Making Time

I have been busy lately. I started a new job earlier this month, and it is sure eating into my leisure time. I decided today that it was time to make time to take a few photos. I stopped at a “secret” park near my church. I call it secret because there is no sign on the road alerting the public to its presence. I had driven by it maybe a thousand times before I knew it was there, and only spotted it from satellite photos while playing around on Google Maps a few years ago.

But the park is there, and it has wildflowers. I stopped for maybe ten minutes. First up was some tower mustard. I have this growing along the south side of my house.

Tower mustard (Arabis glabra)

The yarrow is blooming now too:

Common yarrow (Achillea millefolium)

And the king devil is out. Some people call this yellow hawkweed, but “king devil” definitely has a more adventurous ring to it.

King devil (Hieracium pratense)

The birdsfoot trefoil has been in bloom for a while, but I think this is my first shot of it this year.

Birdsfoot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus)

Then I found this unfortunate fellow.

Deer?

This is only about half its spine. All together, I estimate that the spine was at least three feet long, and maybe more. There aren’t a lot of animals around here that are that big – deer, bear, coyote, and sometimes beaver. I think this is a deer, but I’m really only guessing. It looks like it has been picked pretty clean.

Not far from the skeleton I saw a black locust in bloom. Most people don’t know it, but these flowers are edible, and indeed, they are very sweet and quite palatable. I ate this bunch after I took its picture for you.

Black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia)

On the way back up the hill towards the car I found some white campion.

White campion (Silene latifolia)

And then I saw this clump of yellow sorrel.

Common yellow sorrel (Oxalis stricta)

These are also good to eat. As most kids can tell you, they are very sour (in a good way). That sourness comes from oxalic acid (hence the genus name). Too much of it is said to be bad for you, but kids everywhere seem to pay that no heed whatsoever.

Then it was back to the car, and off to work.

 

Oak Hill

Friday I had planned to go on a hike in the White Mountains, but I’d have had to have gone alone if I had gone at all. Jonathan was home for the holiday but woke up feeling unwell. David had never committed (too early for him), and I made the mistake of never telling Beth until the evening before. Oops. So instead I puttered around the house.

Jonathan suggested that we hike somewhere on Saturday after church instead. Since I was itching for a nice walk, I immediately suggested Oak Hill, which is part of Concord’s trail system. He began inviting others from church, and pretty soon we had half a dozen people lined up.

This was the goal:

Oak Hill Fire Tower

It was only a little more than a mile from the trailhead, but we had a couple of people along who were not much used to hiking, so that was plenty. Also, it gets dark a little past 4:00pm now, so we only had three hours of daylight for this one.

It was brisk, but quite lovely. When we reached the fire tower we stopped to catch our breath for a few minutes. Then we climbed the tower. I could see Mount Kearsarge to the west.

Mount Kearsarge

Kearsarge is what they call a “prominence” because it stands alone – no other mountains around it. As a result, it’s not nearly as tall as it looks. I’ve been to its peak on several occasions and intend to go back there again one of these days.

Although this trail system is maintained by the City of Concord, the fire tower is just over the town line in Loudon. There’s a stone wall that divides the two towns in the vicinity of the trail, and they have a marker there to designate its significance.

Boundary Marker

Here’s a closer shot of the engraving.

C.L. 1898

I assume “C.L. 1898” Means Concord/Loudon, and that the marker was erected in 1898. It was probably set up shortly after a survey.

We headed back down the trail again shortly after that.

The Descent

I particularly like the look of the trail as it entered this section of hemlock:

Into the Hemlocks

We got back to the trailhead and then took our companions home -in their mother’s van – my car didn’t have enough room for 6 people, so she suggested that we trade vehicles for the afternoon. I thought that was a brilliant plan. 🙂 Too bad I didn’t think to grab my GPS from the car though – there were several geocaches we could have collected along the trail. Maybe next time.

When we got to their house, we ad some hot chocolate and a short visit. Then we went home.

 

Thanksgiving Day Walk

On Thanksgiving Day, I took Penny out for a walk before any of the kids were up. It was 27 degrees outside, and there was a nice frost. As usual, we headed for Sandogardy Pond. Penny likes to take the shortcut through the forest-that-is-now-a-field. That’s because when we get there I let her off the leash so she can chase sticks. Here she is bringing me one.

Cottontail Heaven

This ex-forest will be a forest again I suppose, but right now it’s an ideal habitat for the eastern cottontail.

I tried to capture the frost on the coppices, but utterly failed. I was getting a lot of lens flare, and even when I shaded the lens with my hand, it still turned out suboptimally. So I turned my attention to the macro level. Here’s a sensitive fern.

Sensitive Fern (Onoclea sensibilis)

It’s called that because it is sensitive to frost. When the first frost arrives, it turns brown and dies back for the season. We had our first frost long ago, so this one has been brown for a while.

I liked this little pine/fern display. I’m assuming the cones are from a white pine because that’s what predominates here. The fern could be Christmas, Lady, or Hay-scented. I didn’t look closely enough to tell.

Cones and Ferns

When we got the the pond I found that it had already begun to freeze over.

Sandogardy Pond

It was thick enough at the edge that I was able to stand on it. Had it broken, I’d have gotten my shoes wet, but not much more. I didn’t dare venture any farther than three inches deep, because that would have been incredibly irresponsible and foolish.

I hope all of you had as good a Thanksgiving as I did.

 

Beavers

Saturday Va took the Adventurer Club to Ken’s farm. I worked on a few patches with my group (Trees and Beavers). Va worked with her group on something else, but I don’t know what. The plan was to go down to a beaver pond after that, and since the weather was threatening, we decided to make the run sooner rather than later.

Ken took us down to his brother’s farm where there was an active beaver pond. I would say they have been quite active by the looks of this tree.

Beaver-cut tree

It was at least 18″ in diameter. I like how the heartwood never gave up, bending rather than breaking.

In short order we found ourselves at the edge of the pond. They had built the largest beaver lodge I had ever seen. It was at least three times larger than the biggest one I had seen before that day.

Massive Beaver Lodge

This monster was about eight feet tall and a good twenty feet wide at the waterline. It had to have been even bigger beneath the surface.

The kids gathered at the edge of the pond, and I wanted to get a shot of that with the pond, then them at the edge, but with their faces showing. I saw a little spit of land jutting out into the pond, and thought I’d go out on that to get the angle I was after. Bad Move. I stepped onto what looked like solid ground, and my foot began to sink into the mud. Before I could shift my weight to the other leg, I was in up to my knee. It took five minutes to extract my foot. When I did, my boot was still firmly attached to my foot, and I count that as a good thing. My sock was even dry, which is a testament to this boot (a Scarpa if you must know).

The sky opened up before we were done, so we high-tailed it back to the cars and headed for home.

Meanwhile, the Pathfinders were out distributing bags to the south end of Concord as we do every year. It’s phase one of our annual food drive. I did not join them, as I was helping Va with her group. She’s short on staff, and I have an embarrassment of riches in that department. So my staff handled the Pathfinder project quite ably as I helped Va with the Adventurers.

Phase two came the next day. We used to give people a week to gather food, but found that giving them a day works just as well. For as many people who don’t give because they need to go shopping, we used to have as many who would forget because an entire week went by. It all comes out in the wash.

While we were out collecting the filled bags, I spied this awesome plow truck.

Work Horse

I shot that photo through the unwashed passenger window from the driver’s seat, so there’s plenty of room for the photo to have improved. But I was more interested in the subject of the photo than in the artistry.

The Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is in full swing now.

Witch Hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)

I’ve been working on those wooden canoes I bought for the club a little while back. I have one outwale removed from the 19-footer now and most of the inwale too. The gunwales (inwale+outwale) were attached to the hull with no glue, and I needed three different types of screw drivers to get them off (flat, Phillips, and a square S-2).

I bought a 20′ long ash board today at Goose Bay Lumber in Chichester. I went there during lunch, and hadn’t been planning on that trip ahead of time. Thus, I didn’t have a way to get it home. I left it at the lumber yard and asked Va to bring my roof rack when she came to Concord to pick up Beth from school. She obliged, so after work, I went and got the rack and then the board. I also bought some shorter lengths of ash and a 4′ length of maple, I will fashion a new thwart from that.

I need to rip the 20′ ash plank into four 5/8″ pieces now. I haven’t decided if I want to try that on my table saw or if I want to try to talk Ken into doing it for (or with) me. Once I have it ripped into four chunks I will cut scuppers into two of them to serve as inwales. Before attaching them though I will need to resand the hull and probably add some fiberglass here and there. It sounds like a lot of effort, but I don’t think it really is.

I’ll keep you posted.

 

It’s Raining, It’s Pouring…

Today we had our Investiture service for Pathfinders and Adventurers. This is a ceremony during which we award insignia to everyone. The highlight is always the slideshow that Melissa puts together for us. It was 22 minutes long, and she had set it to music. She was up until 7:00am working on it. After 22 minutes of watching that, my mouth was sore from the ear-to-ear grin I maintained throughout. I couldn’t help it.

We got home a little after 4:00pm and had some supper. It had been raining all day, as it was when I finished eating, and as it is even now at nearly midnight. But I have rain gear.

Penny was thrilled at the prospect of a walk in the rain, and I figured she was the only one in the house who was crazy enough about walking to take me up on the offer of a hike. We went down to Sandogardy Pond.

I cut through the cut-down forest. This is one of the nicer places there now. The trail has reappeared, and it’s growing a nice carpet of grass.

Penny waits for me to throw a stick

We made it to the pond without incident. The water (including the puddles along the way) were thick with yellow pollen. I don’t know what plant makes this stuff, but it sure makes a lot.

Sandogardy Beach

I don’t know what this is growing at the edge of the pond. I might recognize it in a few weeks, but right now I just don’t know. But look at all that pollen!

Mystery plants

But this is one I do know:

Virginia marsh St. Johnswort (Triadenum virginicum)

I think this may be the only St Johnswort with pink flowers. Not that it has bloomed yet. We’ll check in again after it does.

It continued to pour the whole time I was out there.

Alder in the rain

This is some sort of alder bush. It grows all along the edge of the pond. One of these days I will id it down to the species level, but not during a rainstorm.

Penny didn’t go into the pond during this hike. Maybe she didn’t want to get wet 😉 or maybe she wasn’t overheated since the rain did a thorough job on her coat. She would also not have been thirsty since the sticks she was fetching were also quite wet.

I do enjoy walking in a rain like this, even when it’s heavy like it was today. It’s an iron-clad guarantee of having the outdoors to myself.

 

Spring Flowers

Spring has been busting out all over the place here. A bit early I suppose, and I sure hope we don’t have a hard frost any time soon. I don’t think a lot of the plants would survive such an ordeal.

A lot of the blooms are not your typical “flowers” – you have to look up to see them.

Red Maples (Acer rubrum)

But some of them are pretty close to the ground:

Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens)

In fact, the Latin name “Epigaea” for trailing arbutus means something like “pretty close the the ground.”

This will just be a quick post this evening. I am going on an Internet fast for 24 hours starting at sunset. This was something I had intended to do about a month ago, but forgot I was doing it and slipped up. Then I saw this challenge which reminded me that I had wanted to do this.

I think it’s good to unplug every now and then. I don’t intend to avoid all things electronic – just the Internet. Also, I find it amusing that in order to “take the pledge” on the organizer’s website, you have to have a Facebook account. No thanks Zuck! My goal is to be less plugged in, not more!

So if you comment on my blog and I don’t answer right away, now you know why.

 

Christmas Evergreens

I had the day off today, so I slept in a little (but not too much). We got a little bit of snow, but not as much as was forecast, and not even close to as much as I wanted. But I will take what I can get.

I went for a short walk around my woods and took photos of several tiny evergreens. I would hazard to guess that when most people hear of a tiny evergreen, this is what they think of:

Eastern White Pine (Pinus strobus)

This is a tiny eastern white pine. If it survives, it will not remain tiny though. I think the tallest trees on my property belong to this species. But there are plenty of evergreens that stay tiny their entire lives. Here are a few of them.

Wintergreen (Gaultheria procumbens)

Wintergreen is a tiny evergreen. The berries are delicious, and only moments passed between me taking this photo, and me eating my subject. Mmmm.

Goldthread (Coptis trifolia)

Goldthread is another tiny little evergreen. It’s roots are little gold threads. This one has two different binomial names: Coptis trifolia, and Coptis groenlandica. I learned it as C. groenlandica first, but I think C. trifolia is more commonly accepted.

Groundpine (Lycopodium)

Groundpine looks for all the world like a Christmas tree – except for its size. It is also called clubmoss. It is neither a pine, nor a moss, but rather, a flowerless plant belonging to its own eponymous class.

Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens)

Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) is another evergreen. It has leathery leaves sporting sharpish hairs. It blooms early in the spring, and the blossoms are edible. I tried them for the first time last spring and found them to be quite tasty.

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia)

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is not edible. It’s other names attest to this: lamb-kill and sheep-poison. I suppose I’d have to tear it all out if I wanted to run sheep back here. But the flowers are among my favorites. Like the other plants listed in this post, it too is an evergreen.

Partridge berry (Mitchella repens)

The last evergreen in today’s post is partridge berry (Mitchella repens). I have had several kids tell me that its berries are poisonous, but this is absolutely not true. I eat them all the time, and I have found no literature indicating that it is toxic. It reminds me of a wee tiny apple; not as crunchy, and not as sweet, but it is something I would gladly eat in great quantities.

So there we have seven tiny evergreens that I found growing in my woods today.

 

Solstice Oddity

I’ve not been able to get out and do much photography of late, as it gets dark here a little after 4:00pm now. Actually, I believe tonight is the earliest sunset of the year. I find it odd that the earliest sunset is not on the winter solstice, but is most certainly is not – it comes about a week before. The latest sunrise comes about a week after the solstice. The solstice is the shortest day of the year, so it sits halfway in between.

But that was a tangent!

Since there hasn’t been much in the way of light when I have time to take pictures, I don’t have many. So I decided to see what pictures I took, liked, but didn’t share yet. We’ll have to go back to Thanksgiving weekend for that. I took a walk with Penny down to Sandogardy Pond, and made a side trip into the town forest, past the sandpit, and to the area where Beth and I have hidden a geocache. This is some of what I managed to capture during that walk.

Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense)

This is a Canada Mayflower (Maianthemum canadense) poking its berries out of the snow (which is now long gone). It’s an early bloomer, and the fruit stays on for quite a while.

Witches' butter (Tremella mesenterica)

I believe this fungus is witches’ butter (Tremella mesenterica). According to Wikipedia, it is edible, but “bland and tasteless.” That hardly seems worth risking mushroom poisoning over.
I prefer to feast on it with my eyes.

Unidentified shrub

I don’t know what kind of shrub this is. My intention was to try to find out when I got home, but that didn’t happen (yet). It will be a lot easier to id if I wait until spring when it puts out leaves and flowers. I’ll check back then.

Near the Cache

This spot is pretty close to our geocache. The stream is wide and meandering at this point, and I’m pretty sure it’s shallow enough to wade across at about any point. But I sure think it’s pretty. I tarried here for a while and threw lots of sticks for Penny. She doesn’t seem to care much about scenery, except the extent to which it provides her with sticks.

The stream drains Sandogardy Pond and flows down into the Merrimack less than a mile from here. It’s name today is Cross Brook, but it had been called Little Cohas, Pipers, and Phillips as well. I prefer the oldest of these names, “Little Cohas Brook.” Little Cohas was the name of an Indian who had a cabin along the creek and used to hunt and fish around Sandogardy Pond in the 1750’s. I’d love to find the exact site of his cabin, but I think that is probably beyond my skill.

 

Beechnuts

Beechnuts (Fagus grandifolia)

Last weekend we were camping beneath several American beech trees (Fagus grandifolia). They had dropped their beechnuts and our camp site was covered with them.

The ones in the picture here are about the size (and roughly the same shape) as chocolate chips. They are not very big at all.

Beechnuts are one of those edible wild foods I had been wanting to try, but I had never seen them until last weekend. I recognized them immediately, then looked up and verified that we were under a beech canopy. Yup. I cracked one open on the spot and ate it. Then another, and another. I did this all weekend, as did several of the kids.

We collected beechnuts throughout the weekend. I was lucky in that one of the kids inexplicably didn’t like the taste of the nuts, but sure liked shelling them. I did her a favor and ate the ones she shelled.

By the time we were ready to roll out I had collected about one cup of nuts, and another one of the kids collected about twice that – and gave them to me. Score! I didn’t try to talk him out of it.

I did some Internet research to see if I could find an easy way to shell them, but so far, I’ve not turned up anything other than what we had been doing all weekend: start at a corner and peel off the shell. It’s a laborious task, and I would guess it will take me four hours to shell the three cups of nuts I brought home.

I popped them into the oven tonight to roast them. I let them go for 30 minutes at 300 degrees F, and man… if I thought they were good before, I was wrong! They are twice as good roasted as raw, and that’s saying a lot.

I will experiment with crushing them and trying to separate the nutmeat (aka mast) from the shells with water. I don’t know how well that will work.

I also tried popping a whole beechnut into my mouth and shelling it sunflower-style: crack with the teeth, find the kernel with the tongue, and spit out the shells. That kinda worked, but it crushed the meat making it difficult to get it all out. And this stuff is so good I don’t want to waste a single crumb.

As I experiment with shelling techniques, I will also continue to shell them one at a time and eat them as I go. I will either eat them all this way, or I will find a good way to do it more quickly. Then I’ll try to bake them into muffins or something.

I’ll keep you posted!

 

Backtracking

I didn’t take any photos today, so I’m going to post one I took while I was in KY. This is a mimosa blossom:

Mimosa

These do not grow in New Hampshire, and I don’t recall ever having seen one when I lived in Virginia. But they do grow in Kentucky and in Arkansas.

Mimosa trees were one of my favorite “toys” when I was a kid. The branches form very low to the ground and angle out at 45 degrees or less. This makes it incredibly easy to climb, and I spent many hours in the branches of these wonderful trees.

When we lived in Arkansas (from when I was four until I turned eight), whenever Mom would come home from the grocery store with bananas, my brother Steve and I would each grab one and run to the nearest Mimosa so we could pretend we were monkeys.

The nearest mimosa was in Mr. Ham’s yard. He was a widower who lived in the house next door, and I don’t think I’ve ever met a finer man. Mom was worried we would break a branch, so she hollered for us to get out of his tree. Mr Ham heard this and hollered back at Mom, “If they break a branch, I’ll just saw it off! You let those boys play in my tree!” What a guy!

We moved away from Arkansas after four years, as Dad was transferred to Grand Forks, ND. We moved back to Arkansas again four years later, but Mr Ham had died while we were up north. He was as much my grandpa as my real grandpa’s were.

The leaves of the mimosa are bipinnate, and the little leaflets can be easily stripped off and turned into whatever a kid’s imagination calls for. Soup anyone?

The flowers are fantastic, and they smell great too. The one in the photograph was growing at Virginia’s Dad’s place, and as you might be able to tell, it really took me back. A great deal of my childhood revolved around the mimosa.