SUGARTIME, SUGARTIME, SUG SUG SUGARTIME

(I imagined those were the lyrics.  But no, it was “Summertime, Summertime, Sum Sum Summertime,” by The Jamies, 1958. Never would have guessed.)

The evaporator going full tilt

It’s that time.  Here at last, the sweet pungency of a smoky fire in a small space heating up an evaporator pan of maple sap.  Chris collected the sap from several of the Hustons’ sugar maples and other of ours (our very own sugarbush) in the woods behind our small sugarhouse.  It was so cold much of last week that the collecting buckets were filled with ice instead of liquid.

There is never enough wood...

Ben helps too.

Might as well read (that's Audrey, reading) while waiting for Dad

The hours can go by slowly while tending the evaporation process.  Ken helps Chris out with a sustaining beer.

The evaporator has walls dividing the pan into sections but the walls aren't closed all the way.  Sap, or shall we say syrup, moves freely between compartments.  The dividers help separate the more concentrated syrup.  Sap is added to one end and the finished syrup–many hours later!–migrates toward the pour-off valve at the other.  Commercial operators are into vacuum pumps to draw the sap from the trees (replacing mere gravity-feed), preheaters to recycle the heat lost to steam, and a process called reverse-osmosis takes a portion of the water out of the sap before it's boiled.

The non-commercial operation:  A sketch of how the evaporator works. Pretty simple, really.

The result, very fine and very sweet.

Inside the sugarhouse it’s too smoky to hang out for long.  We take time to put another log or so into the fire and dip a ladle into the bubbling sap to see how the flavor is coming along.  When you cradle a small mug in your hands full of the not-quite-finished sap it’s like drinking very sweet hot tea.  It warms you up, too, for outdoors there’s a chill breeze and remaining stubborn remnants of snow.  For two nights in a row we awoke to a white world after overnight snow.  But after only a few hours of morning sunshine it disappeared so completely that the sight of it early in the morning in retrospect seems like a hallucination.

Only Skyler's early morning footsteps disturb the snow

Only hours later the snow has gone, the ice melting–again.

I know this is a tired old cliché. but honestly, just as the trees rev up their juices, so we too feel something astir:  a need to get out there in the garden, a desire to clean things up, to walk in the woods––to do something that couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be done in winter.  It doesn’t matter if you were out there and skied or snowshoed in the cold, when you are walking freely in the woods or meadow on an even slightly warmer day it offers a feeling of freedom.  And it takes you only seconds to get out there:  not ten minutes worth of donning jacket, hat, gloves, boots and what-all.  Even the dogs (I include Skyler’s sister Daisy, a frequent visitor) stay outside longer.   

The woods behind the sugarhouse, woods we tend to forget about much of the year.  Until spring.

A hummingbird nest from last season in the forsythia in front of the house.  Will it be used again?

Time to think about maybe grilling outdoors again–eventually.

Daisy (left) and Skyler sit atop the hill keeping an eye on the sugaring and the cleaning up.

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MELT REDUX: more ICE!

Same post, but I've included two-thirds of the way through the views of Lake Champlain's beautiful ice taken by Chris Huston the day he, Ben and Audrey walked to New York State.  

Lying on snow atop the ice as if fallen from the sky, a dislodged piece of ice 

But on the day the footprint below was made, such crystal pieces were not to be found.

Mud season here in Vermont is not what it was.  There are still many unpaved roads but this is 2015 after all and getting stuck in the mud isn't going to happen.  Our main road is paved, so the only problem has been getting to it.  It would have been a lot easier if we remembered the location of our driveway.  Trouble was, before the first snow of the season (and that was oh so many months ago) we hadn't defined it very well with reflective markers or sticks, so Ken snowblowed its curve in somewhat the wrong direction.  Everything followed from that.  As everyone in the northeast is aware, this winter's snow once begun never really let up, so the driveway became locked into its new shape and gave us no end of trouble.  After a couple of days of fast melt we had a fresh look and swiftly realized we'd been driving over grass instead of dirt.  And where did that sharp bend at the end come from?

Not quite right:  our actual driveway is about six feet to the left

Drifts did it.  It was so cold and brutally windy in January and February that snowdrifts kept piling up.  We would begin driving along, curve around the pond, and then––whoops!  The snowblower couldn't cope.  For a couple of weeks we tried to keep it clear, shoveling the same snow over and over again so that we could get deliveries.  We would look out the window only to see the fuel truck try the driveway, back up, try again, and give up.  Our cars got stuck at least twice.  One obviously frustrated delivery driver tossed a package in the middle of our road and left it there.

But enough.  The melt has begun.

Of two minds:  The left side of the falls at Vergennes has thawed, the right remains frozen

Ice floes on what is usually a mere puddle, if that, on Hallock Road.  One day it had such force they pushed right across the street.

Ice chunks deposited on the other side of the road.

While it was still frozen, solid ice from shore to shore, we took a walk on Lake Champlain.  Only the week before, when the daytime temperatures were in their usual range (meaning somewhere between zero and twenty degrees), son-in-law Chris, Audrey and Ben had walked clear across the lake to the New York side.  "Further away than you think," he said.  They were lucky.  They caught the lake at a moment of great beauty:  the ice was some three feet or more thick and clear as crystal.  They marveled at bubbles formed throughout the thickness of ice that resembled galaxies in the darkness of space.  Intricate crystals sparkled in chunks of ice lying on the surface.  Here and there they saw small fish, apparently dead, frozen into the ice.  Ben lay on the ice to hear its sounds and peered into its depths.  They inspected caves on the New York side framed by gnarled tree limbs and ice.

Chris' photographs were so beautiful we had to see for ourselves.

Champlain on the day of our walk.  Ice fishing huts are in the background.

Between the time Chris walked across the lake and the day we decided to walk there, two things happened.  First there was a brief snowstorm that dropped about two inches of snow.  The next day the temperature suddenly soared (anything nearing 40 degrees is regarded as "soaring").  The result was a surface suddenly opaque, revealing nothing.

Ice, kind of as we saw it, slightly enhanced but still opaque

Ice as we actually saw it.  Unenhanced.  Opaque. Alas.

Yet here, thanks to Chris who took these photos, is the ice as we would like to have seen it, just two days earlier:

Ben looking into the depths of Lake Champlain

One of the ice caves on the New York State side of the lake

Still, we can't complain.  The winter has been perfect for cross country skiing just about everywhere.  I've heard people say that it's been a winter "like the old days," when the snow was always around until spring.  Maybe it was.

Breaking trail one beautiful day in Starksboro, Lincoln Peak in the background, Bill in the foreground.

Ken atop Mt. Ellen at Sugarbush.  

Enough of winter.  It's time to prune the apple trees.  Time to put the tap in the sugar maples.

O CANADA! OH. CANADA.

 

Bundled up tourists ride around Old Town Montreal

Don’t we Americans always start comparing countries when we go to Canada?  Without even thinking about it, subconsciously half the time.  The word that comes to mind, usually, is bland.  Canada’s backstory seems less turbulent, less violent, and hence ultimately less interesting than ours.  North of Montana in a small town in the Canadian far west (that would be Alberta Province—I’m not even sure, I had to look it up) some years ago we went into the equivalent of a western-movie-style saloon––it was the kind of town that would have had exactly that that, had it been in Montana––but when we entered the place looked about as interesting as the local coffee shop complete with fake wood walls, formica tables, fluorescent lighting, and no menace whatsoever. 

Borderland, Canada

As you approach the border from almost anywhere in the northeast the land changes, the mountains dwindle and the earth flattens out, suggesting you really are in a borderland, a place that feels different.  Crossing is a bigger deal than it once was, pre 9/11.  Lineups to return to the USA can be traffic jams on weekends on the major routes to Quebec Province. 

Along the icy St. Lawrence, Montreal

Place Jacques Cartier in the old town

 

In the heart of Montreal

In the early 1990’s Ken and I were driving through northern New Hampshire headed for Quebec City.  It was late in the evening but we weren’t inclined to find a place to stay overnight on the New Hampshire side of the border so we decided to keep driving, see what turned up.  I forget quite how this came about, but we found ourselves on a narrow road without a route number that after a few miles turned into a dirt road.  We didn’t feel like turning around so we kept going.  Further on a small sign appeared by the side of the road quietly announcing “Canada.”  Nothing else was in view and nothing barred the road.  It was nearly eleven.  We drove on.  The road remained unpaved.  It was nearly midnight when at last it ended in a very small town that had only a handful of buildings.  One large old wooden building was brightly lit and had a sign that we were grateful to see reading, unmistakably, “Hotel.”  Given the lateness of the hour it was surprisingly lively, rollicking in fact, but we were too tired to look in on the partying, wanting only to sleep.  Yes, said the person behind the desk, there was a room we could have.  Not until later did we wonder what he might have been thinking:  Where the hell are you guys from?  Our room was on one of the upper floors.  It had a sagging bed, the décor of an era long past, unusually dim lighting, and the whole room was colored red by cloths placed over the only two low wattage lamps.  Huh.  Guess the light's not meant for reading.   A huge transom above the door was fixed wide open so we could hear everything.  Anyone passing in the hall would also hear us.  We left first thing in the morning.

Thanks to 9/11, GPS and mobile phones this would not happen today.

In Montreal's archeological museum below present street level one finds the old stone walls of 17th and 18th century Montreal settlements

Of course there wasn’t always a border at all.  The Western Abenaki, an Algonquin people, spread from Vermont, New Hampshire, western portions of Massachusetts up to the area that is now Montreal and further northeast. Settlement in New England  forced many Abenaki north into Quebec eventually forming two large communities at St. Francois and Becancour that still exist today.  New England names we know well are Abenaki:  Androscoggin, Kennebec, Ossipee, Nashua, Penobscot, Pemigewasset, Winnepesaukee, and more.  The language today almost disappeared.  A few years ago there were only six people in the world who could still speak Abenaki.  Now, as a result of years of teaching, Jeanne Brink, an Abenaki who spoke here recently thanks to the Vermont Humanities Council about her years of efforts to preserve the tribe’s culture, there are some ten to fifteen.  (It is a language that contains no “r’s” she said, and even now she has trouble pronouncing that letter.)  Until the Jesuits appeared at the reservation in Canada there was no written language.  Jeanne’s first language was French.  Her grandmother spoke Abenaki as her first language, French as her second. 

Jeanne Brink, holding an Abenaki "pouch"

She recounted how her great great (three greats perhaps?) grandfather was killed in a raid on the Abenaki in 1759, the aim of that raid, like many others, having been simply to wipe them out. This is the story below via Wikipedia, and the tale as recounted by Jeanne Brink at www.vermontfolklifecenter.org ”Malian’s Song.” 

            The St. Francis Raid was an attack in the French and Indian War by Robert Rogers on St. Francis, near the southern shore of the Saint Lawrence River in what was then the French province of Canada, on October 4, 1759. Rogers and about 140 men entered the village, which was reportedly occupied primarily by women, children, and the elderly, early that morning, slaughtered many of the inhabitants where they lay, shot down many who attempted to flee, and then burned the village. Rogers reported killing as many as 300 people, while French reports placed the number closer to thirty, mainly women and children. One of Rogers' men was killed, and seven were wounded.

            Rogers and his men endured significant hardships to reach the village from the British base at Fort Crown Point* in present-day New York, and even more hardship afterwards. Chased by the French and vengeful Indians, and short on rations, Rogers and his men returned to Crown Point via the Connecticut River valley. Missteps in caching food stores for the expedition's use led to starvation, and some of Rogers' men were reportedly driven to cannibalism in order to survive. However, Abenaki historians have a different story than this one. About one third of the raid's participants did not return.

British colonial reports of the raid were unapologetic, as St. Francis had long been a place from which the natives raided colonial settlements as far south as Massachusetts, and Rogers reported a large number of English scalps decorating the main village buildings.

Before there were white settlements Abenakis used drums for tribal occasions, as did other Indian tribes.  As white population around them increased they adopted fiddling.  The sound of drums, Jeanne explained, made whites feel threatened.  Fiddles were more acceptable.

Abenaki artifacts made recently by Abenaki craftspeople.  Jeanne Brink is herself a master traditional sweetgrass basketmaker 

On the way to Montreal, less than three hours from here by car, the Abenaki don’t come to mind.  It’s a straight shot on a superhighway, then you cross a bridge over the St. Lawrence and you’re there.  In winter it seemed no colder in this northerly city than it did at home, both places this particular winter being on the low end of cold.  Only the sight of nearly everyone wearing fur-lined hoods gives away the usual reality.  It doesn’t seem bland here, either.  As in Quebec City, there is history, beautiful buildings, a hot restaurant scene and a lively atmosphere.  

Not bad, we think, for Canada.  Not bad at all.

 

A view of Rue Saint Paul from our room

*The ruins of Fort Crown Point are preserved across the Lake Champlain bridge several miles from here, seen here on a day in late fall:

WONDERLAND

Just over the ridge, in the distance, is the way to Mad River and Sugarbush ski areas.

It appears we live in the Banana Belt.  The Deep South part of the Banana Belt, judging by the snow we haven’t got right here, on our road, that is.  ('Banana' is relative, of course, as we’re talking about Vermont.)  There are dustings of white and frozen puddles underneath that snow, but the fields show as much brown stubble as white, and the woods are half white, half brown, the trees bare.  So it is surprising to travel a few mere miles to the east, toward the high mountains, and find fresh snow, plenty deep enough to ski on, and, a bit closer to the mountains, abruptly discover a world of white on white on white.

As soon as you drove up one of the gaps (i.e., mountain passes) the world looks different.
This happens to be Appalachian Gap.

How did that happen?  We had a day of warmish (30’s) weather during which it rained, then sleeted, and then, while the temperature still hovered around freezing, there came a layer of wet snow.  The wet snow glued itself to the trees, and was followed by several inches of light, fluffy snow and very low temperatures.  The cold (in the minuses, and no higher than about 15-20 degrees) allowed every bit of fluff to stay exactly where it was.  Not even bright sunshine managed to loosen the trees of their burdens.   But all of that didn't happen right here.  But close.

A creek along the Robert Frost Trail on Middlebury Gap.

A row of trees or perhaps bushes, bowing as if in homage

Branches form an arbor on the Robert Frost Trail.

"The woods are lovely, dark and deep..." (Frost)
But today they have an inner light.

Many trees had already shouldered a load a month ago when they had to carry a tremendous load of ice and snow.  That wasn’t pretty.  And there was so much damage.  Sadly many of those same trees never had an opportunity to try and straighten again before this fresh, albeit somewhat more gentle, assault.  Along the Robert Frost Trail on Middlebury Gap the path I walked was often blocked by limbs bent so low they formed a kind of arbor.  I noticed with pleasure that although there was one set of footprints before mine, whoever had walked the trail had taken care not to disturb the snow on the limbs he or she had slipped beneath.

At the top of 'App Gap'

The effect was more pronounced on Appalachian Gap.  But as you drove over the top the phenomenon abruptly ended, the trees showing only some fresh snow, nothing frosted.  At Sugarbush, if you looked back at Mt. Ellen, you could see the top third of the mountain covered in white. 

Beautiful conditions, but brutal wind, plus cold!
Couldn't take the ride up, we left early.

This side of Ap Gap, looking ahead to Mt. Ellen

The large view is not the only angle for seeing something beautiful.

The very cold mornings sometimes make frost on the side of the house, like these butterfly crystals.

A seat from which to contemplate the view, at the Robert Frost Trail.  Aaah!

WRITING IN THE DARK

WHITEOUT

It’s the darkest time of the year. 

I began writing this on December 9 and 10––the two days of heavy wet snow that blocked views of almost everything, mountains, trees, even our road––and that storm was followed by days, no, weeks, of shrouded grayness that weighed down the sky. A single sunny morning was an exception, soon forgotten.   The solstice was still nearly two weeks away.  All day long it looked like early evening.

Everything looked blurry in snow-fog and low clouds.

Much cheerier:  The same view, more or less, just before all the leaves fell.  

While we were away for Christmas the snow melted away in several days of warmth and fog. When the fog lifted and the sky cleared at last nearly all the whiteness had vanished.  The ground lay bare, awaiting 2015 to whiten up again.

More of the same

Nice as it was to see white everywhere, this wasn’t the kind of snow we welcomed.  Sure, it was attractive in the way it coated the trees as if sprayed on–although it would have been really beautiful had the sun shined on it, just once–and loaded the firs so heavily that they looked like the fir trees kids make around sandcastles on the beach by dripping wet sand into little peaks.  Firs seldom look that perfect naturally.  The snow load was a painful burden to other trees:  Higher up from here, in the mountains, you would have heard the crack of limbs and tree trunks for hours through a day and a   And, chances are, you could have been without electricity for as long as five days.  Even the Middlebury Snow Bowl had to close because of the lack of power. Forest trails were closed because of many broken, fallen and partially fallen trees making them dangerous or impassible.  Skinny and flexible trees, like birches, spent nearly the whole period bent over, without a thaw to release the pressure.  Tree torture.  In the valley damage was minimal, only the occasional broken branch. Clearing the white stuff, though, was dispiriting. 

Bent trees hang over Route 17 on the road to Sugarbush

The “here,” as in “nonewsfrom” was whited out, too.  I put it to a lingering aftereffect of our visit to Cambodia and Vietnam, Cambodia especially, where life is so much harder for so many, and where any actual “news” is likely to have a memorable impact on your livelihood, your world.  What happened here seemed trivial in comparison.  Hence, a mental kind of whiteout.  Or blackout, maybe.  

Or just a blank.

CONSIDERING ARMADILLOS

Where was I?  Oh right, the transformation of everything here from white to, well, kind of brown and greenish.  The snow vanished so quickly it was like pulling off a blanket and realizing someone was asleep underneath. Suddenly without cover, rodent trails were exposed everywhere, but most startlingly, near the pond.  Every spring warm weather reveals their wobbly pathways that used to be tunnels under the snow.  On the far side of the pond I had never noticed rodent signs before, and certainly not holes you could actually fall into. I checked the internet for likely culprits. 

Uncovered pathways near the pond

The Center for Wildlife Damage Management (who knew?) suggests one first look to see whether or not there actually is a hole.  Of course I knew there was a hole.  Holes.  That was the point.  Nevertheless, I read on. “If there is no hole and just a groove present, consider armadillos.” 

Okay.  

Next:  Look for a hole that may lead to a burrow.  Measure the hole.  Three inches or less (there were several of those) suggests chipmunk, crayfish (Really? Crayfish?),* ground squirrel, kangaroo rat, Norway rat, skunks, or voles.  Winnowing the list of those from other habitats leaves chipmunks (who prefer living under the bird feeder), skunks (not around in the cold, and even if they were, Skyler would notice), rats (unlikely; no grain lying around, plus they prefer chicken coops).  That leaves voles.

The really big trails and hole:  The tape gives a width of nine inches.  At top  is the frozen pond.

Then there are the big holes.  Holes larger than three inches suggest one consider: badger, river otter, prairie dog, fox, coyote, mountain beaver, or woodchuck.  Of course half these animals are western except for the coyote, fox, river otter and woodchuck.  Foxes and coyotes wouldn’t dream of denning near a house, much less a house with a dog.  It would be nice to have river otters, but unlikely, and a pond is not a river.   There is little doubt that the digger is a woodchuck.  On second thought, make that plural: woodchucks.  Woodchuck holes can be 8 inches wide.  Our holes are at least that.  For the past two years we were pretty certain a family of woodchucks lived under our patio.  Their burrow entrances would appear now and then amid the flowers as piles of dirt or stones excavated from under the cement.  Woodchucks had made homes in our suburban garden in Lexington, Massachusetts.  Woodchucks are everywhere.  I needn’t have bothered looking this up, for it should have been obvious.  (“Some circumstantial evidence is very strong, as when you find a trout in the milk,” remarked Henry Thoreau.)  Maybe they moved?  Or maybe this is another branch of the family.  It could explain why Skyler has occasionally been barking at night in that general direction.  He may not have even seen them as they were under the snow, but he very likely sensed that they were there, somewhere.  

Woodchuck, groundhog, whistle-pig.  (Woodchucks, when threatened wil make a whistling noise to alert fellow groundhogs.)  A major business recently built a factory in Middlebury to turn out Woodchuck Cider. The nearby town of Shoreham has a distillery that produces Whistle-Pig rye whiskey.  Another name for woodchuck is land beaver.  I like that one.

  

That's a woodchuck all right...

But the Whistle-Pig company appears to think a Whistle-Pig is a Pig

*Yes, crayfish do in fact burrow in the ground near water.  Their two-inch burrow openings are surrounded by a ring of mud.  But not here.