Wet maple leaves carpet the floor of the sugarwoods. Rainboot weather is afoot! What’s your maple and backyard news?
Maple News
It’s National Native American Heritage Month, and maple people everywhere are taking notice. An Ohio sugarmaker who turns off-flavor syrup into something edible calls himself Maplestiltskin. And one Vermont maple syrup family goes bird friendly while another is the maple capital’s only shagbark hickory syrup producer!
Shoot! The maple news is pretty good. What with local sugarbushes trapping carbon, and indigenous entrepreneurs reclaiming the food system, one can easily overlook an impending tragedy: the Eggo Frosted Maple Syrup Flavored Pop-Tart. But is a maple rom-com the opposite of a maple tragedy? Discuss.
Maple news was not without health coverage this month. Cleveland Clinic touts the health benefits of drinking maple water. And honey squares off with maple again in the perennial nutrient-brawl: which is healthier? Let’s throw back a Blueberry Maple Cider and hash it out!
Backyard News
Hark! The end of the mowing season draws nigh. Time to maintain the mower. Apparently, it is also time to find Word War relics in one’s backyard. When it’s your turn, let it be medals and shiny things and not things that detonate. Yikes.
Gardeners are also wrapping things up by brushing up on composting in rural backyards and urban ones. And by planning backyard berry gardens, looking for backyard invasives, salvaging fruits and collecting nuts from neighborhood trees, and making space for critters to winter over in the backyard.
This season is also for the backyard birds! Blue jays migrate – did you know? And there are ways of increasing the diversity of bird species in your backyard. Watch out for those manmade birds of steel, though. The droppings are rather large.
Finally, in backyard news, a big hey-howdy to a fellow backyarding entrepreneur who took his love of film, mixed in a little pandemic, and started a backyard movie theatre manufacturing company. Yo, kindred spirit! Welcome aboard this backyard-business train!
That’s a wrap on maple and backyard news for today! But more is always around the corner. Be well!