8 Summer 2013 Applegater
TRENDS AND OBSERVATIONS
A new sunrise
by rauno perttu
A year ago, after dementia had slowly
destroyed my beloved wife, Jan, she passed
away. At the end, her dementia had even
stolen her ability to swallow food or water,
but the Jan I knew had been stolen away
by this terrible disease long before that.
My son Kirk and daughter Emily,
concerned about me being alone, said I
should start dating. The thought of dating
was strange and somewhat frightening after
so many years of marriage. At their urging,
and with the additional urging of more
family and friends, I began to date—an
unfamiliar ritual after 40 years.
I took a few very nice ladies to dinner,
and confirmed that I much prefer the
companionship of a lady to being alone.
I also recognized that, after decades of a
happy marriage, I was actually looking for a
serious relationship. The ladies I met were
mostly divorced and looking for someone
to take them to dinner, a show, or a social
event, but nothing serious.
I commented to Kirk and Emily that
there aren’t many single ladies in our rural
Applegate Valley. They said I should check
out the online dating sites. I said I couldn’t
do that, but they replied, “Everyone does it
these days,” and added that’s how some of
their friends had met. Kirk recommended
one that he said is probably the most-used
site with the most people.
With their urging, I decided to
take the plunge. I answered the online
questions and reviewed the profiles of the
local ladies on the site. It soon became
almost a morning ritual to check out who
had looked at my profile and whom the
site had flagged for me to review. One
day, I noticed that I could also see who
had looked at my site but moved on,
presumably with no interest. I promptly
checked out who had checked me out and
moved on to better candidates.
husband had come to La Paz on their
Among this list of uninterested ladies sailboat after sailing in the South Pacific
was a pretty face with a big smile that and had fallen in love with the town. They
immediately caught my attention. Her bought a house, sold their boat, met many
write-up was sincere and unpretentious. wonderful people and settled in. After her
She was a widow after almost 40 years of husband died, also at a too-early age, she,
a happy marriage. When she wrote that like me, realized she would rather share her
her idea of a fun date
life than live alone.
was taking a walk along
During our
the shore, then topping
emailing, I got her real
Her image was
it off with fish tacos,
name, Ana Hall, and
I became intrigued.
her Skype number.
of me sprawled
When she wrote that she
We were soon able
on
the
sofa
was a “smile machine,” I
to see and hear each
watching football
was interested. I could
other, which was much
get accustomed to that
better than just emails.
in
my
t-shirt
smile.
Somewhere in the midst
while smashing
However, there
of all our conversations,
were two immediate
I thought, “What are we
empty beer
p ro b l e m s — s h e h a d
doing? She’s almost two
cans against my
rejected me, and she
thousand miles from
lived in La Paz on
here.” Her reply to my
forehead.
the Baja Peninsula in
concern was “So what?
Mexico. La Paz is not
We’ve both done a lot of
just right next door, and
traveling.”
I wondered why she was living there. I
I thought she was right and booked
decided on a cautious approach. I emailed a flight to La Paz. Because of all the time
her to ask for her advice. I told her I had we had spent online and on Skype, when
also lost a spouse after 40 years, was out of we met for the first time it seemed that we
practice with meeting ladies, and did she already knew each other. To me, she was
have any advice?
even better in person. My week in La Paz
To my delight, she sent me a nice passed quickly and happily. That trip was
reply. We quickly exchanged a long flurry soon followed by two weeks spent together
of emails. She had rejected me because mostly in San Francisco (medical follow-
I had mentioned that, as an Oregon ups—she’s a cancer survivor), with a quick
university graduate, I enjoy Ducks football. trip to the Applegate.
Her image was of me sprawled on the
I soon made a second trip to La Paz.
sofa watching football in my t-shirt while While there, I noticed that La Paz’s warm
smashing empty beer cans against my sunshine felt better on my old face than
forehead. I was able to convince her it’s our cold winter wind and rain. We were
not that bad. My forehead isn’t tough soon discussing spending future winters
enough for beer cans, and my t-shirt is in La Paz.
usually clean. It turned out she and her
For 26 years, I have enjoyed this special
Sap tap wrap 2
by laird funk
February! What a sweet month for
our local bigleaf maple tappers! After our
January maple flows, things seemed to slow
down a bit entering into February. We
wondered if we were done and should start
cleaning up and putting our equipment
away for the season. We had finished off
the month with three quarts of syrup
put away and were hoping for more in
February, but it looked like we were going
to be out of luck.
But a week into the month the
weather took a cold turn and we woke up
to a good freeze with a sunny afternoon
forecast to follow and we hit the woods
again. Due to the low period, many of our
tap holes had started to seal up and were
not giving what they could. So we spent a
couple hours drilling new holes in our trees
and moving the taps. I ended up with 30
spiles in 28 trees, and the collection jugs
started filling rapidly. We were back in the
syrup business!
Tapping bigleaf maples differs in a
couple ways from the traditional sugar
maple tapping back east. On the east coast,
the sugar maples usually do not flow until
the end of February or the beginning of
March when the freeze relents enough for
the sap to start moving in the trees. There
it freezes hard enough to actually freeze the
trees and they must thaw before collection
can begin.
In Oregon, because we do not
experience the same hard-freezing weather,
the flow pattern is quite different. As noted
in a landmark 1971 study on bigleaf
tapping done by the U.S. Forest Service,
in the coast range bigleaf maples can flow
all the way from early October right after
leaf drop to late February when the buds
start to swell, depending on the weather.
Records kept for the study showed that
the sugar content of the sap increased as
the season progressed, with levels starting
out below 1 percent in early months but
often reaching the standard 2 percent Brix
(sugar) in late January and early February.
Our experience locally last February
was similar. While our first flow in January
gave sap with a Brix level of just 1 percent,
it had increased to about 1.25 percent
by end of month. When the sap flow
started in February, the levels continued
to increase with the flows from the second
week averaging 1.5 percent. By the last
week of collecting, the Brix level was right
at 2 percent!
I collected almost exactly the same
amount of sap in January as I did in
February in the same amount of time.
But the increased Brix levels made a big
difference. While our finished syrup
in January totaled about three quarts,
February’s return from the same amount of
sap was over five quarts, and we used about
25 percent less propane for that increase
than we used in January! Between the two
months, two gallons of sweet maple syrup
was stashed in the pantry for use over the
next year. While we do use a lot of it here
at home, a bunch of it gets given away for
birthday and Christmas gifts to lucky folks.
The main bigleaf maple event is
the Bigleaf Maple Syrup Festival held in
February each year on Vancouver Island.
The public gets to see tree-tapping and
syrup-making, and there is a tasting contest
for island producers. This year I became
the first international entry—or at least I
tried hard to be.
Encouraged by friends in British
Columbia, I packaged up my sample a
couple weeks ahead of time and sent it off.
But two weeks later it had not shown up
and I missed the judging! A week later it
arrived totally covered in Canada customs
sealing tape. There was no explanation of
the delay or the tape, but clearly it must
have really interested customs officers.
Maybe the concept of sending maple syrup
to Canada just seemed too suspicious.
Anyway, my Canadian mentor stashed it
in the freezer for next year’s contest.
A fun ending to the season came
by email from a gentleman named Mike
Farrell at Cornell University. Mike runs the
maple syrup research program at Cornell
and is the director of Cornell’s Uihlein
Field Station endowed by Henry Uihlein
II and Mildred A. Uihlein. He directs
research in sugar maple improvement and
collection advances. With 5,000 trees all
property on the
river. However,
as beautiful,
comfortable and
Rauno Perttu
private as it is,
with Jan and the children gone, I was
unsuccessfully struggling with maintaining
the acreage, house and outbuildings.
Although I was trying to resist becoming
just another old snowbird, I had also been
considering winters in a warmer spot.
When Ana told me she hates the winter
cold, we had the obvious answer: winters
in La Paz.
Although I don’t yet speak Spanish,
she is fluent, I want to learn, and there is a
flourishing community of other snowbirds
in La Paz. Ana soon volunteered to join
me in the Applegate to get my house ready
for sale. I don’t think she knew what she
had volunteered for, because she had no
idea how much I had accumulated over
the years. She has become an expert
seller on eBay, and knows how to separate
the worthwhile from the junk. We are
planning an estate sale and yard sale(s) so
we can sell the house. I hadn’t appreciated
how much I had let the house, outbuildings
and property deteriorate during the years
when Jan was declining. All this means
that we will both be busy getting the
house emptied and repaired for sale, while
squeezing in ample goof-off time.
I love the Applegate Valley, which
has been my year-round home for the past
26 years. However, starting this coming
winter, I plan to sadly miss those cold
winter days in the Applegate, while having
to tolerate warm sunshine in La Paz. A new
sunrise has dawned for Ana and me. Our
spouses would be happy for us.
Rauno Perttu • 541-899-8036
jrperttu@charter.net
The Applegater staff recommends trying a
maple pudding cake with a large scoop of
gourmet French vanilla ice cream.
connected by vacuum lines to a central
sugaring building, he is able to collect up
to 15 gallons per minute with a push of
a button!
Mike is writing a book on tree syrups
in North America and was sent the last
Applegater article by my friend Gary in
Ladysmith, British Columbia. I sent Mike
a sample of my syrup and he replied that
I should be proud of such a great product!
He will include a bigleaf section in his book
along with sections on sugar maples, box
elders, birches and black walnuts. Black
walnuts? Yes! Black walnuts! Mike says the
syrup is delicious and preferred by some
over maple! If you have any black walnuts
you would like to experiment with, give
me a call!
Laird Funk • 541-846-6759
lairdfunk@apbb.net