tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-94759642024-02-07T07:57:13.116-05:00Playing OutsideThese are memorable trips short and long by various modes of transportation, true to the best of my recollection.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.comBlogger110125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-44148530103927679572024-01-15T14:08:00.002-05:002024-01-15T14:10:55.866-05:00Bought with my blood<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjV2faecFXC4PtvILOkN8llTEQdD_KjncNMnBsO3sfJzIIQ5UJzYwnMNKZYKZfM1ixHd3nup03Rc6zRHtaLcBn-B15IY-n2ag5RKDQGRMOyq70WJfZ1s3lKcb_kgbnqI6intFeRbIDUd7IOz77BWDs0vI6j2WaRaJu9wJKxPSWst00oL9ZDs0RSg/s2048/1987%20Kofach%20Ultras.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjV2faecFXC4PtvILOkN8llTEQdD_KjncNMnBsO3sfJzIIQ5UJzYwnMNKZYKZfM1ixHd3nup03Rc6zRHtaLcBn-B15IY-n2ag5RKDQGRMOyq70WJfZ1s3lKcb_kgbnqI6intFeRbIDUd7IOz77BWDs0vI6j2WaRaJu9wJKxPSWst00oL9ZDs0RSg/s320/1987%20Kofach%20Ultras.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><p></p><p style="text-align: center;"><i>1987 Koflach Ultra double boots</i><br /></p><p>On August 10, 1987, I was riding my bike southward into North Conway, NH on Route 16. There was a wide shoulder marked as a bike lane, but that abruptly narrowed where some railroad tracks crossed the road. I edged to my left, closer to the line of stopped traffic in the travel lane. The Mount Washington Valley traffic jam was a standard feature. Because of it, I would typically drive from Tamworth to the Kanc, park my car wherever I could, and proceed by bike to do whatever I needed or wanted to do in Conway or North Conway. So I was miles from my car when a passenger in a stopped vehicle shot a door open into the narrow shoulder just as I arrived.</p><p>The impact drove the edge of the car door into my left thigh a couple of inches deep. I crashed to my right. From long experience, I swung the bike up above me so I could undo the toe straps and release my feet from the pedals. The ugly, flapped gash in my leg welled with blood. I pressed it shut with my gloved hand and asked the instant gathering of bystanders if anyone had a clean handkerchief. They kept asking if I was okay and offering things I didn't need. Eventually, a nurse on her day off showed up and did a nice first aid job to hold me over until the ambulance arrived. A police officer who had been tending to the impatient motoring public took information from the occupants of the car that nailed me, and took my bike to International Mountain Equipment, where I had made a couple of acquaintances in my short time as a new resident of the area.</p><p>The gash in my leg was deeper than anything I had suffered in a fairly full career of getting lacerated. I had to take the ambulance ride, complete with back board, because that's what they have to do when they scrape somebody off the road. I suppose in more desperate circumstances I would just have bound the whole mess up tightly and stayed off of it as best I could for a few weeks, but why not go for the posh treatment when someone else is most likely paying? The funny thing was, we were practically across the street from Memorial Hospital. The ambulance barely got one "whoop" out of the siren before they were pulling into the driveway.</p><p>As the doctor was finishing the long job of stitching up first the muscle and then the skin, I asked him if I would be able to walk.</p><p>"Could you walk before?" he asked. I knew the joke.</p><p>"I meant today," I said. "I have to get myself around."</p><p>He said I was cleared to walk as much as I found comfortable. </p><p>The motorists' insurance company agreed to a settlement. The money paid for my medical bills, bike repairs, mountaineering boots, a sturdy tent, and a deposit on a rental house. I had just started a new job with a new outdoor magazine, and needed to upgrade my gear for the things I expected to write about. That endeavor didn't pan out, but the long process of its failure still managed to throw me into some adventures. The boots got a lot more use than the tent.</p><p>The picture above was taken today, January 15, 2024. I wasn't even thinking about 2024 when I got those boots and started finding trouble to get into with them. But I never got rid of them, even when I was temporarily doing other things for almost 30 years. I still might, which is why I scraped thick dust and fuzz off of them and put them on today to see if they're in usable condition. They are. Remains to be seen if I am.</p><p>I've paid with my life for my dreams and decisions. I mean I'm still alive, but the time has been spent on something other than what our consumerist society calls success. As much as it was startling and painful, I owe that lady in the car a debt of gratitude for unintentionally providing me with needed funds. Within a few months, the outdoor magazine started writing me rubber paychecks and I had to get by on unemployment for a while until I got a copy editing job with a newspaper, and supplemented that with a job at an outdoor sports shop. Life always hinges on accidents. Some of them are more obvious crashes than others.<br /></p>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-25667390284495237532023-09-18T16:02:00.005-04:002023-09-18T23:31:53.958-04:00What the Ruck?<p> (Cross post from Citizen Rider)<br /></p><p> Scrolling through the teasers on my Google feed, I paused over the CNN headline, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/health/rucking-cardio-strength-workout-wellness/index.html#:~:text=Rucking%20is%20walking%20with%20weight,Naval%20Academy%20in%20Annapolis%2C%20Maryland." rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Rucking is an easy way to fitness."</a> I knew what I would find, but I had to see for myself.</p><p>Rucking
is, as the name implies, the practice of walking for fitness with a
pack on your back, containing an appropriate amount of weight for your
current physical level and your training goals. The first expert cited
in the article was at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, which
lit warm fires of recollection because of how much time I spent
propelling myself around that city under my own power. </p><p>Annapolis
at the end of the 1970s was a perfect car-free town. Two bike racing
buddies and I lived and worked there without the expense and encumbrance
of motor vehicles for several years. One guy was a naval architect,
earning engineer money. His rental was the nicest, though still modest.
The other guy was working as a painter, but moved over into carpentry
before starting his own contracting business. Both of them gave up
transportation cycling for the sake of financial success, but their time
as non-motorized workers helped both of them to amass more money than they could hope to have done if they had been feeding and housing cars
as well as paying Annapolis's exorbitant rents.</p><p>When we weren't
riding to get around, we were walking. Even if we had been carousing on a
weekend, we never drank and drove, because we never drove. I mean, we <i><b>did</b></i>
drive, if we needed to bum a car to go to a race or use a company
vehicle, but the rest of the time it was pedals or plain old shoes. And
if you needed to carry something, it went in a pack.</p><p>See where I'm
going here? A walkable community would make "rucking" a daily
experience. If I couldn't ride my bike to work on a given day, I would
walk, and I still needed to carry some things. A day pack was part of
the ensemble no matter what. Because my bike distance was short for the
first few years, I would ride in street clothes and carry items in a day
pack. Only when the daily bike distance pushed solidly beyond 10 miles
did I start wearing riding clothes and putting more of the gear onto the
bike itself. Those distances also eliminated walking as an efficient
mode, but I still walked by preference when operating within a compact
area.</p><p>America is gradually "discovering" walkability as a means of
addressing multiple issues that some of us started paying attention to
decades ago, when the problems would have been much easier to head off.
So now we move at a panicked crawl in the general direction of community
design and redesign that support simpler and lower impact means of
transportation.</p><p>I have to wonder how many people load their
fitness pack with some sort of neutral weight and drive to a pleasant
venue in which to ruck, while doing nothing to improve the
infrastructure and societal norms to help walkers and riders use their
exertions as part of their daily life, folding it into the necessary
trips they would be making anyway. It does require more conscious
planning and preparation to walk or ride to work. It takes more time and
exposes the commuter to the weather, cold or hot, wet or desiccatingly
dry, whereas an optional fitness activity can be skipped, squeezed out
of the schedule. The article talks about people throwing canned food or
dumbbells in their pack and suggests using "specially made fitness
sandbags" instead. Ooh, and you can get packs specifically designed for
rucking, rather than a readily available multi-use hiking pack. You're
rucking kidding me...</p><p>The Navy rucking coach is dealing with a
student population with very scheduled lives, a dress code, and rules of
conduct when they're out and about. Their options are limited for
free-range urban hiking. This illustrates that the people who defend
freedom are some of the least free, and explains why so many of them
lean conservative. They color inside the g-dd-mn lines, why can't you?</p><p>Some
people might not feel safe walking in their neighborhoods, or venturing
from their safe zones far enough to get all of their errands done.
Annapolis from 1979 to 1987 was safe and compact, so that a single
person could obtain anything they needed without making a major trip to a
shopping destination. I don't know if it's still true. Development has
pretty well mutilated the area outside of downtown. No one I know lives
car-free there, and most have occupations that require motor vehicle
use.</p><p>Ironically, living in a rural area where I am surrounded by
hiking opportunities, I can't do a lot of walking for transportation. I
could, but the motorized majority drives to suit themselves on roads
with no accommodation for anyone on foot. Only a few people walk except in villages and towns. Outside of that,
they're mostly on roads where they have at least a slim chance to stay
off to the side. The choice in that slot is to
stick an elbow into the lane or wade into the tick-infested grasses.<br /></p>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-10799978180993586982021-03-15T12:35:00.001-04:002021-03-15T12:35:25.357-04:00Trees are a vegetable<p> A new resident in town expressed some dismay at the logging going on in the area, cutting down "hundred-year-old trees." After several of us explained together that you'd be hard pressed to find a tree that old around here, the logger in our group said, "Trees are a vegetable. They're just like anything else that you grow to use, they just take longer."</p><p>Immediately I imagined little hikers among the broccoli stalks, or awe-struck, staring up at the majesty of lofty corn, or whacking aside the ferns of carrot tops.</p><p>Particularly in the eastern half of the United States, most of the forest you see is many generations removed from the primordial glory that greeted the first Europeans who arrived at what they considered unoccupied land. Forest reasserts itself wherever humans are not currently clearing land and keeping it clear. National forests and private holdings support trees as an available resource. You want wood? You need to grow trees. As the logger asserted, they're a crop. They just grow on a longer time scale than your typical farmer's market fare. Most forest survives now as a working forest. In other words, its days are numbered by interested observers measuring it for harvest.</p><p>You get used to having the trees around. When I moved to my current location 32 years ago, the forest on the mountain out back was mature hardwood and pine, unbroken for miles. It was easy to move through, because the understory had been shaded out for years. That meant easy bushwhacking in any season, and a generous variety of skiable lines without having to trim anything. When cutting began, it started first on the farther end of the small mountain range that forms the center of town. Even when it finally hit nearby, the first operations just opened a few moderate swaths. Much more drastic cutting had already taken place on the far end of the range.<br /></p><p>The ice storm of 1998 took out a lot of treetops at elevations a couple of hundred feet up from road level. That storm devastated hundreds of square miles of forest -- thousands, really, if you look at all of eastern North America. It dumped the tops of trees into the spaces between their still-standing lower sections, in addition to toppling whole trees where they had space to fall. The lower parts might still leaf out and live on. You can still see some of these survivors today.</p><p>Logging cuts deeper and can be tailored to achieve a desired outcome, as opposed to the losses from wildfire and wind events. There have been few -- if any -- major wind events in the east since the Hurricane of 1938. As for fire, the last really large scale event in these parts was the disastrous fires of 1947, which mostly impacted Maine. Here in the border towns, old timers will tell you about how the fires managed to come over the line in places before they were finally extinguished. With the droughts we've experienced in recent summers, a repeat is possible.</p><p>Not all loggers follow best practices. Some cuts are ugly and damaging. A liquidation cut might strip a parcel before it's cut into house lots and lost to us forever. A working forest remains a forest. For the most part, nature reasserts itself even after an ugly cut. And not every drastic-appearing cut is a bad job. It's not a hairstyle. It's a business decision. A wise business person won't ruin the future of a resource. Most loggers already view time from a tree's perspective. It's a renewable resource, unlike mining or oil and gas drilling. Loggers have an incentive to leave the forest functional, where those other industries don't. I'd much rather live next to timberland than a strip mine or a fracking operation.</p><p>Animals and birds need open spaces and edge environments in addition to mature forest. Natural processes only provide those in limited places. One reason humans suffer from "problem" wildlife is that the open spaces and edges are provided by the clearings around homes dropped into the the formerly wooded area. It's a thrill to see wild animals until the bears get into your garbage, the deer eat your garden, and the coyotes make alarming noises too close to your bedroom window at 3 a.m. Then all of a sudden "somebody needs to do something," and the animals usually pay the price. If you want to see a real problem animal, go look in a mirror. A nearby logged area provides the open area and edge along with a measure of privacy that the animals seem to prefer. I've seen less of the local deer herd since the cut uphill gave them more sunshine and encouraged low growth for easily accessible browsing. They'll still probably come eat that one peony I keep trying to coax to flowering maturity...<br /></p><p>As much of a jolt as it may be to see a big logged area, it's much worse when that area is then invaded by problem animals operating unnecessary motor vehicles for no reason other than their own erosive enjoyment. I get to listen to <i><b>that</b></i> now, to poison the peace of my own back yard. Out of sight is not out of mind when it's not out of earshot. Engine noise carries a long way. It's a constant reminder that the environment will only become more driven by natural rhythms once humans have basically eradicated themselves.<br /></p>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-26469986686330882592020-04-27T11:31:00.002-04:002020-04-27T11:31:55.030-04:00Once all in blueThe temperature is 35 degrees. Mixed rain and snow fall steadily. Weather like this keeps a lot of people indoors.<br />
<br />
"There's no bad weather, only bad clothing," says the proverb. The raunchy weather was a selling point for me when I came here to enjoy the way that the low summits simulate the conditions of higher peaks without the inconvenience of traveling far.<br />
<br />
It was the outdoor industry's "Blue Period," and the rise of Gore-Tex. You could get parkas and shell pants that weren't blue, but they were probably red. A few of the cool kids sported the black Marmot parka, but blue really dominated the scene. Soft shells would not exist for decades.<br />
<br />
Once I scraped together the coin, I got a blue ensemble: a Kelty shell oversized to fit over a duvet in case I had to spend a night out, and some affordable North by Northeast shell sidezips. The parka came first, paired with some basic LL Bean ripstop wind pants with a reinforced seat and knees custom sewn by a friend with more experience in the gear business. The Gore-Tex sidezips were part of upgrades I made when I started ice climbing as part of my brief career as an outdoor writer. I had moved to the mountains to spend as much time as possible on them.<br />
<br />
A day like today would have inspired me to suit up and go out, to enjoy the effectiveness of my clothing and the utter indifference of the mountain environment. Love of the mountains is entirely one way. The mountains don't know you're there. They just do their mountain thing.<br />
<br />
Late winter and early spring are the most inconvenient time to get around in the higher elevations around here. The winter snow leaves slowly, augmented by spring additions that are always heavy and wet. All that white stuff has to turn into water and soak in or flow down. I would try to find a place that had already melted clear, if I couldn't negotiate a passable route to higher elevations where winter was hanging on with firmer snow. Sooner or later it all turns to deep applesauce.<br />
<br />
Due to the Covid-19 crisis, the Forest Service has closed most major trailheads, and even quite a few I would consider minor. I have a perfectly good mountain range out my back door, and I don't have to burn gas to get to it.<br />
<br />
Blue clothing stands out against the browns and grays of the landscape during most of the year up here. That never bothered me. But now I have replaced as much as possible with gray and brown clothing so that I don't stand out. On my home mountain, I'm on other people's land whenever I climb very high. The land isn't posted; New Hampshire's tradition is that we all use the land. I just don't want to test anyone's tolerance by letting them see me doing it.<br />
<br />
The early tick season has been bad, particularly with deer ticks. They're the small ones that are harder to see and feel. I've already had one attach to me. I am not showing any symptoms of the several nasty diseases they can carry, but I never assume that my luck will hold. Even though nothing has leafed out, the little bloodsuckers are apparently hanging out there, reaching with their front legs for any creature that brushes their perch. A nasty wet day when I can wear shell clothing provides a nice bit of body armor.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-72617500132068036972020-04-08T09:14:00.002-04:002020-04-08T09:14:54.993-04:00Social distance was the whole pointThe people who introduced me to backpacking in 1980 were avid bushwhackers. They had spent their high school years going to the mountains of Virginia and West Virginia, particularly the Dolly Sods. On a pleasant and mild October weekend in Alexandria, Virginia, they enlisted my buddy Jim and me to join them for a trip to the Sods, which they described as weird, remote, and worth visiting.<br />
<br />
Lingering summer in the Tidewater gave way to early winter on the heights. The Sods lived up to their description. Artificially treeless over much of its area because of logging, fires, and topsoil loss, much of the plateau is grassland and peat bog. Stunted spruce are flagged by the prevailing wind into a distinctive shape. On that trip, gray skies released occasional showers of snow pellets. Our guides were well dressed and properly equipped. I was cold, poorly fed, and fascinated.<br />
<br />
Our guides led us away from the dirt road on a compass heading. Jim and I had no idea where they thought they were headed. It didn't really matter. We wandered through the complete variety of terrain and vegetation, following the two leaders who argued about their compass headings and which way we should go next. I don't know if they ever really knew where we were, but we completed a meandering loop over several hours and returned to the road about a mile from the cars.<br />
<br />
The idea that map and compass matter more than a dotted line on a map and a blaze on every other tree stuck with me. Map and compass make you independent. The trail often does follow the most sensible line through a given set of topographical features, but the ability to interpret a map and read a compass gives a hiker a more complete understanding of the area, and the ability to improvise. As time went on, most of my hiking took place on marked routes, but I would look to the sides for interesting possibilities.<br />
<br />
Bushwhacking is a great way to disappear. This can be true in a very final sense, but also in answer to a temporary need, whether it's a simple need for a minute or two of privacy behind a tree, or a broader need to stay apart from your fellow humans. It's not available to people in more densely populated areas where open space is rationed. Dense population also increases the chances of running into someone whether you are on the trail or off. I have enjoyed hiking with a close friend, when such companionship was available. Other than that I'd rather go unnoticed.<br />
<br />
Our guides on that 1980 trip liked the Sods because it was too far for most people to bother driving all the way to it from the population centers around DC. It got discovered during the 1980s, though. As the population inexorably climbed, the small percentage who would make the trip swelled to an appreciable number. And the ATV craze struck the locals out there, desecrating the nearby Roaring Plains. I moved to a place that was relatively undeveloped, but now I have to skirt the dwellings of various neighbors as I climb the slope behind my house. The peace of a natural environment has given way to massive logging and its attendant threat of development to follow, and to the intrusive habits of "normal" people who like to drive around in circles on ATVs, shredding the land and the quiet of a pleasant evening. There isn't social distance enough. It could be worse, I guess. There could be tar sands or natural gas deposits underground, attracting even noisier and more destructive human activity.<br />
<br />
People with time on their hands and a need to stretch their legs are rediscovering what's left of natural environments wherever they live. Will it lead to a greater appreciation of them as we move on from this, or will it be dropped and forgotten like a plastic bag, once the trinkets within have been extracted?cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-61471241500548700792015-11-03T15:23:00.000-05:002015-11-03T15:23:34.602-05:00Beech DayEarly November sometimes brings unusually mild temperatures. On a break from yard work, I went for a short walk into the woods.<br />
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Lush growth of moss on this stump.</div>
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My nearest neighbor is always quiet.</div>
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Blue sky and sunshine.</div>
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This one is worth making bigger.</div>
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November's backhanded slap of sunshine is still welcome.</div>
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cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-55496503129320118422013-02-20T11:46:00.000-05:002013-02-20T11:46:14.878-05:00Dear God...Don't let me ever again be the annoying f*** in an outfitter store.<br />
<br />
I'm sure they are my penance for having BEEN the annoying f*** in an outfitter store back when I was thrilled with myself and my outdoor activities. Soon after I started going backpacking and climbing I found myself working in an outfitter store. This amplified my annoying newbie qualities by adding the little knowledge that is a dangerous thing. I still shopped other outfitters when I went on trips to places like the Adirondacks or North Conway, NH. It gave me ample opportunities to annoy.<br />
<br />
I would hope I had paid my karmic debt by now, but as long as one stays in the outfitter business one sits in the cross-hairs of know-it-alls and half-informed customers who want to make sure you're doing everything absolutely right when they have no real idea what that is.<br />
<br />
When -- if -- I ever manage to get out of the outfitting business, if I still like to go out and I need gear, let me please always remember to shop quietly and not embroil the sales people in my spirals of indecision or other psychodramas.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-36929959177110092102012-10-19T13:41:00.001-04:002012-10-19T13:41:47.669-04:00I hate hunting seasonI have many friends who hunt. While I don't share their enthusiasm for it, the activity itself isn't what bothers me. I just hate having to make myself visible in the woods.<br />
<br />
As a courtesy to hunters, one should wear high-visibility clothing. I hate high-visibility clothing. I may not be a master of concealment in the wilderness, but I hate to draw attention. I would prefer to go unnoticed.<br />
<br />
My mountaineering garb is brightly colored, partly because it was the fashion at the time and partly to make my body easier to find in case I don't return from the realm of bare rock, ice and snow. However, as I've gotten older I have been more attracted to the idea of disappearing without a trace than with being found. I'm just too cheap to invest in more subtly-colored shell garments. But in the woods and forested lower mountains I can wear my preferred darker hues because I have clothing good for those environments in earth tones. Just not when people are tromping around out there looking for large mammals to kill.<br />
<br />
When I rode a mountain bike a lot on the trails around my area I had a blaze orange helmet cover and other brightly-colored clothing options. Biking isn't conducive to concealment anyway. It was no hardship to put on the clown suit for the sake of safety. And now I don't ride the mountain bike that way, so it's not an issue. The places I ride don't traverse particularly good hunting areas.<br />
<br />
Hiking is a different matter. My house sits in some prime deer and bear habitat. If I go for my customary bushwhack straight out the back door I could run into a hunter within a hundred yards. I don't post my property, respecting its ancestral uses. I have seen hunters entering and leaving the woods along the stone wall at the far end of my domain. One time I even surprised a bowhunter on one of my trails who turned out to be a cycling friend I hadn't seen in years. He brought a near-record buck out of the woods later that year. When he showed up at my door on a chilly November evening, sweaty, out of breath and smeared with blood it was very similar to opening the door to find my proud cat with a dead rodent, only much, much bigger. I helped him load it onto the roof rack of his Subaru wagon.<br />
<br />
The hunters deserve their time. I just have to wait it out or go to places I know would not attract them, like the steep and windswept higher summits. Or, more likely, I stay too busy with delayed preparations for winter to go into the woods at all.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-25913775365959167192009-08-11T09:43:00.003-04:002011-06-27T06:34:33.966-04:00Gettin' Salty<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPa8ar_NcgkmJdv74wpNX3_btP41n64GJaqAXnPbJ9h1AmJW2sIHLchQZJdn4U6KqSDunCKI7E599acyGhow0y_Ka5IZqj7DYUzMFEgOUThbgddfRfK5YIz3uqB29gtf8U_oRj_Q/s1600-h/CIMG0548+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiPa8ar_NcgkmJdv74wpNX3_btP41n64GJaqAXnPbJ9h1AmJW2sIHLchQZJdn4U6KqSDunCKI7E599acyGhow0y_Ka5IZqj7DYUzMFEgOUThbgddfRfK5YIz3uqB29gtf8U_oRj_Q/s400/CIMG0548+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368702609545054946" border="0" /></a>Scarborough River spreads out in a broad, shallow bay behind Pine Point. It makes a great launching site with access to sheltered waters and the open water of Saco Bay.<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgNBHinp9vKKeJ3tXHA_CFSlRyN_7ZyNBFxrJo32MWObwrA1jWKm1q4xOALEsBcsYtIqtEk0Wgyz8wIBzMrOE3h9Q-4u8NpdyRLR-340EaSV834nNWZHxmkU1z6LX_0WlOaNd-A/s1600-h/CIMG0549+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGgNBHinp9vKKeJ3tXHA_CFSlRyN_7ZyNBFxrJo32MWObwrA1jWKm1q4xOALEsBcsYtIqtEk0Wgyz8wIBzMrOE3h9Q-4u8NpdyRLR-340EaSV834nNWZHxmkU1z6LX_0WlOaNd-A/s400/CIMG0549+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368702605331226994" border="0" /></a>The prudent mariner prepares for any reasonable contingency. It makes you look like a geek beside the happy-go-lucky casual boaters in a bathing suit and perhaps a PFD. I try to pack quickly and dwindle to a speck on the horizon before my preparations invite comment.<br /><br />The sky looked strange. The forecast told us to watch for possible thunderstorms. This paddling venue gives us a good view of the sky. Clouds built and dissipated without reaching a critical point. The breeze seemed stiff when we started, but faded. We skirted the shore toward the channel at the river mouth. The wind carried the smell of salt air, diesel fumes and faint whiffs of marijuana.<br /><br />We crossed the channel as the last of the flood tide swirled over rocks on the far shore. Large fish we could not identify leaped clear of the water as they fed on smaller fish they had corralled in the channel current. Terns circled above the choppy water.<br /><br />Laurie always doubts her skills and worries more than necessary. Then she performs any explained maneuver perfectly well. We planned our channel crossing to account for the current, wind and boat traffic. The channel is not a busy one, but the boats that use it are piloted by either commercial harvesters of fish and lobster or the typical oblivious doofus who has just spent hours churning his children on inner tubes in endless loops behind a powerful motor boat. The working watermen should not have to accommodate recreational paddlers, and the doofuses can't be relied on to notice us.<br /><br />We paddled along the beach headed out toward Prout's Neck. Sails were going up on 420-class dinghies beside a float. A large powerboat trailing tubes loaded with children swept in from farther out in the bay and started to do laps around the area we were trying to cross. We aimed close to the beach, hoping the boat driver would avoid the land, even if we remained invisible.<br /><br />Hugging the shore we also cut behind the junior program sailors in the 420s, and others in Optimist dinghies closer to the yacht club itself. The 420 float is actually many yards out into the anchorage, not connected to shore. The Opti float is also separate. It may ground at low tide on the pleasant sand of the bay floor.<br /><br />The sailing instructors in their launches seemed no warmer toward kayakers than most other power boaters seem to be. Our course very briefly cut between them and their shore base, but that had seemed better to me than cutting between them and their charges in the dinghies. We pulled through quickly.<br /><br />Just beyond the yacht club we crossed one more small indented cove before suddenly facing a more distinct swell. The warning sound of white water over rocks announced that we had reached more exposed coastline. Laurie said she did not want to go further out. She waited in the last cove while I took a look at what lay beyond.<br /><br />The swell was barely more than a foot high, with a small wind-chop on top of it. I never dropped into a trough deep enough to block my view. Even so, the waves made a dangerous break over the barely submerged rocks at this particular corner. I went outside that before curving eastward to look down toward more dramatic rocks on the outer shore of the neck. After a few minutes holding position on the restless waves I turned back to rejoin Laurie.<br /><br />Tubing Boat One had been joined by Tubing Boat Two. The junior program sailors had moved to their racing areas. We cut through the anchorage on a more direct course now that we would not interfere with them. That still left the tubing boats. They cycled on an irregular oval at varying intervals. We watched them for several minutes before making our dash toward the beach. They shifted closer to shore as we approached it, but that was probably coincidental. Their course was dumbbell-shaped, so it veered away from us as we moved further from its end.<br /><br />Saco Bay shores are made of soft, white sand. We landed on the beach for a bite to eat and a bit of wading in the chilly water.<br /><br />While we sat on shore, we watched a seagull walk up and investigate the untended belongings of some beachgoers who had walked away. We would have prevented any vandalism or larceny. The first gull, who was later joined by a second, peered into tote bags and pecked at shiny sunglasses, but found nothing to take and left nothing but webbed footprints.<br /><br />We launched again at slack tide, to cross the channel for a cruise along the teeming shore of the extended environs of Old Orchard Beach. Human beings make an amazing amount of noise, playing at the sea side. From a hundred yards or more off shore it becomes a wordless chatter and screeching. A crowd of mammals lies on the sand. Some run up and down along the beach. Others leap and lumber into the breaking waves. One observes feeding, the preambles to mating, some play, some aggression, competition for territory and interaction with other species. Shore birds wheel above the noisy herd, hoping to swoop down on undefended food.<br /><br />We paddled smoothly outside the zone of bobbing heads and reaching arms, beyond the sound of intelligible words and meaningful eye contact. It was a great way to cruise the beach.<br /><br />Before the ebb could set in too strongly, we turned back toward the channel. We would not have to cross it, but people fishing from the jetty cast lines far out into the channel. We would not test their patience or risk their sense of humor by ripping along right under their noses. I eyeballed the lineup to spot the best arm and set a course just outside his longest cast.<br /><br />Back inside, we aimed for our launching beach. We easily overcame the faint pressure of the early ebb tide.<br /><br />I always have trouble ending a boat trip. Even if I'm tired, hungry and ready to rest, the difference between afloat and ashore lures me to stay afloat a little longer. We paddled a little beyond the beach and boat ramp to look at some grass flats.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5AMJlbCeRPEiVIGflsnlFZxL5CnmrgS0G6mYi7QWqBKwZwmYrjD4RMm1_MiuYgfwFJSoeSrO6NQIqtD3Xq6TWRV63r4ozZk95iWjXX_y2e_B56KlRaEUNw2G4mnOKHM1zUQJ-A/s1600-h/P8102113+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd5AMJlbCeRPEiVIGflsnlFZxL5CnmrgS0G6mYi7QWqBKwZwmYrjD4RMm1_MiuYgfwFJSoeSrO6NQIqtD3Xq6TWRV63r4ozZk95iWjXX_y2e_B56KlRaEUNw2G4mnOKHM1zUQJ-A/s400/P8102113+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368702604504080546" border="0" /></a>It's fun to float<br /></div><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1eMy0T46-SNg4sBSCENJm-ii4fk5q9DtazJaurKntl67Y3uneb53DMUIWCeWatwvyGEC3zVjiX8BJ5v4ueOiHeg7nA9He3s7DFe9QYetvEWElP9P8Pcl5VvooYtIozqRVqEFYw/s1600-h/P8102095+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik1eMy0T46-SNg4sBSCENJm-ii4fk5q9DtazJaurKntl67Y3uneb53DMUIWCeWatwvyGEC3zVjiX8BJ5v4ueOiHeg7nA9He3s7DFe9QYetvEWElP9P8Pcl5VvooYtIozqRVqEFYw/s400/P8102095+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5368702602672945314" border="0" /></a>The day was full of classic shorescapes and water scenes. Artistic compositions invite the eye every minute in any direction.<br /><br />After we took the boats out and put on some dry shorts we found a great little seafood shack on a side street. The fact that all the cars in the parking lot had local plates tipped us off that it was the good stuff. We had a couple of lobster rolls, fries and some iced tea. A very friendly black jumping spider kept climbing my leg until I gave it a lift on a plastic spoon to the table top. Jumping spiders always remind me of cats. This one was fairly large, with iridescent blue eyes and a red marking on the top of its abdomen (not a red hourglass underneath)<br /><br />Our next objectives were corn and tomatoes, and soft-serve ice cream. The veggies were for supper and the ice cream was, well, ice cream. As it happened, we did not get tomatoes, but we got some excellent corn, which we roasted and ate along with Swiss chard and kale chopped and cooked with garlic and ginger for our supper when we got home.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-52003451999235585412009-07-27T17:21:00.004-04:002009-07-27T17:54:16.510-04:00Paddle and Swim at P-Lake<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jpZvmw0Bbj34zQOHOhnB5KVr144Vs7wnJRVgS34fPacAzOonaUTR-qAB4XnCwdERWHdZvrmLdDfzDR59V6cPjSIz8nBRE66Cvs0dmAGi76ZLaDnvgIf1_UsWx7_3_DuAD40oVw/s1600-h/P7272043+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5jpZvmw0Bbj34zQOHOhnB5KVr144Vs7wnJRVgS34fPacAzOonaUTR-qAB4XnCwdERWHdZvrmLdDfzDR59V6cPjSIz8nBRE66Cvs0dmAGi76ZLaDnvgIf1_UsWx7_3_DuAD40oVw/s400/P7272043+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255931363844098" border="0" /></a>Aunt and nephew go over some basic strokes after launching from the narrow beach right next to Route 153. We're probably in Maine here.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TIZyNv18vAR026FKnX8ivNidsmKoMG5ZQB49dxQDMi6w_B_FlP85S9XUfifZuZt5wd4AjrROS9_oa_XnoHtdGIHGrs3Lxygi2-uZC469BRfJAb4ym4eTKEtL951XmY0FrXlrFA/s1600-h/P7272045+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TIZyNv18vAR026FKnX8ivNidsmKoMG5ZQB49dxQDMi6w_B_FlP85S9XUfifZuZt5wd4AjrROS9_oa_XnoHtdGIHGrs3Lxygi2-uZC469BRfJAb4ym4eTKEtL951XmY0FrXlrFA/s400/P7272045+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255928690753458" border="0" /></a>Squilly in the Loon.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgC24bnYYhLqOfDlIjviXmtexyN1UakFqipXtZjYfo_ji1_2OHQVZXAfBtgsbfhM__d5Fij01SR22fCx1hhC9J3S9-A78FlZ3Tvz_Vb-GSIqBx42JC7EMSZyKPbVtXDLuUMsTI3g/s1600-h/P7272047+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgC24bnYYhLqOfDlIjviXmtexyN1UakFqipXtZjYfo_ji1_2OHQVZXAfBtgsbfhM__d5Fij01SR22fCx1hhC9J3S9-A78FlZ3Tvz_Vb-GSIqBx42JC7EMSZyKPbVtXDLuUMsTI3g/s400/P7272047+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255464964311218" border="0" /></a>Forward stroke.<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7OjbXpqgS4Arj5GQ95KEAfeoISwIMp_DN7ze2OTdh9KYstu_3q13ocMKja4ORimv_uTtQ8ZWRo0pM-ypa8kDpoR_INN4Qk6OYwexNKKWfR0Yc-aQOLBD2KPRPOFY63ypS0kyhw/s1600-h/P7272051+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiy7OjbXpqgS4Arj5GQ95KEAfeoISwIMp_DN7ze2OTdh9KYstu_3q13ocMKja4ORimv_uTtQ8ZWRo0pM-ypa8kDpoR_INN4Qk6OYwexNKKWfR0Yc-aQOLBD2KPRPOFY63ypS0kyhw/s400/P7272051+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255452137423026" border="0" /></a>Where to now?<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDMLnXqWvhCettCpRHm7Acus6eplt4jEczw7J0KtT7Z7uMIpnwwzNKzIUo1EzBKd7GFTZe4NTxziKs1HRttFZq7zMZZUglQzsaEtlIA-x0oEZclYPkdNgZTr2DS_A5HAGtq_jmg/s1600-h/P7272054+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRDMLnXqWvhCettCpRHm7Acus6eplt4jEczw7J0KtT7Z7uMIpnwwzNKzIUo1EzBKd7GFTZe4NTxziKs1HRttFZq7zMZZUglQzsaEtlIA-x0oEZclYPkdNgZTr2DS_A5HAGtq_jmg/s400/P7272054+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255448518079090" border="0" /></a>Squilly tries the big boat. It is better. Now what do we do?<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNGb7kWYarQMtLXaKzt8c-nNrDvDs-vwzWgUQSH0BbQrsASj0PpsOKm4fpr_clthjXrPCrAtwIVlVNJ9kVBz03gauG2OwYihiU0W7oGnnKr2spp7mIWadUdSg-X-Kkm1g4JqNXwg/s1600-h/P7272057+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNGb7kWYarQMtLXaKzt8c-nNrDvDs-vwzWgUQSH0BbQrsASj0PpsOKm4fpr_clthjXrPCrAtwIVlVNJ9kVBz03gauG2OwYihiU0W7oGnnKr2spp7mIWadUdSg-X-Kkm1g4JqNXwg/s400/P7272057+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255445755876194" border="0" /></a>Squilly under attack!<br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OGlFlLSWDDClmTgGF8PJcXlAzB5SA3mf_ZIPC2qqSId__W2ALB3x_52GQCuotLt64VMIZYWX5Tqcb4k9tqzI679LGeiOxvBhN_edxUvtD3US0uGyqy1VC2BjUvSvuPeeTW8CXw/s1600-h/P7272061+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4OGlFlLSWDDClmTgGF8PJcXlAzB5SA3mf_ZIPC2qqSId__W2ALB3x_52GQCuotLt64VMIZYWX5Tqcb4k9tqzI679LGeiOxvBhN_edxUvtD3US0uGyqy1VC2BjUvSvuPeeTW8CXw/s400/P7272061+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5363255443994209346" border="0" /></a>Squilly under water!<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">When the morning grayness finally broke, before the clouds could build for the afternoon thunderstorms, we went to Province Lake for a little paddling and splashing. Access is very easy, with the road right by the beach. The lake basin has a big sky view, so the weather would not be able to sneak up on us.<br /><br />Severe storms have hit parts of the state, but not our neighborhood this time. Things looked like they were getting exciting a few minutes after we got home, but never developed further than a couple of sharp rumbles and some turbulent clouds. Little micro power outages keep disrupting the electronics momentarily. Strange weather.<br /><br />Squilly leaves late tomorrow afternoon after a week here. We're lucky he likes just kicking back here. I can't imagine how it would be to occupy someone who needed constant entertainment.<br /><br />A second week would probably drive him around the bend.<br /></div></div>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-13276557814238457632008-07-14T17:46:00.004-04:002008-12-10T06:54:36.428-05:00Conservation Commission Hosts "Fish Fry"<span style="font-style: italic;">photos by Laurie Meeder</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdTd89m-ZwnkxAh8oxqb4BeQJEeLZ17Q5NNHAwGJg1xtIMi4TKprEOSnBlnrwVPNOVo_lUY9NLspPuuKONCjkS5sO7gI3own5AL9THXy8LnxbLrFcLbxe_yOqN55x405pt_hcew/s1600-h/P7143476+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQdTd89m-ZwnkxAh8oxqb4BeQJEeLZ17Q5NNHAwGJg1xtIMi4TKprEOSnBlnrwVPNOVo_lUY9NLspPuuKONCjkS5sO7gI3own5AL9THXy8LnxbLrFcLbxe_yOqN55x405pt_hcew/s320/P7143476+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222990692210156594" border="0" /></a><br />Volunteers from the Effingham Conservation Commission assisted biologists from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and environmental scientist Rick Van de Poll in electroshock fish sampling today on the Pine River and Wilkinson Brook. The sampling is part of the Wildlife Action Plan study in Effingham, which is the state's first.<br /><br />The team entered the river downstream from a beaver dam on Long Point in the Lost Valley development and worked up against the current. Fish and Game personnel operated three battery-powered units and directed the netting.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8BRrH1t4gXOlda5EeD3lkBgNC97-LMIZKNedw4o8ojh2pcioEqtqfr8YoN3weEJRV5XUlW_e_hv8HJVL6j8Ia2F5a86Pqnq8KtwTgfkKPydBUYENFR6FmO-6yVG0WKWG4KrcDhQ/s1600-h/P7143471+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg8BRrH1t4gXOlda5EeD3lkBgNC97-LMIZKNedw4o8ojh2pcioEqtqfr8YoN3weEJRV5XUlW_e_hv8HJVL6j8Ia2F5a86Pqnq8KtwTgfkKPydBUYENFR6FmO-6yVG0WKWG4KrcDhQ/s320/P7143471+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222991762571976002" border="0" /></a>The shock briefly stuns fish and other aquatic creatures which the netters can scoop up and place in buckets. It causes far fewer fatalities than other sampling methods and yields a vastly larger number of specimens according to Van de Poll. He and the other ECC volunteers were surprised, however, that the ones gathered today did not float as visibly as he had observed them to do in previous samplings. That and the silt made the netting challenging.<br /><br />The river bottom contour changed radically in places. The bottom varied between sand and mud, with boulders and water-logged tree trunks. A knee-deep section could give way to a hole several feet deep. But the day was warm, and so was the river. The only danger was the electricity, but no one got shocked in any of their dunkings. The shockers responded instantly to any outcry or large splash.<br /><br />Species included brook trout, pickerel, yellow perch, fallfish, white sucker and a couple of crayfish.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5DhQrDP9oKRSyp3cqLaoqm6n0N5959Zx9OlBxvYjuhodh0pfKBlTJvpyKwe-LoKxqhDSGbRW-e0BqAVXahMigADl_wUZHOM1axj38V7FCDL-6oShW2YFGU8ey_VPUHQY1gS7Xgg/s1600-h/P7143479+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5DhQrDP9oKRSyp3cqLaoqm6n0N5959Zx9OlBxvYjuhodh0pfKBlTJvpyKwe-LoKxqhDSGbRW-e0BqAVXahMigADl_wUZHOM1axj38V7FCDL-6oShW2YFGU8ey_VPUHQY1gS7Xgg/s320/P7143479+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5222990690818259554" border="0" /></a><span style="font-style: italic;">Naturally I netted the primo crustacean for the day. Anyone surprised?<br /><br /></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>After lunch, which did not include seafood, the team moved on to Wilkinson Brook, a much narrower stream. I managed to forget my camera when I nipped home on the lunch break to pick up some other things I'd wished I had, like binoculars (still looking for that heron rookery), so I have no pictures of that jungle slog. For a small stream it had some surprisingly deep holes. We also missed capturing a brook trout large enough to laugh off our puny voltage. We did gather a number of burbot, more perch, a catfish and more brookies.<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span></div></div>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-34593717354472998942008-07-07T11:03:00.002-04:002008-12-10T06:54:36.442-05:00Eagle Hunt Delayed by Sparrow<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyyKIw_BiSC2LqulOJ1Sh7rJ8QpUdAH577wXpcn2VFy0BFdV9y_1_9zv1R558N_SypK7gQ9vU0zWHH3jU5GuE3wpvBICdW60lnGrmRYk9K2jKRx-8OT5TA3YG3OHeTz3zrRbfdsg/s1600-h/P7041248+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyyKIw_BiSC2LqulOJ1Sh7rJ8QpUdAH577wXpcn2VFy0BFdV9y_1_9zv1R558N_SypK7gQ9vU0zWHH3jU5GuE3wpvBICdW60lnGrmRYk9K2jKRx-8OT5TA3YG3OHeTz3zrRbfdsg/s320/P7041248+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5220289324076201730" border="0" /></a>The Anti-Eagle<br /></div><br />I was pretty wiped out after work on the Fourth of July and had to take care of a few things, so I ran out of time for the eagle hunt. I'm hoping to get to it today.<br /><br />Work on a holiday weekend is hectic enough. My duties grew more complex when the patriarch of the shop called me over while we were all out front watching Wolfeboro's parade.<br /><br />"There's a baby bird here that fell out of the nest, and these kids are all upset and can't enjoy the parade. Can't you do something about it?" he said.<br /><br />I suppose he imagined I would take it out back and club it with a tire iron to "put it out of its misery." You'd be miserable, too, if you'd fallen out of your safe nursery into a scary, noisy world full of huge creatures, indifferent at best, hostile at worst. One young thug had been winging rocks at the bird.<br /><br />What I saw was a viable nestling, if only I could get it back to its parents or into a suitably quiet environment. I scooped it up and carried it into the shop. We lock up during the parade, so I had more than an hour to work this problem in peace.<br /><br />I looked for succulent bugs I could squish in imitation of regurgitated food, but all I saw was ants. I've never seen a bird chow down on ants. Rather than waste a lot of time on it, I moved on to rehydrating the little bugger. He (she?) would take drips from a paper towel. Then I went on line to look for a rehabilitator. I'd dealt with a woman in Madison a couple of years ago with a young squirrel. I hoped I might find someone closer, but I had to start somewhere.<br /><br />One phone call at a time, to Madison, then Meredith, I was able to arrange foster care and get instructions to help keep the bird alive. Every ten minutes I dripped diluted sports drink onto its beak until closing time. Then my associate in the workshop, who had overslept and had to drive instead of bike, kindly transported it to a rendezvous with the rehabilitator.<br /><br />In the early stages of this process, when I still cradled the bird in my right hand, I saw bird lice swarming up my arm. I was pretty sure I interdicted all of them before they invaded my armpit and moved on to hairier pastures. Once I had the bird in a nest cup to await transport I executed the straggling lice with a bike spoke heated over a butane lighter as they crawled up the tissue paper away from the nestling. But when I got home, Laurie suggested a thorough shower and immediate laundering of all my garments. Probably a better idea than going paddling in my buggy shirt. Then it was 5 p.m. and I'd really had enough. Figure a minimum of two hours start to finish for the most cursory trip to Province Lake...not worth it. I still had to work full hours on Saturday.<br /><br />My associate reported that the he passed the bird, still cheeping, to its next custodian. So it made it that far.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-26441431680801205612008-07-01T14:17:00.005-04:002008-12-16T18:56:24.644-05:00Herons and EaglesAs the designated crazy who paddles and hikes inconvenient areas, I get the call to look for things where other people probably won't. This week it's herons and eagles nesting along the jungle shores of two minor rivers.<br /><br />Following reports of adult heron pairs on Pine River, I was asked to check downstream from the Elm Street bridge for signs of a rookery.<br /><br />Pine River meanders so tightly that you can often look onto the next bend from the one you're rounding, unless the vegetation is too thick or the water level drops you too far below bank height. It cuts through glacial till, undermining the trees that grow along it. Nearly every bank-side tree can look forward to falling in eventually. Some fall along the course. Most fall across. It's surprising anyone can paddle through at all. There have been years in which it didn't seem worth the trouble.<br /><br />Nature never stands still. The logjams cook down. Floods add or remove debris. On many of the more permanent ones, different water levels offer different options for crossing. At high water, float over a low spot. At low low water, limbo underneath. At varying mid levels the climb over may be harder or easier depending on what odd projections and additional logs might be exposed.<br /><br />Yesterday the river was up at a high medium level, following several days of afternoon downpours. The swirling current was a dark reddish brown. The flecks stayed below the surface, so it didn't look like coffee with cream, but more like onion soup. Cold onion soup.<br /><br />I hit the first log jam right where I expected it. It's been there for enough years that I thought it might have rotted down enough to let me pass easily. Instead I had to hop out of Scruffy, the kayak that loves to go sideways, onto a fat log that turned out not to be as buoyant as its bulk might suggest. I didn't go in, because I move very carefully, but it complicated my crossing.<br /><br />One of the owners of my local Java haunt came by, walking her chocolate lab along the bank. She and her husband own a house formerly owned by other friends of mine, which includes a fair amount of unbuildable shore frontage. She said she thought it got worse downstream. As unwelcome as this news was, it still fell within normal variation on the Pine. I was doing this for Science. If Rick, the naturalist, could stick to a compass course through a chest-deep, basically uncharted bog, I could crawl through a few logjams.<br /><br />A long stretch went by with no major obstacles. I'd reached the shore frontage of the shooting preserve on river right. I hadn't looked at it in years, since we aimless explorers were posted out. Early on they had bulldozed the bank to make what appeared to be a canoe launch, but that has grown back in. Only the signs forbidding entry, peeling from every other tree, reminded me of what had been a fine place to wander and watch the post-glacial terrain evolve.<br /><br />A side channel invited entry but contained no nest sites. Then I came to the second stopper.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLTuKkBAQWCKTnvth7tk59qLUwLiuV_-LabGxv6f2u20saTdp1G0mmoNkJA8H62LVaVVtVGXO3aa3cPexkGWjDBT-9LiHAX2n8XwaUb1PN56ibN9ExfMrlGsBNssZXNoPXp-pmA/s1600-h/P6301243+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEggLTuKkBAQWCKTnvth7tk59qLUwLiuV_-LabGxv6f2u20saTdp1G0mmoNkJA8H62LVaVVtVGXO3aa3cPexkGWjDBT-9LiHAX2n8XwaUb1PN56ibN9ExfMrlGsBNssZXNoPXp-pmA/s320/P6301243+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218119612075659842" border="0" /></a><br />This picture is taken from the bank after I had hauled the boat out on that tree trunk.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ROqaOcdyH6NsI4vSo7t_GuSHDzne95Gc4kG7QxvxmI52td7dM7vm6HmIuOAdaClyVM3K1QP55o0ZMr_k5t08fE12Z_1QGJ05D-RsSnIXwFdyrmxCtrlbuv-s_e9YQvk6D3UFHA/s1600-h/P6301244+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-ROqaOcdyH6NsI4vSo7t_GuSHDzne95Gc4kG7QxvxmI52td7dM7vm6HmIuOAdaClyVM3K1QP55o0ZMr_k5t08fE12Z_1QGJ05D-RsSnIXwFdyrmxCtrlbuv-s_e9YQvk6D3UFHA/s320/P6301244+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5218119608726113538" border="0" /></a>A couple of boat lengths dragging through the grass and I was underway again.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Below that jam I passed a lagoon to the left. Someone's building a magnificent dwelling overlooking it, so I doubted herons would find it attractive.<br /><br />Herons like tall pines, I was told. I figured since they're large and stork-like, they might have similar tastes, so I looked at all tall trees. I found nothing.<br /><br />The forest opens out into flood plain with isolated hardwoods, many dead from the ice storm of 1998 and various flooding episodes. There are tons of birds. I saw one adult great blue heron, wood ducks, some other crested water bird, a kingfisher, a selection of woodpeckers, warblers, redwing blackbirds, cedar waxwings, phoebes, grackles and more.<br /><br />When I reached an area I knew could be surveyed from roads on shore, I headed back upstream. Traveling two directions gave me another angle from which to tell there were no nests. I was briefly tempted to push on down to the public boat launch at Route 25 and call for a pickup, but I was less than halfway there. And I believe that you should get yourself out of whatever you get yourself into.<br /><br />Paddling upstream into obstacles is easier in some ways than coming down on them with the flow. You don't get pushed into things. On the other hand, you have to pull for every inch. The crossings were a bit trickier, but somewhat familiar.<br /><br />With arms and shoulders sore from the sudden surge of paddling, I pulled my way back to the launching site. We paddled the lower Pine on Sunday and ended up racing thunderstorms home.<br /><br />The eagles may have to wait. These jungle cruises have a way of eating up time, even if you don't cover much ground. I have chores to do to get ready for next week.<br /></div></div>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-52541584503391965122008-05-13T14:47:00.010-04:002008-12-10T06:54:36.551-05:00Looking for bobcatsThe center of Effingham is a mountain range unbroken by roads. Lacking waterfront, commerce or industry, the town's land has gone back largely to forest over the years. With little to attract disruptive development, the town's more or less functional ecosystems may end up being its best fortune.<br /><br />The trick with environmental protection is to find the selfish human angle that accidentally brings along losing propositions like aesthetics or wildlife. As humans figure out that most of their drinking water comes from underground, they give more scrutiny to what goes on top of that ground. A natural environment produces better results than a built-up one. Even if you only drink beer and never bathe, clean water makes better beer.<br /><br />The shriveling artificial lakes in the American west show that reservoirs don't hold water as well as aquifers do. And aquifers show the trickle-down theory in action. A lot of precipitation falls over a wide area and soaks down into the various layers that hold it for later use. To preserve recharge areas, a lot of land needs to be left alone. What luck. We happen to have a lot of land being left alone already.<br /><br />This area and adjacent sections of Maine are already getting attention from groups like The Nature Conservancy because of the large tracts of restored forest and areas relatively uncut by roads, allowing not only for geological and hydrological function, but wildlife habitat and corridors as well. So interested towns and regional groups are taking stock of what is here and what could be here to set priorities for areas to protect.<br /><br />The official surveyors need permission to enter someone's land and look around, so not every parcel gets examined in detail by an educated eye. The scientists depend on traipsing wanderers who cross unmarked property boundaries on an innocent bushwhack and might see and photograph sites and sights of interest.<br /><br />Last Sunday, Mrs Umm and I headed out to a place she'd never been, on the advice of a naturalist that it looked like a promising area for bobcat denning sites. The naturalist is conducting an inventory of habitat types in town, but doesn't have clearance for this particular spot.<br /><br />The search area was more than a mile from home and required about 1,000 feet of climbing to go up and over the peak behind us and start up the one beyond it. The slope is not very steep on average, but there's no trail. The leaves and black flies are both coming out in the sudden burst typical of northern New England. We should have gone two weeks ago, but weather and schedules did not cooperate.<br /><br />The naturalist had told us to look for old porcupine dens that a bobcat would take over. We found several on our way up the long slope of the home mountain, complete with their scat.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji20wF2CR27sO9a9Zzi9Pe_KSEWdq_gOXTbqhIQZZftpMr7GVEEtxhOpM67748yUgIKyBiRa59Hlahb6obm0ttTdujcaBqtVu40wuutJU8N2-yHjHM6KlKC_3QBlQDQIUCDRo2CQ/s1600-h/P5113414+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji20wF2CR27sO9a9Zzi9Pe_KSEWdq_gOXTbqhIQZZftpMr7GVEEtxhOpM67748yUgIKyBiRa59Hlahb6obm0ttTdujcaBqtVu40wuutJU8N2-yHjHM6KlKC_3QBlQDQIUCDRo2CQ/s320/P5113414+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199947330652142850" border="0" /></a>One of the dens<br /></div><br />Other scat was probably owl pellets. It was hard to tell, because they had dried to crumbly whiteness.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC6EEm21EBOujYI7xDclzwuAwtNp7LQM2Zp1mmH3YrOOpUyAaGCVvS1zTxYlYWN8DfeKWL8AI_2XV1YP0C1R_fFsXzjjDT1mhD01demg9baAYCJv44zKdCxccfcT5UI9E5WXNjpA/s1600-h/P5113412+%28Small%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiC6EEm21EBOujYI7xDclzwuAwtNp7LQM2Zp1mmH3YrOOpUyAaGCVvS1zTxYlYWN8DfeKWL8AI_2XV1YP0C1R_fFsXzjjDT1mhD01demg9baAYCJv44zKdCxccfcT5UI9E5WXNjpA/s320/P5113412+%28Small%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199947923357629714" border="0" /></a>From the summit of our home mountain there was no clear line down into the col. That side was logged in the 1990s, allowing just enough time for it to grow back into sapling hell. The areas that weren't logged are still choked with undergrowth. We picked our way through the least tangled sections, trying to stay on course.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMccOZcjQs6A49ZS1-N6GN69OjIvZSuhtW3Rff0cfzkJIKUBR5_PPpBQ5TAC3LQ-igltATaOVCt50lJiM70v7xYi-pjbm5im-j8_MmtnsSHiobfG4aSkTycpGVU7_hF4Nx1ITHBw/s1600-h/P5113421+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMccOZcjQs6A49ZS1-N6GN69OjIvZSuhtW3Rff0cfzkJIKUBR5_PPpBQ5TAC3LQ-igltATaOVCt50lJiM70v7xYi-pjbm5im-j8_MmtnsSHiobfG4aSkTycpGVU7_hF4Nx1ITHBw/s320/P5113421+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199949113063570722" border="0" /></a>We found this rock wall in the middle of nowhere.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;">At the bottom of the col we intersected an abandoned ATV trail. An old logging road comes up from the paved road about a mile down on the other side of the ridge from our house. This trail continued that line over the col and disappeared down into young growth on the other side. It didn't help us much. We left it soon to head over toward the steep, rocky, overgrown face of the nameless peak where the naturalist thought we might find the cats.<br /><br />With the new leaves and voracious bugs, we couldn't see very far or hold still to listen very long. Nothing in view looked like any kind of den. We'll have to go back when the leaves are off to get a better look.<br /><br />It was a beautiful day for a hike, anyway. And on the way back down on our side of the mountain we saw two porcupines in a tree. One was climbing hurriedly up from the ground while the other one waited, looking very casual on a high branch.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfxta_i_eCFofsEpjzlp6lF8tifSb3PDlPp2l-6DBoVgM8bO3bNY1QmDBwbKNGiMYRtYRw1kOwxP44z7rS9KKStvsPUMFywBC-KHDWopUWd-Z-5YQxpRi86nXhRF6UGUNpPDAXg/s1600-h/P5113424+%28Medium%29.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNfxta_i_eCFofsEpjzlp6lF8tifSb3PDlPp2l-6DBoVgM8bO3bNY1QmDBwbKNGiMYRtYRw1kOwxP44z7rS9KKStvsPUMFywBC-KHDWopUWd-Z-5YQxpRi86nXhRF6UGUNpPDAXg/s320/P5113424+%28Medium%29.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5199951247662316850" border="0" /></a><br />The woods are full of wildlife this year. We had a lot of deer during the winter, and heard coyotes. Now we see a lot of turkeys, squirrels and assorted small birds, and have strong evidence of at least one bear.<br /></div></div>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-51738270717299973602007-03-23T14:11:00.000-04:002007-07-03T18:11:17.526-04:00Ignoring the Window (left over from late winter)I have become like the many who spend their time shut up inside, staring into the infinite window of a computer screen because the view out the real window has so little to offer.<br /><br />Here at this particular job, I can look at the near view of invasive species planted as shrubbery or raise my gaze to the house-raped hillsides, once the province of unbroken woods.<br /><br />Expensive, impractical houses on the heights have become the new waterfront. Some of these erstwhile castle builders try to justify their foolish grab for prominent placement by saying that people lived up there a hundred years ago, so it's an established use.<br /><br />Yes, people lived up there. And by choice they moved down again. And that was when people accepted a lower standard of comfort. If the horses or oxen could haul the wagon up the muddy ruts on twenty-percent grade, the road was passable. If heavy rains washed it out, the road would be laboriously rebuilt with pick and shovel. No one had to have broadband internet, perfect climate control or on-demand access to high speed roadways, regardless of the season.<br /><br />Egotistical development of this sort has not yet managed to destroy the town where I live, though it has begun. Not even a good recession will save us this time, because the kind of person who wants to live up where everyone can see them has plenty of money. A recession will just bring their costs down. It will help them.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-52835306202570208012007-03-19T10:44:00.001-04:002007-07-03T18:11:34.669-04:00The Gathering Storm (Unposted in March)The storm wind rakes the trees already. The heavy snow will not arrive for hours, but the trees sway as the surging gusts rush over them. Standing in the woodshed I remembered how this weather used to excite me.<br /><br />I came here to get away from civilization, but it has followed me. To help guide what I cannot stop, I have had to spend more time with it. Gradually the old connection grows brittle, my own woods unfamiliar as I do not visit them. Mice move into the boats, mildew gathers on the backpacks, tents and climbing gear.<br /><br />The weather now just goes on outside windows. It's something to drive through, not play in or spend much time observingcafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-34529335659707153812007-02-13T16:52:00.000-05:002007-03-21T16:47:21.047-04:00The Sensual SailorYears crept by as I lived inland. Then one day I drove to the coast. Long before I saw the water, I smelled it.<br /><br />Lakes, even Great Lakes, can't equal the bewitching fertility of the sea. The wind carries the scent of life miles inland. I homed on it as if seeking the waters of my birth.<br /><br />The water had been an arena of fear. When first I floated on it in a small boat, I felt my helplessness. Terror gripped me and jerked me in its claws faster than any rational thought could overtake it. I had wanted to be there, but visceral panic overwhelmed me, followed by shame and a sense of failure.<br /><br />Just so you know where I came from. For some reason, I felt the water's deadly potential as if I'd experienced it before. At age six or seven, I had no thoughts of reincarnation. I just knew I had no control, strapped into a bulky kapok life jacket that felt like it would drag me to the bottom, stuffed down beside the daggerboard trunk of an eight-foot pram.<br /><br />Later, larger, though still small, alone in the same boat, I stared into the green depths as the bottom dropped out of sight in Camden Harbor, and felt again that I was tempting the forces of nature to punish my impudence for daring to stick a spar and sail up into the fretful wind that swirled beneath steely clouds on what was supposed to be a summer day.<br /><br />Still, something kept me coming back.<br /><br />With so much clutter in my mind, I had difficulty absorbing the subtleties of racing. Junior programs were built around racing. Victory at sea was the goal.<br /><br />I raced. I grew. I learned how to operate the boat, and some of the strategy and tactics. But mostly I relaxed in my growing confidence and absorbed the sensations of sailing and observed the environment as an object of technical interest and a work of art. Our finish placings suffered accordingly.<br /><br />While many race days stand out, so do the other experiences, seeing Portuguese men-o-war floating in Biscayne Bay and catching glimpses of wild dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico, or surfing across the sand bar into Dunedin Pass while all the other boats wended their way around a serpentine channel in careful single file. Indeed, from a lifetime on the water I have countless memories, and few of them are of glorious victory. They are of glorious existence.<br /><br />Racing got me out there in conditions I might not have tackled. It was a bit like having a job. My skipper wanted to be in the event and I wanted to help him be there. I wouldn't mind a good performance, either. But there were so many distractions in the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Gulf of Mexico and various estuarine waters. We also sailed in lakes.<br /><br />I love the lift and drive when we capture a puff of wind and hike out over the rail. I love the more violent acceleration downwind on a reach, catching waves that throw the boat ahead. Are we winning? I don't know. But we're moving right along.<br /><br />One day, in strong winds, we rounded our leeward mark, which was also the starting line pin, just as the whole fleet of Flying Dutchmen got the gun. We came up to the wind and had to throw an instant tack as the surging flotilla leaped toward us all together on starboard tack.<br /><br />Another day, not racing, I saw a Star coming out of Annapolis. We were well out toward the open bay. The Star was on starboard tack. We held course until we were right under the Star's bow and tacked at the perfect time, but the bigger boat's large and powerful rig overrode us like we weren't even there. I was laughing like a maniac the whole time, because I knew it was probably hopeless. The Star crew was laughing too, because they knew I was joking just for trying it.<br /><br />All the stories would make a book. I could find enough gripping excitement to scare at least the inexperienced reader. And sometimes it's just nice to remember a good day on the water.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-26707478340151058362006-12-15T14:28:00.000-05:002006-12-15T15:40:09.773-05:00TerritoryIdly Googling on a deadly slow day at the shop, I punched in Dolly Sods, then Roaring Plains, two places in which I began my backpacking education.<br /><br />The Sods was little known when two Sods regulars initiated a couple of us to its mysteries. Most DC area hikers only seemed to go as far as Shenandoah National Park, or perhaps the George Washington National Forest.<br /><br />Preparing for our first trip, a field trip from the bike shop in Alexandria where we more or less worked, Art and Scotty primed us with tales of a weird landscape, scoured by the wind as the bones of deer and free-range sheep bleached in the weather. We would be far more likely to see animals than people, they assured us. They had been going there since high school, and only saw the people they brought with them on any particular trip.<br /><br />They were as surprised as we were when we found quite a few people out there on a harsh October weekend. Maybe it was Columbus Day Weekend. I didn't pay much attention to the holidays back then. I only knew that I had a couple of days off and we were going to have an adventure.<br /><br />By bushwhacking, as was Art and Scotty's habit, we managed to go most of two days without seeing anyone but each other. The landscape certainly lived up to their description. The spruce trees were all flagged by the incessant wind, so they had branches only on their leeward side. Sandstone formations jutted up from the hillsides. We bounced over sphagnum bogs like kids jumping on a giant bed. No water showed. Only the springy mat of thick moss revealed that we weren't on solid ground.<br /><br />As years passed, I learned more about the disciplines of hiking and met more people who explored the lesser-known areas. One of them, a guy named Jack, pushed into the plateau next to Dolly Sods, an area called Roaring Plains, and discovered many hideaways only an intrepid bushwhacker would find.<br /><br />By the beginning of the late 1980s, ATVs had arrived out there. The locals laid tire tracks on a lot of what had been pristine and peaceful knolls from which to survey the rumpled mountainscape in quiet contemplation. At the same time, the small numbers of the intrepid grew and grew. It appears from the internet results that this may have generated some efforts to preserve the peaceful beauty against the onslaught of vehicle ruts. The cost, of course, is that none of it is a secret anymore. You don't have to look at a topographic map and deduce for yourself what you may find. You can look at a website and know for sure. I recognized some vistas, now named, with trails, that we found for ourselves with map and compass. There are names, personal and commercial, associated with the things we used to do out there just to do them.<br /><br />When you visit a place often, or if you live there for a while, you develop a sense of territory. So it was with Roaring Plains, where I spent much of one whole day adding rocks to obstacle walls someone else had started, to try to fence out the ATVs. My companions urged me to give it up and just keep hiking, but I couldn't surrender without a statement. Ultimately, though, I left, and gave the field to them.<br /><br />Twinges of territoriality return as I look at the pictures on the web. But the only way to hold claim to your territory is to be on it. If you're always on it, no one else can be. The need to possess it or be known for its discovery destroys what made it good in the first place.<br /><br />But I was there. I peed on a bunch of trees. It's the natural way to claim.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1159794184992184952006-10-02T09:02:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:27.352-05:00Hunting the Wild Culvert<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/1024/P9262824.jpg"><img style="display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/400/P9262824.jpg" border="0" /></a>Here is our quarry: the wily, elusive culvert.<br /><br />Road builders release these innocuous-seeming metal or concrete tubes into the wild, letting them nest underneath the roads and highways and, like a neglectful reptile mother, wander off, leaving them to fend for themselves. Later, natural-sciences students go in search of them to see if they are really doing what they were meant to.<br /><br />Someone must have known where they were originally, but now the most effective way to inventory them and assess their efficiency is to drive very slowly along the road, scanning the undergrowth for any hint that a culvert might lurk down there and then wade through the poison ivy to measure and describe it.<br /><br />The plucky UNH crew crawls right through the large enough ones. It's not so bad on a warm September day, but the study runs into November. <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" align="middle" border="0" /></a>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1155593480730570102006-08-14T18:00:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:27.019-05:00Just Before<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/1024/P8080243.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/400/P8080243.jpg" border="0" /></a> We're headed upstream in this picture with Laurie in the lead. Right around this bend I tried to slip under a leaning tree. Laurie had gone around the end of it. I took a few good digs with the paddle and then held it lengthwise to shoot under the tree. My boat didn't carry far enough, so my left paddle blade caught on the tree as I drifted backwards. The paddle pivoted downwards and got wedged beside the boat. The inexorable current then tipped the boat up and over before I could figure out how to stop it.<br /><br />The boat was still somewhat wedged, so I had to come out of it to right it. The little FRS radio in my pocket was whining, so I yanked the batteries out of it. Laurie retrieved a couple of escaped items heading downstream.<br /><br />This is why I shelled out a few hundred for a waterproof digital camera. Stupid things can happen. <a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a> cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1155592701159528972006-08-14T17:55:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:26.739-05:00Field Testing the Olympus Stylus 720SW<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/1024/P8080244.jpg"><img style="display: block; text-align: center;" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/400/P8080244.jpg" border="0" /></a> I took this picture immediately after wading out of the water. I had to sponge the water droplets off the glass over the lens, but the camera worked perfectly. I believe the plant is Lobelia Cardinalis. <a href="http://picasa.google.com/blogger/" target="ext"><img src="http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif" alt="Posted by Picasa" style="border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" align="middle" border="0" /></a>cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1150147997021559492006-06-12T17:14:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:26.381-05:00Morning on the River<a href="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/1024/P6120068.jpg"><img style="DISPLAY: block; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4481/593/400/P6120068.jpg" border="0" /></a> Pine River is bank-full and cold after all the rain we've had. I was down there this morning to test the water for the <a href="http://www.gmcg.org/">Green Mountain Conservation Group</a>.<br /><br />It was strange to see the sun.<br /><br />The mosquitoes had been hellish as I walked through the woods to get to the river, but they weren't too bad when I got there. Flat swarms of them swirled just over the water's surface, intent on their own business. Dipping down into this motion in parabolic dives were mayflies. The two patterns blended like a dance.<br /><br />The water is dark brown, but not really silty. The samples I tested for turbidity produced lower numbers than I think I've ever seen.<br /><br />When I was young I would look down small rivers as we drove across their bridges in the family car on our way somewhere else. I always wondered what I might find along those mysterious, neglected streams. Every time I've followed one I've found something cool.<br /><br />It's nice to be taking care of a river now. <a href='http://picasa.google.com/blogger/' target='ext'><img src='http://photos1.blogger.com/pbp.gif' alt='Posted by Picasa' style='border: 0px none ; padding: 0px; background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; -moz-background-clip: initial; -moz-background-origin: initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: initial;' align='middle' border='0' /></a> cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1147045291486014062006-05-07T19:34:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:26.124-05:00Holy Quack!We just spotted a pair of <a href="http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Wood_Duck_dtl.html">wood ducks </a>perching in a tree behind the garage. They may be house-hunting in the mixed pine forest. According to some quick internet research, they may nest up to two kilometers from the water. We're closer than that and I've seen woodies on the river many times. Some people put out duck boxes for them.<br /><br />Add that to the list of oddball species that call Scavengewood home. We have forest hummingbirds and wood ducks who don't prefer waterfront.<br /><br />We won't count the wood ducks as residents until we see them move in.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1147029829730491792006-05-07T15:00:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:25.806-05:00Frog FindingOn a sunny bike tour around the neighborhood, Laurie and I went down Huntress Bridge Road, a straight mile of dirt across a tamarack swamp. It was too nice a day to hurry.<br /><br />We stopped to look into the water filling the wetland after the rain last week. Levels are low compared to years when winter's snow was deep, but somehow it manages to flow. The small rains we've received do bring the streams up a little.<br /><br />At first the little ponds looked sterile. We saw a few water bugs dancing on the surface, but nothing more. Then Laurie, the Frog Finder, began to spot them. There seemed to be a frog or two every few inches. As we walked further, to a wider bit of water, we saw egg masses down near the bottom. It looked like a fairly good day in the frog world.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9475964.post-1146514435920806942006-05-01T15:42:00.000-04:002006-11-09T05:18:25.327-05:00Playing Outside, Boston StyleThis weekend I took a rare Saturday off to go to a concert by the Boston Philharmonic. While in the city, Laurie and I went with our host, Ken, and our friend Genevieve, to a couple of the recreational green spaces in the area.<br /><br />On Saturday afternoon we went to the path along the Charles River in Watertown for a short stroll. The big story this time of year is birds. Whatever species still have winter habitats anywhere are returning for the spring breeding season here in the northern US. Ken's pretty good with the avian fauna, even identifying them by ear when they can't be seen. Of course none of the rest of us knew enough to call him on any of it. But we did see a nice selection of specimens.<br /><br />Right by the Watertown Dam we saw a black-backed gull and a herring gull. Nearby we saw a cormorant. Then, as we walked upstream, we saw two beautiful wood ducks. The urban woodies are a lot less shy around humans than the ones we see along the rivers in our part of New Hampshire.<br /><br />Take a moment for whatever plays on words you can't keep your mind from pursuing.<br /><br />Along came the inevitable couple of mallards to see what we might be giving away. Further along, at a little boardwalk spur to overlook the bank, some Welfare Geese came up, also hoping for charity. These are the variant of Canadian goose that no longer migrates. There really is something sad about that. Not deeply sad, just disappointing. Come on! Migrate! Your tundra home is calling.<br /><br />Nope. Not today.<br /><br />Other species included a goldfinch, yellow-rumped warblers, a grackle, red-winged blackbirds and a stunning northern oriole, looking very freshly painted. There are hardly any leaves out yet, to hide the bright plumage of the males.<br /><br />The next day Ken took us to Forest Hills Cemetery to see the Great Horned Owl owlets. In the photo he showed us, they looked like little teddy bears with piercing, burning eyes and savage beaks. Cute! Fuzzy! Egad!<br /><br />When we got to the cemetery, which is also maintained as a public green space, the young owls were no longer in the nest. They're about six or seven weeks old at this point, so they've "branched," as Ken put it. Unable to fly properly, they've hopped out onto the branches and actually manage to go from tree to tree with ungainly, flapping leaps. We searched the area, but did not see them. Laurie pointed out the owl pellets on a flat memorial slab in front of us. For a while that and the empty nest seemed like all we would see.<br /><br />We did see a titmouse, a mourning dove, another red-winged blackbird and another warbler of some sort before we gave up and started to leave.<br /><br />On the way out of the cemetery we saw a small group staring into the upper branches of a large tree. One man had a camera on a tripod with one of those lenses only really serious people bother to buy and carry around. The kind that mount to the tripod themselves, with the camera hanging off the end like a vestigial organ. We'd located the owls. Or, more correctly, we'd located the people who had located the owls.<br /><br />We joined the craning crowd, talking in hushed tones. Two sandy-gray owlets, juvenile in plumage and configuration, but not in size, clung incongruously to tiny twigs in the crown of a tree just unfurling yellow-green leaves. The breeze swayed the crown of the tree, so the owls bobbed and swayed, occasionally putting out a wing to stabilize themselves. They stared solemnly, appraisingly down at us as we looked up at them.<br /><br />Cool as it is to sight something rare in nature, there's only so long you can spend invading the privacy of a creature whose only interest in you is whether you will try to eat it after it has determined that it is too small to eat you. We soaked up as much owl ambiance as we could, before heading off to find some much-needed lunch.cafiendhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05749761363337659545noreply@blogger.com0