Damage Check!!!From the ice storm

[partsrus1974]

Hello i was wondering how everyone faired from the storm???seems like NH got hit worse then us her in NY..What kind of damage to the maple stands have u guys seen?I hope everyone is ok

[jtbucket]

everything seems ok in hubbardton vt . Going hunting in my other bush today. Southern vt got hit.

[MaplePancakeMan]

I lost about 15 of my maple trees that i tap. They didn't completely come down but lost substantial branches that render me more apt to wait a few years to tap them again. Damage here was wide spread and got worse as you went north to my sugar bushs

[brookledge]

I lucked out. ice built up a bit but melted off as the sun came out mid morning. Not so lucking in the higher elvs. of western mass though. The only thing i saw down was a few birches
Keith

[mfchef54]

No damage in saugerties, NY

[mapleman3]

I need to take a ride up to a bush I will be leasing for the next 3 years, hopefully it fared well... Sorry for a lot of you guys north , hope you come out of this ok!!

[sapsick]

made it ok in newburgh maine. lost a couple of small birches and cedars. ice melted yesterday afternoon. i dont think southern me was so lucky

[Clan Delaney]

I need to take a ride up to a bush I will be leasing for the next 3 years, hopefully it fared well... Sorry for a lot of you guys north , hope you come out of this ok!!

I was wondering today how your new bush fared. Where I am, no ice at all... 3 miles up 202, BAM. They actually closed the road on Friday morning. The bus company called at 7:30 AM and told me that the State Policed wouldn't let the bus through, and they couldn't pick up the kids that morning.

I hope it fared well. At least you hadn't run your lines yet!

[Clan Delaney]

I'm guessing those who haven't checked in yet are still without power, or without internets anyway. Hang in there guys!

[mapleman3]

True, I will try to go up this week, the forester said if I need to "make adjustments" to feel free to, that is if there are things in the way downed trees etc. so this may be one of those cases. I'll ask when I go get the key to the gates

[ennismaple]

I feel for you guys - looks like you got hit pretty hard. My thoughts and prayers are with you.

When we lost almost half our trees in the '98 ice storm my father couldn't force himself to go to the sugar bush for weeks because he knew how bad it would be. Mom says there were tears in his eyes as he walked around assessing the damage. It was so bad it looked like it had been bombed. Trust me - the trees will recover in time. It's amazing how badly some were damaged and still survived.

[Acer]

Lots of damage in NH. I did ok but have a friend in nottingham who won't be tapping this spring, his trees are wrecked.
We may not hear from those worst hit for a week.

D

[brookledge]

Thats true most who were hit the hardest still have no power or internet
Keith

[Clan Delaney]

Those who got iced... is it melting yet? I worry about places where it doesn't. The next wet snow could just compound damage - adding more weight on a now larger surface area.

[3% Solution]

Good morning all,
Here I set after 66 hours with no power!!!!
When this mess hit we were in Pennsylvanna.
Loaded up and left a day early, Saturday, ( mommy's not happy), now here's the smartest thing I ever did; picked up a generator before I started home!!!
Got home to no power, neighbor had the cat fed and the water was trickling in the sink, 9 degrees outside, 36 degrees inside, one cold cat, one ticked wife and me with a new toy.
Fired that baby up and here we go "HEAT".
Furnace ran for 4 hours, never shut down.
Got us up and running then got the neighbor going.
Got power at 8 last night.
The guys from the power company were from Michigan and Oregon.
Thanked them a number of times!!!
Haven't been to the bush yet, maybe today.
I just hope everyone out there without power is safe and warm.
Warmth is coming today!!!

Dave

[Amber Gold]

Lost power Thursday night/Friday morning and got it back Sunday morning. No damage to sugar maples and fortunately my laterals weren't up yet so no damage there.

Haven't gotten much sleep since then because of many, many FD calls for carbon monoxide poisoning, down lines, structure fires, and etc. looking forward to work so I can sleep...I mean work hard...

[tapperdan1]

and cry i did i lost about 80% of my bush. my bush hold about 5000 taps tho im not taping it all yet was planing on it. the big trees up rooted and taken out all the little trees when it went. sucks

[Russell Lampron]

I was one of the fortunate ones. I was only without power for about 10 hours and without cable until today. The biggest relief came when I went into my woods Saturday morning and found that only some pines and birches had come down and that all of my maples and lines were okay. I was able to get some work done too and now have some blue on my new mainline.

[Clan Delaney]

and cry i did i lost about 80% of my bush. my bush hold about 5000 taps tho im not taping it all yet was planing on it. the big trees up rooted and taken out all the little trees when it went. sucks

I didn't realize Hinsdale got hit that hard. Though, on the drive over Rte 9 to visit the parents this weekend I saw some horror shows up in Windsor. Where in Hinsdale are you? I grew up in Dalton.

[dano2840]

absolutly nothing happened in little waitsfield Vt. hardly any ice, but we started getting REALLY heavy winds yestarday and they havent stopped yet. today my mother was at home working and she said the wind blew our cast iron grill over on our deck.

[SV Sugarer]

Still no power where we are. Not expected for about another 1-2 weeks in places. All but 2 of the maples I tap near my sugar house are snapped in 1/2 or the main limbs are snapped right off. Will have to use those trees as fuel for the evaporator now instead of sap. I'll have to start asking for permission to tap trees around town in hopes of making a little syup in a few months. It almost looks as if a bomb dropped on top of us. Nothing here looks the way it did last week.

[3% Solution]

Hi folks,
Just ran up to check out the lines and trees.
Looks good, like nothing happened.
Wishing you other folks the best of luck with your bushes!!

Dave

[dano2840]

sv sugarer
i wouldnt cut them down just yet, if there are a few limbs left on them they will recover, it just takes a little time, you can still tap them just wait a few years, as for the ones snapped in half, well $300 a cord is a good price for those.. that sux, i know i would be devistated if that happened to me

[WESTVIRGINIAMAPLER]

Real praise item here as they were calling for freezing rain last night and this morning, but it never happened. We have had some of those bad ice storms in the past close by. I can't imagine seeing what some of you are seeing in my sugar trees.

[ejmaple]

finally able to take a look at maple trader and wanted to report in and see how the rest of the fellow sugarers weathered the storm. still with out power, genny has been running nonstop since saturday. we lost at least 80% of or trees, its really sad.

[DS Maple]

I'm not currently in the western NH area, but I've been told by my colleagues that things are pretty bad. Apparently one of our sugarbushes has been reduced to brush and standing trees with no tops. I was also told that a road nearby lined with trees tapped by another, larger producer has so much destruction on it that it cannot even be identified as a road. I'll back around on Friday though and be able to get a first-hand look at the damage.

[Mike Van]

I'm sorry to hear all the bad news from up north, just from watching the news, I knew it would be devastating to some. After 35 years as a lineman [now retired] I know all too well the damage that comes from ice. You guys cleaning up, please be careful - The energy stored in a down or bent tree/limb is incredible.

[SV Sugarer]

Hi Dano,

Thanks for the info. I do have some that still have some limbs left. How long should I wait to tap - maybe 3-5 years? More? I don't want to stress the trees any more than they already are. I have quite a few that are snapped 15-20 feet high, without a single branch. They were perfect trees with nice crowns. It is such a shame to lose such nice trees. Those will be the only candidates for cord wood.

Thanks for any input.

Dave

[SV Sugarer]

ej,

You're pretty close to me in MA. My wife works in your school district. My generator has also been running non-stop. Need to keep the house warm with 3 young ones.... Are all your roads open yet? We're open except for 2 that we can't access with an Engine or Ambulance. Hopefully today those will be open. I feel your pain with the loss of tappable trees....

Dave

[ejmaple]

sv sugarer,

ya our roads are clear to town, we cleared the 4 miles to town with our tractors and saws in 5 hours friday morning. still with out power.

[WF MASON]

I traveled through Hillsboro, Stoddard area this week , it was bad, ice was 1/2" thick , looked alot like '98, Pitcher Mt., Mt.Cube , Lake Tarlton all iced over, like a swath up through New Hampshire. Generators in every driveway.
Thank God if you didn't get hit.

[3% Solution]

I guess the southern portion of the state got hit hardest.
Nashua has over 6,000 without power as of 12 noon.
Newport has over 600 at noon time.
It must have been pretty bad last Friday.
I missed it I was in Pennsylvanna.

Dave

[MaplePancakeMan]

went to the bush for the first time today.... quickly Decided that i'm not gonna make syrup this year....its really sad. I didn't even get hit as hard as some on here but no sense in tapping trees and running the evaporator for an hour to just shut down. I'm gonna work with a guy south of here by 15 miles who didn't get hit very much. I'll just tap what i can here and bring it down to him and boil with him. Unless i can get a hold of another line of trees. Maybe.... i'll try to work my magic.

Biggest problem here were pines snapping off or uprooting and taking down part of the maples as well as the poplars doing the same. If the forest was all hardwoods i think we would have fared better

[mapleman3]

I got good news the other day, the forester called me and told me my sugarwoods missed the major damage by *** 500 feet*** just 500 feet up the hill from my bush got totalled, damage was heavy, the upper road into my bush is covered with fallen trees. he's not sure when the town will open it up, if they do by tapping time!

He said I was extremely lucky that my bush was where it was, So it makes me a happy camper for sure

but it pains me to see and hear about all the damage to everyones orchards, it's a sad state of our industry when guys are saying they may not tap at all this season:(


now to deal with the foot of snow coming tomorrow

[Specklefield Farm]

Procrastonation (sp?) has paid off for a change. I didn't get my main line up to run off the hill behind the house. I'm guessing this weekend I'd be putting it back up!! We got hammered by the ice storm, but all in all, fared pretty well. Only lost one 8" branch off of a good tree, the rest of it will be sap fuel for 2010. No power for almost 7 days, got to do kids laundry in a 5 gallon bucket, got to take a shower out of the same 5 gallon bucket (with 10-15 second cold water rinse!) No work yet as a lot of the major roads are still unpassable, so I caught up on a lot of unfinished projects, including modifications to the sugarhouse. Unfortunatly, the 70 + gallons of gasoline I ran through my generator killed my money stash that I had set aside for maple stuff for this year. I'm thankful we made out as well as we did as I predicted last thurs. that we would be out of power for 1 1/2 weeks. Oh well, life goes on!! Hope all that are still without power are safe and warm.

[jtthibodeau]

We were hit pretty hard in Weare, NH. I, personally, was only without power a little over 18 hours due to the three phase power line that runs up our road and serves many beyond. The storm did little damage to our little orchard, thank God.

Towns in the south western part of the state are still without power. Rt 13 was just recently opened from Francestown to Greenfield due to downed trees, poles and lines. As I understand, the Rindge/Jaffery/Peterborough area still have outages and many may not get there power back for days, if not weeks, to come.

[tom jr.]

It started freezing rain about 9:00 this morning and is still going strong, I have about a 1/4" of ice on the trees right now and they are starting to stress. I hope this turnes to snow or somthing els. I feel terrible about you guys that already have serious damage, lets hope things get better.

[SV Sugarer]

Still no power where we are. Not expected until close to Christmas for me - maybe New Years for some of my neighbors. We are now in the middle of a snow storm here. About 1' expected. Another 1' expected on Sunday. This will definitely stall the power restoration....

[MaplePancakeMan]

They just finished restoring most of the power to everyone around here yesterday. They were supposed to move to restore areas about 15 miles north today but we've had 11" so far of snow and then only a 14 hr reprieve for them to get work done before we get schalacked again I love winter don't get me wrong but i love mapling more and its very disheartening to me! Where in MA is Ashby SV?

[Specklefield Farm]

I hear ya pancake man, we just got power yesterday about 3:00 pm and by that time today we had about the first inch of snow. It's been coming down at about an inch an hour and we're quickly approaching a foot. Plows cant run on most of our back roads still cause of the lines that are still down. At first they were all out, now when you see one down you have to wonder if its live or not! Supposed to get more of this lovely white stuff on sunday too I've heard. Talk about adding insult to injury!! Hope all goes well for you and yours this weekend.

[SV Sugarer]

Hi Pancakeman. Glad to hear that power is back in your area. Glad to hear that your power is back too Specklefield. Ashby is on the New Hampshire border in central MA, directly north of Worcester. Maybe this link will work to help show where we are. http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Ashby&state=MA&zipcode=01431 I just topped off the generator for the night. I feel for those without a generator or power - it is 14 deg and blowing snow here now. This is our 8th day without power, and this weather will surely put everyone over the edge.