Extension News: June 2010 Archives

I've run 27 marathons and biked thousands of miles over the years. I'm not a super athlete, but I can do physical stuff for hours. “For hours” is the part I love. Good thing, because I have yet to break four hours for a marathon.

For those of you unfamiliar with marathon times, the winners run the 26.2 miles in just over two hours. To qualify for the Boston Marathon, I'd have to run the distance in four hours and five minutes. My best time ever: four hours and six minutes. There's hope for me, but just barely.

With all that exercise, it's easy to start feeling invincible. (Secretly, invincibility was my goal. It was a little ego charge to know that running 10 miles was no big deal.) The day our friends Bob and Julie told my husband Ron and me we had to hike Kearsarge North, it sounded intriguing but sort of wimpy. Hiking? A long walk? Well, maybe we’d try it after one of those vigorous 12 mile runs we liked to take.

We'd visited the Mount Washington Valley for years, always enjoying a ride across the Kancamagus Highway or up to Pinkham Notch. We spent our time taking scenic drives, running on the valley roads, and shopping at the outlet malls. Occasionally someone would tell us about a spectacular waterfall or scenic vista (Ellis and Sabbaday Falls come to mind), and we would take the short walk.

Real hiking was something else. I didn't fit my picture of a hiker the I buy all my outfits at a sports shop type of hiker. Nonetheless, I was intrigued. Our friends went on about how the hike was tougher than it looked and you had to be prepared for it.

These friends greatly admired our running stamina, as many of our friends did, and at that point I think it had gone to our heads a bit. Our friends said to plan about six hours for the hike. If these weekend warriors did it in six, we would surely finish in four hours, if not three.

The morning of our big adventure, I put on my discount-store hiking boots, my one concession to the hike. I pulled on street jeans (fashionable rather than comfortable) and several layers of tops. I rejected the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches Bob had told us were mandatory for energy, although I did make some homemade trail mix as Julie recommended. Ron packed his PB&J sandwich and off we went our first real hiking experience.

We found the trailhead and felt a little thrill just saying “trailhead” like real hikers. The tiny parking lot was packed with cars, but no one was in sight. It was about 8 a.m. We set off on a nice stone and pine needle trail. I was breathing in the air and feeling on top of the world. In six short miles I really would be on top of the world! We'd heard that on a clear day you could see the ocean.

Soon the trail began to rise. Finally, some challenge to this leisurely walk. I hoped I'd have time for a run when we got back. The walk became a steady climb, sometimes a little steeper and sometimes flattening where the trail switched back to alleviate some of the steepness. Nothing I couldn’t handle. But at some point I began to look forward to those short, flatter sections.

Not much farther along, I noticed I was quite warm. Hot, in fact. Sweating. I stopped (secretly thankful for the break) to shed the layers down to my t-shirt. In way too short a time we were back on the trail heading upwards.

Ron finally (and thankfully) mentioned that this hike was tougher than it seemed. Behind him, I was drenched in sweat, my stiff, soggy jeans soaked through. I looked down at my watch. We'd been hiking for 20 minutes! How could that be possible? But giving up never crossed my mind.

Then we turned the corner of a switchback and the trail got even steeper. I offered my husband $50 for his peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He wouldn't bargain.

At some point I realized hiking is about the journey, not the destination (although the summit was every bit as beautiful as promised). With my goal-oriented outlook I expect I'll probably keep learning that lesson with every new adventure. I was completely humbled and hooked on hiking that day and have a couple of weekend-warrior friends to thank for it.

Next, I'll tell you the story of my experiences with yoga, another “sport” I once considered wimpy, but I'll leave that for another day.

By: Gini Cornila, Master Gardener

I couldn’t hear the river from the yard the day I first looked at the property. The Little River was a trickle, barely meandering around the rocks. During the Mother’s Day floods in 2006, I could hear it, and I could see for the first time its churning waters from my kitchen window. Town officials strongly suggested a home evacuation.

Today, after a daylong rain, if I stand still and quiet in the driveway, I can hear the water flowing over the rocks 75 yards away.

In our eight years living here, the river has become a part of our landscape, a part of the family. The jagged white bedrock with splotches of moss protects the bank on our side. This same bedrock rock also creates a pool deep enough to cool us off on hot, humid summer days.

The far bank is where I found two of my domestic ducks after an unknown critter had chased them off. I discovered them the next day paddling peacefully next to the ice shelf. Several ungraceful attempts were needed to herd them away from the river and home to their coop. At least only the ducks went swimming on that cold January day.

The second summer my daughters, then ages 7 and 9, and I floated the river with kickboards where we could, and walked, when there was not enough water to float. Our two-hour adventure ended at the Lamprey River. Lots of little girl giggles. I would like to do it again but they are teenagers now. Not as interested in hanging out with mom.

The river bank is my place of refuge both in summer and winter. I have my special spot I head to after a day in the office. I perch on the edge and peer down, noting differences since my previous visit. The sunlight filters through the hemlocks and reflects back at me. Changes happen quickly or slowly. The water level rises and falls with the seasons, the trees strewn from bank to bank change with each storm. The far bank has been transformed to a rocky beach. After this year’s spring storms, upstream looks like a sandy beach at the ocean.

An after Thanksgiving dinner family walk along the river a few years ago ended abruptly when I looked behind me to see my older daughter dangling above the chilly water of the swimming hole. Her hands clenched the rope swing she played on in warmer months. Her feet kicked in the chilly water.

Somehow I reached out and swung her back to the bank without either of us going for a swim. She uncomplainingly endured cold feet on the walk home.

The river is home to mammals and birds. We co-exist with most of them, although not always peacefully. A goshawk that nested downstream swooped in and injured one of my Kaki Campbell ducks. She didn’t survive. I buried her in the woods. The raccoons that travel the river ended the lives of my first flock of backyard chickens. The owl that sits early mornings in the dead tree above the woodshed watches our 14 pound cat with hopes of carrying her off as breakfast.

I have seen many changes over a short period of time. Trees down across the water from ice and wind storms, my girls wearing makeup, an island downstream eroded away, my older daughter driving. The far bank is steeper; my other daughter starts high school in the fall. The river is changing. My girls are growing up. I appreciate the consistency of water flowing on its journey to the Atlantic.

Sometimes it roars, sometimes it trickles. My girls roar and trickle. Their changes are as unpredictable as the weather that changes the river. We all go with the flow and adjust, just as the hemlocks along the bank adjust to the erosion at their roots and changing winds in their branches.

The goshawk doesn’t come by anymore now that the ducks are gone. I still hear him in the spring in the distance, but I don’t have to keep a vigilant eye on the back yard anymore. My girls will grow, graduate and move on. I will always be on guard for them. I hope they will come by for a visit after they are gone from the house.

The river will continue to flow and change, will be my place to pause at the end of the day. I will continue to be a mom, even when my daughters have grown and moved on. I admire changes, growth and the quiet gifts from the river and from my girls. I also admire roaring defiance and amazing strength from nature and from my teenagers. The journey continues.

By: Suzanne M. Hebert, Writer

I hate red geraniums. But my grandmother loved them.

I had the privilege of having grandparents who owned a beach house, a place as tangible in my mind as the old boards on the porch still are. The house was always a buzz with company, friends and family. Mémere would cook anything you desired; even the children's catch of the day off a bridge was boiled for the stray cats. Passers by would stop to chat. I suspect the commotion about the place is what attracted so much attention.

But I know now that something else always made the walkers and traffic snarled grumblers gaze toward the house as if being called by name. It was those red geraniums.

Back in those days, porches were rugged, built to take years of wear from people and the elements alike. The rails were topped with huge, wide boards that did double duty. They provided comfortable seating for those days when the company exceeded the eclectic collection of eight or so rocking chairs, and they also held the biggest window boxes I've ever seen.

Mémere wasn't the demure type who fancied pastel shades of pink. Oh, no. She chose her flowers like everything else she did. With gusto! Gimme the reds! She had the largest, most beautiful globes of geraniums you've ever seen.
 
Geraniums. They smell. Not always nice. They need picking and pruning and endless watering jobs Mémere often gave to me, though I know she was relinquishing those chores to teach me about growing things. Especially in a box, a plant dies if you don't love it. So, for my grandmother's sake I cared for her geraniums.

Mémere passed the love of gardening to my dad, who favored roses. He worked endless hours at hard, physical labor. I remember him coming home at night, not coming into the house until the lawn was cut. He had looked forward to mowing that lawn all day. In a welding shop with temperatures swelling well over 100 degrees, imagining mowing perfect swaths in a deep, green lawn was peace for him. Admiring each of his roses as he passed them on his mission, he felt calm and complete, having stolen the last ray of sunshine.

I created my first garden 35 years ago when I was 20, an herb garden the length of the house and three feet deep. It blossomed and overflowed that first summer, scenting the adjacent rooms with promises of delectable, spicy meals and calm for the senses. It led the next year to a small vegetable garden, and thus my habit grew. I canned and froze everything.

Then I moved and started a new garden, planning to downsize it. But the garden inevitably overproduced, and I, not a regular church goer, filled large baskets with my surplus, arrived late to leave the baskets in the vestibule, and stayed long enough to be among the last to leave. It was all gone before I retrieved my baskets.

Two years ago I moved again, and today I have another new yard and a new garden, mostly flowers this time, and filled with precious cuttings of plants shared by so many friends in years past. Again, I planned to downsize, but I joined two garden clubs and became a Master Gardener.

People garden for different reasons. Some for food, some for beauty, some for peace of mind, and some because a ghost calls them to remember.

As I planted my newest, tiny vegetable garden this year, I saw a doe on my hill behind the house and shook my fist at her. Daring not sample my vegetable seedlings, she diverted her attention to a nearby geranium.

Oh yes, a geranium.

Seems I can’t help myself. I have geraniums in planters all over the place. In shades of pink by the bistro table, hues of peach by the shade garden. They’re in orange tones by the potting shed, and spill off into the sun’s edge by the where red and yellow daylilies meet.

I've always been particular about color, creating arcs of color that blend from one to another about the spans of green lawn. I like to work with a color wheel in my head, lest I create a color “faux pas.”

A bed of perennials in my front yard features plum, violet, and grape tones, colors I carry over each year into a huge blue pot at the end of the brick walk. Generally, I fill the pot with lavender plants and others that bloom in soft lilacs tones, adding vinca for a draping effect.

But today I felt Mémere watching me with those piercing, robin’s egg blue eyes and a smirk that held a dare, egging me on. Thus, I made a huge faux pas. I bought the biggest, boldest red geranium I could find for that blue pot, laughing along with Mémere all the while.

She would be proud.

By: Marie Nickerson, Master Gardener