I’ve done something that I thought impossible: I destroyed a Sigg. I’m just that talented. The metal water bottle lasted years, but I killed it by leaving it in the car over Christmas. It was full of water, and when it froze, it split straight up the side.

So what did I get to replace it? I loved how sturdy the Sigg was, but the top was so tiny that it was a pain to wash without a bottle brush. And since I couldn’t actually see to the bottom of it, I never quite knew if it was clean. So this time I got a Camelbak. They’re now BPA-free #7 plastic (co-polyester rather than polycarbonate, apparently) and even Umbra-approved.

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It’s probably silly to put this much thought into a water bottle, but they last for years, and I use mine a million times a day. Sometimes it’s the little things…

My Negotiation and Conflict Resolution class has been really rewarding so far, but by far the best part of it has been discovering the book Women Don’t Ask by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever. It’s been a bit of a revelation for me, making me realize that the world is far more negotiable than I think. However, statistically, women are less likely to ask for what we want, and when we do ask, we tend to get less than what men do. Some reasons for this:

• We’re more anxious about conflict.
• We tend to believe our circumstances are more fixed than they really are.
• We expect other people to treat us fairly.
• We tend to be more satisfied with what we have.
• We think of our incomes in terms of what we need instead of what our work is worth.
• We set our goals lower.
• If we are more forceful in pursuit of our goals, we tend to be viewed more negatively because of it.

The good news? Women tend to have a collaborative negotiating style, which has been shown to result in better outcomes than a competitive style. My professor calls it the enhanced best deal: instead of fighting to get the biggest piece of the pie, you make the pie bigger so everyone gets more. This takes a lot of openness and trust in order to share information and brainstorm creatively together—more like problem-solving than traditional bargaining. This is the strategy that seems to be favored by most negotiation teachers today. The fact that they’re trying to teach people to negotiate more like women is really reassuring to me, and makes me more confident in my own abilities to negotiate well. Preparation goes a long way toward reducing my anxiety about it!

Pardon the newer, girlier cover.

I really don’t think the problem is as gender-specific as the book suggests, though. Jason exhibits most of the characteristics described in the book, as do a lot of other people I know. I think it could be renamed Mainers Don’t Ask without losing anything. We really don’t! We’re just used to making do with what we have. And we’re so focused on what’s fair that we actually fight to give money to each other!

I’m in the middle of buying a new car right now, and I’m keeping the lessons from this book and my negotiating class in mind as I do it. Wish me luck!

We’re planning on replacing our 10-year-old Prius this year, so we’ve started out by looking at our financing options. I was surprised to see that our bank, Metro Credit Union, offers a discounted interest rate on loans for hybrid cars. It’s only 0.25% off, but every little bit helps. Other banks may offer hybrid discounts, too, especially credit unions. If you’re in the market for a hybrid car, it’s worth your while to ask your bank.

I’ll keep my eye out for loan incentives from Toyota, too, but I’m definitely going to get preapproved for a loan by Metro before I approach Toyota.

Just got back from visiting our families in Maine, so not a lot of reading material today. Enjoy!

• Advice for the Busy Urban Locavore, or What I Ate While Writing My Dissertation – Locavore in the City. I don’t think I’ve figured out my system yet, but I’m working on it.
• Using egg shells in the garden – Girl on Bike. I add eggshells to our compost bin because the  worms love curling up inside them and laying eggs.
• Why chefs are confused about what fish they can serve – Boston Globe. I’m confused, too. It’s hard to settle on hard-and-fast rules.
• New England Aquarium’s approved fish list – Boston Globe. This seems very close to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s list.
• A Pot With Benefits – Slate. I’m a little intimidated to use a pressure canner, too, but this may have convinced me to try.
• Even More Eco-Laundry – Green Phone Booth. Another shout-out for soap nuts.
• 21 Important Documentaries to Watch on Netflix Instant – The Good Human. This looks like my good-intentions Netflix list. Unfortunately, my guilty pleasures Netflix list tends to win out.
• Popcorn on the Cob – Farm Share Stories. To go with the movies… Warning: wring the popcorn off the cob first.

That’s all for now. As always, if you come across anything interesting this week, send it my way.

My niece, Mallory Bussell, is graduating from UMaine Orono this year with a degree in forestry. For her Forestry Management class last fall, she developed a management plan for my parents’ property. This is the most comprehensively anyone has looked at the land in decades (maybe ever!), and I discovered a lot from it, both about the property itself and about what forest management means.

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Soil Types

Mallory found that the property had three different soil types, and the use that the land was put to historically seems to correspond to the best use of that soil:

• The PWC type is rocky and sloped—typically used for woodland, with high potential for white pine, sugar maple, white birch, balsam fir, beech, white ash, bigtooth aspen, and quaking aspen, which provide food and habitat for many species, including deer, bear, and ruffed grouse. This is the soil type found in the wooded areas of the property.
• The PtC soil is silt loam soil with a slope, typically used for pasture or hay, although the slope increases the possibility of erosion. This is the soil found on most of the cleared (or formerly cleared) areas of the property.
• The ToC soil is shallow with low available water capacity, typically used for hay or pasture, although white spruce and Eastern white pine can grow there. This is currently evergreen forest with clearings covered in moss.

Three Stands

For the forest management plan, Mallory ignored all the cleared areas or recently regrown areas and just focused on the wooded areas. She identified three separate stands of trees there:

• Stand A has the highest volume of trees. It was once cleared but reverted back to woodland, probably more than 70 years ago. The dominant species is American beech, some of which are resistant to beech bark disease. There are 15 different species of trees in this stand, reaching a maturity level that will soon lead to self-thinning. There is also an old excavated spring. The combination of food, water, and shelter make it a prime habitat for wildlife. An abandoned ATV path crosses this stand.
• Stand B is the largest, but with a lower volume of trees and more skid trails, due to cutting that my father did, with more fir thickets and understory growth. Balsam fir and red maple are the dominant of 18 different species. Multiple small wetland areas feed a brook located just off the property. The conifers intercept snow, as well as provide browse and predator protection for deer, moose, and other wildlife. This area is relatively inaccessible due to the slope, and it’s probably best to keep it that way because of the wildlife habitat.
• Stand C was once used as pasture and blueberry fields, many years ago. More recently, it was harvested for firewood. This stand mostly consists of softwood, specifically balsam fir and red spruce, and for some reason is growing in almost entirely in balsam fir, which may be of concern considering a spruce budworm outbreak is predicted in the near future.

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Recommendations

• Stand A is a valuable wildlife resource. One way of maintaining it would be selectively cutting the diseased beech. This would have to be done very carefully, so as not to disturb the healthy beech roots, which are shallower than other roots. Mallory says, “Harvests of up to 3 cords per year for a period of three years with a re-evaluation at the fourth year may be suitable to manipulate regeneration and stand improvement.”
• Stand B should be left alone for now to recover from the cutting and reassessed in a few years, continuing its use as wildlife habitat.
• Stand C should be left alone for five years, at which point individual stem selection or small gap harvests should be considered to thin out the fir. Leaving a small portion of logs on the forest floor to serve as nurse logs will help encourage regeneration of desirable species.

It’s possible for some of the land to qualify under the Tree Growth Tax Law, since Stand A consists of more than 70% hardwood. Stands B and C would not be eligible for Tree Growth, since they are mostly softwoods. However, as far as I could tell, the focus of the Tree Growth Law has to do with commercial growth and harvesting of trees, not primarily for recreation or conservation purposes, so we might do better with a conservation easement.

Mallory also included an appendix with info on blueberry management, apple tree pruning, how to prevent soil erosion, and more. It’s a huge wealth of information, and I’m sure it’ll be incredibly useful as our family decides how to best care for the property.