Looking out the window this morning toward the hillside, I see snow and bare ground splotched erratically. The driveway is dull with gray ice. For you far-flung readers, here is a quote from NOAA’s forecast that repeats week after week like a mantra: “Wednesday: Snow and sleet likely before noon, then rain and sleet likely… Read More
Saturday Chores
Two people transferred boxes of new syrup jugs from a Chevy van to the loft of the sugarhouse, then cleared off the counter to make room for tools. They then wriggled the front and back pans into place over the firebox in eighteen deliberate steps, using twenty-nine different tools. Then one person found the hose and… Read More
A Rule for Pumpkin Pie
Connecticut College COOK BOOK It’s a navy blue hardback book the size of a smart phone. Inside the cover is this photo: This pocket cookbook was published in 1922 by the Connecticut College Endowment Fund. It came to me from the home of my grandfather-in-law, Daddy Lewis, who lived on Shelter Island, across Long Island Sound… Read More
Late November Bears
On This Date Two Years Ago: She says to L across the breakfast table, “Yesterday I hiked a ski trail to the Octagon, and as I was coming back down three bears crossed upper Toll Road. They crossed single file about a hundred yards below me. Probably a mother and two cubs.” She… Read More
What, Never?
Walking up Nebraska Valley Road today at dusk, the nip in the air invigorated me to my core. Once, on a similar autumn day, a friend commented, “You can divide people into two groups, the ones who feel happiest with cold air striking the cheek and the ones who are energized by the warm… Read More
The Hemlock Forest
hemlock, n. [ME. hemlok < OE. hemlic, hymlik, akin? to hymele, hop] Just thirty Eastern Hemlock trees in a cluster on a steep ledgy bank can seem like a whole forest. After a day’s work among the maple trees in the sugarbush, I seldom choose to walk home through the hemlock forest just below… Read More
$3 Cotton Candy
I didn’t notice until I got home at 11 pm Friday night that I was still wearing the apron. All five of us behind the stainless steel counter in the maple building were handed forest green aprons when we arrived at 5:15 pm to work the evening shift. When it got chilly around 9… Read More
Downpours and Water Bars
Waterbar A water bar or interceptor dyke is a road construction feature that is used to prevent erosion on sloping roads, cleared paths through woodland (for utility companies such as electricity pylons), or other accessways by reducing flow length. —Wikipedia Downpour; Rain pours down. Thunder thunders, lightning streaks. Falls Brook rages then subsides. June… Read More
A Few Stats
This week, a brown envelope arrived from the USDA bearing the annual survey for sugarmakers. Twice, a USDA person left a message regarding technical problems with completing the survey online. In a couple of months, the survey results will arrive in another brown envelope and will be summarized in maple industry publications along with similar… Read More
Fast Forward
The trees are released! At Nebraska Knoll, even though there is considerable preliminary or mopping-up work at the edges, sugar season itself spans from the day tapping begins to the day the last tap is pulled and every last tubing line is rinsed. Yesterday! No one will miss the urgent… Read More
The Nebraska Knoll Blog 