Mount Major

Today after church one of my friends heard that I was planning to hike up Mount Major after lunch. He and his daughter wanted to join us, and we were more than happy for the company. We both went home to change clothes and eat, and then we met in Tilton. From there, I led the way to the trailhead.

My three companions

We got to the trailhead at about 3:00pm. Beth wanted to carry our pack (it had water in it, plus a first aid kit and some snacks), so I let her. It wasn’t long before she asked me to take it, which was just what I expected.

The girls do some boulder scrambling

Bella saw a rock that she thought looked like New York State. I had to agree.

New York is also a granite state

There was plenty of sheep laurel (same genus as mountain laurel) in bloom. I have a lot of this in my woods, but it never blooms like this.

Sheep laurel (Kalmia angustifolia)

There was also a lot of this viburnum in bloom.

Unidentified Viburnum

I don’t know which species of Viburnum it is – just that it is one.

When we got to the top there were several people there, and many of them were more than willing to throw sticks for Penny.

Penny at the summit

I cautioned them to not throw any sticks over the edge of a cliff, as I’m pretty sure Penny would go after one. She is a smart dog, but she is also single minded when it comes to fetching sticks. To her, it is The Most Important Thing. More so, even than her own well-being.

At the summit there is a little stone hut. It probably had some wooden bits to it once upon a time. I don’t know its story. It’s about ten feet by ten feet, and kids do love climbing around on it.

The girls on the
stone hut

We stayed on the summit for half an hour I guess, but then it was time to go.

Close to the top of the mountain we came across this little bog. On the way down, Penny dropped her stick in here and looked at me as if I were going to get it out for her. I don’t think so Penny.

Mountain bog

She abandoned it and found a replacement stick as we went down the trail.

I think we wore Penny out, which is something she desperately needs. I know we wore me out, even if no one else was!

 

Jump to the Present

It has been a week since I posted anything, and since I don’t see any hope of recapping the past seven days with any kind of detail, I’m going to have to jump forward to the present.

But the quick recap is that I went to Spring Escape with Va and Beth last weekend, then haLd a Pathfinder meeting when we got back Sunday afternoon. I had a merit point make-up session on Tuesday, and I’ve hardly had time to sit down.

Pathfinder Investiture is coming up fast, and that’s always the most difficult aspect of being a director. I am responsible for determining what insignia every person in the club has earned, recording by insignia (so I know what to order), and then again by person (so I know who to give it to). Mathematically, that would be a simple matrix transpose operation, but I don’t know how to do that in a spreadsheet. So I do it by hand. I filled out the online order form last night – that took about an hour. I usually sit on my order for a day in case I remember something else, and of course, I did remember some things tonight. So I added them, placed the order ($450!) and then remembered a few more things. But once I’ve pulled the trigger, it’s too late. I’m sure I will remember a few more things in the next two weeks, so I always just plan to place another order after Investiture. Sigh. And this after about six hours of pouring over honor documentation!

But that’s not very photogenic, is it? Let’s start in with some photos from the past two days.

Wild blackberries (Rubus spp)

About half the wild blackberry canes on my place have bloomed now. I noticed that yesterday.

Domestic Viburnum

This is some sort of Viburnum growing in a planter next to my office. The leaves say maple-leaf viburnum (V. acerifolium), the flowers say hobblebush (V. lantanoides), and the habit says none of the above. It’s most likely a hybrid, but I have no idea if the two I’ve named are members of its ancestry. That’s why I dislike trying to id cultivated plants.

Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium augustifolium)

Fellow NH Blogger New Hampshire Garden Solutions posted photos of blue-eyed grass last week. I had been watching for some on my property to come up, but didn’t see it until today. But these blooms don’t stay open 24×7. And when they close, they just look like grass. So I could have missed them pretty easily. But not today!

Some sort of cinquefoil (Potentilla)

I’ve had some sort of cinquefoil (Potentilla spp) blooming in spades for several weeks now. I won’t pretend to know which species this is though, and I’m too tired to try to guess tonight. I’ll happily settle for the genus for now.

In other news, I may have finally managed a permanent fix to my camera’s tripod mount. I bought a threaded insert (brass) and threaded it into the plastic. It was too long, so I put some duct tape on the camera around the insert and cut it off with a hacksaw. Then I filed down the brass and removed the duct tape (it was just there to keep me from scratching up the camera horribly). It seems pretty stable now, so hopefully this will do the trick.

Oh – and this marks my 1000th post. I wish I had time to make it a better one, but this will have to do.

 

More Forest Flowers

Here’s the haul from this evening’s lap around my property. We’ll start with more gaywings. I never get tired of these.

Gaywings (Polygala paucifolia)

I don’t know if these close again after they open or if they just stay open. Either way, these weren’t open when I captured their picture.

Unopened gaywings (P. paucifolia)

I finally decided that this is lowbush blueberry rather than just generic blueberry. Highbush blueberries are, yes… higher bushes.

Lowbush blueberry (Vaccinium angustifolium)

I like the hairs on this one. I hadn’t every noticed that before.

Pink lady slipper (Cypripedium acuale)

We bought this at a nursery during our first spring here. I have no idea what kind of viburnum it is, and with cultivated varieties, it’s pretty hard to tell. It might be a Korean spice viburnum, but that’s really just a guess. It could (and likely is) also be some sort of hybrid.

Cultivated Viburnum

I ought to pull up this ground ivy. If it takes hold, it could take over the whole yard, and then… all of Merrimack County.

Ground ivy (Glechoma hederacea)

But it is pretty.