Gone Fishin’

Yesterday after church I loaded my canoe on top of my car in preparation for a road trip (more on that later). But since it was up there, I figured I ought to go paddling. At first I was thinking I’d do something easy, like Sandogardy Pond. But as the idea germinated, it morphed into a Merrimack River trip. Still easy, because I was planning to put in, paddle upstream, turn around, and take out where I had put in. That neatly solves the problem of getting the car to the take out – but at the expense of having to paddle upstream.

So with the plan all formulated, Beth and I executed. There’s a river access point about five minutes from my house (by car). So off we went. I brought my camera and the GPS, because the closest geocaches to my house that I have not found are all along the river. Why not pick off a few? For good measure, I put the GPS in the camera bag, and put the camera bag in a gallon ziplock (just in case).

The first one was on an island. Beth managed to find it before I had the coordinates entered into the GPS.

Beth signs “Eyes to the Island”

Beth wanted to learn how to steer the canoe, and since that is mostly done from the stern, we traded seats. I waited until we were finished paddling upstream to do this, as it’s a lot easier to steer when going downstream vs upstream. She was pretty happy that I let her try that.

Beth in the Stern

We had passed two geocache locations, but decided we’d hunt for them on the way back vs on the way up. There were two more on the agenda besides the one on the island. One was in a little cove, and we paddled into it (I did do some of the steering from the bow). We looked and we looked, but we couldn’t find it. So I started trying to get us turned around. There wasn’t quite enough room in the cove to do a 180, and in my attempts to force the boat around, I lost my balance and fell backwards into the gunwales. I don’t know how it even happened, but the next thing I knew, the gunwales were under water, and shortly after that, we were both standing in the river with the canoe next to us.

How embarrassing! I thought I knew how to handle a canoe! The first thing I did was grab my zip-locked camera bag. Whew! The zipper was closed, and the camera bag was dry. I clambered out of the river and put the camera on the bank. Meanwhile Beth was not very happy, and asking me why I had done that. If only I knew sweetie!

I hauled the canoe out of the water and dumped out most of the water. But there was still too much in there, so I waded back into the water and lifted the stern up over my head while the water poured through the scuppers. In short order, the boat was dryer than we were. We reloaded, and set off again to look for cache number three.

Before we got there, Beth had forgotten how upset she was with me. The third cache was located in a tree on a very steep bank, and there was really no place to pull the boat out of the water. So Beth climbed the bank, and I stayed in the canoe to keep it in position.

She searched everywhere, but that cache was nowhere to be seen. She got back in the boat (but had given up on steering by then – and let me have the stern again). We paddled back towards the put-in/take-out.

We passed some irises.

Wild Iris

She picked a few and pressed them when we got home.

It took me a while to get my wet clothes off. I did that in the kitchen rather than traipsing through the house, mud and all. Then I took a shower. After I was all cleaned up, I looked at poor, poor Penny who did not get to go paddling with us (I’ve tried that before, and it doesn’t work very well – she does not like to stay in the boat).

So I invited David to hike with us to Sandogardy Pond, and he accepted. Penny chased sticks, and David and I talked. At one point he said something like “Your mad botany skills are going to be your undoing.” Maybe he had forgotten about my mad canoeing skills earlier in the day (Beth told everyone!)

I explained to him that I was a “mad botantist” rather than a “mad zoologist” because plants don’t run away when you approach them with a camera. They are a lot easier to work with as subjects!

So here are some of the results of my “mad botany” from the hike.

Dogbane (Apocynum spp)

I don’t remember if this is plain old dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) or intermediate dogbane (A. medium). I know one of them has reflexed petals (as this one does), but now I don’t remember which one of them that is. And I don’t have my books with me right now, so I can’t look it up. Wikipedia isn’t helping me out here any either.

When we got to the pond I found some grass-leaved arrowhead (Sagittaria graminea).

Grass-leaved arrowhead (Sagittaria graminea)

There’s not a lot of this growing at the pond, but a few always seem to bloom right near the dock.

I was also surprised to find this one:

Pale St. Johnswort (Hypericum ellipticum)

The Connecticut Botanical Society says this blooms from July to August. I looked in my records to find the earliest I had seen it in bloom, but couldn’t find any entries. Hmmm. Maybe this is one I learned after I quit being so conscientious about logging.

So all told, it was a good day, even though I dumped my daughter (and my pride) in the drink.

On to today!

Beth, Jonathan, and I set out for our road trip. We are on the way to Kentucky to visit my family, and to go fishing with them in Arkansas. I haven’t been to Dad’s favorite fishing hole in about 19 years. That’s because I don’t really like to fish. Which is why I am bringing the canoe.

Canoe on top, and road beneath

I do not intend to fish. Instead, I will paddle up and down the Red River and try not to capsize. I used to be pretty good in a canoe, and have run class III rapids in this one on many occasions! So let’s hope that was just a fluke, and not a harbinger of things to come.

Anyhow… we are in a hotel in Waynesboro, VA right now after a pretty long day of driving. When the whole family comes along we don’t usually get this far. We will stay here for two nights, and the NAD will pay for our room. I am meeting my friend Mark O’Ffill, the webmaster for Pathfinders Online, and we are going to work on getting the Pathfinder Honors Wikibook onto a NAD-hosted server so that we can expand it. The plan is to create a new Instructor’s Manual for the new Investiture Achievement curricula, which is more overtly religious than the Honors Answer Book. As such, it cannot adhere to Wikibook’s “Neutral Point of View” (NPOV) policies. The material will still be licensed under the Creative Commons – otherwise we could not do this at all. This project has been in the works for almost a year now, and tomorrow we intend to make some real headway on it.

Meanwhile, what is the rest of the family up to? Va does not want to go fishing OR canoeing. I like to say that “she likes nature, she just doesn’t want to get any of it on her.” 😉 Therefore, she and David (and Penny) will meet us in KY next week after the fishing and paddling is all said and done. But before they arrive, Jonathan will have to head back home. He has an orientation session at UNH to attend (and less vacation at work than I do). So he will drive back before Va and David arrive. As you can imagine, the logistics for this trip have been a challenge!

More bulletins as events warrant!

 

Grandma’s Irises

Yesterday after work I took a lap around my woodlot with Penny and found that the trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens) is coming along nicely.

Trailing arbutus (Epigaea repens)

So far that’s the only thing in bloom in my woods at ground level. The red maples are still going, but I think they’re on their last hurrah.

I made my way around to the front of the house and saw these:

Grandma's Irises

I had forgotten about them. I dug them up at my parents house last summer and replanted them here. I was thinking these were my Grandma’s irises, but they could also be my Dad’s day lilies. Or they could be both, I’m just not sure. I’ll surely know later this year when they get bigger and possibly even bloom.

The photo is nothing to write about though. The sun had already gone down by the time I found them, so I set the camera on a rock and jacked the exposure time up to a quarter second. Meh.

I went for a walk today during lunch. I walked my usual route but in the reverse direction. Right outside the office I stopped where there’s a stand of curly dock (Rumex crispus). I wasn’t hungry (having just eaten), but it looked good, so I harvested a couple of mouthfuls and quickly gobbled them down. They are very tasty at this stage. I didn’t think to take a picture, but maybe I will again tomorrow.

I continued my walk and stopped by a sugar maple to see how it was coming along. At first I didn’t see anything green on it, but upon closer inspection:

Sugar maple (Acer saccharum)

I expect it will be in bloom tomorrow.

My walk took my behind some department stores and along the railroad tracks. There were a lot of dandelions in bloom.

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

I ate one of the blossoms. To me, that is the only part of a dandelion that is even remotely palatable. Other people rave about them and crave them, but I just don’t get that. Samuel Thayer (in my opinion the best writer on the topic of edible wild plants) writes that the crowns are good and has a long discussion on that in Natures Garden. So I tried one. It’s not terrible, but I don’t think I could stand to eat an entire serving of them.

Other people near here have been reporting (and photographing and blogging about) finding a lot of other plants that I think I should be seeing – but don’t yet. Coltsfoot (Tussilago farfara) and Japenese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) are the primary ones I’m interested in. Coltsfoot because I think it’s a cool looking plant. Knotweed because I want to eat some. In fact, if I can manage it, I’d like to decimate the stand of knotweed near my house by eating as much of it as I can. It’s an invasive alien, and I happen to know that this particular stand has already crowded out at least one native plant – Fringed loosestrife Lysimachia ciliata. Realistically, I don’t think it’s possible for me to single-handedly eat down an entire colony of Janpanese knotweed, but I’d like to give it the old college try anyhow. It tastes pretty OK!

 

Penny and the Mint Leaves

Baby dragonfly

I am no expert when it comes to identifying insects, and I believe this one in particular would pose difficulty for me as it does not appear to be a full-fledged adult, and most field guides show illustrations of adults. I may post it to Bug Guide later.

I took this at Sandogardy Pond today. Beth and I rode down their on bicycles today, and I had Penny on an extended leash (which presents its own set of challenges). When we got there, Beth saw other kids swimming, and she immediately regretted not thinking to bring a swimsuit. She suggested that we turn around, don swimsuits, and then return. I thought that was a fine idea, so we made a U-turn and went back to the house.

I did not change clothes other than trading my hiking shoes for paddling sandals. Beth suggested that we drive rather than ride bikes, and since I was pretty winded from biking, I gave in. We left Penny at home too.

Even though I wanted to do a little wading myself, I decided to wear jeans. I just don’t like shorts, plus it spares the public from being blinded by my super-white legs. When we got back to the Pond, I waded in looking for bullhead lilies and maybe some floating hearts. But I found this first:

Broadleaf Pondweed (Potamogeton natans)

Broadleaf Pondweed (Potamogeton natans) is a new one to me. It was not in any of my Peterson’s Field Guides. Instead I found it in Aquatic Plants & Algae of New Hampshire’s Lakes and Ponds, by Amy P. Smagula and Jody Connor. It was a free publication of the NH Department of Environmental Services. In fact, Jody Connor was the one who emailed me back about the iron bacteria in Sandogardy last week. The publication is in the form of a downloadable PDF. The nice thing about that work is that it is nice and focused. And the broadleaf pondweed was in there. However, the photos are not the greatest, so once I had a candidate species name, I checked in with Wikipedia, and they do have some very nice photos of the plant. That’s what I call a positive id.

I did find a bullhead lily (Nuphar lutea) while I was out wading. The big ones were out in deeper water, but this one was big enough.

Bullhead lily (Nuphar lutea)

I guess I caught this one before the bugs found it. The inside of a bullhead lily blossom is almost always crawling with little insects. But not today!

Meanwhile Beth was having a blast swimming. She was pretending to be an alligator, and she was going to eat me! Eeek! I did the only thing I knew to do – took a photo!

Threatened by a hungry "alligator"

I somehow managed to get away and found that the little patch of wild strawberries near the beach had lots of ripe strawberries. Since this particular alligator has a weakness for strawberries, and since she was obviously famished with hunger, I called her over.

Take a good look!

After a careful inspection of the bounty, she dove right in:

Free for the pickin'

While the alligator satisfied her hunger on vegetarian fare, I continued looking for blooms. These irises were growing near the dock, and they had a visitor:

Iris

After taking a few shots of that, I found that I was being strafed by a dragonfly – this time a full-grown one. I still have made no attempt to identify its species though.

Dragonfly of some sort

There are lots of blogs out there with dragonfly photographers whose work far exceeds mine. I don’t expect to match their work for a very long time (if ever).

While I was out wading, I collected some leaves from the pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata). Peterson says that the leaves can be chopped and added to salad or boiled for ten minutes if they are collected before they fully unfurl. Well, they still looked a little “furled” to me, so I collected about one servings’s worth. I also collected a bit of wild mint (Mentha arvensis). I opted to boil the pickerweed (since it did come from a pond full of swimmers, etc, I figured that would be the safer route). It didn’t come out so well. My teeth were unable to reduce the fiber to anything less than a wad of string. Since I have no rumen, I spit it out and decided to try again next year when the leaves are even more furled than they were today. Problem is, the water is colder then too!

I had no clear idea of what I wanted to do with one little mint specimen. So I gave it to Penny. She sniffed at it and took it in her teeth, and then she did the most surprising thing that caught us all off guard!

Dog perfume!

She dropped it on the floor and began to vigorously rub it into her ruff! I have seen her to that was far more objectionable odor-giving substances. Usually it’s something that drives me to give her a bath post-haste!

Penny, you did good this time!

 

Rainy Walk

Today while I was finishing a nap, David took Penny down to Sandogardy Pond. I had just woken up, so I didn’t feel up to it. When he got back, the family had some supper, and by then, it was raining steadily.

But I have rain gear, so I thought I could take another solo walk down to the pond to see what I could see. David saw me putting on my rain pants, and decided he would join me. Cool! I was not expecting that. I asked Beth if she wanted to come, and to my surprise, she did too. Double bonus!

Penny knows when I’m going outside by any number of cues. I think this time it was the rain pants. Other things that will tip her off are the camera bag, my hat, and my shoes. By the time I grabbed my shoes she was in a frenzy and raring to go. She has a habit of sitting on my feet when I’m trying to put them on. I think it’s so I can’t get away without her being there, but it sure slows down the shodding process.

The four of us set out and didn’t get too far down the road before I saw a white iris. I guess that’s what it is:

White Iris

I don’t think I’ve ever seen one of these before. It was not there yesterday, because I took a picture of a day lily about three feet away then. I would have noticed. The day lily was in bloom again too.

By the time we got to the pond, the rain had stopped and the mosquitoes came out. They weren’t too thick though. The temperature was in the mid-fifties, so I was wearing a heavy shirt. Between that and my rain coat, they only had a shot at my hands and face, and they didn’t try very hard for those.

I found a mussel of some sort. I have never attempted to put an id on one of these, so I have no idea what species it might be. When I pulled it out of the edge of the water, it sucked in its pseudopod.

Beth holding a mussel

We put it back when we were done looking at it. I suppose it will become muskrat food soon enough. There are always piles of opened mussel shells on the shoreline, and since I know muskrats love to eat those, and since I have seen them here swimming under the ice, it’s probably safe to assume this is their work:

Muskrats need a busboy

David borrowed my camera and took several shots of the pond. The fog was rising off the water and he was trying to capture that. Here’s one of his better shots:

Fog on Sandogardy

I managed to get my three companions in a shot out on the dock:

On the dock

We came home shortly after that shot was taken. I think everyone enjoyed the walk, and probably me most of all. Or maybe that would be Penny!

 

Walk to Sandogardy Pond

Tonight when I got home, I took a stroll around our property to see if I would find anything interesting to photograph.

Chimaphila umbellata

I can’t remember the common name of this plant, but the binomial nomenclature is Chimaphila umbellata. It’s a type of winter green, and I missed seeing it in bloom last year. It’s almost ready to bloom now, so I’ll keep and eye on it until it does.

Strawberry!

I caught a flash of red out of the corner of my eye and found this at the edge of the driveway. I didn’t know I had any wild strawberries there. I do know I have lots of dewberries there though, and those are almost indistinguishable from strawberries until they fruit. Dewberry fruits look just like blackberries, but the leaves and flowers look just like strawberries. Dad clued me in last year when I posted about this, that dewberries will have thorn-like hairs on the canes, while strawberries will not. But you really have to look close to see that! Let’s just say that I was totally surprised when I found this strawberry in my dewberry patch. Also, it was delicious!

After supper I decided to take a walk down to Sandogardy Pond. Beth was playing with a neighbor, and the boys were playing on the Wii, so it was just me and Penny. I enjoy walks when I’m alone, because that lets me set the pace without feeling I’m holding anyone up or going too fast. We headed for Sandogardy Pond.

Iris

When I got to the pond I found the patch of irises that grows near the dock in full splendor. Nice.

And speaking of Sandogardy Pond, back on the first of this month, I posted a picture of some oil at the edge of the Pond. I sent a photo to the NH Department of Environmental Services, and they got back to me almost right away. They didn’t think that was oil at all, but rather, an iron-reducing bacteria. I was not convinced, but they are the ones with degrees in biology, not me. Then today, I got another email from them:

Hi Jim- Thank you for the email.

Both the DES Biology Bureau and Oil Response received notice last week with similar concerns regarding potential petroleum products in Sandogardy Pond. As a result, DES inspected the site. Please see the following summary from an email response on 6/7 to Xxxx Xxxxx, another property owner on Sandogardy.

———————————————————————————————–

As discussed earlier today and confirmed during a follow-up site visit around 10 am this morning no petroleum products were detected at the Town Beach on Glines Park Road or along East Side Road (I met up with your neighbor, Xxxxx Xxxxxxx).

I had also forwarded your letter and discussed the issue with Ray Reimold, DES Oil Spill Response. Ray conducted a separate site inspection at 7:30 this morning looking for petroleum products but only found iron bacteria along the Town beach. He did not see any evidence of iron bacteria or petroleum products along the shoreline off East Side Road.

Please see the attached photos taken by DES this morning showing the iron bacteria and evidence of iron (reddish stain) along the edge of the pond near the beach.

In addition, please see the following DES fact sheet describing iron bacteria.

Click to access bb-18.pdf

I tend to believe them a lot more when they send people out there to look at it. That’s pretty cool. I had no idea that bacteria could produce a rainbow slick.

While I was out that way with no one to tell me they wanted to go home or stay at the playground, or whatever, I decided to head down a trail that leads to the geocache Beth and I had planted in the woods near there. Penny is always willing to come along. This trail ends at a wetland which has at its center the creek that drains Sandogardy Pond. I washed the sand out of Penny’s leash and noticed some spatterdock blooming farther out:

Spatterdock (Nuphar lutea)

I think Peterson calls these Bullhead Lily, and I have heard it called yellow pond lily too. The ones in the pond are not yet blooming, so this was a nice surprise.

I got home just before dark. That’s when I found seven ticks on myself! None had attached, so that was good. I always flush them, and poo-poo anyone who says that doesn’t kill them. Once they’re in the septic tank, I don’t think I need to worry about them any more.

What surprised me about finding seven ticks was that I had doused myself pretty good with some mosquito repellent. I took a second look at that stuff tonight, and I won’t be using it again. It has no DEET and claims only to repel mosquitoes. It says nothing (correctly!) about repelling ticks.

I changed clothes.