Choosing titles for my blog posts is a fun and entertaining part of the process for me! I feel my rambling muses deserve witty titles of descriptive creativity that truly represent the subject matter I toss at my readers with a careless disregard for preordained writing techniques. My titles are as raw and honest as the emotions that fuel my simple words each time I grab my tablet to begin tapping out a post. Ask any of my work friends about a day on the job site around me years ago! It was often filled with movie lines and quotes that I found inspirational. Music lyrics and rhyming poem lines. A full on misfiring of synapses and the constant changing of topics. Physicians have a term for my affliction these days but I prefer to call it Taz energy. It never bothered me all too much as a student as I recall. I was quite a loner and somewhat shy. I was rather quiet actually although most people wouldn’t believe that now. A lover of books and reading. My daylight hours spent running through the woods like some semi-feral animal. On horseback I was equal parts reckless and skilled at the same time.School often felt like a cage to me. Outdoors I felt free and unencumbered by responsibility. Years later certain work projects would invoke a similar feeling but I had trained myself to accept the harness and pull the load that I had chosen. What’s this got to do with an invasion? Very little up to now. Consider this portion a continuing introduction of my background and history. I grew from simple roots and my stories reflect upon them.Let’s begin with the second portion of my title. In 1971 the band Led Zeppelin recorded the song The Battle of Evermore. It appeared on the untitled album most people refer to as Led Zeppelin IV. It’s haunting melody was sung as a duet and featured a mandolin. It’s an interesting song and I’ve always admired the lyrics. I suppose I interpreted it as an illustration of something eternal. Enter the invader to this story. Not human or animal but a simple bush. It’s called wild bush honeysuckle.An invader from Asia brought here as an ornamental bush to decorate gardens. I will leave all further research as to it’s origins and path of invasion to you. I will tell you that it’s a master of spreading by growing its leaves early and shedding them late resulting in fast growth. It’s numerous berries aid its progress across a landscape. I can’t say with any certainty when we first discovered it on the farm or even noticed it anywhere else for that matter. My father mentioned it once after it had begun to choke our fence rows. We had battled wandering juniper over the years but we had easily kept it under control. Not so with this invader. We didn’t get too concerned at first honestly. It blended in with the other bushes of summer and was quickly forgotten most of the time. So for years it continued to spread without us ever really getting concerned. Sometime after my father’s death someone explained to me that this strange new bush on our farm was an invasive species and that it needed to be controlled.I began to look closer when I walked the farm. Once I trained my eyes to recognize it I became increasingly alarmed! It was growing unchecked everywhere I looked on the farm and all around the north country! People seemed oblivious and unconcerned to its presence just as I had been before becoming informed. It’s worthless for firewood or anything for that matter so it goes unnoticed. Enter the warrior of sorts. Me.Armed with a tractor and loader. Chainsaws and logging chains. I began to target them anytime I was out working in the forest gathering firewood. They rip up easy so the tractor loader was the perfect weapon. Despite my best efforts though I knew we were losing the war against our new adversary. I began to target the larger ones as they produce more seeds each season. The piles of destroyed wild honeysuckles grew larger but still they continued to spread. Two years ago I found a location near our line fence that I began to call Ground Zero. The size of the bushes could only be described as old growth. It appeared that our invader had entered our property from our neighbors pasture lands years ago. No longer grazed they were the perfect staging ground for the invader. I attacked ground zero with the tractor and loader spending hours ripping up huge bushes. Last year I continued ripping them up all over the farm in a desperate fight to hold them back. The 2016/2017 die off of our sugarbush hasn’t helped. The plentiful sunlight in the formerly shaded locations aids our invader’s growing season. Zane has joined me in the battle now. Jennifer has suggested a quadrant by quadrant approach that we may implement eventually. But right now its sporadic ground skirmishes on all fronts. I destroyed about 20 bushes yesterday but it’s a small win. Call me the romantic fool comparing our battle for supremacy of the farm fields and forests to a war. But that’s how I perceive it now. We won’t ever stop ! Zane tells me that with youthful enthusiasm and hope. We are winning he believes. Who am I to question his resolve or dream of saving the farm from being overrun? We are planning to bring in the heavy artillery at some point and wage a month long battle against them. Together with two machines. Hydraulics and human technology. Fire and huge flaming brush piles. Yes it all sounds a little crazy perhaps. But get informed and help rid our beautiful wild spaces of this unwanted invader. This is the Battle of Evermore I fear. One we must fight or walk away with shame at doing nothing to save our farm.
Category Archives: Farm
Farm Life
The Wait
March 14th. A very cold morning with the mercury hovering at 9 degrees Fahrenheit while chilly winds from the north make it seem even colder. Sugaring is stalled out for the moment but we remain diligent and busy. We continue to set taps and our count surpasses 400 now.Using the old timers rule of 1 quart of syrup per tap for the season we could possibly make 100 gallons. But the trees are fickle and temperamental if you assign them human emotions. Sometimes they hold tight to their sap in a most perplexing manner. I have learned a few simple strategies over the past 13 years since I have taken the lead role in our small operation and place them into our plans. One of them is to continue to set fresh taps throughout the season. Some of our taps have been out 2 weeks as of today but it’s remained too cold for steady runs. Last week’s two day stretch of warm weather yielded us a modest run that enabled us to flood the evaporator for our first boil. I never got a batch “pulled” before I had to shut down as the sap supply in the 400 gallon storage tank dwindled to nothing. That’s not uncommon on the first boil of the season. At the start of the initial boil the evaporator is full of raw sap in all the different chambers. Eventually it becomes less watery close to the “finishing” pan. Raw sap continues to enter the back pan of our evaporator at ambient temperature. A float system enables me to control the depth and flow rate to the pans. The heavier “pre-syrup” liquid pushes itself forward towards the finishing pan. I trap a certain level in the finishing pan and hold it there until it measures as syrup. I use a simple hydrometer to accomplish the task. Once the evaporator is set up there are about 5-7 gallons of syrup “trapped” in it at any given moment at different levels of sugar content. There’s a little more to the process than that but that’s the gist of it. Last week we had two extremely warm days with a high of 59 degrees Fahrenheit. Not ideal but the sap did flow. Not as much as I anticipated but it didn’t drop below freezing at night. Ideal sap runs follow nights below freezing and daytime highs above freezing. 40 degrees Fahrenheit sunny days are ideal for good sap runs. The wind has shifted back to the north and little sap is flowing for now. We wait for a possible run on Tuesday. A high of 45 degrees Fahrenheit predicted. Perfect. We have continued to set a few taps out to take advantage of the temporary lull in activity. I was a little concerned last week that the smaller trees didn’t produce as much sap as I thought they should. The larger trees seemed to release much better. I made the decision yesterday to set out a section of mini-tube runs on a wooded ridge on our farm known to us as Green Mountain. A group of large maples cover the ridge. It’s named for the green plastic sap tubing we used there. Most of our normal tubing is blue. Mini-tubes are short sections of sap tubing that connect a series of ridge trees that are tough gathering if buckets are used. My father started building mini-tubes years ago and we began adding them throughout our sugarbush. They are taken down,washed, and stored each season. I may have mentioned them in a previous post. Most of our mini-tube runs are obsolete now after the 2016/2017 sugarbush die off I mentioned in a previous post. We are waiting to assess how many maples survive before we attempt to rework our mini-tubes in some of the sections. Large portions of our former sugarbush have been retired for the moment. Wood salvage operations will keep the trail networks open until we decide the best possible way forward. For the moment the sugar house sits idle but ready. The taps idle but ready for the next thaw. It is a moment where we can catch our breath. We hope to be swamped with sap soon! I welcome the long days of boiling that secure the supply and make for a successful season. They arrive with mind numbing task and toil that brings a strange peace suddenly when you least expect it! Perhaps it’s exhaustion! Regardless it’s a priceless gift of our hobby.I will try to bottle it with words and deliver it to you! I recently joked about my sentences being as winding as our sugarbush sap tote roads! That pretty much sums it up! I am presently trying to hire a certain woman who is very close to me to be my writing editor! So far my efforts have failed!She did accept a job in the sugarbush though!As for being an editor she’s holding out for a better wage package and increased benefits! In the sugarbush I work for less than $3/hr average so overall negotiations prove difficult! I mentioned to her that perhaps I should be charging for the experience of working in the sugarbush! Like a gym membership!All this working out and physical exertion must be worth something! Speaking of a winding tote road, did I ever mention that I was never a straight “A” student? I was way too busy running through the woods and swamps like a wild,feral animal to bother with my studies! Something that always troubled my father greatly! Reading however was something I treasured greatly!I graduated high school and later received a 2 year college degree in electrical technology despite my feral tendencies. In 1982 I chose the migratory life of a construction electrician after being excepted into the I.B.E.W. Local 910 apprenticeship program. Jobs were scarce in the north country as a recession gripped the nation. It’s a place to start out I thought. This “temporary” vocation situated me well for over 37 years. I even managed to retire at 55 years of age. My goal during the many long and tedious indoor projects that kept me from the forests.We will visit those years sometime here on the blog. In the meantime while we wait for the sap run to resume you will need to wait for better grammar and sentence structure! As long as I am rambling I may as well mention that I still to this day run through the swamps and woods ( with my son now) like some sort of wild,feral animal! I just don’t move so fast these days! I must also mention that there is a freedom in the creation of blog posts that I thoroughly enjoy! Call it liberty! My blogging is not for financial gain or under the scrutiny of a pushy,demanding employer! I can tell my stories in my own words with honest and simple words. From my heart always. There is that part of me that feels the need for nothing artificial or staged to meet certain expectations of modern society.My words can be as raw as the sap hitting the evaporator float in the sugar house. But much warmer. I don’t care for artificial flavors especially fake maple syrup. I will go without before using it. Words can be compared in a similar manner. Sharing is my mission. To bring to life my observations and challenges. To perhaps inspire and give hope to someone who needs something different today. Or maybe to take someone on a walk down memory lane for a minute. To divert their attention. If I brought fond memories back to life for someone than I feel that I have brought something worthwhile and meaningful to the world. Or if my words give someone hope for tomorrow that’s a positive goal. We are connected in the new age survival of the present. Positive energy can heal in these troubled times. Bring us all together. I frequently ask people to share their stories about their lives. In time I will invite comments and give people an opportunity to share them here. Critics and their negativity don’t bother me. They are a part of the struggle to co-exist in the world. In time they will blow away like the fallen maple leaves of last summer’s foliage. They will never hinder our progress or stop our mission of positivity. They too serve a purpose in the cycles of nature. Growth where nothing is wasted. There are privileges within the freedoms of self expression. Positivity will be the backbone of my content. Life is not perfect or without dark days. Those times will be acknowledged with honest testimony. We must embrace all that happens that we can’t change. We should strive to learn from our mistakes.Extend kindness and compassion. Always appreciate our small blessings and those we share them with in our lives.Acknowledge our special memories with the people we love! We named those memories MOONTABS!It’s so important to celebrate!Please follow our journey of season and celebration of spring as it unfolds. We hope you find it sweet and tasty! Remember that one matter who you are or what you find interesting ….“It is no bad thing to celebrate a simple life.” J.R.R. Tolkien.
The Transition
March 9th 2021. Winter has retained its grasp upon our landscapes. The tiny thaw during the last week of February was a teaser. Winter struck back hard with a north born chill that held for over a full week. The first 61 sugaring taps we had set sat idle. An occasional drip here and there if some sunlight warmed the side of the tree. We had taken full advantage of the thaw however. We successfully broke in our sap haul roads and trail to the sugar house.We had set up our evaporator and made additional preparations. I changed the oil in the diesel tractor. It is the heartbeat of our small operation. No tractor means no taps or no hauling sap. It will log many hours this season. We find ourselves tapping the furthest we have ever been from our sugar house. A necessity after the loss of most of our former old sugarbush in the 2016/2017 combination drought/tent worm die off . The dead trees blanket our ridges still. A grim and stark reminder of nature’s fickle power.It has been a painful transition these past few seasons. In spring 2018 we didn’t even know the extent of the damage. We tapped trees that appeared to be living only to find they ran no sap. Others only a little. The saw dust from the tapping bit is usually frozen when we tap so there were no tell tale moist shavings. The ones you notice on the warmer days of an advanced season. We had a productive syrup season despite but did not collect well from the number of taps set. In late summer 2018 we scouted our forest and marked the trees with spray paint. Orange:dead needing extraction. Blue: living but compromised.Healthy trees were left unpainted. We didn’t pay much attention to the smaller tiny maples until later. Many also lost. They were the future of our operations.We were in shock at the level of devastation. But there was hope in small pockets of the sugarbush. Some trees had survived!We would hopefully find enough to resume tapping in 2019.That fall we began cutting the dead sections for firewood we needed to heat our home and fuel the sugar house evaporator. The subsequent harvesting is a story unto itself for future posts. About that same time we became friends with our neighbor Tom. His 90 plus acres border part of our property. Tom was building an Rv site on his land and wanted our permission to widen the abandoned Rastley Rd. to accommodate his small camper. We set up a meeting at the farm and had a long conversation. We easily reached a verbal agreement and parted ways with our new friend. Kindness and cooperation are attributes in the realms of human coexistence. We would be rewarded for this in the spring of 2019. We set out that spring to tap the remaining maples we had with hopeful anticipation and resolve. We cleared a trail into a small section of maples at the far corner of our property that we had never tapped. We were adjacent to Tom’s property. We noticed the abundance of healthy young maples that had survived the ravages of 2016/2017 in Tom’s forest. Tom’s land was lower with the ability to retain a higher water table. He had suffered tent worm losses but on a much smaller scale. We reached out to him and brokered a simple deal to tap a few of his maples. We set about 75 taps total on his property. They produced huge amounts of sap and contributed highly to our successful season. A plan began to form at this point. When Tom arrived that spring we gave him a share of maple syrup for his kind gesture. We became better acquainted with Tom that year. We would visit for hours sometimes and brainstorm different possibilities. Fast forward. Spring 2020. Our home heated that winter once again by salvaged former sugarbush trees. Jen and I recovering from surgeries. We were forced to regroup and run a tiny syrup operation. We set a few taps on Tom’s property again. Another worthy blog tale sometime. Tom returned home from the south early that spring and frequently stopped by while we boiled sap away. We brokered a new deal with him. We laid out a trail system in his woods for a sap hauling road that would enable us to reach many healthy maples. Zane,Jennifer, and I cleared the road over a two day period. Tom received a share of syrup once again for his generosity. Fast forward again to the present. 2021. Our home again heated with salvaged maple trees. We have entered Tom’s forest as planned. The tote road is broke in and the taps are set. We now wait for the big runs with may arrive this week. The questions begin. Will the never tapped maples of Tom’s forest exceed our expectations? Will this season be a productive one? Will the tired iron of our old systems survive the long days and nights of production? We can’t answer those questions just yet. But I can say with conviction that the season will be tackled with passion and determination. We’re well positioned and ready to begin the next set of tasks. The gifts wait for us. In the forest and in the old sagging sugar house. Hours spent together and with visitors. Food and simple sugarbush meals shared in wet, muddy clothing. We’ll suffer discomforts in all sorts of weather. We will grow weary physically as the transformation into spring unfolds once again. We will grow mentally and collectively.Bond as family and in our relationships. Jennifer has taken to sugaring and brings positivity to our operation with her determination and spirit. Zane steps forward with adolescent energy. He has become my apprentice of all I know. As I was to my own father. I will pass the torch to him someday if he wishes it. Our memories will be made regardless of the outcome. Those are the givens of this most special of annual hobbies. All else fades in comparison. These story can’t be told in a few short sentences. The sentences are as winding as the tote roads of our sugarbush. Confusing and incomprehensible to some perhaps. Love is not confusing though. Love of traditional rural heritage. Love of nature. Love of rigorous hobbies. Love of those who share these special days with me. The energy of spring brings warming days of returning sunlight. Most residents of the north country revel in it. For some it means much more. These are the days of MOONTABS. We return to the forest this morning to make more of them. The sweet taste of our endeavors will soon be our reward. We have launched. I have launched. Once again into that place that only the drumbeats of tiny sap drops hitting buckets on sunny hillsides can take me. A symphony of spring. A destination of spirit energy on the solid hallowed grounds in the hills of Macomb. A rebirth of sorts that I will forever chase as long as my legs will take me into the forest. I will lose myself in rising clouds of boiling sap steam. Transported from society’s burdens for a moment. There can be no finer moments. I am the most blessed of individuals!For that I am most fortunate and humbly thankful. To stand outside the warm sugar house on a frosty March night as the evaporator cools for the day renews my faith in life itself. A clear starry sky over head. Light glowing between the cracks in the sugar house walls. The crackling of the fire and its inviting warmth. Wisps of fragrant steam that fill the night sky. The knowledge that tomorrow the sap will flow and the cycle will repeat itself. This is heaven on earth for me. I am lifted to the highest of worldly places. It’s time to get to the sugarbush now.
O
Not Just Yet
March is a special month for us here in northern N.Y.!Why?Maple syrup season! It’s a hobby that I have enjoyed for many years now. The story of how I came to love it so much is rich with family history and rural heritage. As the first of March approaches we plan on getting started setting our taps. It always reminds me of my father in the last few years of his life. He never wanted to start tapping until March 15th. I’d be impatient and would say “let’s get going! “He’d simply say “we’ll start soon but not just yet!”I can’t say for sure when we first began to sugar on our farm. My parents purchased the farm around 1969.There was an existing sugar house and old evaporator over in a small section of woods off the main farm meadow. Sometime in the mid to late seventies my two uncles and my father partnered up to make syrup together. My father worked and I had school so they did much of the gathering and boiling. I enjoyed going over in the evenings when some of the boiling was done. I honestly can’t remember a whole lot in the haze of time gone past but I remember certain moments clearly.Like the time I wacked myself in the head with a block of wood I was attempting to split. My cousin was running the evaporator and I wandered off for awhile to suffer my humiliation.Another memory that stayed with me was when my uncle Charlie shared a sub with me! It was the first one that I had ever eaten! Funny the things we remember! I can’t say for sure how many years we did syrup while I was in school but I know that the evaporator pans got bad at some point and couldn’t be repaired easily. My uncles built their own sugar house on their farm and tapped their large stands of maples close to home. I would stop in and visit sometimes when they boiled at night. My father’s cousin Keith Tyler also began sugaring and we would visit there sometimes. Our sugar house sat idle for quite a few years. The back wood shed section roof rotted through and I tore it down one summer. My father rebuilt it later that fall. The main sugar house structure was an old garage the previous farm owner Forrest Hosmer had moved there sometime in the fifties. It needed a new roof but has stood the test of time. My father expanded the wood shed for better storage space but the structure has changed very little over the years.It wasn’t until just before my father retired in 1990 that we returned to making syrup on a yearly basis. He had two custom pans built for the old evaporator in Vermont. He gathered sap with a team of his horses. My stepmother Shirley was his partner in the sugarbush. I helped out with tapping and some of the sugar wood collecting. My memories are a little vague and I miss my journals that were destroyed in our house fire of 2012. They contained a wealth of details that I can’t ever hope to drag from my memory. But beginning in 1991 something occurred that would change me forever. My memories are clear and concise of the day my father decided that I would learn to run the evaporator for the first time! I was nervous and a little intimidated by the responsibilities that come with that task! There’s a lot that can go wrong if you don’t pay close attention. But my father patiently guided me through the process and I caught on quickly. I wasn’t working that spring and spent a lot of time helping with sugaring. I did a lot of the boiling and my passion for the sweet creations that flowed from the evaporator became something more.I found a special connection in the rising steam of the boiling sap. There’s a poetry of motion in the process of running the evaporator. My father would come in between delivering loads of sap and visit with me. He’d tell me stories of growing up and sugaring with his father Alvin. It was in those days of boiling sap that my father became my best friend. We already had a special bond but something changed. He was passing on the yearly tradition with fatherly hope for the future I’d realize later. I grew fond of boiling sap at night. We had no electricity in our sugar house so a propane lantern supplied the light to run the evaporator. Our sugar house had been cleverly constructed on a side hill and everything worked on the principle of gravity. No need for pumps. I spent a lot of time alone boiling sap at night and found it relaxing despite the busy routine. The evaporator became predictable as I learned it’s needs for sap and firewood. A practiced routine of stoking the large fire box developed. Testing the boiling sap and drawing off the batches like clockwork. Filtering the hot syrup and jugging it up. There was little time for sitting until the end of the day when most of the sap was gone. The process of firing down has its own list of tasks before shutting down completely. There was plenty of time for thinking though. I kept a pen and notebook handy for jotting down random thoughts. I kept no meal schedule and basically ate whenever I could grab something out of my lunchbox. In any given day I consumed a fair amount of fresh syrup. I sample a small amount from each batch. Over the course of a long day it adds up! But crafting quality maple syrup is a prideful vocation and I strive for success. We’d average about 10 gallons a day with a decent sap run. But sap runs are fickle and unpredictable. We’d sometimes find ourselves swamped by a huge run and I’d find myself putting in an extra long day. 24 gallons is pretty much my one day record for our small operation. That’s a long day!The years passed and I found myself increasingly busy with my work. But I’d always find time to get to the woods for the gather. Saturday’s and Sunday’s were spent boiling to give my father a break. I managed to be off work some syrup seasons and it became a goal of mine. Get time off for sugaring! Not something every employer understands or tolerates well. No matter! When your hobby lasts only a few weeks each spring there’s no time for postponing it. So I managed as best I could to find a balance. After all, there’s a finite number of syrup seasons in a person’s life! I remember the spring of 1994. I was in between jobs and looking forward to maple syrup season when a call to return to work came one afternoon. Oswego County. Too far to drive so I had to live out of town. But I would return each Friday night to be able to help out in the sugar house for the weekend. The ice storms of 1991 and 1998 heavily damaged our sugarbush. We cleared the trails and salvaged the firewood. We had to say goodbye to some of our favorite trees. It’s painful in a strange manner. But that’s nature. Some seasons were short and others were almost perfect. Weather is the biggest factor of sugaring. So here I am.Thursday.March 4th.2021. We started setting taps Monday. We hit a count of 62 then a wind driven snow storm forced us to quit. Bitter winds and cold the past two days have kept us out of the woods. We hope to resume our tapping tomorrow. The weather is breaking next week and we need to be ready! Time will not wait nor will the sugar season.Perhaps we tried to start a little too early this year. I know we missed a small run over the weekend. But maple sugaring is a game of chance and circumstances. Weather can’t be controlled. We lost our father and maple syrup mentor in June 2007. That spring was our final syrup season together. But I haven’t missed a season since. I miss my father in the sugar house. My stories of maple sugaring are many and will flow like a plentiful sap run in time. This story but lays the groundwork of a passionate hobby that borders on an obsession. There’s a magic in the motion of being a “sapsucker”. There’s an energy that I chase within our fervent endeavors. It surrounds and permeates the body with a peace that words will never capture. It must be experienced in all its many forms. In all the weather one can imagine the season will arrive and quickly pass. It’s time these stories were written and shared. But “not just yet”!
Cold Memories From A Warm Heart
A cold morning at Hill House this morning!It’s been a strange winter for sure!Quite mild actually, with minimal snow.The Lake only sports about 8 inches of ice down in front of the house. After last night I expect that changed. As I stepped out to fire the outside wood boiler (aka The Monster) in my bathrobe and Crocs I realized there was a significant wind chill also. A bathrobe and Crocs is standard attire for a retired person up here on the hill. After all what’s the hurry? It’s that time of winter when the increase of daylight becomes noticeable.Icicles form and drip as the sun hits them. Mini avalanches send snow sliding off the southern and western portions of the metal roof with startling rumbles. I have a lifelong fascination with ice. Walking on it.Following the streams and exploring beaver ponds. Taking shortcuts across it to save time. Always looking for that perfect picture of it hanging from ledges. Amazed as the lake ice booms at night as you shine a flashlight on a night set walleye tip up. Ice is powerful. Cracking concrete. Moving foundations and lifting asphalt. A morning such as this reminds me that this morning’s temperature of 7 degrees Fahrenheit is nothing! I am always telling my teenage son Zane about the cold winters of my youth. He scoffs and says “ older people always say things like that!” But I remember many cold days and nights from years ago. The weather began to take a sudden turn here sometime in the eighties. More unpredictable and sporadic. We still had some fierce winters but things were much different. The winters of 1993 and 1994 were some of the coldest in recent history as I recall. The winters of my youth were rather predictable most of the time throughout the seventies. Late November would find the freeze up beginning. By Xmas time the ice was nicely formed and the snow would begin to accumulate. The temperatures would continue to plummet and by January it could be brutal!We would however often get a January thaw that would last a few days then disappear. Nothing like the up and down cycles we endure here now each winter. Sure there were abnormalities and breaks in the patterns occasionally. Typically after the January thaw the weather would remain very cold till March.The first two weeks of February could be some of the coldest we’d get all winter! The sun might shine but when’s it’s minus 20 or below it didn’t matter much! Growing up on the farm winter changed the routine immensely. Everything was more difficult. Snow to shovel.Hungry horses and cows stabled in the warm barn to feed twice a day. Their waste to be removed from the barn each day.Water to keep from freezing as well. Doors and feed holes always sticking. Saturday’s would find us out with the team of horses cutting firewood. We pulled a big work sleigh for hauling the wood to the farmhouse. No fancy dry weave or nylon clothing. Wool was the answer to keeping warm. Wool pants and chopper’s mitts. Wool toques the standard fare. The job of the farm boy was to always break the sleigh runners free with a large steel bar before they could be moved.They’d freeze down to ground and take some effort to free. It was a cycle of life that became the normal. I think it’s why I have this tremendous connection to the seasons. Sometimes it would be too cold to even venture out to work. But that was rare. The daylight would increase and we’d skip work some Saturdays. We’d load our gear and head to the lake for a day of ice fishing. We’d drive right across the lake with the truck on 20 inches plus of ice.Great memories!One winter especially comes to mind. It was 1978 headed into 1979. Xmas day a balmy -25 degrees Fahrenheit. The oil filter on the Ford Mercury burst when trying to start it. The days of that winter would see a 30 day plus run of days that never got above 0 degrees Fahrenheit! Brutal and testing the limits of people and machines! I learned the tricks of survival.Battery chargers and booster cables. Dry gas to keep fuel lines flowing. Fuel injection not yet common as carburetors ruled the realms of internal combustion engines. We didn’t own anything diesel then. The winter of 1979 and 1980 was equally cold. As I think back over the years I can remember so many brutally cold days and nights. So today feeling cold at 7 degrees Fahrenheit seems wimpy! I think we need to put on some dry weave inner layers with a nylon outer layer. Maybe my Gortex hunting jacket. I have been eyeing the real wool outer wear they sell at a store in Malone,N.Y. Perhaps it’s time to return to the old ways. Or maybe a blend of both worlds. One thing I can’t buy at any price is a pair of my Grandmother’s hand knit mittens. Or a wool jacket with a hand stitched cotton neck liner to keep the wool from irritating my skin. We survived those challenging days of years past. We’ve grown soft perhaps with these new winters. Those winters of our ancestors were very real! Not just a figment of aging memories. I know! I lived some of them! Close to nature. I am the fortunate man. To know the swing of seasons with passing days.To learn to care for livestock. To know the value of home heating fuel that came from the forests of the farm. To appreciate the warmth of the farmhouse at the end of the work day. Meat and potatoes to replenish and nourish the weary body. My roots are deep and well planted. For that I know I am truly blessed! The memories will never die if I keep them alive with words. Some things are best left forgotten but some are not. The stories are many and wait to be dredged like buried gold from the years. To leave them uncovered could be a loss. For Zane and all my family. “It’s no bad thing to celebrate a simple life”. (J.R.R. Tolkien)
Tired Iron
Choosing a title for a post is a fun part of the process!Always searching for a short combination of words to make a point,tell a story, or leave a message of positive thoughts. I can’t claim ownership to the term “tired iron”. I simply borrow it from a conversation I once had with a local “collector”.He ran a mixed antique/collectibles shop.He’s what we call a junker! (“Junking” is another hobby of mine that gets us into some interesting shops and barns around the north country.)The junker owner was showing me his collection of old cars and trucks with great enthusiasm and knowledge of each.He then referred to them as “tired iron”. I have always remembered the term. I use it now when I refer to the old farm equipment around our farm. Rusty with weather checked tires,it’s stored here and there in my various buildings.It sits idle much of the time but is safely held in trust for “that time”.A time when it may be needed and pressed back into service. Machinery isn’t the only tired iron around the farm! I have lots of other things of questionable value!Space is privilege of those who have it and my spaces are full!Many of my prized pieces of tired iron actually perform productive tasks!Our old evaporator is great example!Also our mixed collection of other maple syrup equipment.It sits stored and ready to go mostly.Nothing a patch here or a chunk of tie wire there can’t fix!We keep a set of worn out hand tools in the sugar house always.We use things that are actually antiques around the farm on a regular basis. Things many people can’t name let alone know how to use them.When my mind reflects on all repaired tired iron that’s used on the farm I begun to examine myself. I’m mostly flesh,blood,and bone but I do carry a few screws and a plate. (Stainless that can’t rust!)Fillings in my teeth. A bicep repair with nylon screws and surgical bindings left in place to hold me together.An interesting comparison if not a little strange.Speaking of strange!I have strayed so far from my original thoughts for this post that it’s going to take some effort to bring a reader back to my intended message! To get there quickly I’ll simply say my latest piece of tired iron is my nine year old outside wood boiler. Sold with a long term warranty that isn’t worth a well tarnished penny. I patched it together with determination and luck in February of 2019 after it breached while cleaning it. That fall I did some premeditated repairs to another section where I suspected a problem might develop. It’s held together well until last night. Major breach number two on the coldest night this fall.A total “ I’ve got to shut this down and plan a repair now moment where it’s questionable if a repair is even possible”.But this is where the message comes into play. I started getting really down. Irritated and thinking why me? It really was threatening my day or worse the next bunch of days. But it all came down to preparation. I had known the boiler might fail me. We put backups in place. So it was time to switch modes and get moving!Having a plan helped. It was then that I realized something.This was not the end of the world. This is nothing new for me. Problems grow less the moment we face them with possible solutions. I thought of people trying to overcome much worse situations. I am fortunate to be capable. Determined to do better. Tired iron breaks down. It can be patched if a person tries. It doesn’t need to last forever. Just a little while longer.If it can’t be repaired it must be accepted. Cut the anchor rope if it tries to sink the boat. Be happy to still be in the boat. It’s not a shoreline of dry,safe land that’s easy to reach. But calm seas never make for skilled sailors.Count your blessings even when your “tired iron” gets heavy!
Farm Day Observations
A busy day on the landing yesterday. Zane got to see the purple decomposers before the blocks were split into smaller pieces. We had a visitor again! A hairy woodpecker taking advantage of the abundant grubs and insects falling out of the logs! Jen and I had one visit the other day on the other landing. Probably a different one but my imagination wants to believe it’s the same one.He (or she?) drawn by the sounds of our activities. A type of symbiotic connection. Food for the woodpecker and enjoyment for us.The decomposers are a different sort of symbiotic relationship. Not with the dead wood but through their connection with us.That’s a little more difficult to explain at the moment. Suffice it to say I have reached a tiny place of peace in the lost mixed forest. To say they are just trees would underscore my connection. I walked beneath these giants of the farm as a boy. Stood in their shade to catch my breath in the dog days of summer as I searched for missing cattle. Drilled and set the taps into them with the thrill of anticipation. The coming days of “ torture” in a full on syrup season. Watched them suffer ice storms and the first major tent worm infestation. Yet still they survived these silent monarchs of the rocky ridges. I watched them age as I watched my father age. I too would age. But new growth sprouted and took root. Saplings and a toddling boy would enter the forest setting. We’d lose trees a few at a time just as we would lose those we loved. The seasons would cycle. Many things would change. The trees would begin to symbolize something far greater. This is a story like no other. Years in the making. Far from over in hope and faithful determination. One to write with hidden messages. Observations and openness of heart. A far bigger picture waits to show itself to us. And the tiny decomposers begin to open the closed doors to let us pass through.