Mark Isselhardt, UVM Extension

April, Part 3

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The “drip, drip, drip” of sap landing in a bucket isn’t a sound that’s heard much in Vermont anymore. Most commercial sugarmakers rely exclusively on tubing to silently transport sap downhill to a tank or the sugarhouse. But even if buckets were still the go-to collection method, sugarbushes in the state would have been quieter than normal this year — the “drips” fewer and further apart. 

The sugaring season wrapped up in mid-April, and sugarmakers around the state are generally reporting a down year. Mark Isselhardt, maple specialist with UVM Extension, cautions that “normal” is a relative term in sugarmaking, as every year there can be wide variances in production between sugarmakers in different parts of the state, and even within local microclimates. But based on reports he’s received from sugarmakers around the state, Isselhardt estimates that most producers made about 25-35 percent less syrup than normal.

Mary McCuaig’s family has been making syrup at Top Acres Farm in South Woodstock since the 1920s. The fourth-generation sugarmaker said that the sugar content of sap this year was lower than it usually is, which means that it took more sap to make each gallon of syrup. (In an informal survey done by UVM extension, 72 percent of respondents reported a similarly low sugar content.) McCuaig added that by the time the sap really started flowing after a cold start, the syrup being produced was dark and the season was over. The good news, she told us, is that thanks to high-tech spouts, improved tubing lines, and a vacuum system, Top Acres Farm was able to limit the losses; it made about 82 percent of the crop that it has averaged over the past 10 years.

For consumers, the news is not at all dire. “I definitely think there will be plenty of syrup around,” UVM Extension’s Mark Isselhardt told us. But he adds that for individual sugarmakers, especially those who have recently made significant investments in equipment and technology, the loss of income from having less syrup to sell may be dramatic. A reminder that in April, as in all months, agriculture in Vermont is subject to the ever-unpredictable nature of weather.

April, Part 2

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After a year of Covid disorientation came an April of disorder. Hot, dry, then snow on the daffodils. But remember – April is often like that. 

An unusually large number of mourning cloak butterflies this year, it seemed to me. Also, other members of the Nymphalidae family that overwinter as adults, such as the delicate Compton tortoiseshell. And song sparrows everywhere. The songs of these cute little birds vary, but most begin with two to five long notes, followed by a string of  gibberish. 

Perhaps inspired by a year of social distancing, I took to studying the way that flocking birds space themselves. Robins in fields tend to stay four or five feet apart. Juncos, at a bit more than half the size of robins, keep about 18 inches apart. Does this suggest a feeding area that a given bird can expect to exploit? Or could it have to do with predators? Or basic bird hygiene? They all seem to know the rules.

Meanwhile, barring a huge snowfall, the end of April features a lot of false hellebore – the big plants that turn the moist edges of fields and swamps a vibrant green. Many trees  – silver maples, red maples, and willows – have finished flowering and wild bees and honey bees will need to find pollen elsewhere, among the march marigolds perhaps or the sugar maples.

Gathering wild leeks for dinner provides a chance to listen to kingfishers rattling, grouse drumming, phoebes singing (yes, technically it is a song), peepers peeping, and wood frogs imitating ducks.

April, Part 1

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In early April,  when the snow recedes, you can finally see the earth, which really only happens for a few weeks each year. You see it through and around the crushed thatch in the meadows. In the forest it exists in halos around tree trunks and as little islands in the deteriorated leaf litter. Buried things – old bottles, plowpoints, license plates – get heaved to the surface, and there’s this brief window where the past reasserts itself. Then the spring rains come, and the first blushes of green start to obscure things. 

The winter snow disappeared in southwestern Vermont in late March, and by mid-April the earth-seeing window had passed. Early April was jarringly hot. There was a 5-day stretch from the 7th through the 11th when highs soared into the 70s each day — about 20 degrees above normal. But then a spring snowstorm on the 16th restored something of a natural order, though it stayed dry.

Lots of different birdsongs but nothing beats the winter wren. Fortunately, he sings pretty much throughout the day.

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Seed starting is in full swing. This year it’s warm enough to make the mess outdoors on the picnic table, not in the kitchen as is usually the case.

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Most of the state is in some kind of drought: roughly half is abnormally dry and the other half is experiencing moderate drought. A big dose of April showers is needed.

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Sapsucker drumming can be an unwelcome early alarm clock. It’s the male, letting females know how good he will be at excavating a nest site. Females drum, too, but not as emphatically.

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Jefferson salamanders are the earliest vernal pool visitors, arriving even when there’s lots of ice.

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Dispatch from the Sugarwoods, 2021, Part 7 of 7

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There are things that make someone a good sugarmaker, like an understanding of forest health, keen attention to detail, endurance. But at the end of the day, the success of any given season mostly comes down to the weather, which no one has any control over. This season ended up being a perfect case in point. 

It was a cold and snowy February in southern Vermont, so there was no meaningful February sap run. We got a minor run on the first day of March, but then a cold front moved in and it didn’t get above freezing for seven straight days. The trees don’t run when they’re frozen, so this amounted to a lost week. We could have, in theory, made up that lost time in April, but only if it stayed cool and March-like. It did not. Three days into the warmup we had a three-day stretch where the highs reached 60, 66, and 56, temperatures that are really too warm. You can absorb a three-day stretch of this, but the seven-day heat wave that came on March 20 – 26, when temperatures soaring into the mid-70s, was just too much. The warmth changed something in the trees, which changed something in the sap. Last week, the syrup went off-flavor. The sap still came after that, but neither we nor the place where we sold a portion of our sap this year thought it was worth the time and effort to collect and boil it. And so we’re done.

Examining the weather from a different angle, I noted that this March, in our woods, there were 11 days when it was in the 30s or below – a little too cold. And there were 11 days when it was 60 degrees or higher, which is a little too warm. That left just 10 days in the sweet spot. I hauled sap on 22 days this season. Last year, when the weather was more consistent, I hauled sap on 32 days in a season that started on February 24 and ended on April 2. As the days-spent-hauling number would suggest, our yield this year was off by almost a third compared to last. In 2020, our Maple Hill bush averaged 29.5 gallons per tap, this year the average was 20.6. 

But it is what it is. Compared to last year, this season was a disappointment. But one of the good things about getting older is that your perspective broadens. As a young man, I used to be happy with 12 gallons of sap per tap. Middle-aged me is balking that I even wrote that line, thinking that there was a lot less riding on a season when i was 25 years old. But young me is still in there somewhere, and immensely grateful that the trees gave so much. 

Bulk syrup prices have been creeping downward for the last decade as production boomed in the Northeast, and an off year, production-wise, that keeps the packers honest and a little scared about supply probably doesn’t hurt in the grand scheme of things. 

Near the end of the season, I just happened to look closely at the tongue that connects the trailer hitch to the pickup and noticed that it had cracked and was hanging on by a strip of twisted metal. Had the trailer broken free with a load of sap on it, it could have been a disaster. That didn’t happen. 

Near the end of the year I found a spotted salamander trapped in a bulk tank swimming in 1,600 gallons of sap. I pumped it down and climbed in and rescued the silly thing. Later, I told my 4-year-old about it, and the next day, I’m told, it was the talk of Evergreen Preschool. Nobody there would have even comprehended what 20 gallons of sap per tap means, but the fact that I rescued a salamander gave me Ryder-from-Paw-Patrol status. I felt like I earned a bit back in her eyes after being gone so much for the last two months.  

We’ll get through this pandemic and there will be better days ahead. Thanks for reading.

The hard-won snowless ground got a sprinkled coat of snow overnight. The juncos are easy to see now, but still too many to count.

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