NH Outside: Land use Archives

My experience with rocks began quite suddenly when I moved into my new house in May of 2005. Inside everything was finished, but outside, alas, was a field of dirt and lots of rocks.

The builder had created a small lawn in the front. He'd applied topsoil and grass seed: some evidence of growth showed above the soil. His last instruction before he drove away was, "Add water." He gave no instructions for dealing with the rocks.

In all fairness, I must add he had created some nice rock retaining walls at strategic points around the foundation perimeter. But it soon became evident that I'd have to come up with a plan for the rest of the acre. I started with a drawing. I expanded the drawing.

In the expansion stage,I found myself caught between a rock and...many others. Questions began to arise. Which rocks to move first? Where to put the ones I'd move? Back to the drawing to study the situation further.

Then came the question of how to transport and place solid objects ranging in weight from a few ounces to 70 pounds. I took stock of my equipment: a long piece of one-inch pipe, which would help pry rocks to the surface, and an assortment of shovels.

So much for the levers, but what did I have to transport the weightier rocks once I'd pried them out of the soil? I considered my wheelbarrow. It would work well on the skull-sized and smaller stones, but what about the really big ones?

My search led me to the back of the basement. Hidden in the corner was a professional-sized hand truck belonging to one of my sons-in-law,just the ticket. It had remained there unused since he had brought some items in for temporary storage. The items are still there, but the hand truck is my favorite adopted tool until he remembers where he left it.

Observing the retaining walls, I envisioned a pattern of rocks next to the house. Starting with the walls next to the end of the house, I connected them on my paper plan with dots representing a row of medium-sized rocks. I later laid the rocks to create a raised bed sloped for drainage.

I piled additional rocks around and rising above some stumps, and back-filled over and around the stumps to create circular raised beds for annuals. I still had plenty of rocks, but winter overtook me and I quit for the season.

The following spring I found numerous places to create rock enclosures: round ones here, rectangular ones there and, just for fun, a pinwheel or two. They were a bit hard to mow around, but very decorative when planted with flowers. I took a break for the rest of the year to pursue trout fishing and other fun activities.

The next winter, I began reading about ponds and waterfalls. Visions of rocks started dancing in my head about the middle of February. I drew and redrew my plans and proceeded to lay out the biggest rock project of all.

As the snow melted in late March, I was out on the slope in back of the garage with string and stakes, laying out the watercourse of the waterfall. I acquired materials for the pool and the water system and the electrical power for the pump. Then I waited a month for the ground to thaw.

Following the directions of the experts I found in books, I started from the lowest point. I set a preformed pond in place and backfilled around its upper perimeter. I left the lower side open for a structure to contain the electrical supply. I laid the watercourse from the lowest point to the highest, created two points of release for the water, and joined them halfway to the pond. I put down larger rocks along the perimeter and placed small and medium-sized rocks in the watercourse to create a cascade effect.

It is now the spring of 2008. All my hard-rock work is done and my beds and other creations are calling out for attention and eventual planting as the last frost date approaches. I look out and see the bones of the beds emerging from the snow and I get itchy for action. I still see rocks I can use to enhance my landscape artwork.

Alas, there is a downside to this tale. I messed up my shoulder placing some of the larger rocks. But time heals all. While I'm healing, I can sit back, have a cup of Joe and smell the spring flowers.

By Bill Dawson, Community Tree Steward

UNH Cooperative Extension

Digging carrots from the garden in 80 degree weather just doesn't seem natural for the end of September. There were a surprising lot of carrots, considering I never got out there to thin them for salad as I’d promised myself I’d do.

So I suffer now. I spent the afternoon in the kitchen processing the carrots for freezing. Now, the non gardeners among you will be thinking “How nice! People out there are still preserving food.”  But the real gardeners will think, “Why doesn't she just put them in the root cellar”?

Well, these carrots needed to be processed because chipmunks or some other critter started eating the carrots at the top and went as far into the ground as possible, leaving a concave depression with all these little tooth marks and making those carrots no good for root cellar storage.

On the other hand, I'm not overly fond of cooked carrots. Thank goodness for my mother's old Farm Journal Cookbooks, which contain recipes from generations of farm wives. They knew how to preserve food: Take 12 pounds of carrots, etc. I wound up with candied ginger carrots and orange glazed carrots. I’ll be very happy this winter to take them out of the freezer.

The beets also needed gathering. Something bigger than a chipmunk had enjoyed the beet greens, and the roots themselves weren't as time consuming to process. I just picked out the ones that were split or nibbled on and cooked them. I stashed the rest away in a cool place to be brought out much later.

As the sun was sinking, I went out to get a few (I thought) beans for dinner. Lugging the full basket back into the house, I set about preparing them. These aren’t just any bean, but scarlet runners. My friend from England introduced me to this heirloom variety. They not only produce the most beautiful red flowers all summer and fall, but the beans themselves taste better than ordinary green beans. They are so beautiful many people grow them just for the flowers and don't even know how good they taste. You have to pick the pods before the beans inside start to swell. If you have to “string” them, they’re too old, fit only for the compost. 

I got them all cut up and didn't have the heart to do any more freezing that day. As my husband walked through the kitchen he casually asked if I was freezing them. I told him, “No, we’re having some hot for dinner and I’ll make the rest into a bean salad that should last the rest of the month.”

While I’m on the subject of heirloom varieties, the Brandywine tomatoes are hitting their full stride. We got them into the ground very late. Most years at this time the plants would be hanging down in the cellar slowly ripening their fruit away from the frosty outside air. Brandywines are so good! No other tomato beats their taste. And big! A couple of years ago I remember picking with pride the first ripe Brandywine. I washed it and sliced three half inch slabs that completely covered the bread for that first tomato/mayo sandwich. This particular tomato was so large I put the rest of it in the fridge and we had it for a salad that evening. I haven't had one that big in awhile, but I did bring one to share with my hiking group today. Everyone tucked slices into their sandwiches except for the one with the peanut butter sandwich. She ate her share separately.

The winter squash are still out there. If nothing has been nibbling on them, they go right into the cold room. No hassle. Thumbing though my gardening magazine, I found a lovely article on horseradish. Something else I’ll need to harvest before too long.

Have you ever tried to process horseradish? Oh, the tears you shed! After my first experience, my mother told me she used to hold the root outside a mostly closed window and grate it out there. Good idea. I'll put my food processor on an extension cord and see how that works.

My mother gave up canning and freezing well before she was my age. She lived though the time when you had to do it to survive the winter. She stopped when they moved off the farm and thought supermarkets were just great. Well, they are, but home grown food tastes better, at least to me. Knowing what went into growing the produce, harvesting it and preserving it for the long winter gives a feeling of security not just because I can have something to eat, but because I still know how to do it. Will the next generation have these skills?

By Carolyn Enz Page, Community Tree Steward
UNH Cooperative Extension

Have you ever wondered how fields were opened when you see the thick stands of trees growing around them? I always have.

Folklore and history books tell of the labor involved with digging and dragging away the many stones and boulders left behind by the glaciers to build walls and the foundations of barns and homes.

Except for the few old pictures of two men at either end of a large saw cutting away at a large tree, we don’t seem to have the whole story. In the last decade I have been privileged to watch the clearing of a field as it actually happened.

Loggers clear-cut a large tract of a neighboring field—more than ten acres—for timber and firewood. Only the stumps and some tops remained. I expected machinery to come and “stump” the land to prepare it for plowing and seeding. But come early spring, just the rocks and sprouting stumps were there. A spring-fed stream ran down along one side of the tract.

Shortly after, someone set out a pair of cattle there, as well as a few sheep and goats. It was a pretty sight as the animals traveled over various areas, eating as they went. Some stumps sprouted new growth, which the animals soon chewed down.

The goats and sheep seemed to prefer to play among the rocks and boulders. At times, the cattle would roam over the far side of the field; other times I’d see them near the fencing along the road.

Some grasses grew as the summer progressed, and the tree stumps sprouted anew. Every night the animals went to the barn for grain and hay. When winter came, they all got penned inside. The field lay quiet under the snow.

The next spring, the pattern of animal activity continued, but some stumps didn’t seem to have the growth of the first year. It certainly didn’t look like the cultivated fields I had seen where the soil was exposed, with mud puddles developing. The tree sprouts continued decreasing, until only one or two trees per acre remained, having escaped the foraging animals. As those trees grew, the grasses responded to the occasional shade, and some wild daisies and asters found a home.

This cyclic pattern of three seasons of animal grazing and winter rest continued over the next four to five years. The field continued to supply forage for the animals, the few trees gave some needed shade to the grazers, and the sporadic wild flowers added to the charm. It seemed to me an answer to my wonderment.

The tools used to cut trees—from axes, to saws, to power machinery, and whole-tree harvesting equipment—have evolved over time. The stories of strong men with horses and oxen and stone boats, rolling, tugging or lugging boulders and building walls are evidenced at every turn on our back-country roads.

Machinery can dig out stumps and push boulders into walls in a few days, but the new walls will lack that unique ‘man-made’ look. Many tracts of open land remain open because they are “improved.” But here I have watched a different style of land management: one where nature takes the major role.

The logging operation opened up the area and produced a crop for sale, giving the ground a new lease on life. The animals roamed freely on securely fenced acreage. Some trees continued to put up sprouts which nourished the animals. But the majority of the stumps were stripped enough and often enough that they were unable to continue growing new sprouts. The resulting field had the look of having been there since time began, as though no human hand had played any part at all.

Time changes all things. The animals are gone now. Without their activity, nature will again reign. The seeds of “pioneer” tree species, such as poplar and birch, will self-sow over the grasses and some will find conditions hospitable and begin to sprout. The pioneers will gradually give way to red maple, oak, and pine—the so-called “mid-succession” species. These, in turn, may eventually yield to what foresters call the “climax” species: sugar maple, hemlock, and beech.

Once again the forest will stand until man strips the land of its trees and the field appears again.

by Judith A. Kraemer, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

In a snowless winter, when the cross-country skis languish unused, I walk in the woods. Spruce, hemlock and pine, and sometimes a dusting of snow, sharpen the grays and browns of bare trees and stone walls. The open forest provides glimpses of past and present inhabitants, human and otherwise.

Ancient and not-so-ancient roads and trails wind through wooded areas of New Hampshire. They provide entrance to the forests and to the history of a place, at least since European settlers arrived in the 17th and 18th centuries. Ridges and narrow valleys directing drainage to larger streams and ponds, outcroppings of ledge, large boulders, depressions that will hold vernal pools in spring—these speak of a longer history, thousands of years of geological alteration.

Old town maps and even some more modern atlases show roads that no longer exist, or are not maintained as roads. They are usually easy to identify on the ground. Stone walls 50 feet apart commonly attest to the existence of a three-rod road. (A rod is usually 162 feet, although I have recently learned of a town where the rod measured 18 feet.) Hikers, skiers, snowmobilers and hunters all delight in trekking along old roads.

When deciduous trees are bare and snow cover is sparse, winter reveals clues to the past: remnants of old home and barn foundations offer evidence of once-upon-a-time homesteads. A few weathered stones mark an old family burial site, perhaps with its own stone-walled enclosure. A narrow-walled pathway leads from a long-absent barn to a pasture now grown to forest. A pile of broken dishes and rusted farm machinery marks an old farmstead dump site.

High-bush blueberry bushes, too shaded to bear fruit, mark the site where cattle or sheep pastured, perhaps 70 or 100 years ago; a gnarled remnant of an apple tree marks the site of an orchard.

Walls take off at angles to the road, marking ancient fields and pastures. Some are boundary walls, dividing one farm from another. Boundary trees, left standing along the wall and in the gaps, sometimes bear Ablazes@ still visible despite years of growth.

Old logging trails may be harder to follow. They contribute to an understanding of the history and character of the land. Many simply stop where the last big tree was cut, but some provide thoroughfares through a tract. Keep your compass handy if you follow one of these.

People are not the only creatures who take advantage of old roads and logging trails. Fresh snow reveals tracks—always deer, occasionally a moose, coyotes, perhaps a bobcat, and smaller creatures: squirrels, grouse, turkeys, and creatures like us who don=t have the sense or capability to hunker down for the winter.

Deer follow the man-made trails for a while and then veer off to create their own paths through the forest. It=s risky to follow them into unfamiliar territory. The deer know where they are going, but you may not want to go there!

Traditionally in New Hampshire large tracts of woodlands have been open to hunters and hikers—low-impact pedestrian recreational users. More recently though, I’ve come across trails where all-terrain vehicles and 4X4 trucks have inflicted severe damage, creating deep ruts and disrupting fragile wetland ecosystems. As a result, some snowmobile clubs have gated trails and landowners have closed off access to discontinued roads.

If the long tradition of keeping private lands open to our use is to survive, we=ll need to persuade the makers and drivers of such vehicles to join us in respecting the hospitality of the landowner. All users of wild places need to understand the importance of preserving the ecosystem that sustains the plants and animals that lure us there.

12/20/06

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

Seldom can I sleep past sunrise but on a Saturday morning earlier this fall, I returned to a pleasant slumber. Around eight o’clock, the “beep, beep, beep” of a big vehicle backing up shook me awake. A school bus was trying to make the tight turn into a pasture across the road from my house. It signaled an event that has become annual in recent years.

I share a half-mile stretch of rural New Hampshire with three other houses and a horse farm. Our section of the road is dirt and dead-ends at a government-owned tract of woods. My husband and I were thrilled to find land more than a dozen years ago in a sparsely developed section of town. Our dream home was under construction when the “For Sale” sign appeared in the field opposite our property.

We heard rumors of a fifty-home development proposed for the vacant farmland. Sadly, albeit selfishly, I thought, “There goes the neighborhood.” But the farmer sold his property to a woman who planned to board horses. Our six-year-old daughter was thrilled, and so were we. By Easter the following spring, the first horse moved in.

The new owner built a picturesque barn and indoor riding arena a little ways down the road from my house. Acres of nearby fields were divided into pastures with great lengths of wire fencing, preventing the enormous snapping turtle that lived in the farm pond from crossing the road to dig in my vegetable garden. I was not disappointed with missing that spring ritual.

After a couple of years, the farm woman invited nearby property owners to a meeting. Simply boarding horses wasn’t paying the bills, but she had some ideas for supplementing her revenue stream and wanted to run them by her neighbors before approaching the town for permission. Her dream was to host equestrian events: horse shows, dressage competitions, riding lessons and clinics. This proposal would maintain the rural character of her property. The back-up plan, if she couldn’t get approvals, was to develop a portion of her two hundred acres.

Much to my surprise, the neighbors told her to go ahead and build houses. What were they thinking? I’ll admit I was concerned about traffic, more so for the dust from the road that wafts down the hill to my house than anything else. Only one other homeowner and I are affected by traffic to and from the farm. Summer and winter we get plenty of dirt inside our homes, but we’ve accepted that as part of country living. The events-planner had factored in dust-control measures on the days of events. We weren’t going to get that with new-home construction.

In the months following, the planning board held public hearings to consider the request. I found the entertainment value of these hearings well worth the late nights. I was stunned by the arguments from my road-mates. In a nutshell, residents expressed concern about noise, traffic (specifically speeding traffic), and neighborhood protection.

Perhaps I should be more specific about the horses in question. For the most part, they are large, skittish and very expensive. It seemed unlikely their owners would behave recklessly while transporting the animals, and even less likely that these folks would be prowling nearby neighborhoods. Due to the nature of the beasts, it’s hard to imagine that anyone working with them would intentionally make loud noises. Any announcements made during an event would barely be heard beyond the field, let alone a half-mile down the road.

Ultimately the Planning Board approved the equestrian events, requiring only that the farm owner give the town sufficient notice before hosting large competitions and shows. Lessons and clinics were considered well within the guidelines for the farm’s current use.

It’s been nearly six years since those hearings and there have yet to be any large equestrian events. There have, however, been many competitions—among two-legged runners. The trails the owner cut across the farm for horses and riders are ideal for cross country races. Each fall the local high school hosts a meet that this year attracted a dozen schools. Once the snow flies, the Nordic ski team will practice on the trails. Hundreds of athletes have enjoyed the rural character of this property, and their activities fall entirely within acceptable farm use.

The woman who owns the property receives no financial compensation for allowing these teams to use her farm. However, before each event, a small army of volunteers moves in to pick rocks and clear brush. They rake and sweep, prepare and repair to make the trails safe for the athletes. It’s a fine example of “neighbors helping neighbors” in a figurative sense of the phrase. And I know the neighbor who owns this farm takes great pleasure in sharing her property with this audience

By Jackie Bower, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

It’s hard to imagine the field of spectacular yellow sunflowers that bloomed in a four-acre field at UNH’s Kingman farm will end up as fuel for Dorn Cox’s farm equipment and feed for his pigs, beef cattle, and chickens.

Cox, a family farmer from Lee, joined forces with UNH Cooperative Extension and the manager and crew of UNH’s Kingman Farm earlier this spring to conduct some applied research into the feasibility of using locally produced sunflowers to make biodiesel to help power the region’s farms.

Biodiesel, a fuel manufactured from vegetable oils, has attracted a lot of national attention as a domestically available fuel for engines that ordinarily run on petroleum-derived diesel.

 “I wanted to grow my own sunflowers, but we have a certified organic farm and I couldn’t get organic seed this year,” says Cox, who’s already using the biodiesel he processes from waste cooking oil collected from local restaurants to power some of his farm equipment. “I approached John McLean, manager of UNH’s Woodman and Kingman Farms, to see if he might have land available.”

Cox and McLean brought the idea to Becky Grube, UNH Cooperative Extension’s sustainable horticulture specialist. Becky also found the idea intriguing, and the three embarked on a pilot project to evaluate how sunflowers perform in this area and to test the feasibility of small-scale oil pressing.

“The project will measure the yield of oil, the feed value of the meal that remains after the oil has been pressed from the sunflower seeds, and the food quality of the oil,” says Cox, who has a degree from Cornell in international agriculture.

Grube took to the idea immediately. “Because they’re in a different plant family from most of our important cash crops, sunflowers might make a good rotation crop for many New England growers,” she says. “Plus, they can be planted with equipment that many farmers already have. Dorn used his two-row corn planter to plant the four acres at Kingman Farm. Also, sunflowers have multiple uses. The oil has excellent culinary properties and the meal that remains after pressing makes a nutritious feed for cattle and other livestock.

“Several questions remain, which we hope the pilot project will help to answer,” she says. “Will harvest and pressing for oil production be cost-effective and feasible on a fairly small scale? Will sunflower yields be sufficient to make them economically viable? Will the climate permit harvest of quality seeds without pest and disease problems?”

“The project is a model of farmer-driven research and teamwork,” Grube says. “Dorn proposed the idea and used his planting equipment and labor to sow the sunflowers. I contacted Land O’Lakes/Hytest seeds, who donated seeds of five hybrid varieties likely to be adapted to this area. John and the rest of the UNH Farm crew, including students, prepared the ground and have weeded and mowed around the plots. Seth Wilner, the Extension educator who manages the USDA Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) grants program in New Hampshire came up with a small grant for the project.”

“The experiment got off to a slow start, with the heavy rains this spring delaying the first planting until mid-May,” says Grube. “The second planting was delayed to mid-June. Hopefully the harvest will go off without a hitch.” If the harvest is successful, Grube says the team hopes to broaden the project and evaluate the economics of sunflower oil production by other local growers.

Cox has ordered a small oil press from China that should arrive any day. He plans to harvest his crops in late October and press them in late fall. “We’re just waiting for the seeds to dry,” he says.

He’s also begun fabricating a mobile biodiesel processing unit that will turn out about 80 gallons per hour. With such a machine, Cox says, “A couple of weekends each summer would produce all the fuel our operation would use in a year.” He plans to exhibit the processor at fairs and other venues so people can learn more about biodiesel technology.

As for his experience working with the UNH farm crew and Cooperative Extension, Cox says, “They’ve been fantastic. Within a couple days of approaching John [McLean], we had a project up and running.”

By Peg Boyles, Writer/Editor, UNH Cooperative Extension

9/20/06

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.

There’s a field along my route in a town not far from where I live, a place where I’ve always watched the seasons change. First a snowy expanse, next a field with mud puddles, progressing to a newly planted cornfield, then a field of tall corn waiting for harvest, and in fall, a field left with a stubble of cornstalks.

 As that cornfield evolved through the summer, I would watch its progress from May through September. As the corn grew and the symmetry of its rows shimmered in the heat of the August sun, deer might be visible from the road as I passed, or turkeys gleaning insects and corn that had dropped to the ground during harvest. On clear nights, the moon, stars and northern lights provided the only illumination. As winter approached again, geese flew over in raucous V’s.

Then suddenly, all that changed. The owners of the field, who were not from here, sold it to be used as the site of a big box store. The sale meant the death of the field. Corn no longer grows there. I’m not sure who planted the silage corn, perhaps the family-operated dairy right across the way, victim of escalating land values, rising costs, and decreasing milk prices.

Now the field waits. It waits for planning boards and corporations; it waits for excavators and bulldozers; it waits for star-obscuring bright lights and security guards; it waits for pavers and for the shoppers who will inevitably arrive.

This field lies near a river. A river that at one time allowed silt to build up on an ancient floodplain. When Native Americans traveled on the river highways, they used this open space as a stop-off point to camp, hunt and fish. When European settlers came along, they cut the trees and pulled or burned the stumps to begin farming in the river valley. These intrusions on the land provided shelter and food to ensure their families’ survival. And the land gave.

Although corn no longer grows there, the field still provides a quiet, constantly changing beauty. In the spring, the field was green with grasses and sparkled with wildflowers. Now, in mid-summer, it stands poised to explode into the brilliant fireworks of goldenrod and purple New England asters. Deer still appear, turkeys roam, hawks soar and circle over a pastiche of emerald and constantly changing color, not far from a river just out of sight to humans, but known to the deer, turkeys and hawks. The river is their life force, providing them with water without which they couldn’t exist, close to the field in which they forage.

I will miss this field. The heat from blacktopped parking lots, neatly planted with trees that will never mature, and the bright lights that will block out the Aurora Borealis will never replace the spirit of that field.

As we humans travel through this valley, the natural beauty of the foothills of the White Mountains overwhelms us. The opportunity to watch a natural place through its changing seasons, a place where no one has built or paved or changed the topography, is increasingly rare. These types of spaces are endangered. They’re why I live here. They’re what give this valley its beauty and uniqueness. People travel from major cities to see them.

Such irrevocable changes in the nature of the land result from the decisions of a few. The ties we forge with our past are the ties that help us see the future. What do you want to see?

08/03/06

For more information call the UNH Cooperative Extension's Family, Home & Garden Center's Info-line (toll free) at 1-877-398-4769 or send us an email. Volunteers are available to answer your questions Monday through Friday 9:00am to 2:00 p.m.