meeyauw

Sweet Shot 133: Christmas Eve in Barton

2012-12-25T10:52:00.001-05:00

St. Paul's Church on Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas!

(I thought it has been long enough since my last post in March!)

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Beavers on the Move

2012-03-26T22:21:00.001-04:00

What you would have seen when walking in from the road.

Last October the beaver from the bog had some sort of population explosion. The kids had to move out and make their own house. They chose to move across the road to our side. There is a huge culvert that drains water from a low lying grove of tamarack and apple trees. It is less than a quarter mile from the house. John noticed in October that the area was flooded. Deeply flooded. So he went to check it out. That's when he found the new beaver dam across the culvert. The new pond was about four feet deep and filling quickly. We would have a huge problem if there was a heavy rain or if the future finished dam broke. It could wash out our driveway, the culvert and the road..

John manually clears out the dam from the culvert.
He is standing on top of the new dam.
Note those 6 foot tall fence posts marking the culvert.

The new beaver pond.

John spent a lot of time and effort in clearing the dam from the culvert. He did it one Sunday morning and for a few weeks after that, once a week, because the beaver kept repairing the damage. The beaver seemed to give up at that point and did not rebuild.

But after nearly six weeks of quiet, they rebuilt the dam. This time, they built it deep inside the culvert, under the road, where neither John nor his tractor could reach it. John then called the town road agent, Clem, who had installed our culvert. Clem sent the town road crew that very day. They used the town's huge backhoe and hauled out the new, heavily fortified dam. Then they installed a heavy road grate to prevent the beaver from ever entering the culvert again.

The new heavy grate blocking the culvert. Note those same fence posts from above.

Below are some photographs of the damage in the same area. We returned on a hike in December to see what was going on. The damage was quite extensive. The area was trashed (in a nice, beaver sort of way):

This is what that new beaver pond looks like now. It is drained.

The remains of a lodge that was being built behind the dam.

Many trees were only partially cut or were being considered for cutting. This tree will die.

The beaver may have been discouraged. They may even have despaired. But they were never threatened. After the town blocked the culvert, they continued to cut down trees on both sides of the road and built a new lodge where it should have been built: in the beaver bog. This is the fourth lodge across the road now. It has new canals and trails, and new log slides going into the water. I'm glad the trees, such as they were, are gone, because now the view of the bog is clearer.

The new lodge. Where it should be.

The funniest tale of these beaver has not yet been told. In January, I went for my monthly hair appointment and heard the strangest story from my hairdresser, who frequently drives by on her way into town. She was driving by one day about noon and saw by the side of the road a big beaver. He was waiting for her to drive by, looking both ways before he crossed. And what did he have in his mouth? A reflective road side marker that marks the culvert so that the town road crew does not damage it with the plows. The beaver had cut it down and was taking it home to decorate his lodge!

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Wordless Wednesday: Caught in Flight

2012-03-14T21:13:00.001-04:00

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Wet

2012-03-03T20:53:00.001-05:00

I remember September 20, 2011 because of the weather. I came home from school feeling that classes hadn't gone as they should. I had to get outside but it was raining. I could tell that no birds were about and the rain would make all the bugs disappear. The cats felt they had to get out, too. The rain stopped so we went. Desperate, I began taking photographs and found these to shoot. And I found my bug.

I have put my favorite Wet photograph on my Photo a Day blog . . . . here.

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Hiking the ROW Part 3

2012-03-01T09:32:00.001-05:00

Buddy and Oscar will follow John to the end of the earth.

An unidentified fungus.

Porcupine quills at the bottom of the cliffs.
John thinks the porkie may have fallen off of the cliff (and survived)
because of the number of quills that were there.

The very bottom of the cliffs.

Oscar poses for the camera.

Scarlet Waxy Cap Mushroom (Hygrophorous coccineus)

Another unidentified fungus.

Up the tree!

Insulators

The transformer is nearly eye level because the slope of the
mountainside is so steep under the cliffs.

Well, that's all there is about this great hike. To view the other photos:
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2
Hiking the ROW: Part 3

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Hiking the ROW Part 2

2012-02-29T23:59:00.001-05:00

Wild Cherry Nipple Gall caused by eriophyid mites on chokecherry leaves.

In this post, I continue the photographic essay on hiking up the right of way on our land up Barton Mountain. An introduction is here and part one is here.

White Cohosh (Actaea pachypoda)
also called White Baneberry

Blue Cohosh (Caulophyllum thalictroides)
Also called squaw root or papoose root.

A colony of Artist's Fungi (Ganoderma applanatum)

Under an Artist's Fungus.

A quarry cut block of granite far from any quarry and now buried,
over a century later, by the forest.
See more Barton Mountain granite quarry history here.

Hickory Tussock Moth larva (Lophocampa caryae)

To view the other photos:
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2
Hiking the ROW: Part 3

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Hiking the ROW Part 1

2012-02-29T22:50:00.001-05:00

Fairpoint Communications telephone pole ID

On our property there is a right of way (ROW) up to the ridegeline of Barton Mountain for electricity and cables to the cell towers up top. This past September, Fairpoint put in fiber optic cables on those poles. I wrote about this invasion in an earlier post. Because of our concern about the Fairpoint activity we saw from the house, we decided to climb up the ROW to see what damage had been done to the land. We saw plenty. Unfortunately, I didn't take photographs of the damage, but it is still visible and will be visible for years. I will return after mud season to document the damage better. The photos here in this multipart photographic essay are of our activity on the hike — of John, me and the cats Buddy and Oscar. Despite our anger at the invasion, we had a wonderful afternoon. I took only my 70-250mm lens, which was inadequate for most of the macro photos here. Next time I'll take the whole kit and caboodle.

Looking down the ROW.
Our home is through the woods to the left.

Looking up the ROW.
All trails end at the bottom of those cliffs, which is where bear and bobcat live.

Buddy wanted to rest here.
He actually wanted to turn back and go home, but continued on with us.

A couple of chickadees kept a close eye on us the entire hike.

We found even more apple trees from the orchard a century ago!

White Worm Coral Fungus (Clavaria fragilis)

Bear scat full of chokecherry pits.

To be continued . . . .

To view the other photos:
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2
Hiking the ROW: Part 3

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Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Breaking News - MBIQ Detects Large Bolide Entry Over New England States and Canada 28FEB2012

2012-02-28T23:31:00.000-05:00

Latest Worldwide Meteor/Meteorite News: Breaking News - MBIQ Detects Large Bolide Entry Over New England States and Canada 28FEB2012

John saw a huge white flash in the northeast, over the mountain, at about 10:30 tonight. The cats were excited and wanted to go outside (Oscar did escape). John thought it was lightning at first, but reported a clear and starry sky. I posted the question on Facebook, and saw that Fox44 had already posted it. Dozens of people had already responded. One lady shared the link to the site above and we saw that the entire continent was empty except for northern New England and southern Canada. Reports of the light are coming in from all over the north country. Reportedly what everyone saw was a bolide: "A large meteor that explodes in the atmosphere."

I'll let you know what we find out.

UPDATES:
11:58 PM Feb 28, 2012
Links:

Fireballs from the Sky Upset Animals (about the Fireballs of February)
Fireballs from the Sky Upset Animals (YouTube video from NASA)
Twitter Updates (sorta)

7:37 AM March 1, 2012
Links

Orleans County Record: Tuesday Night's 'Bright Flash' Caused By Meteor

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Two Hoppers

2012-02-27T06:25:00.001-05:00

Two-Striped Grasshopper (Melanoplus bivittatus)

Green Frog (Rana clamitans melanota)

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One Single Impression 209: Muse

2012-02-25T23:51:00.000-05:00

Click to read more beautiful poetry.

Emily Dickinson: The Gentlest Mother

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Oscar: The Perfect Poser (Sometimes)

2012-02-25T21:42:00.001-05:00

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Five Favorite Bad Shots

2012-02-25T21:35:00.001-05:00

Sepia Possum

An upside down Chestnut-sided Warbler

Above & below: Leaping Oscar

American Tree Sparrow takes off

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Chasing Porcupines at Night

2012-02-15T19:45:00.001-05:00

When the quills lie up on the back, you know the porky is upset with you.

John saw this porcupine one night in September. He shined his large flashlight while I followed the porky in the dark, seeing the land only through the viewfinder. I literally could not see a thing and relied on John's directions of where to step. I was happy to get such clear results. I had set the camera on automatic to avoid as few shooting errors as possible under these circumstances.

We were invaded by porcupines this year. We thought they came because of the apples, but we have since found three porcupine dens that show evidence of them being here a long time. Perhaps they had a population explosion or something. But they are eating the apple and maple trees. And the barn. Buddy the Cat won’t even go outside when a porcupine is around (probably because of his last encounter with one, seen here).

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Watch the Sparrow

2012-02-14T17:10:00.001-05:00

Win!

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Preserving

2012-02-13T20:27:00.001-05:00

Spaghetti Sauce

Our first garden in Vermont was successful. Before the blight hit in September, we got enough tomatoes to can quarts of spaghetti sauce and tomatoes. We had over a couple of hundred pounds of cucumbers and made sweet relish, bread and butter pickles and dill pickles.

Making pickles.

With all of the apples and chokecherries, John made apple, cherry, and apple-cherry jelly.

John had planted a lot of squash seeds that he brought from New Hampshire. The trouble was, he had no idea what they were. They turned out to be Red Kuri squash, which I now like better than butternut. It is sweeter and more solid than butternut. It makes terrific pies. John processed and froze so much squash that we had to get another huge chest freezer!

Red Kuri squash on the vine.

A Drone Fly (Eristalis tenax) on a squash leaf.

Bumblebees would often pile up six deep in a squash blossom.

I never did take photos of the apple sauce, apples, pies and cider that John preserved. But I do know that he made over 20 gallons of cider! It was a very fruitful harvest!

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Cones

2012-02-10T20:41:00.001-05:00

The photograph above is of the branches of a tamarack (American Larch) tree, one of my favorites. This is a deciduous conifer (a cone-bearing tree that sheds its needles). Native people used this tree to make canoes and kayaks. We are cultivating every seedling here that we find. The tamaracks glow orange in the late fall long after the other trees have shed their leaves in the autumn.

Large female cones

Tamaracks have male and female cones on the same tree. Above you see the large female cones. It is winter now and the ground is covered with snow. The tamaracks are bare — except that they still have these cones on them.

Male cones

In the photo above you can see (perhaps; you may need to click the photo and see the original size on Flickr) the itty, bitty male cones.The National Phenology Network tells us on their tamarack page that

The small, yellowish male cones bear pollen and the reddish brown female cones mature and become pale brown. Cone production begins when the tree matures at about 15-40 years of age, and pollination occurs by wind.

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Puffballs for Supper

2012-02-05T20:27:00.001-05:00

Giant Puffball Mushroom (Calvatia gigantea)

I can't tell you where because it's a secret that we will keep, but in late August we found a small stand of giant puffball mushrooms. These are one of John's favorites, so he happily picked them for supper that night.

I've seen photos of these bigger than basketballs!

When we returned home, John thinly sliced his 'rooms and melted a quarter pound of butter on the stove. He fried the puffball slices and soon had a full tummy!

I tried a slice but my refined, junk food city girl taste buds found the mushroom too earthy and tasteless. Maybe next year I'll be able to choke some down.

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The Stupid Things One Does When Bored

2012-02-03T23:17:00.001-05:00

You take a fern photo from last summer and then try to create some paintography (and you don't even know what that is and can't afford the software to create it and don't have the time or patience to do it anyway but want to become artsy and creative) and then apply all sorts of filters in all sorts of software that you already spent too much money on and can't decide which you like best so you make a movie and then post it on your blog because you have nothing better to do. Nothing better to do? Yeah.

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A Chickadee in Summer

2012-02-02T17:15:00.001-05:00

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My Frustration with Birds

2012-01-31T20:48:00.001-05:00

American Redstart (Setophaga ruticilla)

I spend a lot of time in the spring, summer and autumn stalking birds in the fields and woods. Some species, like sparrows, some finches and a few warblers are rather easy to see and capture on film. They stalk me while I stalk them (mostly because the cats are always with me and are a very good reason for the birds to stalk us). But there are other birds that defy capture. Two that obsessed me this past summer were the American Redstart (above) and the Black and White Warbler (below). They are both shy. The Redstart never seems to come out of the forest edge, so the lighting is awful. It also always kept its back to me. The Black and White Warbler was a bit shy, but the biggest problem was its speed. One second it is there, and the next it is gone. I can't predict where they will hop to from moment to moment, like I can with sparrows and other birds. I've been within five feet of a flock of Black and Whites and have never been able to raise, aim and fire quick enough. I'm pretty sure cats are OK for the Redstarts, but if I want to get a decent Black and White photo, I will have to lock the cats up. So until next season, these two photos are the only proof I have that these two warbler species live here.

Black and White Warbler (Mniotilta varia)

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Strangers on the Mountain

2012-01-30T17:38:00.001-05:00

Fiber optic installers on Barton Mountain

The back of our house has great views of the ridgeline of Barton Mountain. Nobody is ever there. We have no curtains and we have no modesty. We are always alone, with only thousands of acres of forest behind us, which is just the way we like it. Until last August. Suddenly there were strangers all over the place and we felt invaded.

There is a ROW on our land to the top of the mountain for cable and cell antennas. This summer, Fairpoint Communications, Vermont’s telephone service provider, thought they needed to install fiber optic cables up the ROW. I chased off the guys who never asked permission to park on our land, and from that point on everybody was very polite and requested permission for parking. I also tried to scare them off by telling them to be careful of the bears and bobcats up on the cliffs (which really exist). But they are Vermonters and such critters don’t scare them. They hiked up unarmed, something we, who frequently hike up there, won’t do.

The installation took several days. There were men on top of the mountain who fed down the cable to the guys down here. But the guys down here also took cable off of a truck up the mountain as far as they could go. They used four-wheelers and wrecked up the land something wicked. They caused run-off, which is illegal (we have never reported them). They took the vehicle up over boulders instead of using an ancient road that paralleled their invasion. They chopped trees down and tossed them off the ROW and onto private property. Those trees will provide habitat for lots of animals, but it looks ugly and doesn't demonstrate any respect for the forest. I will post those photos in the near future.

Towards the end of the cable installation, some new strangers showed up above the house on the ROW and scared the hell out of me. Thanks to my long lens, I got a decent photo of them. But they can't be identified. Shucks. The photo was taken from the back door.

To view the photo essay of our hike to view the damage::
Introduction: Strangers on the mountain
Hiking the ROW: Part 1
Hiking the ROW: Part 2 Hiking the ROW: Part 3

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A Leaf Beetle

2012-01-29T08:55:00.001-05:00

Leaf Beetle (Calligrapha philadelphica)

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Can You Identify This Warbler?

2012-01-28T18:07:00.001-05:00

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Chickadees and Catkins

2012-01-27T10:00:00.001-05:00

Black-capped Chickadee munching on Alder catkins

In August, the alder trees produce catkins. That's when the chickadees are really, really happy. They crawled over every stand of alder and ate till they burst. They were right-side up, upside down, hanging by one toe . . . anything to get at all the catkins.

Female alder catkins

We have green (or mountain) alders (Alnus viridis) here that grow in bushy groves. They like water. They have male and female catkins. The male catkins are long, dangly, soft and fuzzy. The female catkins look like tiny pinecones. Alder are food for so many birds and insects that I can't list them. Look around and see if you have any!

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Wordless Wednesday: Spiny Puffball Mushrooms

2012-01-25T20:30:00.001-05:00

Lycoperdon echinatum

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