Maple Sugaring I: Know Thy Enemy

In maple-sugaring, as in any other kind of warfare, a crucial first step toward victory is simple: know your enemy. Don't let these folksy trappings fool you. For, as Old Ken's grandmother knows only too well, behind these antiquated phones and cross-sections of (possibly totemic?) wood ...



... lives a cutting-edge maple-sugaring operation administered by one of the leading juggernauts and nicest guys in the biz, Willis Wood. As an occasional installment in our ongoing series of contributions to industrial espionage, Old Ken wants to share with you a bit of insight into maple sugar making as the pros do it.



And here is our featured professional, Willis Wood, pointing westward along the side of his recently-constructed sugarhouse toward the outdoor cistern into which sap from some 700 maple trees is collected by truck.



By underground pipes, the sap is then communicated to a reverse osmosis machine, which eliminates most of the water and concentrates the sugar-content. Normally, forty gallons of sap are needed to produce one gallon of maple syrup. But, once the sap is concentrated by reverse osmosis, the ratio can be reduced to eleven to one (as in Willis' case) or perhaps even low as three to one as some other producers claim. Obviously, the less sap required, the more sweet, sweet syrup you can make!



So, once the sap has been concentrated by reverse osmosis, it is pumped into a cistern ...



... and then boiled down in a massive evaporator.



Here, Tina Wood looks on as Willis tests some boiling, concentrated sap in the final chamber of the evaporating pan. So we learned, you can tell that the sap has nearly cooked down to the consistency of syrup when it hangs from the dipper in "sheets" rather than in drips.



Once it is ready, the boiling almost-syrup is drained into a metal jug, which is then carried to the finishing station.



And here is said station. Whereas the main evaporator is wood-fired, the finishing station runs on gas, which is presumably easier to control for the crucial operation of getting the syrup to exactly the correct temperature and viscosity.



Now, from afar or to those of us with a bit of a ... "poetic" sensibility, this may all look, taste and smell like some kind of sugary shambala.



But, let me tell you, friend, there's a lot of work to be done and no time to get sappy about it, if you'll pardon the pun.

Fern-tastic Fantasies

Now, as you or may not have noticed, Old Ken has been especially negligent about keeping up with the blog as of late. Indeed, I have been on vacation back in ye olde country. While I still am on the flip side, I thought I'd share with you some of the sights and smells of that place Old Ken calls home.



As you scan the page here, you may be asking yourself: "What is this? From LearningQuest to FernQuest?" Well, yes and no, friend. You see, one night as the O.K. was settling into bed, attempting to get used to a substantial time difference, I happened to have a look into a book written by my grandmother many moons ago. In this book, my grandmother was describing playing a game with children—a kind of counter-factual, make-believe enterprise—in which you ask your interlocutor what kind of creature they would like to be. Or, should you prefer comparison based games, you could which of two options would be more attractive.

In any event, when this question was turned back upon my grandmother in the book, she had written that she often found herself wanting to be a fern. To Old Ken, this vegetal alter ego struck a chord, as my grandmother had always tried to teach me to identify ferns—a project that to this point has had little success. But, as I encountered this passage in the book, I wondered if by asking me to recall names and forms of ferns my grandmother was not in actuality trying to communicate something about herself? More mystically, as is my wont, was she perhaps suggesting that when she passes on to another life, she might return or be visible again as a fern? However, we might want to resolve these niceties, I decided that I was going treat this whole fern-identification bit in the spirit of LearningQuest and, more importantly, bring you along. So, grab your magnifying glass and join this disco in-fern-o! (Sorry!)

Our first fern-friend is named "Royal": as represented in the photoraph above, it seems to have elongated, smoothly edged leaves, which project alternately from stems at approximately forty-five degree angles. It is my understanding that the singed, maroon fertile frond, visible in the upper left quadrant of the photograph, clearly designates this as a fern. There was also a reason given by my grandmother explaining why this particular species was designated as royal; I wrote this down, but alas am not able to read my writing!



The second specimen on tap is called "Bracken." I am not going to try to come up with a rationale for that one, but this plant looks much closer to what I think of as being "fern-y." That is to say, its small, indented leaflets are symetrically aligned along stems that alternately project from major, arterial branches. No fertile frond seemed to have been present; but, not to worry as we'll be seeing more of those.



"Christmas" is the name of the third ferm type—an appellation that seems like it could be remembered through a couple of different mnemoic hooks. First of all, as the photograph above suggests, the juxtaposition of the scarlet spores on the back of the fern's leaves with the verdant hue of its face suggests the colors of the holiday season. Slightly less fancifully to Old Ken's mind, the extremities of the fern's form might be said to describe an elongated triangle akin to a tall, thin Christmas tree. Also, at the base of every fern is a pile of presents.



Our fourth specimen is called "Interrupted," a name that seems to demand less interpretive legwork that our previous efforts. For, as the example depicted in the photograph above, the plant has a series of leaf-branch registers (I count seven in the example in the center of the picture) followed by an interruption, wherein the pole-like stem is populated only by the crusty husk of the fertile frond.



"Maidenhair," our fifth fern, has always been one of Old Ken's favorites. Why? Well, all the reasons I have thought of sound dirty as soon as I write them down, so I am going to hide beneath the shield of the sweet, sweet de gustibus. Anyway, we seem to have more or less symetrical branchings of leaflets from arterial stems. Yet, significant differences from other specimens are clearly discernible. Note the lovely ebony coloration of the central stems, not unlike the silky hair of a beautiful Mediterranean maiden. Or the dainty fringe-like flanges on the outward-facing edge of the roughly rectangular leaflets. Curious indeed!