Finding Ulysses

I began tapping my maples yesterday afternoon. My son followed along behind me in the woods with a bag of tools, leaving the task every few minutes to follow rabbit tracks, or to check on the status of his snow fort, or to tell a cat to get out of the tree.

I’ve been wanting to get to this task for a few days now, but other demands have kept me indoors, typing as fast as I possibly can. Still, I’m doing better than I did last year, when I didn’t start until late March.

The weather has been good for the sap to rise, and should continue in the same way over the next few days, with snow on the ground allowing warm soil beneath, nights below freezing with thawing days. I heard some concern earlier this year that the January was so warm the maples might start budding early, but there was cold enough later to enable a real winter reaction to set in.

Over the weekend, some friends teased me a bit for insisting on using sap buckets hanging on the trees, instead of the more modern systems of plastic tubing and soda bottles. I understand their reaction. It’s less expensive just to get the tubing.

I’m not in it just for the free syrup, though. For me, gathering maple syrup is an aesthetic enjoyment, and an important way to mark the seasons. I don’t feel right marking the season with plastic soda bottles and tubing. Sap buckets harken back to the tradition, and it feels better carrying a bucket full of sap to pour into a vat in the barn than it does to carry a cola bottle to store lined up next to other similar bottles.

I’d use the wooden buckets like they used to, and feel even better about it, if I could come across some that weren’t sold at antique store prices. That, for me, is a cost too far. Anyone have a tip about where you get a good wooden bucket these days?

I’ve offered to start posting an article here and there, to give a view of things from the Southern part of Ulysses.

There has not been a lot of action down here on DuBois Rd. this week– the spec house down the road has not sold yet, so, no new neighbors, and Saturday saw just a little excitement with with our beloved old neighbors getting the car stuck in the driveway just hours before their daughter, son-in-law and new grandbaby were due in from Burlington for a visit.  Nice to know we grandparent-types can still move a car out of the ditch when necessary.

The best news we heard lately, though, was that somebody from Clarity Connect will be coming out to do a site visit for us, to see if we can possibly make use of their new radio-based broadband service.  Now, I know, most of Ulysses can either get DSL service from Frontier or Roadrunner from the cable company, but, a few of us are stuck in situations where neither of those are possibilities.  So, when the Ithaca Journal reported that Clarity Connect was rolling out a new option, I made a point to call.  Seems that they have a transmission point at the Massage School down by the Hospital.  That’s barely a mile from my house, so, I’ve got my fingers crossed.  Would think that anybody down along the lake would probably get reception either from that transmission point, or perhaps from their Lansing one.  Give ‘em a call if it is a problem for you.

The other pleasant surprise was discovered while digging out the ditched car.  We were going to dig down to the ground, in order to put the wood ashes on something solid….  but, well, lookee there.  Turns out the ground never did freeze under all that snow.  Which means that if the rain toward the end of the week melts all the snow left, we might be able to plant peas on the weekend!  Spring is, indeed, about to spring.

I’m curious about what people think about Trumansburg’s newest community supported agriculture project, Sweet Land Farm. The project is started by a couple, Paul and Evangeline, with years of experience in organic farming. I don’t know them personally, but they seem nice.

Has anyone reading this decided to join yet?

The brochures left in places around town like Gimme Coffee speak of many veggies to come this year, but also of generic categories of goodly grown stuff, like “mixed greens” “flowers” and “herbs”. I can imagine with the herbs that perennials such as lavender and common sage are not yet well established. Same with the flowers. What will be available?

I’m also curious about the connection between Sweet Land Farm and New Orleans Table. Sweet Land’s web site was until recently hosted on the same web site that features New Orleans Table.

I would have thought that New Orleans Table, which features lushly painted tables by Melissa Blackburn Sarat, is based in New Orleans. There’s the name, and the fact that the work is reviewed by Andrei Codrescu, a well known writer often featured on NPR, who lives in New Orleans.

Well, I’m not a big art fan, so I didn’t know that Melissa Blackburn Sarat is actually living in Upstate New York, somewhere in the 607 area code, at least some of the time. She is a Louisiana native, and still winters there, and in Florida and Mexico. Wintering. Gosh, I don’t think I’ve ever wintered anywhere, except for 15 minutes longer than usual under the covers every now and then on particularly cold mornings.

Well, winter is almost over, so I hope that Ms. Sarat makes her way over to summer a day or two over here in Trumansburg on her way to get some veggies from the new farm. Perhaps she can drop off a few of her tables, to be showcased in our new restaurant.

One of the more interesting features of the new web site of the Trumansburg Police Department’s web site is a list of the people currently wanted by the Trumansburg Police. I’ve never before considered that there might be fugitives from our village police.

All those currently wanted are listed below. Does anyone have a suggestion for who ought to be listed as Trumansburg’s most wanted?

Vacuum has been put
up for the winter leaves will
now have to be bagged.

- Trumansburg Village Board of Trustees meeting minutes, December 11, 2006

It’s not something that even the most dedicated whitewater lover would think about now, but last March, an anonymous volunteer affiliated with the American Whitewater organization made note of some spots on Trumansburg Creek that would provide a nice ride, given the right conditions.

Trumansburg Creek is described as “a very interesting creek” having class IV to class V whitewater in the stretch between Trumansburg and route 89. Says the volunteer, as a result of an “an exploratory trip”,

“This is a very narrow, technical creek with a tiny drainage. Many of the drops are barely a boat wide. Plus, it’s in a narrow gorge with walls that aren’t super high, but are steep. Portaging is generally doable, but tricky. We also encountered one landowner who took offense to our scouting adjacent to his property. This is at a narrow drop into a little hole followed immediately by a 6 footer into a cauldron about 4 ft. wide. You’d be better off getting out on the right; away from the landowner and on the better side to scout or set safety. After this there are approximately 7 drops until Rt. 89.”

I wonder what the volunteer would have thought if he had returned last summer, when the water was running high and fast for almost the entire season. Would those have been considered the “right conditions”? I’d like to see someone from American Whitewater come back this year, and give us all a second opinion.

It seems that Ithaca Daily Photo lens BrendaJean has made a few trips up to Trumansburg to take a few snaps. Let’s hope that she makes it back soon to add to her collection. Hint: Smith Woods would have some interesting sights right about now - though without wine or music.

You can listen to some of her music online.

If you’re tired of the snow and the salty slush, and fretting about ice dams building up on your roof with this thawing and freezing day after day, here’s a vision of last summer in Ulysses, and the muddy fun time had at the Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance.

Video courtesy of MoodyCat.

If you’re more the type to love the weather you’re with, then there’s this other video, celebrating Trumansburg’s big snow last week, from Sal:

On Friday, February 23rd @ 7 PM @ The Trumansburg Fire Hall former N.Y.S. assemblyman & local activist Marty Luster will be speaking at the monthly Back to Democracy meeting. His talk, “How do we hold our public officials accountable?: Acitivism, Accountability & Impeachment”, will be followed by a discussion. All BTD events are free & open to the public & handicapped accessible. Parking in adjacent lot, but please do not block the fire bays.

This year is my second full winter in Trumansburg. This year’s variety of weather in winter has helped me learn a few things about the rhythms of deer and snow.

We spent a long part of this winter with no snow, and with warm weather that left the undergrowth in the nearby woods active, if at a subdued level. It wasn’t until the snows came that the deer bothered to come close to my house, and eat from the rhododendrons. With a shallow snow, the deer began sleeping under the spruce just twenty feet outside the back door, and looking for food even closer.

Now, with the snow suddenly much deeper, the deer have stayed away from the yard, even though my son has established a path between the house and his snow fort at the edge of the woods.

In the greener months, the deer are also rare visitors in the yard. Those perennial plants which retreat below the ground in the winter seem to do best. Hosta, which are supposed to be a favorite deer salad, are mostly untouched. The flowers are an exception, neatly snipped off while the leaves are left alone.

The snow has now nearly buried a stand of hazelnuts I tried to establish last year, putting deer fencing around them to little avail. If those shrubs don’t come back with new growth in the spring, I’ll try replacing them with butterfly bushes, which are supposed to become all the more lush with wintertime prunings such as the deer provide.