Maple syrup lines
Walking along where the Trail crosses near (or through) local pastures and farms, frequently there are lines of hose stretched across trees like this. Took a little while to figure out what this was all about. Unique forest cattle fencing? Yankee versions of clothslining wayward hikers? Polymer property line markers? Nope -- they're only strung up on maples. On sugar maples.
Oh, of course -- maple taps. Well, I say 'of course', but it took one with a stainless steel fitting pushed into a hole in the trunk and a bucket at the base to kind of clue me in.