Sunday Morning Walk

We were pretty busy people on Saturday. First we had our annual induction ceremony for the Adventurers and Pathfinders during the church service. That went pretty well, and I received a lot of positive comments on it.

After that, Va had an Adventurer meeting planned. It started at the church, and then moved to the Haggett Farm. Saturday night the Haggett’s had their annual Harvest Party, and a good time was had by all. I was pretty wiped out when I got home though. I went to bed about two hours earlier than normal, and stay in bed an hour later. I guess I got 10 hours of sleep, but I sure felt like I needed it.

After breakfast, I took Penny out for a walk.

Penny bring me a stick

As usual, we went to Sandogardy Pond. I took an off-route to get there though, as none of the kids were with me, and Penny doesn’t care how we get there as long as I throw sticks.

The water level in the pond was up markedly. So much, in fact, that the end of the dock was under water.

High Water

The beach was also not quite as wide, and a lot of plants that are normally growing on the shore were out in the water instead.

We made a side-trip to the sand quarry on the way home again. That made the walk a little longer, and it meant I threw even more sticks for Penny. But she’s OK with that!

 

Composites and Mushrooms

Here are some photos I took while out for a walk on Sunday.

New England Aster

I believe this is a New England Aster, but all I know for sure is that it is a purple aster growing in New England. There are hundreds of species of asters, and sometimes you need a microscope to distinguish them.

Fungus with concentric growth rings

I have identified this fungus in the past, but don’t remember what it was. I am just too lazy to look it up again.

Bur Marigold (Bidens cernua)

This is a Bur Marigold. It blooms late in the year, and I don’t think I saw any of these until September. The seeds of this plant take the form of an achene with very sharp barbs that hook into pant cuffs and dog ruffs with no effort whatsoever. Effort is reserved for their extraction from said cuffs and ruffs.

Hawkweed (Hieracium spp)

This little hawkweed was brilliant. I don’t recall the exact species, and I have not sufficiently overcome inertia to look it up.

Yet Another Aster

Again, asters are difficult to distinguish.

Yet Another New England Aster. Maybe.

Purple. Aster. New England.

Daisy fleabane (Erigeron annuus)

I may have misspelled the species name. I could look it up, but… you know. Then I’d feel obligated to look up the others.

White Campion (Silene spp)

Campion seems like it’s one ‘H’ sh ort of greatness. This is one of the few plants in bloom that is not a composite (such as daisies, goldenrod, sunflowers, and asters – all composites). We do still have blooming red clover, but I seldom photograph that.

The house is quiet tonight, as Beth is up in Maine with her school for Outdoor School. This evening, Penny and I walked down to Sandogardy (where many of the photos posted today were taken last Sunday). It was dark when we got home, so I didn’t get many photos. I haven’t even looked at them yet.

We had our first Pathfinder meeting of the year Sunday morning. That went pretty well. I have three new staff members this year. One is the parent of a new Pathfinder, and I am really looking forward to working with him. He travels a lot though, so he and my son David (my second new staff member) are double-teaming counseling duties for the Ranger class. This is David’s ninth year of Pathfinders, so I’m sure he will do just fine as a counselor.

The third new counselor is a 20 year old girl who I let in the club last year as a Pathfinder instead of as a staff member. She is a refuge from Burundi and still in high school. Her English is much better than my Kirundi, which is to say, I can’t always understand her. She is counseling three girls who are also from Africa (two from Burundi, and one from what is now South Sudan). They do not have any trouble at all communicating with her though, so I felt that I could use her effectively as a counselor this year. She really wanted to join again this year, and I allowed her if she agreed to be a staff member.

 

Sirenia crypticus

On Labor Day last week, Beth and I walked down to Sandogardy Pond in the pouring rain. I was in my rain gear, but Beth was not. She had already been playing outside in the rain, and I didn’t think she could possibly get any wetter. Penny came along too, and she didn’t mind the rain at all.

Unsurprisingly, the beach at the pond was abandoned. One of the first creatures I saw was this Sirenia crypticus (Or so I name it).

Sirenia crypticus

OK, that’s not really nature as I promised in my last post. But it should help us ease back into it.

Then on Friday I took a walk around my property. The weather was decidedly more clear, and I came away with some interesting shots. Here’s a mushroom (possibly some sort of chantrelle):

Inverted Mushroom

I liked the way the gills stood out on this one. I’ve been shooting a lot of mushrooms lately, as we seem to have them in spades. Also, there are not many flowers left (other than those in the Asterid family), so the mushrooms make an irresistible subject. I had Penny along while I was shooting, and she managed to kick me the ball just as I was taking this shot:

Penny, her ball, and an agaric

I usually manage to keep Penny out of my backgrounds, but when I looked at the composition of this one, I purposely framed her into the shot. The ball rolling by was a bonus.

Out at the end of my driveway by the road is a small stand of wild woodland sunflowers.

Woodland Sunflowers (Helianthus divaricatus)

I have to be careful with these, as they are coming up smack dab in the middle of a patch of poison ivy. I haven’t done anything about the poison ivy though, because I don’t think I can eliminate it without eliminating my sunflowers as well.

Incidentally, Beth managed to get into some poison ivy week, as she has a small affected area on her right wrist. I expect she got that in the woods though, where she and the neighbors have been playing in the canopy of a fallen tree.

David, Beth, and I went down to Sandogardy yesterday too, but I’ll save those pics for another day.

 

Surface Tension

Spider on Sandogardy Pond

I was at Sandogardy Pond Saturday and saw this spider hanging out on the surface of the pond. I think it’s pretty cool the way they can take advantage of surface tension to walk on water.

In other news, I just wanted to say that I am astounded Vermont has not been getting more news coverage following TS Irene. In my blogroll I have a link to Little Bang Theory. I have been reading his blog for a year or two. He lives in Western MA near Southern VT, and he has some jaw-dropping photos of the devastation there. His account is heartbreaking.

Next month the Pathfinders are scheduled to have our annual Fall Camporee at Molly Stark State Park. We expect clubs from all over VT, NH, and ME. But I just don’t see how it’s possible that we will be able to camp at Molly Stark after looking at the photos. Google Maps has removed portions of route 9 in southern VT, because Irene has removed portions of it from the face of the earth. Molly Stark is on a closed section of that road (which is a major thoroughfare in that area).

There’s a chance that I will deploy with ACS after all. We do not have an agreement with the state of VT, so setting things up will take longer. Also, I don’t know what good a warehouse would do, since it is not possible to deliver goods to the stricken areas of VT via the roads. You can’t get there from here!

 

White-spotted Sawyer Beetle

White-spotted Sawyer Beetle (Monochamus scutellatus)

This guy (or gal, I dunno) was hanging out on my deck yesterday. This is the best shot I manged to get, even though the antenna protrudes out of the frame.

I also should report that I went down to Sandogardy Pond on Saturday for the first time in three weeks, and saw a couple of new species in bloom for the season. Here they are:

Pipewort (Eriocaulon aquaticum)

Water Lobelia (Lobelia dortmanna)

Spotted Water Hemlock (Cicuta maculata)

Jewelweed (Impatiens capensis)

 

Early Morning

Yesterday evening I noticed that one of the dewdrops (Dalibarda repens) in my woods had finally bloomed. It was missing two of its five petals, but since it was the first one, I got out the camera. As I was adjusting it, Penny came tearing along the path, doing 90 miles per hour. Since I was standing on the path, Penny veered around me and stepped right on the dewdrop. That took it down to a single, mangled petal. I did not take a picture. Instead, I went looking for more. There are three patches of this stuff in my woods, all within 50 feet of each other. Patch number two had no blooms, but patch number three had this one:

Dewdrops (Dalibarda repens)

This is hands-down my favorite flower. It is the species that taught me how to take photos of flowers, because I found it totally impossible to photograph using the automatic settings of my previous camera. I had to learn the manual controls. This is kind of a rare plant. It’s endangered in Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina and Rhode Island. Actually, I just pasted most of that sentence in from the Wikipedia article, but that’s OK, because I’m the one that wrote it there in the first place. I started that article and put together the initial content. The photo in the article is also mine, and I don’t think I have ever taken a better shot of anything. That, my friends, is my best work. I use it as wallpaper on my computer.

So now that I have established my love affair with this plant for you, you can perhaps understand why I was so pleased to find one in bloom yesterday. I’ve been keeping an eye on those three patches for a couple of weeks. They have bloomed a little later this year as compared to previous years. I would have posted this last night, but my other news had me even more excited.

So excited, in fact, that I didn’t get much sleep last night because I couldn’t shut off my brain. I woke up early thinking about it too, so I did something most unusual for me – I got up. It was about 5:15 as I recall. I got dressed, went downstairs, got Penny’s leash, and we set out for Sandogardy Pond. Along the way, I spotted some beaked hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta):

Beaked hazelnuts (Corylus cornuta)

Sandy, if you’re still wondering if you found American or beaked hazel, this would be a good time to go check.

I also found some Pyrola along the way:

Pyrola (Pyrola spp)

I’m not sure what species of Pyrola this is – they are all pretty close to one another. Maybe roundleaf (P. americana), but I’m just not sure.

It was quiet at the pond. Foggy too:

Penny wades

I walked along the beach and saw that the floating heart (Nymphoides cordata) was in bloom now:

Floating heart (Nymphoides cordata)

It’s not hard to tell how it came about its common name, is it?

The swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris) had bloomed too:

Swamp candles (Lysimachia terrestris)

That can only mean that the pickerelweed should be blooming soon too.

At the end of the beach we turned right and headed into the woods along Cross Brook (which drains the pond). There is a patch of Indian cucumber-root (Medeola virginiana) growing there, and it’s been in bloom for a while now. But I don’t think I have posted any photos of it this year, so here we go:

Indian cucumber-root (Medeola virginiana)

This plant has a delicious tuber which tastes just like… yes – cucumber. If you don’t like cucumber, you should probably eschew Indian cucumber-root. I don’t eat much of it because there’s never much of it around.

Penny and I headed back home after that. I took a shower, and Jonathan and I headed to the office. I napped in the car a bit. I guess the walk helped me turn off my brain. 🙂

When we got home I went out and admired my Dewdrop blossom again. Then I went to the catchment pond where there’s a bit of Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata) growing. This plant has been threatening to bloom for about two weeks now. But today, I found a single blossom open (out of about two dozen).

Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata)

This flower is pretty closely related to wintergreen and pyrola, but it looks a lot more like pyrola. And like pyrola, it doesn’t present its best side to humans. That privilege is reserved for ants. I tipped the blossom upwards to get a shot of its innards:

Pipsissewa (Chimaphila umbellata)

Nice!

 

Sheep Laurel

Sheep Laurel (Kalmia angustifolia)

Sheep Laurel (Kalmia angustifolia) is one of my favorites. The blooms in this photo are about the same diameter as a dime. It’s in the same genus as the better-known Mountain Laurel (K. latifolia), but I have to climb a mountain to see that. K. angustifolia grows on my property, though the specimens here seem bloom-resistant. This one grows at the base of a huge white pine at Sandogardy Pond. Beth and I took Penny down there this evening.

Kalmia is the only genus in my personal list of flowering plants that starts with K. Another name for Sheep Laurel is Lambkill, and you can probably guess where it came by that moniker.

After spending a lot of time learning the binomial names of plants, I eventually started to recognize a little Latin. There are a lot of plant genera with an angustifolia and a latifolia species. The former means “narrow leaves” and the latter means “wide leaves.”

In addition to Kalmia (the Laurels), the genera Typha (cattails) and Elaeagnus (autumn olive) also have angustifolias and latifolias. There are probably hundreds of others.

 

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.

 

Exercise

Last Saturday I had planned to get in a three-mile snowshoeing trek with Beth after church. But I had forgotten that I had planned something for the Pathfinders that afternoon. Actually, it’s even worse than that – I had double booked two Pathfinder activities and ended up having to reschedule one involving a small number of kids.

The Pathfinder activity we ended up doing was to visit a church member who lives in an assisted living home with several other people who need assistance. We had made soap for them last month, but in the confusion, didn’t manage to give it all away (not by a long shot). Also last month, the church member we were intending to visit wasn’t there when we arrived. So we opted for a re-do.

This time I spoke to Bert the week before as well as that morning. He was happy we were coming, and this time he was there when we arrived. We sang a half dozen hymns and visited with the people who live there for 45 minutes or so, gave them the soap, and then left.

When I got home, I was so wiped out that I could barely keep my eyes propped open, so instead of snowshoeing with Beth, I took a nap. But come Sunday, we gave it a go after breakfast.

We walked down to Sandogardy Pond, and cut through the ex-forest on the way. That stretch is pretty difficult to navigate during the spring, as the loggers left a huge mess of limbs all over the place. It is literally a foot deep with brush left over from the logging operation. Penny loves going there though, as there are sticks aplenty. With two feet of snow cover though, it’s a lot easier to walk through it – assuming one is equipped with snowshoes (as we obviously were). I imagine it would be close to impossible to travel through that field right now without snowshoes, but with snowshoes, it was a snap – better than walking on the road (where we are treated to the constant clack-clack-clacking of snowshoes on the pavement/hardpack). That can’t be good for the snowshoes either.

When we got to the pond, we headed down to the creek that empties it and crossed a little snowmobile/ATV bridge. Penny hates that bridge and refuses to set foot on it. During the other three seasons, she will gladly wade through the stream, and I’m pretty sure she would have this time too (she made several feints in the direction as I rebuked here). I finally caught her and carried her over the bridge. The last thing I need is a hypothermic dog. It was only about 15 degrees outside, so even though she was more than willing to plunge into the stream, we decided to let the human do the thinking this time. Then we shuffled over to the railroad tracks.

These tracks are not used by trains in the winter, and are in fact, a designated snowmobile trail. We hiked up that for maybe half a mile, when Beth reported that she was just dying of thirst. I don’t know why I didn’t think to bring water, but there you go. We had none. I was not thirsty, but she insisted that she was. So we turned around and headed back towards the house.

Instead of crossing the creek at the bridge though, we detoured across the pond. That was pretty easy going for Beth and me, but Penny sure had a hard time of it, as the snow was deep, and she sank in with every step.

She eventually figured out what I’m calling a “weasel walk” – where she’d leap from one spot to another. It was only a hundred yards or so across that corner of the pond though, so she managed OK.

We saw several squirrels on our hike, and some mystery tracks. I don’t know if coons are active yet or not, but the prints sure looked like they could have been left by one of those. Or maybe skunk. Or mink. I really ought to compare the few photos I took to my field guides and then make a guess. I’d post them here, but I haven’t downloaded them off the camera yet. Yes, I am feeling that lazy today.

Because we turned around a little too soon, we didn’t quite make 2.5 miles. I wanted to take a three mile hike so I could claim the newly-minted Snowshoeing honor. Hopefully, the snow will hang around long enough for me to pull that off this winter, but I won’t get another chance for two more weeks.

When we got home, we were both pretty tired. Whoever said that early morning exercise would invigorate a person is nuts. I was not invigorated – I was completely wiped out! And it wasn’t even lunch time yet. I plopped down on the couch and Beth climbed into my lap. When I woke up, she was asleep there.

So even though I had a nice nap after my morning hike, I was still pretty tired! That tiredness stayed with me the whole day too.

Va is of the opinion that one should not engage in vigorous exercise just before bedtime, as the endorphins (or whatever) will prevent an easy passage into slumberland. Well, I say that’s nuts. My passage was plenty easy!

Now that the sun it still (barely) up when I get home from work, I do plan to tap my one maple tree that’s big enough to tap. Maybe this year I can get more than one pint of syrup out of it. And maybe if I can round up a couple more buckets, I can tap a few birch trees this year too. I have maybe half a dozen of those I could try. We’ll see what happens!