16 Spring 2011 Applegater
OPINION
Response to “Time to tone down the rhetoric”
BY eD kuPiLLAS
Laurel Sutherlin’s opinion piece in
the Winter 2010 issue of the Applegater was
totally off base. And while decrying violent
rhetoric, also uses some.
Actions speak louder than words
(rhetoric), everyone needs to be reminded
of numerous “actions” perpetrated by some
members of the so-called environmental
community over many years. Some have
been violent and resulted in damage and
destruction to private property. Some
people have been injured. Remember tree
spiking? Other actions have been “legal,”
but have resulted in harm to the livelihoods
of good people.
In the category of damage to private
property, we have the incendiary destruc-
tion of the U. S. Forest Industries office
on Whittle Avenue in Medford. The same
action occurred against Superior Lumber
Company’s office in Glendale. These are
just two examples. There are many others.
The one on Whittle Ave. is particularly
poignant for me, because I retired shortly
before the fire and what had been my office
was burned up.
A few years back they libeled a rancher
In the “legal” category are the when they tried to kick him off his range
constant protests and lawsuits that many allotment. He sued the CBD and won
“environmental” organizations bring $600,000 in actual and punitive damages.
against mostly government agencies. These The rancher included some of the perpetra-
result in harm to people who rely on the tors of the libel as well as the organization
utilization of natural resources for their in the libel suit. One of them is now work-
livelihoods. “Environmental” groups also ing for a local “environmental” group. The
propose restrictions on natural resource use jury said CBD’s press release contained
“false statements”
by supporting things
like the Northwest We are advised by Laurel Sutherlin a n d “m i s l e a d i n g
photographs” and
Forest Plan which has “to take a deep breath.” Many of
set aside about 80% us have been breathing deeply for CBD had published
of the 24,500,000 decades and have always come up i t “w i t h a n e v i l
mind.” (Information
acres in the Plan from short.
supplied by Range
timber management,
ostensibly to keep the spotted owl from go- Magazine).
Then there are the land grabs. The
ing extinct. Spotted Owl numbers are still
declining after 15 years and so are the forest federal government owns about 1/3 of all
products companies. Environmental groups the land in the U.S. In the western states
propose large increases in wilderness areas it’s around 67%. Yet our merry band of
and new monuments where timber harvest “environmental” groups wants the govern-
ment to own even more.
and cattle grazing don’t occur.
Here cometh the proposed Siskiyou
In Arizona the Center for Biological
Diversity (CBD) does lawsuits on steroids. Crest National Monument. With what
Bigleaf tapping
By lairD Funk
There’s syrup in them thar trees!!
Well, actually there’s sap in those trees,
the Bigleaf Maples which are our biggest
west coast native maple. Besides provid-
ing wood for lumber and firewood, and
pollen and nectar for spring bees our
Bigleaf Maples provide another gift the
sap to make real maple syrup!
Like east coast syrup, our syrup is
made by boiling off most of the water in
the sap, which has about 2% sugar, until
the sugar level is 66.5%. A rough average
of the amount of sap one needs to boil
off to make syrup is 43:1 so a lot of sap
is needed. Fortunately it is easy to get.
The process of tapping the trees
is the same as for Sugar maples. While
most are familiar with the old metal spile
(spout) and bucket system for sap gather-
ing, the modern tapper most often uses a
plastic one and tubing to channel the sap
to a sealed collection jug, keeping the sap
clean and bug free. Using a portable drill
a 7/16” hole is drilled 2.5” deep, slanted
slightly upward to assist sap flow. The
spile is inserted and tapped lightly into
the hole and the tubing connected and
routed to the jug. Sap will almost im-
mediately flow out the hole into the jug.
I had 18 taps which averaged ½ gallon
during the afternoon flow periods. For
the sap to flow temperatures need to vary
between freezing in the morning to warm
in the afternoon (January and February).
Without the freeze nothing happens.
I used a turkey roasting pan on an
outdoor propane stove as an evaporator
and boiled the sap down each day to just a
couple gallons, adding it to the sap from the
day before. There is a tremendous amount
of steam so the process should be done out-
doors (it has been known to peel wallpaper
off kitchen walls!) The steam immediately
has a maple odor which strengthens as
the sugar increases and the color begins
to change to yellow then dark gold to the
final amber hue.
The method is not complex, but
it takes time to reduce the sap properly.
Happily it doesn’t need a lot of company
so other things can get done at the same
time as long as one checks in often enough
to keep the evaporator topped off. On
the other hand, some folks are happy to
just sit and watch steam all day. It’s best to
add sap at the rate it evaporates so that the
temperature does not rise and fall.
A device called a hydrometer is
used to check the sugar level although a
refractometer makes the testing faster. As
the sugar increases to 60%, calcium, mag-
nesium and potassium in the sap coagulate
and precipitate out as “sugar sand” or niter,
which clouds the syrup as it forms. It
is easily filtered out using common milk
filters, and then the syrup can be finished
off over a lower heat and checked often
so that the sugar does exceed the desired
66.5%. Above that
level sugar crystals
form and precipitate
to the bottom of the
bottle.
The result of
all this is a classically
sweet, dark amber
liquid with a stronger
maple flavor than
Sugar Maple syrup.
It is wonderful on
your waffles and
pancakes and a little
drizzled over vanilla
ice cream really allows the flavor of the
syrup to come through.
While all this seems experimental
here, on Vancouver Island, British Co-
lumbia an entire cottage industry has been
growing for a couple decades and now has
become a genuine source of added income
for the owners of the woodlots and managed
forests on the island. The value added to
those forests by syrup making is a welcome
addition to the traditional income from
lumber and firewood and of course every-
one loves the syrup! There is even a Bigleaf
Maple Syrup festival in February!
I have chronicled above (space does not
permit a full display of outrages), is it any
wonder that people affected by this have
now had it “up to here”?
We are advised by Laurel Sutherlin
“to take a deep breath.” Many of us have
been breathing deeply for decades and
have always come up short. Now more
people not directly affected before, are fi-
nally coming to the realization that extreme
“environmental” organizations are not their
friends. So, when one frustrated person at a
recent meeting shouted a passionate state-
ment, Laurel wrote “This kind of bombastic
overstatement would be humorous if there
were not a long history of violent threats
from these same elements of our commu-
nity.” What? The long history, some little of
which I have chronicled above, is not from
whence Laurel alleges, it’s the “environmen-
tal” community that has the long history of
actual violence.
Come on folks, let’s drive a stake
through the heart of this monument pro-
posal. Uh, oh, bombastic language.
Ed Kupillas, Forester/Rancher
541-865-4342
For those interested, there
is wealth of information avail-
able on the internet including
a very useful book written by
Gary Backlund and his daughter
Katherine. “Bigleaf Sugaring,
Tapping the Western Maple,”
covers the entire subject of Big-
leaf syrup making based on their
experience operating a 76 acre
managed forest in Ladysmith,
British Columbia.. I recommend it for
a crash course in syrup making and a
good source of info about where one gets
sugaring equipment. Contact Gary at
blmaple@telus.net.
I will be traveling to British Co-
lumbia to visit Gary this June and will
buy a good supply of spiles, tubing and
other things needed for tapping and will
have it available at cost for people to get
started tapping. In the meantime, go
count your maple trees!
Laird Funk • 541-846-6759