Later this morning, we will take the third step indicating that the 2013 syrup season has begun--firing up the evaporator. We tapped on Tuesday and Wednesday and collected 120 gallons of sap late yesterday. The snow was sticky late in the day and we were breaking trail as we wound our way through the sugarbush. Managing a five gallon bucket on each arm while navigating the snow field made the effort quite the chore.  I take some consolation knowing that the trails between tapped trees and the bulk tanks will firm up with repeated use and make the task a little less challenging. Snowshoes continue to be the "uniform of the day" with at least two feet of snow remaining in the woods. After a couple of weeks of hauling sap, I begin to wonder if my sleeve length is longer and my height is even shorter than they were previously. One of these years, I may even be able to scratch my knees without bending at the waist.

This photo was taken last week as we tackled some of the prep work in anticipation of the season. Some folks came to work; some came to hang out. By the way, there is a box of dog biscuits on the counter in the sugarhouse kitchen. Help yourself.

The taps are in--all 200. Rick and I worked at this task over the past two days. Temperatures are moderating--daytime highs in the low 40's. The consistency of the snow was markedly different today--sticky. It took some extra effort to move around the sugarbush with today's conditions. This 67-year-old body feels it. I recovered quickly from yesterday's effort, so I am hopeful that I will recover from today's effort. The evaporator was rinsed and assembled. The last section of stack, that is removed each year to avoid wind damage, was put into place. We are ready.

It is time for the magic to begin. Let the magic begin.

A week and a half have passed and we are still just thinking about tapping trees. Daytime highs range from the high teens to mid-twenties. Eight inches of new snow overnight and through this morning driven by high winds not only cancelled school for the day, but kept the tapping crew out of the woods. The Twin Ports weather man warned us about -20 degree windchills tomorrow morning. The wait continues. During the next day or two we can snowshoe out  to the sugarhouse and shovel out (for the third time) the front and rear entrances along with the paths to the woodpile and the outhouse and the stand for the bulk tanks. We don't keep records of snow depths in the sugarbush, but I judge the current snow depth to be the deepest in the 10 years that we have been at this adventure. This year will most certainly mark the latest start to the syrup season.

We probably should be in the woods tapping trees this weekend. Our experience has shown us that the weekend closest to St. Patrick's Day has been the usual start of our syrup season. Breaks in the weather of two or three days duration prior to that don't really get the juices flowing. We also propose to keep an eye on the weather forecast, so that if a real break in the weather is approaching we can adjust our dates. It always seems to be a flat out gamble. We thought about tapping this weekend and even made some plans to do so, but then we backed off. The weather is milder than predicted, so I find myself rethinking the plan, the revision, and the update.

Over the years, experiences, like making maple syrup, have convinced me that I do not have a personality conducive to farming. I would be thinking and rethinking every decision based on some guesstimation of the coming weather, the price of a commodity at some future date, and the choice of cultivar or species for my geographical location. I don't know if I would have long ago turned to drinking, but I do know that I would have been even more impossible to live with. I don't think I would chosen to live with myself under those circumstances. Maybe I did make that choice without being fully conscious of its dynamic at the time.

Who gets to be called “Doctor” anyway?

I am curious why Jill Biden is frequently referred to as Dr. Biden in the media. I know that she had a doctoral degree in education (Ed.D.) so it is clearly proper for her to be so addressed. Michelle Obama also has a doctoral degree (J.D.). Why is she not referred to as Dr. Obama in those instances when she is not referred to as the First Lady of the United States?

The local and now retired school superintendent has for years had the personalized license plate of DOC DON. Is there something about educational professionals with doctoral degrees touting their terminal degrees?

Then there is NPR’s Doctor Science--“I’m not a real doctor; I have a master’s degree in science.” What about Kermit The Frog? He at least deserves an honorary doctoral degree. I really like the title: Dr. K. T. Frog. I would suggest that Dr. Frog’s degree be in Humane Letters, which is exclusively an honorary degree. That way I don’t offend any more folks with this posting, except for all those folks who have been awarded honorary degrees in Humane Letters.

Sometimes even presidents have questionable ideas--at least in my judgment.

The suggested criteria for selecting a college and by inference that must also include the choice of major, minor, and/or dual major has become "getting the most bang for the buck." We have come a long way in assessing value of post-secondary education, and the way travelled has not been on the road to a very desirable place--again in my judgment.

Estimating the lifetime earnings of every 18-year-old incoming college freshman must be easy, if you are the president and have a cadre of MBA's from Wharton Business School, Yale, and Harvard providing support. What are the careers that will be the goldmines for earned personal income over the next four decades? If word gets out that pea-picker is an up and coming career choice with promise of a 6 digit annual income until 2053 and beyond, what is the effect of US and foreign colleges and universities producing twice as many pea-pickers as global industries can absorb? Let's see. Pea-pickers will be working half-time; half of the diploma clad pea-pickers will be out of pea-picking work; pea-pickers working in their chosen field will be working for credit at the company store. Then there is always the possibility that a pea-picker with a secondary major in mechanical engineering will develop a robotic pea-picker that puts the pea-picker dudes and dudettes in unemployment lines and eligible for retraining for the latest up and coming goldmine career.

Another challenge in sizing up the bang of the buck is the impact of a college or university education apart from the academic field of study. Certain academic institutions are able to significantly add to the success of their graduates based on the network of alumni and a reputation that may or may not evidenced in any particular graduate. Would Clarence Thomas or Sonia Sotomayor be US Supreme Court justices, if they had not gone to Yale Law School? (I am glad that they did, and they are.) I suspect their legal careers would have unfolded very differently, if they were graduates of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, MN. Would either be a less competent legal mind, if they had?

Does the medical profession provide us with an example of the unintended consequences of chasing the big bucks? Forty years ago, the advice was to go to medical school, if one wanted to make big bucks. The evolution of health care and the development of medical specialties with questionable claims to higher rates of reimbursement has left us with a void of family practitioners and pediatricians and other socially less sanctioned specialties.

Recent reports on MBA careers may be another example.

This country needs more good lawyers, physicians, and bankers than can ever be absorbed by Washington, DC legal firms, for-profit cardiac surgery centers, or Wall Street banks. Come to think of it, this country needs good high school chemistry teachers, automotive mechanics, and philosophers--to name just a few--again in my judgement.

The use of the term “God-given-rights” and its application to the contemporary socio-political scene are problematic for me. My first read of the term includes both universal and irrevocable qualities. If these rights are in fact “self-evident” and “unalienable” as so stated by the drafters of the Declaration of Independence, these rights must precede their embodiment in the documents, which form the basis for any organized society and government. In addition, they must apply to all members of the human race irrespective of where folks reside either on this planet or on the international space station. Any national government that proposes to curtail such rights based on residency and/or membership in a specific national state, i.e. citizenship, would appear to be guilty of overreach. If one’s faith tradition posits a Creator Deity, who has so “endowed” creation, how is that we creatures can deny that gift to fellow human beings based upon either their national identity and/or physical location? Do accidents of birth modify an individual’s rights as a human person?

The recent release of the Department of Justice memo outlining a supporting rationale for targeted killings, i.e. drone strikes, is the motivation behind this posting. I have been stewing over the matter for some time. Many of the actions discharged under the umbrella of the so-called war on terror seem to be defended with this same inconsistent logic and internally contradictory speech.We need to be intellectually honest and rationally consistent, even when our short term interests will not be served and a convenient course of action will be called into question—serious question.

 Despite claims of “self-evident” and “unalienable” rights, our practice and the practice of nation states down through the ages speak to a much more mundane origin of and utilitarian application of civil liberties. At any given time and in any given place, these liberties are what a given group has sanctioned at that time and in that place. In cruder terms, civil liberties are what the powers-that-be have decided what will be in their best interests at the time. Claims of historical precedence, divine sanction, and self-evidence are often nothing more than poorly founded claims of legitimacy.