Environmentalists, local governments and landowners’ associations don’t generally see eye to eye on local land issues. It takes a truly terrible idea to get them all on the same side and sending joint lobbying delegations to Albany. Something like, say, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s budget proposal to reinvent the way state forest land gets taxed in the Catskill and Adirondack Parks.

It’s Maple Weekend across New York State this week, and sugarbush tappers are opening their saphouses to celebrate the harvest. On tap for the weekend: pancake breakfasts, leaf-shaped candies and clear bottles full of sweet amber, a taste of fresh sap out of a bucket. It’s about as traditional as it gets. But if you look closely, the landscape is shifting. As the climate changes, the trees change too — and tappers follow.

It takes some fortitude to decide to pay a small cost yourself, rather than shuffle a larger one off to a stranger in a community far away.