VERMONT, WHAT'S HAPPENING?

When you say adjacent, where exactly do you mean? (forgive my denseness here)

Oh wait...you mean the Province. For some reason I was thinking about the city. As for me I am fairly far down in the state of Vermont and don't really identify all that much with Quebec...I know it's there and that's about as far as I go with it.

I have lived in the mid-west, the south, California and Hawaii. I know there are traits/preferences/images which I equate with each area. For example, from 1963-65,my home was Schofield Barracks on the island of Oahu. I remember a performance area in Honolulu. When the locals moved toward the seats, they appeared to be moving in slow motion. Not so much like a movie, but at a slower pace. Also, it was common, especially among the children, to wear dress clothes without shoes and socks.

In the South, grits are commonplace. While in the mid-west, fried pork sandwiches are a standard.

I am interested in such details.

being canadian i try to think of quebec as little as possible

or is that i think as little as possible about quebec

i get that mixed up sometimes

Hey sturgis, have they started Maplesugaring yet? still too early?

I love maple syrup. I planted about 20 maple sugar trees when we first moved in here about 20 years ago. I tried making some maple syrup 2 years ago and it had a metallic taste to it. I only got about 10 gallons and by the time it boiled down it was about 2 gallons of the foulest **** Ive ever tried. I let the trees heal up last year, this is gonna be a bad sugar years down here cause its been warm all winter.

I need to know that you guys will have an ample supply for my waffle thing

my uncle has been making his own maple syrup for about three years now, the first year, not bad, being getting better every year, this year looks to be disappointing given the warm weather, look for high prices on the good stuff

Now, let's see if I received the message: Vermont and maple syrup go together. Right?

I understand that pollution from the northern US industrial states has nearly shut down the maple syrup business in parts of some states and Canada. Is that true?

I've lived in three of the four corners of Vt and they are all different.

The West River valley of SE Vt is very hilly and rural with scattered small towns. Much of the employment opportunities are in Mass or NH.

The Northeast Kingdom is very rural and stereotypical backwoods. Even within Vt, the Kingdom is a different place entirely. While living in a border town within the Kingdom we would often find ourselves in Quebec, but I wouldn't say the locals identify with Quebec in any way.

The northwest part of Vt is the most populated and is where I spent much of my adult life. We would take day trips to Montreal or even drive up for Sunday brunch at one of the larger hotels. Much of the available TV originates out of Canada but we watch programming from Toronto and Ottawa as much as from Quebec because of the language differences. Again, although we enjoyed traveling to Montreal or even Quebec City for the big city culture, I wouldn't say Vters identify much with Quebec, particularly after the Partie Quebecois came into power and passed a number of francophone laws.

Acid rain was a major problem with the forests (and our cars) before I left Vt . The university was doing a lot of research on how to protect the forests from its effects. I don't know what progress has been made or even if the problem might be worse than it was when I left.

If anyone has any information about the acid rain topic, please share it.

Still a bit early to really get into the sugar-making but as you noted it's been a terribly warm winter so there will be some setbacks on the production. Not to worry though those spiked fences surrounding the state will pop up and protect us if there seems to be a shortfall of supply...guess your waffle maker may have to sit by, idle and empty of batter this year.

As to the actual sugar-making, I am a non-participant (I have only 3 sugar maple trees on the property and I give my neighbor a ways down the road tapping rights. She has a nice sized place and many trees of her own and gets goods from a half dozen or so of us unfortunates with too few trees to get anything of use). I know she has managed to produce some really nice batches and some that are a little less than smile making...although still adequate. Now Carol uses wooden containers for catching the sap and a wooden spout as well, she once rambled on for nigh on to an hour about the problems of metal (can't say though that I paid it any mind, but that may be where your metallic taste was derived from). I guess to some degree it's a season to season thing...as noted I have never attempted it on my own. I'd ask Carol but I don't want to fall asleep before the big game later on.

The big game? Hockey? Basketball?

You got it...on both parts. An added tragedy has been the chopping down of trees. With less trees, the remaining ones are subjected to different air patterns and water intakes than they might normally have had. In other words, a tree on the edge of a forest will produce sap with a different flavor (mildly different) than the tree found deep within the forest (these are also some of the ramblings of my neighbor).

Football




GO STEELERS !

today, even the people from Seattle are wanting to be from Pittsburgh.
Thanks for the sugar update. It looks like were gonna get a few freezes next few weeks, maybe thatll help?

We always go up to a little town called Putney each April to deliver loads of wool to Green Mtn Spinnery. We usually make a little adventure out of it but to tell ya the truth, Putney is about the last place Id head for as a destination where the word "fun" is to be considered

farmer..., at one point in my life, I considered attending a graduate school at Putney. Please describe the area.

What grad school is in Putney? does Dartmouth have a school down there?
Its kind of a small town, right off the 91 inerstate , Its got the remenants of a bunch of old mills so from the hills it looks like a typical vermont town with a steeple. The colors that always stuck with me are shades of grey. We always drive West to Bennington to stay over, its more scenic and has some good restaurants. Its only about 30 mi across the state at that point.

Hm, grad school in Putney, go figger. Brattleboros only about 10 Mi south , but thats got all the Basketville **** and Cracker Barrels. We always zip by Brattleboro

There was (is?) an international school in Putney. The english name was "The Experiment in International Living". I don't know if it's still running. There was another name but I don't recall what it was (Saranona, or something like that? I was born in Brattleboro and spent most of my childhood in Windham County. Putney was very rural (possibly still is). The kids from Putney were bussed into Brattleboro for high school. It was a bit of a trip but the HS was a union school for much of the surrounding area.