Applegater., May 01, 2013, Page 21, Image 21

Applegater Spring 2013 21
MY OPINION FROM BEHIND THE GREEN DOOR
No man’s land
by cHRIS bRaTT
One day, 25 years ago, I said
something I thought would be humorous
about our family owning more Applegate
property than the deed to our land
recognized. On that occasion, I was
walking on our property with two of my
young nephews whose mother is a person
of native Latin-American origin. At one
point on our walk, we came to an opening
in the forest and could easily observe the
demarcation line between our young forest
trees and the old-growth trees on the public
lands managed by the U.S. Bureau of Land
Management (BLM). After pointing out
the joint property line, I casually stated that
I owned all the BLM property, too, since
it was public land and I was part of the
public. At that time, neither of the young
men commented on or questioned my jest,
and I forgot the whole event.
A few years later when my nephews
were grown men and visiting us again, they
reminded me of the previous statements I
had made about owning all the surrounding
lands. But this time around, they didn’t
remain silent and argued that neither I nor
the BLM really had any valid rights to the
lands we were each claiming.
Their belief was that there is no law
of nature giving me or the BLM exclusive
authority over these lands that would allow
us to disregard any use or claims by all
other people in the world. In addition, they
reminded me that most of both North and
South America’s landmasses were acquired
under very questionable circumstances:
some by direct expropriation of our first
Americans’ lands, and the rest through
conquest, wars, treaties or land purchases
from other imposing nations. This forced
land acquisition and the resulting inhumane
treatment (slavery) of
and local government
native people by foreign
bodies have exclusive
The individual
invaders corrupted the
authority to make,
more collective land-
interpret and apply the
property rights
ownership and social
laws that decide who
we
glorify
in
systems already present
owns the land and who
in the Americas.
doesn’t. These laws are
America today
I empathize with
enforced by local police
were
not
meant
my nephews’ feelings
or the army to make sure
and agree in large part
they are obeyed.
for use by the
with their historic view
The
more
original
native
of how other nations
traditional and Native
gained possession of the
American values that
peoples or
lands and resources in
cherish nature, families,
slaves.
both North and South
communities and a more
America. The settling of
collective ownership of
our own country is not
the earth are rapidly
a pretty picture either.
being eroded even
Much of our past treatment of Native further. We are not only trying to privatize
Americans or Africans is appalling. This more public land, but wealthy interests are
is especially true regarding the conquest exerting private control over our entire
of Native American lands and installing economy as well. Even in the midst of a
individual land ownership by federal or floundering global economic system our
state government decree along with the “job creators” can’t imagine supporting
enslavement of large numbers of people any publicly owned enterprises. We
from Africa. The individual property seem to have no intention of changing
rights we glorify in America today were our institutions to better equalize the
not meant for use by the original native distribution of our nation’s wealth and
peoples or slaves.
natural resources to make a good life
Presently, the system of land use for everyone. Our country would rather
and ownership we embrace in America continue the narrow thinking and poor
continues to be dominated by a privileged political, social and economic ideologies
class of wealthy politicians, individuals that have resulted in a series of tragic
and corporations (which by law now events.
are considered “persons”) that favor
E x t e n s i v e b a n k f a i l u re s a n d
elevated individual property rights over foreclosures on homeowners, faltering
other kinds of public or common land consumerism, low wages and lost jobs have
ownership rights. This private ownership put us and many other parts of the world
of land and other resources is managed into another deep recession. More and
through a hodgepodge system of laws, more people around the world are feeling
practices, rules and orders. Federal, state the effects of this greedy economic system.
Sap tap wrap
by laIRd Funk
“We may know more about teenagers
than we do these maple trees!” That quote
from a British Columbia parent and bigleaf
maple syrup maker may just sum up this
season so far for “sapsuckers.” Just as the
trees gave up sap like we thought they were
supposed to, things changed. Instead of the
reliable flows coming with only a freezing/
thaw cycle, some trees kept flowing even
when they weren’t “supposed” to during
a rain. Some gave flow when it was “too
cold” for it, and some kept flowing when
it got “too warm.” But most importantly,
we got enough sap to finish off about three
quarts of syrup from the January cycle
and, if February cooperates, we will likely
double that by the season’s end.
Some Applegater readers may recall
that the process here is a bit different from
the classic picture we have in our heads of
a covered bucket hanging from a spile to
catch the sap dripping from it. These days
most folks doing bigleaf maple syrup drill
a hole as always, going about 2-1/2” into
the trunk with a slight upward angle, but
then instead of the cast metal spile they
insert a molded plastic one shaped to attach
a tube leading to a sealed collection jug.
Tappers in this part of Oregon find that
clean one-gallon milk jugs make handy
containers requiring only a hole drilled
in the lid to take the tube. Tappers on
Vancouver Island need bigger containers
because their flows can approach 19 liters
per day per spile!
During the first run in the beginning
of January, the trees, assisted by nine inches
of rain in December and the preferable
temperature range of 28 degrees for a low
and 48 degrees for a high, gave flows in the
range of 17 to 19 gallons per day total from
28 spiles for five days. Fortunately the flow
slowed in time so I wasn’t overwhelmed
by the required boiling off. This contrasts
with last January when we had received
much less rain and much less sap, often
just a quart per day. The sugar level was
nearly the same overall as last year, so we
ended up with more syrup.
A tapper in Williams Valley had
similar flows from his creekside grove,
with many trees filling a gallon jug per day.
Those with water at their feet did the best
with those on higher ground giving less or
none at all. This tapper experienced the
other side of a successful harvest. When
syrup is approaching the finish sugar
levels, it is very easy to misjudge the syrup
and suddenly you have charcoal instead
of maple syrup! He was horrified to see
the results: a charcoal black crust, along
with the mineral precipitate from syrup
making, covered the entire evaporator
surface. It took muriatic acid to clean the
stainless steel, but it cleaned up in time
for the second short flow. But according
to my friend and mentor Gary Backlund
on Vancouver Island, you really aren’t a
true “sapsucker” until you’ve burned at
least one batch.
Pe o p l e a r e
also concerned
with a host of
environmental
Chris Bratt
problems like
climate change, clean air and water and
private ownership of the genes in our
bodies, the seeds we plant for food and
the ability to patent all forms of life, to
name a few.
Many multinational corporations
in our country are now richer and more
powerful than other industrialized nations,
yet about one half of the people in America
are living below the poverty line. Still, our
only answer to our nation’s and peoples’
problems is to continue on with the same
economic fantasies that got us into this
predicament.
Though there are no easy answers
to all the problems and dilemmas we are
facing, one logical solution is to change the
present economic system into one that has
more state-owned enterprises, especially on
public land and resources. We have many
good examples of public enterprise already
working in America and they need to be
expanded.
The first peoples living in our country
had the good sense to recognize that
human survival rested on being good
stewards of the land and sharing the wealth
that nature provided. It’s time for us to
take up their philosophy in earnest and use
our participatory democracy to make the
necessary changes to secure a decent future
for our children and country. Let’s create
an economic system we can all believe in.
Let me know your ideas.
Chris Bratt
541-846-6988
Last year the
work of carrying sap
through the forest in
buckets got old fast
so this year we tried
using our tractor
loader bucket to
carry the collecting
buckets, but found
it a bit cumbersome
in the woods. Then
I tried using our
lawn tractor with
the mowing deck
removed to tow a
small trailer that
I found one day
Sapsucker Laird Funk and his free lawn tractor collect gallon jugs of
driving back from
maple sap for boiling down to delicious homemade syrup.
town. I was driving
along thinking I needed a lawn tractor- give you great-tasting homemade syrup for
trailer to haul my collecting gear through your waffles, pancakes and other cooking
the woods when, behold, there was one uses that you can’t get anywhere else!
If you want to try your hand at
leaned up against a roadside tree with a
“Free” sign on it! A couple inner tubes tapping, you can get a spile and tube set
later and I was equipped! It is almost for about $1.89 from an outfit called
perfect and makes the hauling work much mapleguys.com. I found out they can
sell you supplies cheaper than I could so I
more pleasant.
I used propane again this year to recommend them. For guidance, I greatly
power the evaporator on my outdoor recommend the book that Gary Backlund
kitchen range and was happy the price was and his daughter Katherine wrote titled
20% cheaper than last year. The figures for Bigleaf Sugaring: Tapping the western maple.
my first run are 55 gallons of sap into the It gives a thorough introduction to the craft
evaporator and .55 gallons of syrup out and you can get one by emailing Gary at
using 10 gallons of propane. While there Bigleaf Maple (blmaple@telus.net). You
are various methods of estimating syrup can also, of course, call me for advice and
production using sap volumes, the ratio encouragement.
Okay, all for now. Back to tapping!
here seems to hold at a 1% syrup return by
Laird Funk • 541-846-6759
volume of sap going in. That is less than
lairdfunk@apbb.net
the return from sugar maples, but it does