Cardboard Canoe Construction Continues

Yesterday Beth and I took a a short hike to visit our geocaches.  Hers had been reported as somewhat vandalized, and I wanted to drop a travel bug in mine.  The vandalism to hers was not severe.  Someone had found it and scattered the stuff in it around.  The cacher who reported this could not find the a log book.  So we went there with a new log book, and hid the cache somewhere else.  We need to add more toys to it though.

Then we quickly made a visit to my cache.  I dropped the travel bug in it, and also emptied all the trade items and arranged them in a pose.

I don’t know which if these guys is Little Cohas.  We bushwhacked to the cache (that is the only way to get there), but from a different direction this time.  On the way, we saw a log crossing Little Cohas Brook, and from the other side of the creek, it was only 50 feet or so to the railroad tracks.  So we crossed the log.

Beth went first.  Penny went last, but she decided to swim across.  It was much easier going that way, because there is a trail that dumps out onto the railroad tracks. 

We went home and I got cleaned up a bit.  Va and I had tickets to see the Granite State Symphony Orchestra (compliments of my employer).  They performed three songs, one of which I am well familiar with, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Russian Easter Overture.  I especially enjoyed that one.  Va liked that las piece they performed, Tchaikovski’s Fourth Symphony.  I may have liked that one better had I been familiar with it, and I guess that says something about me.

The next morning we had a Pathfinder meeting, and we resumed work on the cardboard boats.  Here’s where we left them:

I need to bring in a second set of sawhorses to put the kayak on.  It’s hard to work on it on the table (can’t get the rope beneath it very handily).  I am very well pleased with the progress of the kayak.  If we pull this off (and it looks like we will), I am convinced it will be the fastest boat in the competition in May.

 

On the Tradewater – Part Two

Tradewater near my parent's house

This next story occurred a year or two after I took an accidental March dip in the Tradewater.

It all began with a deep snow (for Kentucky, anyhow). I guess we got about eight inches or so, which is not unheard of there, but is quite a lot for one storm. School was cancelled, so my brothers Mike (older) and Steve (younger) and our friend and constant companion Sam Brown decided we should go for a hike.

It would have been an excellent day to use snowshoes, but none of us had those. A good second choice would have been boots, but none of us had those either. We had sneakers, and thought nothing of it (until later). We loaded a pack with bacon, eggs, matches, a skillet, plates, and some forks and we were off.

We started our trek by hiking down Route 109 until we crossed the Tradewater on the bridge there. Then we walked along the river bank all the way to Lake Beshear. I guess the outbound portion of the hike took us about an hour. We messed around at the lake for a little while and then headed back, retracing our steps along the same path.

There are a lot of bluffs along the river there, and we chose a place under one to build a fire and cook the bacon and eggs. It didn’t take long to get the fire going, and once it was nice and hot, I sat down on a ledge and took my soaked sneakers off. I set them on the stone ring around the fire with the hope that the fire would dry them out a little. My socks were likewise soaked, so I took those off too, and held them over the fire with the same hope I had for the shoes. My bare feet were also dangling over the cheery flames.

Mike was busy cooking the bacon, and it wasn’t long before it was ready. He used a fork to take each slice from the skillet and laid them on a plate situated on the stone ring right next to my soggy shoes. With all the bacon cooked, it was time to cook the eggs. But there was just too much grease in the skillet! Mike did that which comes natural to a teenage kid when faced with the dilemma of too much bacon grease and a campfire. He poured it right into the flames.

Maybe you can see where this is going. I wish I could say that I had the same foresight at the time that you do now.

With the addition of 15,000 BTU’s of bacon grease, the flames roared upwards, immediately reaching a height of about three feet. And those three feet were plenty to reach my two feet which were still dangling over the campfire-turned-inferno. Quick as a flash, I swung my legs out of the way and leapt down from the ledge, landing in a bank of snow in my bare feet. I don’t remember what I did with my socks. As I leapt, I manged to knock about a pint of dirt off the ledge right into the bacon.

Our tempers flared to match the flames. I was yelling at Mike about torching my feet, and he was yelling right back at me for ruining all the bacon. Yes, all of it. That’s when I looked down and noticed that my shoes were both on fire!

I plucked the flaming sneakers out of the expanded fire and began beating them against the snow on the ledge in a successful bid to extinguish them. But they looked terrible. So here I was, out in the woods, an hour’s hike from home, practically shoeless, and with eight inches of snow on the ground.

We cooked up the eggs.

After assessing the shoes, I decided they were still largely functional. Not pretty mind you, but functional. The rubber around the toes was blackened and melted, but there were no major holes in them (other than the ones that were there when we set out earlier in the day). I put my sopping wet socks on my even colder feet, and then jammed them into the shoes. Yes – this could work.

We hiked home.

I continued to wear those shoes for another couple of months. They seemed to do the job. I told Mom I needed some new shoes, but since the damage to them was largely cosmetic, new shoes slipped down a couple of notches on the priority list. I did not press the issue, and I bet Mom forgot. I was (and still am) fine with that.

I learned that day what will happen when you pour grease on a fire. I also learned something about the importance of hiking with adequate gear, and planning for the unexpected.

As Roald Amundsen said, “Adventure is just bad planning.” I think that applies pretty well to this adventure.

 

Bridge Out

West Road Bridge

Last weekend Beth and I went for a walk after church. We decided to walk around an old bridge over the Merrimack River. As you can see from the photo, the bridge is no longer functional. It used to connect Canterbury to Boscawen, but it hasn’t done that since around 1965. And yet, here it is still.

Both Google Maps and my Tomtom GPS recommended this as a good way for me to get to Concord from my house. I disabused my Tomtom of that notion and reported the error to Google. Google eventually saw the wisdom in my recommendation to remove this bridge from its database, but it took them a year (they did get back to me on that though).

Penny loved it here. I let her off her leash as there were no people around. This is a popular swimming hole in the warm months – not so much now though. Penny kept us supplied with sticks, as is her wont.

There is a geocache in this area too. I looked for a it a couple of times but was not able to find it. Then I noticed one day that it had been stolen from its original location, replaced, and hid somewhere else. No wonder I couldn’t find it. Armed with the new coordinates, Beth and I made quick work of finding it.

There was another one upstream from there, but I didn’t think we’d be able to get it. It is supposedly located on an island. I figured that if the river level were down enough, we could probably reach it, so we set out in that direction.

There are some fields along the river here, with signs that say something to the effect of “The walking public are welcome, but snomobiles and ATV’s are not.” That’s my kind of place! We walked through a post-harvest cornfield and found this fly in a milkweed pod:

Fly on Milkweed

I tried to get his picture while he was still inside the pod, but that disturbed him too much, and he made a quick exit. I guess it was too cold for him to go very far though, so I managed to get this shot.

American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens)

There was lots of this stuff growing on the banks. I didn’t know what it was, though I have seen it before. When I got home I looked it up and found that it is American bittersweet (Celastrus scandens). It should not be eaten (unless you want to vomit).

When we got far enough upstream where I could see the island, I could tell there was no way we could cross over to it without swimming. By then Beth was ready to go back home (though Penny was not), so we turned around.

 

Another Afternoon at Sandogardy Pond

Today after lunch, Beth, Penny, and I headed down to Sandogardy Pond again. There were a lot of people there as both the temperature and humidity were nearly 90. Beth swam. I took pictures of aquatic plants.

Triadenum virginicum (Virginia marsh St. Johnswort)

I’m pretty sure I’ve posted pics of this species already this year, but they were out in force today, so I took several more shots. I liked this one the best.

I also came across one I don’t yet know. I have misplaced my “main” field guide, and have had no luck thus far with the FG’s I do have on hand. It might be one I used to know and then forgot:

Unidentified Flower

If anyone out there recognizes it, I’d be grateful for an ID.

Penny spent the whole time taking sticks to people and convincing them to throw them for her. Most obliged. Kids tend to throw them out into the pond, but that does not daunt Penny in the least:

Stick Fetcher

We came home after about an hour. I took a nap, had some supper, and then Beth and I went out again in the evening to do a little geocaching. We found two and then came home.

 

On the Ice

Today after church (and after lunch), David and I took Penny for a hike down to Sandogardy Pond. David had asked if we could go out on the pond, as it has been frozen over for several weeks now. That’s something I had been wanting to do too, so I said “We’ll see.”

We saw several squirrel tracks, and some that I think may have been left by a pair of foxes. There is some sort of carcass on the access road to the pond, and we checked in on that again. Lots of animals have been feeding on it based on the tracks. I still don’t know what kind of animal the carcass belonged to – it’s about the size of a small-to-medium dog, with coarse grey hair. It could be a raccoon. It’s hard to tell because most of it is buried in the snow.

We got to the pond and there were two pickups parked there. Then we saw a guy out on the ice making a hole. He was about 150 yards from the shore. There were lots and lots of snowmobile and ATV tracks all over the place too. David pointed out the ice fisherman, and I suggested that there had to be another one too, because there were two trucks. We scanned around and found the other one. He was out there with a small boy – somewhere between 5 and 10 years old. They also had a dog. I saw the dog’s tracks before I saw the dog, and I’m pretty sure we saw the dog before it saw us. We decided to hike all the way across the pond, which I’d say is well over a quarter mile, but not quite a half. The pond itself is 60 acres, and only a little bit longer north-to-south than it is wide east-to-west.

About halfway across the other dog noticed us and came bounding over. For some reason, Penny didn’t seem to notice until the other dog was right up to us. She just doesn’t pay much attention to other dogs. They read one another’s name tags, and Penny seemed pretty unconcerned. I tried to take a pictures, but Penny wouldn’t get far enough from me to be in the shot. I guess she was a bit concerned. I gave the camera to David. By then the other dog decided it would be a good idea to try to scare us away. I guess. It started barking. David took this picture about then:

Get off my pond!

About then, the owner called the dog, and it left us. I suggested to David that perhaps if we made the breaststroke moves with our arms, we could claim that we had done the breaststroke across Sandogardy Pond, and thus claim the Swimming Honor. There are five levels of swimming in Pathfinders, and right now the only thing between me and the fourth one (which is called – Swimming) is to do the breaststroke for 100 yards. I’m good for about half that distance before I just get too tired! Maybe if Jonathan and I can keep up our exercise regimen and kick it up a notch, I’ll have the stamina to do that in April when the Pathfinders go to the pool.

I took these pictures of David while we were out there:

David on the Ice

David and Penny on Sandogardy Pond

Hiking out on the ice wasn’t really all the easy either. The snow out there was about six inches deep, and that makes for some tough slogging. A couple of years ago I bought some rawhide so that I could use it to make a pair of snowshoes. I just haven’t made time to actually make the snow shoes. I want a pair that looks a little more “Indian” than the practical PVC ones you can buy for exorbitant sums at sporting goods stores everywhere (well, everywhere around here). It would have been good to have had them last year too, as we got something like 10 feet of snow (really!)

We eventually made it back to “dry land” and then hiked back t othe house. Penny helpfully found several tree branches for us to throw, including this one:

Fetch, Penny!

Penny would make a good firewood gathering dog.