut River valley. On the down side, adelgids have been located in York and Sagadahoc (which is as hard to pronounce as adelgid) counties here in Maine.

How can you talk about oriental bittersweet without being obscene?
I am supposed to be the steward of a small (4.2 acre) plot of land entrusted to a tiny land trust organization. When I first walked the property, I was enthralled. It seemed a perfect situation for my dream project, that of a butterfly, pollinator sanctuary. Sadly,the wooded area very quickly became choked by that monster. My dream lives on, though. I need a person to perform an ecological appraisal of that land. I like the term environmental census. How much should it cost for such an examination? I need realistic dollar figures, in order to apply for a grant. Please refer me to persons offering such services. I am in South Central Mass.

As a somewhat avid walker/hiker, I have always wondered why the leaves did cling to some trees longer.  On a recent hike with a state forest ranger and a naturalist, they pointed out the mighty oak, and the beech trees and brought this to the groups attention.  No one had a clear answer.  So your article had made some sense to this mystery. I will be using your ideals as my new found knowledge on future hikes.
I enjoy reading your articles, and enjoy all the facts and especially the pictures and “What in the woods is that.”  By far, my best reading.  Thank you from a fellow woodsman down in Tennessee.

This is really good news!

This is fascinating!  Thanks for a great little informative piece.

Enjoyed this; thanks.  Serviceberry is beautiful for landscaping, too, I’ve found.  We still wait ‘til the ground thaws for “buryin’”....I recall a photo of the town gravedigger on the front of The Herald of Randolph back in the early ‘90’s with the caption, “Gearing Up For A Busy Season”.

Elise—

I’m entirely in agreement that we need to reduce our overall energy use, and especially our use of fossil fuel energy, as quickly as possible. As the article points out, there are not enough trees in the forest to have biomass by itself solve our energy problems. Even if there were, I doubt we would we want to divert all of the wood we do cut away from its other uses, such as lumber for building.

Nevertheless, we do live amidst an amazingly resilient natural forest that has the capacity to provide some of our energy needs, assuming that we approach the issue thoughtfully. Therein lies the rub!

James—

Thanks for your comment on the contribution of water vapor to the greenhouse effect, which is far larger than the contribution from CO2. You’re absolutely correct, though I think you may be overlooking the fact that the greenhouse effect (the naturally occurring greenhouse effect, that is) is a good and necessary thing. Without the greenhouse effect, all of us on Earth would be frozen solid in the cold of deep space.

The problem we face is that we’re turning up the thermostat inside the greenhouse with our additional carbon emissions. I took a stab at this issue in an earlier article - see what you think. http://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/wood-warms-you-twice-not-thrice1

Leslie,
I wish I could offer some encouragement. You seem to be ahead of me on this subject—I didn’t know there was any treatment for the disease, even one that costs a fortune.
I will try to check that out and if I learn anything helpful, I’ll let you know.
I’m sorry about your tree. It sounds like an unusually large specimen.
Virginia Barlow

I am so amazed at just how many learned folks are just listening to opinions by many, so called, green advocates.  I have seen where “scientists” have been hoodwinked by these huggers.  Don’t get me wrong, I sound like a “redneck”, but I do admire the move toward energy and nature conservatism, but I don’t admire the followers of uninformed greenhouse gas fanatics. Many many well meaning people remain on the wrong path in attempts to determine the real cause of any perceived or measured climate change. Current evidence shows the combined greenhouse contributions of CO2, methane, N2O and misc. gases are small compared to water vapor! 
    Total atmospheric carbon dioxide, both anthropogenic and natural, is only about 3.6% of the overall greenhouse effect; a big difference from the 72.3% figure ignoring water!
    Water vapor, the most significant greenhouse gas, comes from natural sources and is responsible for roughly 95% of the greenhouse effect. Among climatologists this is common knowledge but among special interests groups, certain governmental groups, and news reporters this fact is under-emphasized or just ignored altogether.
    Conceding that it might be “a little misleading” to leave water vapor out, they nonetheless defend the practice by stating that it is “customary” to do so!

Dear Dr. Amos,
Your article is very informative. I am trying to learn as much as I can about Vermont moles (not to kill them). I need to know whether the hairy-tale mole is likely to make a new tunnel in mid-winter below the permafrost? Is the gound at that depth too difficult for him because of the cold; is he more likely to wait for a thaw, meanwhile depending on the already existing system?
Sincerely, Dr. Roberta Fiske-Rusciano

We have a lovely Butternut tree that towers over our house. Trunk is approximately 5-6 ft diameter. It is diseased but since there is no cure and the treatment costs a fortune, we have not treated it.  It drops it’s leaves mid summer through fall. Not so much that you notice it on the tree but it litters the yard and gardens all summer.
I am searching for some treatment or care that I can give it to help stay as pretty as it is as long as I can. I would appreciate input ....
Leslie

I had never heard of Poison Parsnips until I got a case of it last Spring.  I hadn’t realized that I had gotten into it until one morning I got up and noticed that my chin was getting what I thought was a “zit”.  When my whole chin got red and swelled I thought I had a boil forming.  But then, after about the third day, I got what looked like poison ivy blisters and they oozed, just like ivy - except it never itched.  I had it for 3-4 weeks, with my chin swelling and crusting with oozing liquid.  I couldn’t go anywhere without a large bandaid covering it.  I finally got a prescription for prednisolone pills which turned it around, but I had a red scar for 6-8 months, which finally turned white - but my chin is permanently scarred.  I have never seen my skin react to poisoning like this did - where the blisters sank in and left an indentation in my chin, which never filled in with flesh when it healed.  I have a dent in my chin, now.  Very bad stuff to get.

It makes sense that the industry could suffer if somebody got sick from maple syrup. It is also not hard to figure where things can go wrong with the syrup making process. Vacuum pumps can leak oil into the sap, a mouse can fall into the bulk tank (seen it), the only clean sap line is a new sap line….....blah..blah. We small producers can do more to make our operations cleaner and safer. But lets ask this question, will we get paid more? I doubt it. This business already borders on a hobby for many. Yes there are some that claim they make money. When you start factoring time and equipment, its a tough go. As far as the packers, well they don’t pay us enough as it is. Now we got to do more, for basically less. Either the price has to go up or there will be many who will just make syrup for themselves.

Hi Carl,

Specifics would be good – I’ll see if I can track down the proposal and post it.

Not sure what you found objectionable about Olga’s story – it seemed down the middle to me. As for my own thoughts, I’d argue that what I’ve written here is an opinion, not a rant (though you’re free to consider it useless).

I would like to hear more about the new NOFA standards if you’d like to share. A lot of sugarmakers, myself included, don’t see any value in paying NOFA to be able to use the organic label on a product that is naturally organic. From my understanding, the only thing that separates “organic” syrup from non-organic syrup is the type of defoamer a sugarmaker uses. What’s new in the new standards?