The story of logs,logging, and sawmills encompasses several decades of my life in its entirety. It’s important to note though that much of my time in the woods each season was spent harvesting firewood. I burned wood for a good many years after leaving home.All told some 27 years or so overall. I also would help my Father cut wood for the farmhouse in my spare time. We used smaller firewood in the sugar house to fuel the evaporator as well. All that wood cutting kept us rather busy each fall and winter. I have never cared for cutting wood in the summer so typically would take a break in the warmer months. We didn’t own a wood splitter until the fall of 2004 so all our wood was hand split up until then. Big blocks of dead elm were burned without splitting them given their stringy composition. I sometimes used a hammer and metal wedges to split large blocks but usually used an eight pound splitting maul. It was an excellent workout and kept me very fit! Heating with firewood you harvest yourself is a time consuming labor of love. The benefits have always been the draw for me however.For years my cost to heat my home was almost nonexistent. Harvesting the dead trees helped keep the properties cleaner and less unsightly. Coupled with the physical aspect it was a no brainer really! There’s a certain satisfaction in harvesting firewood that can only be found in the experience I have always found. It’s a connection to nature like no other. There’s an independence in not relying on other types of home heating fuels. For years our wood furnaces were located in our homes basements so that meant stacking after throwing it in each time a load was brought home. It would fill the cellar with a certain smell as it dried out depending on the species we were cutting. Burning dry wood was imperative to avoid chimney issues. Chimney cleaning was a part of routine maintenance as was handling ashes and hauling them out of the basement. In 2001 I purchased my first outside boiler system. This would make life a whole lot easier as the mess of bark and ash was kept outdoors. The wood was stacked outside as well. Tarps were handy to keep some of the snow off the piles. Outside boilers brought a greater safety to burning wood as well. No longer were chimney fires a concern. A new era of wood burning was ushered in for me. My Father purchased one shortly after I did and built a woodshed to store his supply of wood. It worked well for him and made things easier overall. We moved to the farm property in 2008 after renovating the farmhouse about a year after my Father’s death in 2007. We continued use his original outside wood boiler for several seasons. New York State pushed to control the use of outside boilers at one point around 2010. New models purchased needed to fall under EPA compliance regulations. I purchased a gasification unit in 2011 to replace the older one at the farm that my Father had installed in 2002. It was a clean burning boiler but required labor intensive cleaning and could only burn super dry firewood. We only used it one winter at the farm before the farmhouse burned. The outside wood boiler was spared luckily. We made the decision to relocate to the small village of Hammond instead of rebuilding at the farm. The house there used fuel oil for heat but I figured out a way to house the outside wood boiler in the large garage and pipe the hot water to the house through an underground thermopex piping system. It was quite the project and a ballsy undertaking as outside wood boilers were not welcome in the village if not entirely banned. I got the project finished before winter and we were once again burning firewood!The gasification unit burned so clean and efficiently that I never had any complaints from anyone in the village. We had added several smoke stack extensions up through the two story garage roof and launched our minimal emissions high into the air. Inside and out of sight the boiler worked well! We trailered in our firewood and stored it under cover in a lean to we build onto the garage.We used the boiler for three winters in Hammond before moving to a new location above Black Lake. The new house we purchased needed a heat source so once again I made the decision to move the boiler! I found a perfect location for it behind the garage there. The big project relocation project was undertaken and completed before winter. It worked well there for five seasons before I began to have serious issues with leaks. Something the manufacturer refused to address properly but that is another story! The house was sold in 2020 and I believe the outside wood boiler was scrapped out. Presently we continue to burn some wood in our cottage wood stove and at the farm. The sugar house still requires its share of firewood each season as well. We also use a small wood stove in the small farm cabin.(we call it “the warming shack”).Most of the firewood we now harvest leaves the farm and is sold to a local customer. My seventeen year old son Zane has been learning the basics of firewood harvesting for years now. I started him out driving the tractor when he was nine. Safely wearing his seatbelt he learned to dump loads of firewood stacked on the tractor loader into the trailer. He enjoyed the task and I felt it helped make a work day fun for him. We would usually take a break and go for a farm walk before heading home to Hammond before dark. Zane continues to learn new skills and has become a huge asset on the landing as we build the loads. He often runs the wood splitter and has begun to learn chainsaw basics. I have hesitated to let him run the chainsaw but I will need to at some point. It’s a dangerous tool and lots can go wrong! It’s a rite of passage for a rural kid though and I once was in his shoes myself. Moving forward I will continue his training and try to insure his safety. I sometimes ponder my fondness of collecting firewood and the time it consumes. I suppose it’s in my blood and given the over abundance of it on the farm presently nowadays it’s not a bad thing. Woodcraft is a skill I want to pay forward to my son as it was paid forward to me. Rural heritage often comes with time consuming menial tasks. But for me there’s a different type of reflection and reward that follows it. The smell of fresh sawdust. The crashing sound of a felled tree. The sight of a finished load of wood next to the warm wood stove. The taste of a simple lunch enjoyed on a break at the farm. The feel of the chainsaw doing it noisy job. The sixth sense emerges as the spirit energy soars into the large skies over the farm property. In simplicity there is peace and a greater understanding of life itself. That is the greatest reward of time and task. Tomorrow we will return to the forest and reap the benefits once again. The evaporator will need the fuel and we must meet its demands. Father and son together.Sharing and making memories. MOONTABS we call them. ✍️
Tag Archives: Sugaring
The Turn Of Thoughts
We approach the middle of February and last night on the long drive home from Lake Placid I had plenty of time to think. My work there is only part time now since December. That’s fine with me because I have more time to write and get caught up on some of the things I let slide. Speaking of time it’s become a frequent subject of discussion with a young coworker of mine on the project. In his late twenties his perception of it is noteworthy given my obsession with it. Despite the differences in our ages we walk common ground when discussing time and how we choose to manage it. We also shared thoughts on memories or lack there of sometimes. The realization that we can’t remember everything and certain things are lost in the haze of busy existence. I exposed him to the blog the other day. I then encouraged him to consider writing private life journals as a way of preserving his own memories. I kept hand written journals for years. (long before the creation of this blog and the very public sharing of my personal life).Just before beginning this post I did a quick review of my previously published titles and content.Time is a reoccurring subject and one I mention rather often. Some of my followers have told me they enjoy the stories of my life on the farm and roaming the forests of Macomb as a boy. For me those stories bring back many memories! I hope to continue to blend the old with the new this year as the seasons bring the different tasks and hobbies into play. A warm stretch of weather these past few days has certainly aided in turning my thoughts to the upcoming syrup season. Mid February does that to me regardless of temperature typically. I begin to consider those activities of winter that must be experienced before syrup season begins or they will need to wait till next winter. That’s a fact of time.There’s a certain energy in the sunshine now that can’t be denied or ignored. Dripping icicles and tiny rivulets of runoff that begin to flow bring a certain expectation to lovers of producing maple syrup. It’s almost that time of year again! I wrote several posts last year about sugaring if you haven’t read them. I will no doubt take a path of redundancy again this spring writing about sugaring. I suppose that I am trying to set a stage of sorts. One where the actors perform a yearly tradition. If asked what my message might be I would have to say that it’s one of the magic of seasonal transition and the power it brings to my now. Something that I have written about many times. Something real that can’t be bottled or sold. Something elemental in its simplicity and interconnected with nature as only certain experiences can be. If this seems like my same old story it’s because it is! There is a solid positive energy in traditional hobby and task. In a world of ever changing circumstances there is comfort in the approach of sugaring. Predictable to a degree yet still very variable. As I enter the forest as part of a daily routine I will find peace there despite the physical challenges the weather may bring. Or the challenges of life itself. I learned this fact of time most painfully once. The year 2007 was to be the final syrup season that I would share with my father although I didn’t know it at the start. I was busy with balancing the realities of time. A household, a young son, and my barn wood salvage business. Being able to help my father with the annual syrup season was a big part of why I wanted to be self employed in the first place. It was a time thing make no mistake of it. I temporarily left construction suddenly in March of 2006 after becoming ill with a double lung infection from breathing fire proofing all winter on an inside project. The year from March 2006 to March 2007 was a year that I will never forget! Freedom and a new lifestyle where I chased a dream of controlling time. I had done it! Taken control of time! But life is never that simple it seems. That year changed me though. So many great memories and then those I would like to forget. My father began to have some changes in health in the winter of 2007. It started with some strange accidents and memory quirks at times. But things were pretty normal for the most part. We tapped trees in mid March as was our custom but my father was not feeling all that great and went to his doctor. He underwent some tests soon after.He was fearful of dementia he told me one day while we were working together. His sudden changes in mental state were a concern. And then the fateful day. I was boiling sap in the evaporator and could see him walking towards the sugar house. He seemed bent over and I knew something wasn’t quite right. He stepped into the sugar house and we exchanged some simple banter about the quality of the syrup or subjects of that nature. He surprised me suddenly with an sudden outburst. “ I have good news! I don’t have Alzheimer’s! But I do have brain tumors. Two of them on one side of my head.They don’t know much more than that right now.” To this day I can’t remember what I said to him then. But I will never forget my sudden thoughts. I knew at that moment that we would be losing our father. Me a trusted friend. My son his grandfather. I know it sounds very negative but I was being painfully honest with myself. There were times in the coming weeks when I would be hopeful and positive. The doctors would operate and cure him we prayed. But lose him we did by the middle of June. To honor him I wrote my first ever rhyming story “For Pop”-A son’s story of life. And just like that, the aspiring writer in me began to evolve. Why do I share such a sad personal story? Because of time. It is not certain and not without circumstances. It is not guaranteed. I am forever thankful for whatever force told me to become self employed in 2006. The time that I shared with my father that year and into 2007 cannot be altered by any circumstances.It was carved out with deed not words of wishful thinking. I ultimately returned to construction for another 10 years but never again questioned my drive to manipulate time itself. As for what followed in 2009 when cancer was found in my body?Life would take on new meaning and purpose. Time would be on my side throughout that fateful journey. As in “they found my cancer in time to rid my body of it”. And in these moments of my present now I know of several who wrestle greatly with time and much more.Just how much remains for them? A stark reality for all who love them.All this may seem dark and cloudy in the face of a large storm. I apologize. It is not dark to me. It is just very real that’s all. Immortality is not a gift of natural world nor should it be considered.Acknowledging our own mortality need not be dark or foreboding . It’s rather the opposite really. It’s that chance for us to truly reflect on our choices for today and for tomorrow. How best to spend our time and are we happy with our choices. It’s about saying why not do that? Why wait? Why not take that vacation or visit that person? There’s not always a clear path in front of us. It’s not always easy to make the best choices or recognize them as the best ones. For me the answers may be found staying in motion I have decided. Chasing the seasons of nature and finding the magic hidden in each one of them. For time and love are greatly connected I feel. That’s a tough one to explain. If you took the time to read this far thank you! After all I took the time to write it for you! I promise a fun story soon! I simply ask you to reflect on time today and find the small blessings that surround you. ✍️
November Speaks (Where October Left Off)
Time has flown and my writing has taken the backseat recently. Actually it’s totally missed the car ride. Life hasn’t stopped most certainly even if my creativity sometimes remains furtive. I have managed a small amount of sharing on my Facebook groups even if I don’t find my way here. It’s not that my days have lacked adventure or travel. The Adirondacks have been like home to me these past few months as my 14 week work tour continued last week. We spent some quality time camping prior to my work assignment. Gone are the weeks of camping out of the Airstream that I enjoyed until almost the end of October. My last week of boondock camping at Fish Creek State Campground just before they closed proved to be quite the adventure! No hookups there.Rainy weather and cool nights would tax my batteries despite the addition of a portable Zamp solar charger system. I ran the furnace after returning from work while the generator was running before crawling under my thick stack of blankets each evening. The campground had made the decision to close the shower house early this season. No problem I decided. I had my fresh water tank full, a propane water heater, and a nice shower of my own in the Airstreams! Perfect right? Yes at first! Then my circuit board failed on the water heater and the hot water ceased. I troubleshot it in the dark with a flashlight to no avail. Too bad they didn’t still use the old style propane hot water heaters with a basic pilot light that you could hand light easily. No board means no hot water. But being stubborn (not to mention in need of a shower ) I did what any lover of a clean body would have done. I began heating pans of hot water on my propane stove. I had plenty of propane and plenty of water. I had considered for a nanosecond bathing in the lake itself! But after a day spent working outdoors in the cold rain that was not really a pleasant option.The next trick would involve bringing a dishpan into the shower itself. I filled it with a mix of hot and cold water to begin the shower experience. I won’t go into great detail of the entire process but let’s simply say it was mission accomplished if not mission supreme! I followed this procedure for a couple days then bide the camping season farewell. The Airstream has sat vacant for several weeks now at Jennifer’s.As for its departure south that is a rather obscure subject for the moment. Some plans had to altered while others were still being developed. Things can be quickly set in motion when your home is on wheels. It’s winterized at the moment. The nighttime temperatures continue to plummet and we decided it the safest course of action. The past few weeks have found me living in rentals in Saranac Lake. One has become my favorite after I discovered it last October. The owners have taken the time to make the space a cozy, warm retreat. They are friendly and welcoming as hosts! I consider myself fortunate to have found them. The Olympic Center Revitalization Project inches forward with substantial progress having been made since August. My time working there almost finished as the critical manpower shortage winds down into its final days. It’s been a blur of work, travel to the valley for weekends, and back up for the next week. I have watched the transition of autumn from the moment it began in the Adirondacks. The St. Lawrence valley autumn has lagged slightly behind and it’s been fun observing the differences. I had one memorable hike about mid -October when I decided to take on Cascade Mountain after work one evening. I hit the trailhead at 6:16 pm chasing the sunset after a beautiful warm day on the project. Darkness would overtake me before I could summit however. The views were still remarkable and I stood there gazing off to the horizons of flickering lights in the distance. It took me much longer to descend the mountain than I intended. Lucky for me Jennifer called and chatted me down! I reached the car close to 8:45 pm. What a hike! Hiking adventures have been replaced by farm tasks recently. A wood order that needs to be filled. Hay to store away for our two remaining horses. Many different tasks present themselves as winter approaches. It’s best not to get caught short I have learned even if I struggle to get it together! We cruise the farm woods searching for firewood and sugar wood trees sometimes. There is still an over abundance of dead maple to be found although some of it has begun to move past its prime. Time is bringing change to our devastated forest as the upper canopies continue to fall. We have made some inroads of harvest into some sections while others remain untouched. It’s been a rather disturbing cycle to witness since 2017. The dual deadly tap of tent caterpillars and drought of 2016. The subsequent die off has been far reaching across the high ridges of the farm. We hope to begin some forest cleanup attempts in the time before us. Time flies and progress comes slowly at times but nature throws us some pretty stiff challenges from time to time. Ice storms.Insects. Invasive species. The future of the farm landscape remains unclear and hazy. We have a basic plan and hope to further our stewardship efforts moving forward. So that’s about it really. Work and commutes. Packing bags and moving around each week. Travel back and forth. Balancing time with Zane and Jennifer on the weekends when home. The shortening daylight throws a twist into everything. As much a part of autumn as the falling leaves themselves. All this I chose I must admit when I question my trajectory some days. This is a temporary path I hike. The objectives begin to be completed. Time can’t run backwards nor can the courses of action that decisions created. It’s strange the energy that drives those decisions. And the energy that steers the feet back to the farm property in the valley. For some tasks can’t be postponed indefinitely. Winter changes everything. A sugar season must be prepared for with no further delay.New goals take the stage and there’s still time to fulfill them. That becomes the new focus. November speaks and I listen closely. It’s a familiar song. The northern breeze in the trees of the farm property. A time to enjoy a simple lunch next to the farm cabin wood stove. A time to enjoy a few minutes of silence. A time to reflect and a time to reconnect. There is a calming peace in the simple accomplishments of farm tasks preparing for winter. It’s an adventure of a different sort. A destination where you travel back to simple roots. A familiar feeling in an old place. It’s a new autumn in a year well underway now. Many things have changed and many things have not. It’s a powerful place to stand and count small blessings. Spirit energy is ever present on the rocky turf of these Macomb hills.
Bugs,Brush,and Brown Gold
It starts with that first find of the season and grows into a weekly obsession as the warm days of spring bring that most special of treasures into our home. What is this special treasure and why does it deserve a blog post? The morel mushroom! It’s reputation is world renowned and for good reason. It’s earthy,almost nutty flavor and exotic shape make it prized as an addition to fine cuisine around the globe. Know for it’s good taste and rareness it’s a valuable commodity that drives morel hunters into the forest in search of it. For a boy growing up in the hills of Macomb,N.Y. it was nothing more than another excuse to run wild across the pastures and through the forests. I spent hours hunting morels as a boy. A brown paper A+P grocery bag would carry my finds back to the farmhouse where a visiting aunt would pay me a dollar if I had a good quantity to deliver. Like a good many other country pursuits of mine it was never really about the money anyway. Today finds that mindset well ingrained and well grounded. I never really knew all that much about morels until recently. My father had taught me what they were and the basics of locating them but little more. Little more was needed anyway. But I have read more about them recently and even joined a couple social media groups dedicated to the morel mushroom hunters of the world. It seems that I am part of a special clique as a morel hunter! Not everyone is so fortunate I’ve read. The morel is the star of the mushroom world!For many will search and not all will find them. Those skills and good fortunes that we often take for granted truly do represent a status symbol to certain groups of people. As I get older I realize that the rural heritage that I enjoy without really thinking about it is something that can’t be purchased easily. It doesn’t give me an ego trip or anything like that. It’s more of a reminder of the blessings my country upbringing bestowed upon me as a way of life was lived. Being a forager was a part of that upbringing. As was being a hunter and trapper. Fisherman to a certain degree as well.The different seasons of northern New York offered a variety of foraging opportunities for a boy of Macomb. The first forage crop of a north country spring is the leek. Some call them ramps or wild onions. They emerge from the layers of autumn leaves as the sun warms the ridges and valleys. They make excellent flavoring for spaghetti sauce, burgers, or as pickles. We’d also forage a green called cow slips. They resemble spinach when cooked down. We’d gather in low wet locations typically next to runoffs and small streams. The month of May belonged to the morels though. Also to the swarms of biting black flies that plagued our time outside for a few weeks each spring. Ticks are a problem now that we didn’t have years ago. We spray our clothing for them but they are a constant and potentially dangerous threat to our health. Post gather tick checks now as part of a normal outing. The 1970s were a morel hunters dream in upstate New York but not for a good reason. Dutch elm disease was killing our elms in sickening numbers. The morel mushroom enjoys a symbiotic relationship with trees but on our farm they grow without question next to dead elms most of the time. It is the red elm that they truly favor for some unknown chemical balance that they seem to derive from them. Find dead red elms in May and you will find morels at some point most springs. The wide open cow pastures and ridges were blanketed with dead elms when I was a boy of 12. We harvested them for firewood and some farm grade lumber. Morels came easy and I never needed to search too hard. I didn’t eat them however. I didn’t care for them! Boy did that change! I didn’t hunt them much for quite a few years but would notice them from time to time around the farm doing spring fence repairs. Fast forward to more recent times.2019.. We still own the farm property of my youth. A 14 year old Zane has developed a love of foraging. Leeks mostly. But a friend asked us about getting a few morels after a turkey hunter mentioned he saw some on our farm. So Jennifer and I headed out to the farm to search for some. We harvested a nice gather next to a red elm stump where we had cut the large tree the fall before. Our friend cooked them up and we were hooked! It turns out my adult palate found them delicious! So the love of the hunt returned after many years of hiatus. Zane was totally into the hunt and enjoyed eating them as well. We enjoyed a late but productive season and vowed to try harder in 2020. The spring of 2020 was very dry and morels were difficult to locate. We covered a lot of the farm finding almost nothing. Around May 19th we located a few but were terribly short of enough for a decent meal. Our hot spots of 2019 were dry and barren except for a few small ones. We continued to search and were about to call off the effort for good that afternoon. There was a clump of vine covered dead red elms on a rocky outcropping beside a small meadow of ours. Surrounded by thick thorny brush we call prickly ash. I suggested that Zane should do a quick scout since it’s difficult terrain had kept us out as we searched easier spots. As had become his fashion he dropped to all fours and scurried under the old rusty barbed wire fence. He crawled through the impenetrable brush like some type of predator in search of prey. He disappeared from sight eventually as I waited in the scratch free,safety of the meadow pondering our meager harvest. Zane’s excited voice carried down to me from his invisible perch above me. “Dude you’ve got to get up here! This place is loaded! I smelled them before I saw them!”. (Calling each other Dude is an excepted manner of addressing each other). I found a less brushy route and made my way closer to Zane. Sure enough there were morels all over! The thick brush forced me to my knees as well as I began to harvest a variety of different sized morels. Zane and I continued our search in a epicenter type circle around the original finds. Satisfied that we had plenty we returned to the side by side to count them up. We had collected 70! Not bad! They made a superb addition to a dinner with our friend once again.We once again vowed to make the next season even better.Spring 2021 would find us searching earlier than normal in hopes of finding a few morels but the weather remained a little rainy and unseasonably cold. Despite that I continued to check our previous hot spots but it wasn’t until May 4th that I finally had any success. At Zane’s hot spot location of 2020 I found a few small ones poking out. I decided to leave them until he could join me on the hunt that Saturday. I searched other prior spots but found nothing. I thought about a location where I had spotted dead red elms while collecting sap in March and April. When I arrived there I was rewarded soon after with a nice morel. More would follow as I broadened my search pattern. I find Zane’s drop to the knees method highly effective and use it all the time now. My count ended at 69. A couple quick messages and a dinner was planned on short notice with morels as the featured appetizer. We enjoyed our first taste of the season immensely! Dip fried breaded morels with hand crafted dipping sauce. We’ve returned to the woods in the weeks that have followed gathering as many as we can find. Our harvests have met our needs and we’ve enjoyed the morels prepared a couple different ways now. So if you desire to hunt these members of the Morchella genus welcome to the club! They’ll be found sometimes where you least expect! Post forest fire locations in the western states and Canada. In groves of pines or Iowa river bottoms. These highly sought gifts of the forest truly are brown gold. For me the thrill resides in the time spent hunting them with Zane and Jennifer. Eating them is the tasty bonus that foragers of the wild embrace in our ongoing connection to nature. We seek the symbiotic relationship of spirit and earth. Under large and open skies on property that we are blessed to own. Quiet and comforting in the passage of time and season. The echoes of our happy yells as we make that bountiful find of a new morel patch will last forever. They are ripples of harmony and balance. Who knew such power existed in a simple fungi of the forest? Or that we could find such peace so close to the very ground itself. The hunt for morels is more than just a hunt. It is so very much more. The secret lives in the seasons themselves within the circle. Can one enter and never leave? The question that time may answer.
The Goldilocks Story of Recent Events
We’ve all heard the old saying time flies. It certainly has for me! My writing has fallen behind in the past few weeks especially the blog. We have been busy with the maple syrup season in a crazy series of abnormal weather events. A Goldilocks spin of too warm or too cold. Some days were just right and we produced some high quality amber rich grade. Then the swing to dark robust. Full flavor and signaling the progression of season. We had hoped for one more day of jug worthy syrup but Saturday’s boil produced only commercial grade. A sweet and bitter brew with a biting aftertaste. The trees have begun to grow their buds in the sunny,warming days of spring. Frosty nights can’t bring the sweet syrup back now. Even our 50 new taps that ran clear sap couldn’t produce sweet syrup. We decided to begin filling one of our stainless steel barrels although we don’t expect to fill it. They hold 30 gallons. It’s no big deal honestly. We’ve enjoyed a more leisurely season with the goofy weather. None of the mind numbing days and nights where a type of exhaustion would prevail. It was an on again, off again sugar season. During the off days we stayed extremely busy though packing and moving from Hill House. Zane and I have lived there the past 6 years. I sold it to a family from northern Virginia recently after trying to sell it for almost two years. It was the Goldilocks story of real estate. No one wanted to buy it. It was too remote. Too rocky. Too whatever. A couple low offers but nothing I would consider accepting. Jennifer had suggested that I keep it listed on Zillow. A free site that gives you updates almost daily. There were lots of views and saves in my stats profile but other than a few random questions no one had ever stepped forward. That would change last Xmas eve however. I received a text from a man asking more questions. I didn’t take him seriously at first but he kept contacting me asking questions. We eventually spoke on the phone and had an interesting conversation that lasted a long time. About that time a fellow from Pennslyvania also texted me. It had happened. An exodus of buyers was causing an upsurge in real estate in the north country. The Xmas eve buyer requested a showing. I didn’t have a realtor so I would be showing my own property. The Pennslyvania individual also requested a showing through a local real estate agent. To make a long story short the Virginia person whom I will simply call Scott toured the property with me in January. We spent most of the day together. We shared a lunch with him that Jennifer had made in a gesture of northern hospitality. These days we treat strangers with a different attitude. The pandemic has altered our mannerisms. Scott said he wanted the property pending an inspection. I politely turned the Pennslyvania fellow away. He was not happy with me! Scott returned in February with his wife and one of his sons. The house and property were just right! The Goldilocks event had occurred. The handshake agreement of January had led to an accepted offer and we were moving to a closing. Things were moving quickly and we began to pack with an urgency that bordered on obsession.I plowed out the farm driveway as there was a lot of snow at the time. It took some time and effort. I rented a storage box that we call a convex in construction. Twenty feet in length and eight feet wide. Later a second. They’re sturdy,dry,and rodent proof. We started moving out and loading the conex boxes. All this in winter. Not an easy time to move. We dug out our cottage at Black Lake and stored things there as well. March 1st marked the beginning of the syrup season. Now we were both sugaring and moving. It became a little hectic at times with a closing deadline looming. Wow! We owned a lot of stuff! Not surprising I suppose when you enjoy several different hobbies that revolve around a four season location in the world. Spring clothes. Summer clothes. Fall and winter clothes. Footwear for every season. Books and collectibles. Zane’s belongings. You must be catching my drift if you’ve ever moved! Scott and his wife agreed to let us stay ten days past the actual closing on March 17th. A super generous gesture of new found friendship. March 27th found us moved into our small Black Lake cottage. It’s usually called Camp Edith (after my grandmother).She and my grandfather had it built in 1927. They owned a farm in the area and several other lake properties. They actually lived in the cottage at least one winter after a fire destroyed their farm house. A large wood stove heated the cottage then. They only had four small rooms and a covered screen porch. An outhouse. A hand pump from a hand dug well. It must have been cozy living and challenging at the same time! Especially with all the children! I had built on to the cottage in 1995. Added a bedroom,bathroom,and utility room. Indoor plumbing modernized the cottage to a degree. It’s pretty much stayed the same since. One room was removed and the kitchen area was expanded several years ago. Upgrades to electrical. Insulation and some new windows. So here we are in April. Moved into a fully crowded cottage I now temporarily call Camp Chaos. Every day finds us more settled. It gets chilly some nights when the pellet stove can’t keep the cold at bay. I miss the large wood stove but it had become unsafe. We carry our water from the lake for the toilet and washing dishes. We shower at my sister’s house adjacent to the cottage. Some mornings I sip coffee in front of the warm pellet stove with the lights off. I muse on the similarities of my present time to my grandparents time. Very different but connected in some ways. There’s a friendly energy in Camp Chaos that will bring Camp Edith back to full glory. It lives in my determination. To rough it for a few weeks. Rough it? We have a roof over our heads. A flush toilet. Electricity and appliances. Heat. There lies the positivity. Why do we sometimes fail to see what we have and not always wish for more?Our time at Camp Chaos may humble our neediness.Why say it’s too small or too cold?Why not say it’s just right for now? That’s how I think I will approach these days of living in the cottage. The days grow warmer and lake living will get even better. We will end the sugar season this week sometime. Move forward with the cottage transition. Move forward with adventures and travel. Move forward with the blog and my writing. We will approach life with the attitude of saying it’s just right. Try to avoid the negative. What we find lacking we can attempt to change. In the meantime it’s nice to have moved on from Hill House having found the ideal new owners. The move is towards simplicity. Another story for another day.
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
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.