Here is a video I made a few years ago about a typical sapping season for making maple syrup. I’m a strictly kitchen operation and aim to make just enough for family and friends.
A Sapping Season
Merry Christmas!
The Feast of Saints Cosmas and Damien
Back a long time ago I really was a practicing ethnographer. Recently I was asked to repost an old documentary that I did in the 1980’s. Unfortunately that one is lost, but a shorter version that I did in 2003 remains. So I am posting it here for a different audience. Warning: it was shot in standard definition, and the video is not wonderful by today’s standards.
The reason I still like the video has nothing to do with my efforts. It’s the wonderful people of the Society of Saints Cosmas and Damien, and the residents of East Cambridge. Most people who visit a saints festival never get past the carnival games, and food vendors. This video was meant to be an eleven minute entree past that into the world of those who venerate the saints, and unabashedly have a wonderful time while doing it.
Roll
For me, fall starts with the shift of prevailing winds out of the soft southwesterly of summer into more unsettled patterns.
It’s a season of change. For the landlocked, the features they notice most are the cooler evenings and leaves turning. But I’d maintain that the grey waters, persistent lines of rolling waves, and the wet spume are better markers.
Now is the best time to walk the tide line. Following the storm, tides bring in kelp, driftwood, sea glass, and old wreckage bits. All are on display. The worn bits of sea glass provide proof that given time, the sea will wear everything down.
Find a warm berth in some shoreside cafe, get a mug of coffee, and watch the inevitable.
Soundscape
These ambient noises are not as challenging as I was used to in New York City. Nor can they compare with my woodcarving studio in Boston, beside a railroad yard. Every boxcar with a lousy wheel reverberated throughout the neighborhood. No wonder girlfriends insisted on their place
By contrast, coastal Maine gave me the willies initially. Too silent. After the sun went down, the ambient sound came from wind, trees, and a rare car going by on the road below. Sometimes I just wanted to go outside and make noise. But I became used to it.
I moved to Philly for grad school and had to readjust to street noise.
Years later, I returned to Maine to teach periodically. Every visit, the first half of the first night, I spent listening to the quiet.
I like collecting soundscapes. I am privileged to experience them where the hearing impaired struggle. It’s not something I ever wish to take for granted.
Pond Life – June 2020
To watch the video in a larger window: right click for the pull down menu and select Open Frame In New Window
New England Food – Maple Syrup
Making Mast Hoops At The Pert Lowell Company
Traditionally rigged boats and vessels use mast hoops around their masts to assist in raising and lowering sails. This video explores how the hoops are made at the only commercial maker.
Restoring an Old Steam Launch
This is the second video on the restoration of the steam launch. the first was on the technique used to turn it over.
Turning Over A Steam Launch (with brawn)
If you are curious about how to turn over a large steam launch – without large powered lifts you might find this little video of interest
The video was a sort of by product of some other work I did for Wooden Boat Publications a few years ago.
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