Outdoors Maryland; 1501

Thank you for watching. Outdoors Maryland is made by MPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you. Outdoors Maryland is produced in cooperation with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources,

the N.R., inspired by nature. Only a thin veneer of ice remains on the lakes in the mountains of Western Maryland. All around are the beginning signs of winter's demise.

A cold wind blows through a forest of old sugar maple trees, even as an afternoon sun bathes the tree trunks with warmth. With this convergence of both cold and warm temperatures, one of nature's rituals is set to begin, and the woods fill with the hypnotic sounds of the tapping of trees. Randall Stoyer has been tapping maple trees on this land ever since he was the age of his two daughters. It's got a little water in it. Generations of the Stoyer family have tapped the trees on this land for over 100 years. For Randall Stoyer, these sugar maples with their crusty barks and twisted branches are like old friends. I need a little more sun, a little less wind, huh? We're granddaddy and grandmother bought the place. We're the third generation, and the fourth generation is now coming along.

Trees are probably 300 years old, somewhere in that neighborhood. They've always been tapped, as well as we can tell, they say the Indians have even tapped some of the trees in this area. Randall and his wife, Kay, get their two children, Andrea and Jessica, involved in the sap gathering process every year. It's a family tradition. The Stoyers are one of only 16 licensed maple syrup producers in the state of Maryland. Like many others in the business, they are dairy farmers. Money from the sale of the syrup helps pay the feed bill for the cows. More than 100 years ago, there were scores more farmers like them, who both milked cows and tapped trees. That was in the days when they collected the sap with wooden buckets and horse-drawn wagons. Going gather that tree right over there first. But much has changed since then.

Each year, the Stoyers still harvest a portion of the maple syrup from galvanized metal buckets. But even that is becoming rare. Like other maple syrup producers, the Stoyers now mostly rely on long lengths of plastic tubing, flexible pipelines strung through the woods like a network of multi-colored spider webs, aided by gravity and a vacuum pump, bubbles of sap flow almost continuously through these tubes on their way to the sugar camp for processing. Labor saving is the biggest factor for us. We didn't have enough labor to do it all. The faster you can get the water from the tree to serve the better quality syrup you'd make. This is the maple sap coming from the tree right now. It's warmed up enough and we're starting to leak fairly good. It's running probably about an average of a half a tube. Like many other maple syrup producers, the Stoyers business is a family enterprise.

Uncle's, cousins, nieces all help out. Each year the extended Stoyer family strings 20 miles of tubing through 65 acres of woods. 40,000 gallons of maple sap trickle through the labyrinth of tubes and hoses. Big work for relatively little pay. Michael Stoyer is Randall's cousin and a parkinger in the business. There's an old saying in the maple producers, there's a lot of money in syrup or you got to just get it out of it. For the Stoyer family, producing maple syrup is all about much more than work and money. It's the glue that holds the family together. Nowhere is that more evident than at the sugar camp, where at harvest time the cold night air fills with a pungent aroma of maple syrup and festive laughter. Inside, clouds of steam below from two open steel pans heated by wood-fired furnaces. Adults and children, all members of the larger Stoyer family, do their part.

It's just like a big family, and we get together and tell stories and have a big time and we really work hard at it, but there's more fun than there is hard work. Bob Custer is one of Randall's cousins. He and Michael Stoyer specialize in boiling the sap. Firing the evaporator is a big job, it's a hot job. The big evaporator burns about fourth quarter of whatever 16 to 18 hours. It's a constant process, you know, to keep the fire hot and to keep the liquid in the evaporator is boiling and getting rid of steam. We're boiling the water out of the sap. That's the steam, we have to boil about 39 gallon of water off to get one gallon of syrup. We're just cooking it down, you have to keep the constant heat under, once you let the fire die down with it all mixed back together. Lots of maple sap, boil and thicken, slowly changing from foamy white to the color of

liquid amber. I'd say about an hour, the thicker it gets, you'll see that these bubbles on the top of the syrup will get larger and larger and they'll get a real glassy look on the top. See how it sheets off the ladle? When it's thick enough that it will float our hydrometer at 32 point specific gravity, then we know that it's pure maple syrup, yes, it's a real cloud. It's just a little bit on the heavy side, so I'm going to thin it down just a little bit. I know that should be right on the money. Three hours after firing up the furnace, the Stoyer family has produced the night's first batch of maple syrup.

Everyone is pleased at the quality. Because of the unusually dry winter and the lack of moisture for the trees, no one was sure what to expect. This goes to share what you think you're going to get and what you wind up with, three different things, it really looks good so far. With daylight comes the final stage. After being filtered, the maple syrup is poured into vats. Randall's mother Evelyn and Kay along with two of her nieces, bottled the syrup in containers. For Randall and Kay Stoyer, the arrival of maple sapsies and signals the beginning of spring, a time to reflect on the lives of their ancestors, who when past decades walk these same wooded paths and tapped many of these same trees. It is also time to reflect on the future, which they hope will mean another generation following in these same footsteps.

Call, splash, hoot. These are the sounds of the annual Del Marva birding weekend. Every spring, birders from across the Mid-Atlantic region flock to the ocean city area. Not to catch the rays, but to catch sight of some of the hundreds of species of birds that inhabit or migrate to. The woods, fields and waterways of Maryland's eastern shore. The Del Marva birding weekend takes place in Wacomacow, Worcester and Somerset counties, and within those three lower shore counties, we have a great variety habitat. After birding on the bay, Chesapeake Bay were birding on the coastal bays, the Cypress phoms in between.

Some of the best birding we do is actually on the edge of farm fields, and a lot of long country roads. Jim Rapp is director of the Salisbury Zoo, a partner in planning the Del Marva birding weekend. I thrive on the enthusiasm that the visitors bring into this. They're from all other areas of the country, and we get out there as a camaraderie among birds. We're sharing information. We're teaching each other, and that makes it fun. I mean, you can go out on your own in bird, but birding with a bunch of other people to share the same interest as a really wonderful experience. Summer Tan and Jer, eastern toe. Everybody got him? Pemmerton Historical Park is a great spot for bird washing, because there's so many different habitats. It's a wonderful spot. Just a couple of miles outside the city of Salisbury, so it can appeal to a large group of people. And it's here on the very edge of the Wacama coast, so we have tidal wetlands. We have a mix of deciduous trees and some tall pines up on the back. This is a bald eagle's nest.

Lens itself is just an awful lot of different kinds of birds. Mike Walsh, a banker, started leading bird walks a couple of years ago. My ex-star neighbor actually got me into it. He was very avidly a birder, and he started taking me out at a place called Twilley Bridge, and I said, oh my. If it's this beautiful, I'll come and do this all the time. We're looking out here as an ice brazed, it's caught a fish. Oh, the ice brazed down on the, it looks like he's feeding itself. Yeah, it's feeding. It's late April, and this is the beginning of migration when all the warblers and the shorebirds are migrating back from Central America, South America. This Dominic is co-leader of the Pemberton Park Walk. Weekends like this will bring people from not only all over the state, but obviously surrounding states, so you get to meet people, make new friends. A lot of people specialize just in gulls in the birding community. Many people migrate to the Del Marva birding weekend to see a remarkable variety of shorebirds.

Notice there's a large flock of gulls who'd be here in gulls, great blackback. One of the most popular excursions tours around Skimmer Island and the northern shore of Assatee, Thailand, all aboard the shorebird explorer, the large population of piping clover, which is a federally endangered species. Mark Hoffman leads several weekend trips. Each weekend in late April, there's a whole series of field trips, all sorts of different adventures. Mark holds the bird-siding record in Worcester County. He is associate director of the Wildlife and Heritage Service for the Department of Natural Resources. During migration, thousands of shorebirds converge on the lower eastern shore. Many breed in the Arctic and winter in South America. It's a unique opportunity to see rare species like brown pelicans, piping clover, and royal turns.

The north end of it, there are three young brown pelicans. Pelicans arrive fairly late in the spring compared to a lot of the other water birds. They weren't here yesterday. There's the oyster catcher right on the shore very close. The large orange bill, blackhead, white breast, and the brown on the wings and mantle. The other oyster catcher is still there on the nest of gulls here, feed on bird's eggs and the likes. Anything that's got a nest has to be very meticulous. Increasingly, people understand that birdiness and important from a tourism standpoint. The ocean city area tracks thousands of visitors annually, who come here specifically for the uniqueness and the variety of its bird life. Over 380 species of birds have been recorded in Worcester County by far the highest number recorded in the state. Nathan, here from Pennsylvania for the weekend with his parents, is fascinated by birds. I saw a black skimmer, corn meringue, gulls, turns, um, I probably know about 98 kilos.

If we get closer to glossy, I bust down in the pond. That evening, Mark leads a birding by night trip. It's a chance to tune the ear to a new universe of sound. So orchard oil down there. Tonight's audio feast features a quest for the mythically rare and elusive Virginia rail. That knows their scant chance of seeing this bird, so he's come wired for sound. It's the rail.

Early the next morning, birders wake to the sounds of a hard rain. Undaunted, Jim Rapp, director of the Salisbury Zoo, converts a plant canoe trip to the mysterious Cypress Womps at Nassauango Creek into a walking tour. Just along the edges like shorebirds, the birders still find treasure in their binoculars. That Mark's birding festival is geared towards all different levels of experience. We've just want them to have a good time and enjoy the outdoors because as people learn more about birds, it engenders a whole greater appreciation and concern for the environment. In other countries, particularly in the third world, they're beginning to realize the significance of ecotours and more broadly because it's not just about birding before interested in mammals, wildlife, butterflies, so really it's part of a larger picture of what we collectively

call ecotours and more natured tourism. And it's a wonderful reason for conserving the landscapes and a reason to conserve habitats. We all consume American work week continues. First the traffic, followed by long hours sifting through papers, typing on computers or building the infrastructure that contains us. The end is returned home to the all too few hours of rest before beginning the cycle again. Around the corner, however, is a place to get away from it all.

Outside the bustle of Baltimore City lies Gunpowder Falls State Park. On any given day, you can find over 18,000 acres providing the quiet respite and outdoor activities Marylanders so dearly cherished. From biking and hiking to swimming, fishing and boating, the park's diverse terrain is available seven days a week. Marlon Bailey is the manager of a section of Gunpowder known as Hammerman. The make of a hammerman is comprised of roughly 300 acres located in Chase, Maryland, just outside of White Marsh, headed towards the Miller River area. It's located on the Gunpowder River, basically meanders through the Big Gunpowder River and the Leather Gunpowder River and they end up in the days coat area of the park. We offer picnicking, mini cabins, we offer opportunity for people to canoe, kayak, wind surfing, who are our contractor here, as well as a life-guarded beach, swimming.

That's one of the major things that people do when they come to the Hammerman area. Nestled on the banks of an inlet is the Dundee Creek Marina with boat slips and rentals. Underattraction is the archery range. The archery course is overseen by a wingbowman club, the archery club, those who are archers utilize the facilities to sharpen their skills. We've been down here for about five years now and we've really are specializing the 3D shooting. I find it to be a little more exciting, keeps your head in the game a little bit more. We hold all kinds of different events in here as far as world qualifiers. Hey, I mean the park's been really great to us and they've always been very supportive. If hiking and biking are more your speed, Northwest of Hammerman lies another section of

Gunpowder Falls State Park known as the NCR Trail, Area Manager Rob Marconi. Well, NCR stands for the North Central Railroad Trail. It's an abandoned railroad trail that began in 1838 as a regular railroad. It became, as a lot of railroads did, disused and abandoned eventually. In 1980, the state of Maryland purchased the land for use as a state park. A decade later, work was complete on the trail from Kakisville to the Pennsylvania State Line. The trail runs for total 19.7 miles and it's used by a wide variety of people from hikers, joggers, runners. We've been coming along the trail here for about five or six years, at least perhaps longer than that. We do the trail several times a year both for biking and for walking and we like the trail

because on a hot day like the day, it's shaded, it's pleasant along the river and it's just a nice place to be. It's not just a bicycle trail, it's a hiking trail, people come out here and ride horses. It just really has a lot to offer. We have 180,000 visitors on this trail a year so a lot of people are interested in this corridor. We're going to... Naturalist Brenda Harrison runs organized bike through history tours. This rail line operated for 134 years, so we have the recreational opportunities with the trail in the river and it's a very historical corridor too so a lot of people come out here, they want to learn a little bit about Maryland history and the United States history. There are some beautiful scenes along the trail. It's a combination of open farmland and wooded areas. The river is gorgeous, it's a very, very, pretty river, very unspoiled kind of forest and beauty and some real spectacular views, especially from the bridges of the river and

the surrounding countryside. There's a real feeling of solitude that the people get when they come out here. Not too far off the trail and the Hertford Wildlands is the Milpond Cottage, Area Manager Peyton Taylor. The Milpond Cottage has been in by the state of Maryland for a little over 40 years. Several years ago the decision was made to convert the home into a rental cottage, a vacation rental for people that would like to come and stay at the park for a weekend or for a week and bring their family, use the park and the surrounding area. It's attractive specifically to fly fishermen who like to fish the upper reaches of the gunpowder, but it's also attractive to couples who are looking for a weekend getaway, or families who want to bring their children out to a place where they're not bombarded by a lot of the more man-made distractions in the world. They can come out here and kind of get away from it all and have time together with

their families. Released from the dam at the Pretty Boy reservoir, the waters of the upper gunpowder are cold and clean, providing a world-class habitat for trout fishing. Wayne grower has been fishing the gunpowder for over 30 years. When I first started fishing the gunpowder it was not what we call a tail water fishery for trout fishing like it is today. It was a warm water area where you could catch a lot of bass and boogill, and it used to come up and fish for those species here. They need cold water. They're cold water fish. They can't live in water temperature much above 70 degrees, so you can have trout will stay and live healthily healthy in this stream with those kind of water temperatures, and they'll reproduce. We have reproduction and the gunpowder. It's hard to find an area like this and this pristine kind of condition so close to a large metropolitan area like Baltimore.

You see wildlife, you see deer. I've heard turkeys call, you see all kinds of birds. It's not just the fishing, it's part of the whole thing being out in an area like this with nature and enjoying a day of stream fishing. It's just a beautiful place to fish. If it's history you want, gunpowder falls state park provides that as well. The headquarters is at Jerusalem Mills Museum Curator, Chris Gova. It's a work in progress, but ultimately we see this late 18th century early industrial village recreated much in its earlier format for lack of a better analogy as a miniature Williamsburg with all the structures restored to their earlier look and some sort of interpretive program going on. The structure which now houses the headquarters for the gunpowder fall state park was a grist meal, a grist meal being a grain meal, the ground wheat, corn, buckwheat, and rye and alongside it was a sawmill, both of them got their power from the little gunpowder

which again is just adjacent to us here. Sundays are the best time to visit us because as well as the museum you have the blacksmith demonstration in the blacksmith shop and again various activities in the gun shop. So named because during the American Revolution they made black walnut gun stocks for muskets used by the Maryland militia. It's refreshing to find that there's a place where it's sort of stopped in time. It's altruistic. I mean we're doing it for everybody's benefit and we would welcome more people to discover what's probably in many eyes an unknown treasure if you will. With historical sites, swimming, hiking, camping, and biking, gunpowder fall state park is truly a means of getting away from it all. Drop into our website at www.mpt.org to send us your comments and suggestions.

Outdoors Maryland is made by MPT to serve all of our diverse communities and is made possible by the generous support of our members. Thank you.