PORCUPINE TRACKS

After two weeks, the snow has finally settled into a manageable snowpack. We’re going to wind up tapping this week and movement in the sugarbush has eased up from an over-the-kneep-flail-fest to a fairly easy snowshoe. For those two weeks of bitter cold and drifting snow, there was almost no animal movement. They, too, knew how compromising it was to expend energy in those conditions. It’s only now that I’ve seen tracks of coyote, mouse, and one lone moose traverse Bobo’s Mountain.

However, one animal wasted no time getting out of their den into the deep snow and start feeding on meager cambium and hemlock needles: the North American Porcupine. There have always been porcupine on the mountain the but this winter they seem to be more noticeable. Perhaps it’s been the absence of other animal tracks or maybe their population has increased. Whatever the reason, their impact has been significant.

The first thing I noticed were their tracks. They don’t make tracks per se, more like hollowed out waddle grooves in the snow. Porcupines are not known for their height or their grace, so as they waddle out in the snow, they use the same tracks over and over. Like me in my snowshoes.

From these paths, you can easily find their dens, usually a hole in rocks well marked with urine and scat. 

 Porcupines are nocturnal and have an amazing survival strategy that involves scary barbed quills up to 4″ long and eating some of the least nutritional foods in some of the coldest climates. They move slowly (hence the quills) and survive the winter eating cambium from trees (the living layer of tissue under the tree’s bark) and conifer needles. They can do exceptional damage to trees like this spruce by stripping bark off, essentially killing it.

Now I’m delighted that the porcupines are clearing spruce out of my sugarbush, but porcupines are also known to like maple trees. So I’ve been watching them carefully and they seem to have a sense of where they are. Maybe it’s their careful high stepping over low-lying tubing or their choice of trees, but so far they seem to know the rules: no chewing on lines and no killing maple trees. We’ll see what happens when the sap flows.

TAPPING BACKPACK

Tapping trees is well underway on Bobo’s Mountain. We have to carry a lot of gear to be ready for any repair work on the tubing. Here’s a peek inside:

Clockwise from top:

1. Trusty backpack now filled with holes from drill bits and knives

2. Extra 5/16” tubing

3. 5/16” connectors to connect tubing together

4. Extra drop lines to replace any drops that are squirrel chewed or moldy (I usually cary 10-15 of these at a time)

5. One-handed tubing tool to put fittings and tube together

6. Red electrical tape to cover small holes in tubing

7. Knife

8. Felco snips (my favorite all-season tool)

9. Extra 5/16” drill bits

10. Saddle fittings for replacing any ones that are damaged

11. Tap hammer: held from a rope around my wrist

12. 5/16” polycarbonate taps: carried 25-30 at a time in my left pocket

13. Two-handed tubing tool for putting in new drop lines

14. SNACKS: critical and often containing chocolate or fancy nut butters

15. Makita drill: usually held from a sling around my shoulders

16. Extra drill batteries

Not pictured: water bottle, extra gloves

The pack’s weight usually exceeds 12 lbs, which isn’t too heavy unless you’ve fallen over backwards, downhill, on your snowshoes in 2’ of snow. Then the pack feels like it’s 30 lbs and the dead weight will prevent you from ever standing upright again.

IN THE INTERIM

After the rush of the holidays when things have settled down, one can’t help but look ahead to the 2015 sugaring season: woods repairs, tapping, collecting, and making syrup. It’s true that we could be boiling in February – unlikely but it happened in 2012. With any luck, we’ll get a good sap run in March but it’s most likely we’ll be boiling straight through the first few weeks in April. In the new unstable climate, we have to be ready for anything. There are no predictions.

But despite all the list making and anticipation for the coming months, there’s not much to really do right now. The water pipe to the sugarhouse is frozen solid so we can’t clean anything yet. The outside temperatures are hovering in the single digits making it hard on the trees (and us) to start tapping although we will start soon, picking our days when temperatures get into the upper teens and twenties. So, in the interim, new drop lines (the piece of tubing that connects the tap in the tree to the lateral tubing) are getting made to replace some of the older ones in the sugar bush. Studies show that replacing drop lines every 3-5 years increases sap yields tremendously.

And, there is also time for one of my favorite activities, visiting the maple equipment stores where clean, shiny, warm, new equipment awaits you! All you have to do is lay a card on the counter and it can be yours. So fun to walk around and look, touch, imagine owning it, and, in some cases, wonder what it’s used for.

COUNTERTOPS AND BENCHES

An excavator has been up on the mountain this past week. In just a few days Alec cleared at least a half acre, an amount of land that 100 years ago would have taken several people many weeks to clear.  

We wanted to access an artesian spring, to clear shade from the gardens, and to open up one of the few flat areas on the property. 

Trees were removed and sugar wood acquired: that wood pile is a great sight indeed. This morning I walked over to one of the bigger stumps. I always feel a pang of sadness when I see a stump this size. This maple was surely not one of the Old Giants, but a grand old tree never-the-less and one that has a story to tell. 

I counted its rings. The rings are made from the alternate layering of large cells built in the spring and early summer (springwood) and the tight, dense cells built in the summer and early fall (summerwood). What we see as the actual rings are the tightly-packed summerwood cells.

There were 91 rings (+/- 5) meaning this sugar maple germinated in 1922. Warren Harding was President, the USSR formed, Benito Mussolini came to power, home brewing was illegal under prohibition laws, and King Tut’s tomb was found. 

The story goes deeper though when you take into account the tap scars. This maple began being tapped around 1964 when it was just over 20 years old and about 8" in diameter. It was then tapped repeatedly for many years. The sunburst-like scars in the middle of the stump are old tap scars made back when the metal taps were big and clunky. It seems the the tree was tapped for about 7-8 consecutive years. 

Then there is a second round of tap scars made around 1999-2000 when the tree was almost 80 years old. It was likely Bobo who did the tapping, the boiling, and the pouring in the 1960s. And maybe, too, in 99-00 although the secret is well-kept.

Nowadays, the taps we use are 5/16", plastic, and don’t leave such pronounced scarring. This is, of course, better for the tree’s health but quiets the history down considerably. As for the tree itself? Well, here it is in the woodpile. 

Maybe this one won’t be burned in the arch in 2016. Maybe this one will milled and turned into countertops or benches for Bobo’s Mountain; the tap scars in perfect view for everyone to hear its story. 

THE SNOW MADE US DO IT

The arrival of Big Snow puts the hustle on us. The triage begins on the outdoor projects. For some projects, like picking up all the kids’ strewn-about stuff in the yard or ‘putting to bed’ the rest of the gardens, the thought of them being buried under feet of snow for the next four months is delightful. The toy tractors, bows and arrows, and Rudbeckia never existed and will not require thought or action until late April.

But for other projects, Big Snow means immediate action: putting all other daily chores and responsibilities aside, as suddenly there are mere hours to get accomplished what we had been putting off all fall. This week that meant 1) hiking the sugarbush and sawing the downed trees across tubing and 2) stacking the rest of the woodpile.

Less than a month ago the woods were open and fast; it was easy enough to find and map the trouble trees fallen across tubing.

However when up to 2’ of wet heavy snow is expected, those trees become as buried as the toy tractors. Backpacks, chainsaws, duct tape, snacks and out we go.

Now to the woodpile. The last four cord of wood moved and stacked as the snow flew.

Why the hustle now? It’s not as though there wasn’t snow on the ground. We have had a few inches since Thanksgiving. But there’s something about November snow that doesn’t seem permanent. And there’s something about a big sloppy nor’easter the second week of December that does seem permanent. Everyone knew in their guts that this was it.

And we were right. 18” on the ground and still falling, power still out as of this writing. Trees down and now everything turning to ice.

We could dry ourselves off and congratulate each other. “We got that done just in time,” we could say. But really, the snow made us do it.

DARK DAYS

The Dark Days are here. With only 10.5 hours between sunrise and sunset, our days will continue to shrink until we’re at the yawn-inducing sub-9 hours in December. There’s a noticeable intensity out there. It’s a different intensity than the manic daylight-filled days of June where six hours of sleep seems more than enough and we marvel at the tremendous amount we can fit in each day.

The animals are moving – driven by the intense need to get fat and find a cozy place to sleep. I can relate. These are the days where I seriously consider eating a grilled cheese before crawling under the down comforter at 8pm and where 11 hours of sleep seems perfectly reasonable.

The birds are flocking to the meadows to eat the grass and wildflower seeds. Turkeys and deer are moving through the oak and beech thickets finding the fatty acorns and beechnuts. And the squirrels are eating the decorative corn right off the porch.

And I don’t even want to get into the mouse situation which, by all accounts, is out of the control perhaps due to two years of long-lasting snowpack where mice get to hide from predators. Suffice to say, we can’t keep up.

This has been a great year for apples. The two apple trees outside the house were bursting, and I was eyeing the harvest with interest. But we missed our chance because we woke up one morning to apple branches on the ground and claw marks in the tree.

A black bear came and, in one night, ate probably 75% of the apples in both trees. And while apple trees are notoriously tough (they can survive getting browsed almost down to the ground), this bear chewed branches right off, pruning the tree for us.

But that’s alright. The bear needs the apples more than we do and besides, we can get more. Not to mention, there’s no fruit I love more right now than these late-season raspberries. Long live the Dark Days!