Mystery of the Bubblegum Chew

Clues in the snow lead to a plausible theory: a dog is the culprit! Lew has observed dog tracks in the sections where the bubblegum chewing occurred. They are all at lower elevations, closer to houses. We don’t have a dog but neighbors do. But why just this one summer?

Getting the Tubing Monkey Off His Back

AT 4 PM SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, Lew said, “I’m done.” He worked straight through Thanksgiving to finally get that tubing monkey off his back. “It’s been twenty-five years since I’ve seen so much damage,” he said. “The moose take honors for wreaking the most havoc up there. Some lines were lying in so many pieces I had to roll out new tubing and start fresh. Then there was that bubblegum business, some squirrel, maybe it’s all squirrel. Would the deer chew like that? Funny, they’d chew one line to pieces and leave the lines on either side.”

Blowdowns and the Sugarmaker: A Tanka

Rifle crack, then crash

Of maple tree to my left,

Kept working along.

Another rifle crack, crash,

This one from just where I’d been.

November 23 – Many Milestones

WEATHER: Unsettled one day, settled the next. Still snow in the upper bush, just enough to please the deer hunters.

PROGRESS: The drops are all in!!! We’ll have about 9100 taps next spring, up over 5000 from two years ago. Our two-year project is complete!

MORE PROGRESS: Morningside lines have all been checked. There was minimal damage on that side of the brook, but on the other side it is slow going. Some large trees were down over the lower Keystone Wet-Dry lines; elsewhere the moose have plowed through, leaving bits and pieces of lines lying about. We are hoping to be done this repair phase by the weekend.

ODDLY, THE WILD TURKEYS no longer stop by for apples, even though one tree still holds several dozen apples. The domestic white turkeys at the goat farm blocked traffic on our road yesterday, and today one of them sits on a tray in our frig.

A gray squirrel has taken to pulling off one apple at time and running off with it in its mouth.

 

November 18 – A Bubblegum Chew

SMALL NEWS FROM THE WOODS: Some creature is chewing the lines, really chewing them, not like the red squirrels who shred the lines but don’t chew, or the deer who make clean slits as though they had cut the tubing with scissors. “It’s nothing like what I’ve seen before,” says Lew. “They are treating the tubing like bubblegum.”

He pulled a few mangled snippets of tubing out of his pocket and laid them on the table. They were flattened from the chomping and in places we could trace a tooth imprint, not much smaller than a human pre-molar.

“Where did you find this damage?” “All over the place. I first noticed it on Dome Site.”

PROGRESS: The green drops are all replaced in the Old Bush, next is Morningside. Some damage repaired, but there is so much.

BUT WHERE ARE THE PHOTOS? No chance lately to get over to a WiFi cafe, tomorrow…

November 15 – They’re Like Grease

WEATHER: Back to November greys today.

“I WAS AT THE BOTTOM OF MARESAN [a section of the old sugarbush],” he says. “You know those steep lines. I was just about to make a cut and you know how the wet leaves cover things up, well, I slipped on a log that was under the leaves – they’re like grease – and I don’t even know what happened. I guess my hand got in the way of the sheetrock knife.”

THE DOCTOR STITCHED HIM UP, running a row of stitches along the fleshy pad under his left thumb, and by then it was too dark to head back into the woods.

THIS BLOGGER knows about greasy leaves; one day last week she slipped on a rock hiding under a mat of leaves and fell over the bank, suffering bruises, while her pail and its contents rolling on ahead of her toward the brook.

WHAT’S LEFT TO DO? 

• Cutting in green tees on the tops of all lines in the old sugarbush (the final step in the summer’s project of replacing all of our old drops and spouts with the latest model).
• Walking the entire sugarbush before it snows to check for blowdowns and other damage.
• Finish up drops on Herbie, H-2 and H-1.

November 12 – The Mystery of the Missing Drops

LEFTOVER AFTER KEYSTONE: 223 black drops and 81 green drops in the woods, 300 blacks and 50 greens in the sap shed. Took up 200 blacks and 50 greens Thursday morning. At the top of the steep pitch on Herbie Wet-Dry, came across the 223 blacks and 81 greens brought over from the top of Keystone by the guys late Wednesday.

THAT EVENING: “Are you sure you had 223 blacks and 81 greens after Keystone? How could you run out of drops at 1:30 pm if you had all those and took up another 250 from the sap shed? I figure you only put up about 275 on H-6 and H-5 combined.” 

A QUICK CALL TO THE OTHER HALF OF THE DROP CREW: “So, help me reconstruct the day. You had a bundle of 100 blacks and 50 greens, I had a bundle of 100 blacks, right? Do you remember if we left some along Herbie Wet-Dry?”

“No, I don’t think so, remember we decided to take them at least to the top of the steep pitch in case we needed them up higher, and them we came across the guys’ stash. —It will all be clear tomorrow.”

“Did the guys’ stash LOOK like over 300 drops?”

“Hard to say, there were so many little piles of them. It will all become clear tomorrow.”

TOMORROW dawned. We took up 300 black drops made late in the night, and knew we still had 69 greens and 3 blacks up there. This time, we did not chat on the climb up Herbie Wet-Dry. Got to the top of the steep pitch and there they were, 2 bundles of black drops, 100 each, lying in a depression near the guys’ old stash, just where we’d laid them

“I SAW those from a distance yesterday,” she said, “and then I spaced it out!”

OUR DIAGNOSIS: Confusion over the layout of the Herbie lines. It was a mistake to stash drops in between two main lines and out of view in a depression.

PROGRESS:EXCELLENT. The manifolds are all cut in, and the drop crew finished H-4 and H-3 and part of H-2. All that remains are about 275 drops to cut in.

November 11 – Moving Along

WEATHER: Hard frost last night but the sun dissolved it by late morning – yes, the sun. Excellent working day, highs in the 40′s.

PROGRESS: MILESTONE – The drops are cut in on Keystone, about 1700 total. The drop crew started the day at the top of the Herbie lines and finished H-6 and H-5.

As I write, Lew is still in the woods cutting in fittings, three hours after sunset, working with a headlamp.