In order to make room for our maples, hickories, oaks and ash crop trees to grow; to have building materials for our future house; and firewood to heat ourselves and make maple syrup, we took out the blue paint today and started to select which trees to harvest this fall. We simultaneously are creating wildlife habitat and regenerating the future forest with each stroke of the paint gun. Some decisions were quite straight forward while others required a bit of a "conversation" between the sugarmaker and his forester.