Pussy Willow Magic

by Meg Downey Hardy, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener volunteer

The other day I headed to an orchard in town to hike with my two dogs. They motivate me to get outside, even in questionable weather. It was raining, gray and muddy. The parking area was barely dry enough for me to pull in.

I carefully avoided the deep, soft wheel ruts from nature enthusiasts who couldn't wait a few extra weeks for the ground to dry out, causing them to become mired in the oozing mud. I'd been one of those unlucky ones two years before who'd become entrenched in mud there, escaping only with the aid of a tow truck.

I headed out into the orchard on a familiar path and soon came upon deep, impassable mud. Bypassing the worst, I headed down along the northernmost edge of apple trees up to the main paths. Tiptoeing around huge, foot-deep mud puddles and hopping from one clump of grass to another, I squished and squashed painstakingly, hoping my golden retrievers wouldn't decide to run and roll in the worst of it. Head down, focusing on not sinking deeper than the tops of my boots or toppling over with one false jump, I inched along.

In the midst of my struggle with the mud and worry about the dogs, something caught my eye. To my right I saw a silver shimmer, water droplets hanging from the tree branches, a magical glimmer dotting the bare limbs. As I stared, the sun came out and shot through the droplets, creating a yellow-white halo and splitting the light to launch rainbows into the mist.

The droplets hung on what looked like buds, not just branches. Could these be the first pussy willows of the season in an unexpected place, a place I'd walked many times over the years? Thrilled, I gasped and yelled to my dogs, "You have to be kidding! Those are all pussy-willow trees." How had a pussy-willow nursery established itself so secretly?

I detoured off my route, pushing through prickers and climbing over brush. How could I have missed these pussy willows over the years? Could the apple orchard have been so heavily pruned this past year that it now revealed this patch of young willows? Did another year of life bring new eyes and new appreciation, making me more open to the details of nature surrounding me?

There was always one swampy corner about 20 minutes further along the path that I'd come upon as a spring surprise. I knew if I came during the right few weeks of the spring that I'd find pussy willows. Amazingly, year after year, I was never ready for that turn of the corner and the aha! moment, that jump-for-joy proof of spring.

I love winter and hate giving up snow and snowshoeing. But each year when I see the return of the first pussy willows, I hoot and holler. I keep thinking that pussy-willow moments shouldn't keep causing me to stop in my tracks to breathe in the special sight, but they still do.

My faithful corner of swamp willows is aging. It produces fewer catkins each year; they grow so high in the trees I can no longer cut a few to take home to bring spring into the house. My discovery of the pussy-willow nursery gives me hope. The circle of life has brought young trees to the orchard as the old ones are losing their vitality.

My battle around and through mud brought a gift, a new site (sight) to visit each spring to pull me through my loss of winter. After my dogs and I got back from our hike, I hung up my gaiters to dry and welcomed the muddy paw and boot prints on the kitchen floor, because mud had brought the magic.

Photo credit: Meg Downey Hardy, Some rights reserved.

Angels in the Snow

When you have friends to climb with, time passes quickly, and the panting, sweating and wondering if you can keep going is easier to push out of your mind.

Not long ago I set out with three friends to climb Mt. Hale, one of the White Mountains' easiest 4,000-footers. Teresa has studied plants for years and can walk up a trail, knowing so many names of tiny woodland plants. Roxanne loves to tell stories and can turn the smallest situation into a 30-minute narrative. Sandra is a soccer-mom friend. At one game, we discovered a common passion­--the mountains.

One of the lesser-known Whites, Mt. Hale has an elevation of 4,054 feet. Checking my book, I discovered I'd climbed Hale July 28 three years earlier. I vaguely remembered a long slog with the final half-mile going on and on and on.

Every time I climb a mountain a second or third time, I try not to have a preconceived idea of what the hike will be like. A mountain never bores. Each has its own ruggedness, majesty and magic. Its terrain and elevation combine with weather, state of mind, and hiking companions to offer a unique experience every day, every season, every year, for every climber.

As my friends and I geared up at the bottom, we noticed it had gotten colder and the sky had turned gray. We had diligently watched weather forecasts, and though we thought the day would be cool and clear, we'd packed cold and wet-weather gear, ready for anything. The White Mountains during a "shoulder season" are unpredictable.

Half an hour into the climb, snowflakes started falling. But none of us voiced any concerns.
Teresa kept pointing out wild plants and Roxanne kept telling stories. The snow started coming down harder.

There's a formula suggested for timing climbs. You have to learn how your own kind of hiking fits the formula and add or subtract time. We were planning on two miles per hour and a half hour per 1,000 feet of elevation gain. So, since the trail we chose, the Hale Brook Trail, was 2.2 miles long with a 2,300 elevation gain, we estimated we would reach the top in about two and a half hours.

It was getting colder. We stopped to pull gloves and hats from our packs. We put on waterproof jackets, and Sandra zipped on the bottom of her pants. Roxanne and I were wearing shorts. We hated getting overheated. We pulled our hoods up. The snow began swirling around us. We estimated about a half hour to go. I knew the worst part lay ahead: the final slog to the summit.
We stopped several times to readjust our layers. Hot, cold, back and forth. Luckily we had packed smart: extra gloves, extra socks, food, water, emergency blankets and more. We laughed at our fashion statements. Bright ponchos blowing in the wind, crazy hats of all kinds, zip on, zip off pants, gaiters.

No one wanted to give up.

Near the top, trudging along a bank that was now covered by four inches of snow, someone suggested, "Let's make snow angels."

With our packs still on, we fell back towards the bank, and spreading our arms and legs, we flew like angels, laughing and joking, catching snowflakes in our mouths with the glee of little girls. We got up gingerly, trying not to mar our angels. Admiring our artwork, we lingered there, talking about how fun it was to stop and play, enjoying what nature had thrown at us so ferociously.

We knew we could make it to the top. Within minutes we rounded the corner and reached the summit. Exhilarated, we cheered and breathed sighs of relief.

We got out our lunches and ate quickly, hooded, huddled and shivering in the blowing snow. We knew we needed to get back to the shelter of the woods and get on with the two-and-a-half-hour return to the warmth of the car. But we took time to climb atop the huge cairn and take photos of the gray, snow-filled sky around us. No view from this summit.

Our camaraderie, again, made us pause. This time our pause was more reflective. We thought of the turning weather, thankful that we had prepared well. We thanked our snow angels for boosting our spirits and reminding us that we could trust each other. So, we each put one foot forward to make four boot prints in the snow at the top of Mt. Hale­sole-sister prints, evidence of our bond and trust in each other.

In some ways we wished we'd had good weather and could linger. But we'd found fun and magic in the midst of a dangerous turn by Mother Nature.

Our four angels were covered with snow by the time we trudged by hurriedly on the way down. But we knew their magic, laughter and inspiration would be with us all the way to the end of our hike.

By Meg Downey Hardy, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Roxanne Angevine. Some rights reserved.

Safe hiking essentials

“Molly and Festus: A Reminiscence”

In the corner of the old chicken coop, I discovered two electric incubators with the manufacturer’s directions still attached to the bottoms. I volt-tested the heating elements and time-tested the timers. Everything seemed in order, so I ordered fertilized eggs: 50 chicken, 10 ducks, and two Toulouse goose, a perfect project to accompany starting seeds, birthing goat kids, and staying warm while waiting for spring.

The eggs all hatched, and the chicks peeped and pecked as I moved them from the incubator to cardboard boxes, to free-range cages, and then to their final destinations. The chickens joined the other 50 in the henhouse, the ducks took ownership of the frog pond in the back of the farm, and the geese became my constant companions.

Even though I never did learn their genders, I named the larger goose Festus and the other Molly. By midsummer they’d grown tall enough to tug at my belt and weighed 25 pounds each. They paraded around the farm paddocks, gardens and yards at will in their shades of grey, slate and mauve layered against mottled white bottoms and bibs. Their long, thick necks waved with each waddling step, as they whistled and cooed with their big orange beaks.

They wandered my gardens as I worked, finding grubs, bugs, and seeds. A few times each day they skirted the buildings and paddock to the frog pond to take a dip and harass the ducks.

Dawn brought the hen-house rooster, Hannibal, crowing to his egg-layers. He’d be joined shortly by Ralph­the barn-dwelling bandy rooster­in a back-and-forth competition for the best morning announcements. Then Festus and Molly would join the chorus with their long, low hisses and honks. It was time to start the farm day.

After two hours of morning chores, I’d open the farm stand. Festus and Molly would often join me to dust themselves on the edge of the driveway or to amuse the customers.

My day usually ended a few hours after dusk. I’d sit on a long wooden bench near the back porch door. The outside light attracted moths, which in turn attracted spiders, great-end-of-day snacks for Festus and Molly.

They’d sit on either side of me as I stroked their sleek bodies. They’d stretch out on one side and then the other as I pulled at their wings and rubbed their bellies, all the while whispering to each other whatever they were thinking of this activity. They’d pick at my boots and tug my pant cuffs in the flickering light. After a few minutes they’d disappear under the porch into their reinforced and screened enclosure for the night.

That fall the ducks flew away with the migrating wild flocks. The chickens were either laying productively or had become roasters. Festus and Molly were full-grown­beautiful, proud, and serene. They noticed the absence of the ducks and wandered the edge of the pond looking in all the spots once crowded with color and quacking.

A flock of Canada Geese flew over one cloudy afternoon. Festus stretched out as long as he could. He began to run low to the ground, beating his great wings. Sadly, a 500-year ancestry of farm domestication, coupled with the fact that he was a very well-fed goose, made it impossible to transform his runway antics into flight. He honked, rolled, and ended up flopping in an undignified pile. Molly rushed over to assure him that no one had seen, that his place on the farm was secure, and that he was right where he belonged.

Later that afternoon we three slowly strolled and padded back to the big barn, where I introduced Molly and Festus to their winter home, a sturdy straw-filled stall with chicken wire above and a large three-turn covered ramp to an outside door facing south. This would be much better than under the porch for the coldest weather.

Molly never did lay an egg, so for all I know both geese were boys, but she stayed Molly
‘til the day she died. I continued my end-of-day ritual whether the geese were in residence under the porch or in the barn. We’d become friends of a feather, and would stay that way for many years.

By Stephania Pearce, Master Gardener

Ford had it wrong

Henry Ford never cut wood with me.

It was Ford who said, “Chop your own wood, and it will warm you twice,” meaning the woodcutter enjoys both the warmth of the burning firewood and the heat generated by the physical work of cutting it.

Now I don’t know exactly how Ford cut firewood in his time, but I know my own personal “warmings” are several times more than his.

The first warming begins when I pull the starter cord on my balky chainsaw to begin the process. My “Easy-Start” model never lives up to its name. Repeated pulls never fail to generate body heat, and the saw rarely kicks over in fewer than 20 attempts.

Then, with the saw puttering perfectly, I fell the tree. That’s the easy part. Now begins the log cutting. Again, only mildly thermic. After all, it is a power saw (not like the two-man crosscut Henry may have used).

Now comes the second warming. I take each 16-inch section and set it upright in the snow no easy task, especially with big oak and beech logs. By the time I’ve finished this job, my first layer of outer clothing has come off.

Taking up my maul, I begin to split the upright pieces. Depending on whether the tree is straight red oak or twisted swamp maple, this can either cause a faint flush on my brow or an all-out blast-furnace effect that has the steam rising from my now bare head.

At some point I stack all the slash and tops in a burn pile for disposal the following winter. Hauling the slash to the pile is a fairly energetic process, so I tally that as another warming. (I will not, however, count the near-baking that takes place when the pile is finally touched off, as that’s clearly a claim outside of Ford’s premise.)

As I cut my wood way out behind my house, I now begin the transportation process. I have a heavy black plastic sled that I can load with exactly 22 pieces of split wood. I pull each load anywhere from 50 yards (if I’m lucky) to nearly 200 yards across a stretch of wetland, and the slog is mostly all uphill. (I am at times reminded of Colonel Knox and his colonial militia sledging cannons from Ticonderoga to Boston.)

Needless to say, I am more than warm at the end of each trip. But for purposes of this account, I will only count it as one instance of warming.

Now begins the stacking. I stack each piece one by one in face rows for maximum drying. Bend over, pick up a piece, place it next to its tree mate, then repeat until warm.

Months pass as the wood grays and cracks in the sun until at last, sometime in late October, the process begins again. Since my woodpile is far from the front porch, where the winter’s supply is stacked a week’s worth at a time, I begin the transfer process. Whether by wheelbarrow or trusty black sled, the transfer warms me, 22 pieces at a time and largely uphill (again!). Then, I restack it.

My personal relationship with each piece of wood finally ends with its entry into my soapstone stove, where, yes, it finally warms me in full with its intended purpose.

For those of you keeping score at home, that amounts to being “warmed” eight times give or take a stray restacking or two due to receding frost heaves or my poor wood pile architecture.

My personal relationship with each stick of wood is nearly ended at this point, except for disposing of the ashes. (How does a ton of wood turn into a five-pound bucket of ash?)

I usually spread cold ashes on top of the snow, so they will sink into the early spring ground. After smudging the snow with a broadcast of ashes, I hustle back into the house to park my rear end a foot from the blazing stove to be, yes, warmed one more time.

By Greg Lowell, Coverts Cooperator

Artist: Maria Levandowski, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

Invasives in the Fall: Please Don’t Pick!

It’s tempting to gather colorful wildflowers growing robustly along New Hampshire roadsides, especially pretty purple loosestrife, with its long-lasting flowers. This Eurasian plant escaped from perennial and herb gardens and now thrives in roadside ditches and wetlands.

Later in the fall, the bright orange bittersweet berries accented by contrasting yellow husks, burst open in pretty clusters along vigorous vines. These tough vines wrap around tree trunks, eventually strangling them. Common along roadsides, the berries lure those looking for attractive fall decorations.

But don’t pick these invasive plants! It’s illegal to transport viable plant parts of these and other decorative but invasive plants in New Hampshire, because picking spreads their seeds. Horror stories abound.

One bittersweet door wreath became a jungle of bittersweet vines that took hold under a deck as the berries fell from the wreath and rolled under the deck. They sprouted and created a nasty eradication problem because it was difficult to crawl to the plant.

Loosestrife is pretty because of the millions of flowers on each stalk, on its many branched, sturdy stems, but they develop as many as two-and-a-half million seeds per plant each year.

The non-native plants on the state’s prohibited invasive species list have all been carefully evaluated for their nuisance potential; they possess certain traits that give them an advantage over most native species. In their new habitat, these invasives have escaped the natural predators and biological controls that keep them in check in their native lands. Their abundant seed production, aggressive roots, lack of insect predators and other traits give them a competitive advantage over our native plants.

Burning bush, for example, comes into its glory in the fall because of the flaming red color of its leaves. But as this robust Asian plant matures, each branch drips with hundreds of orange berries.

Rose hips, the round seed pods from multiflora rose, have caught the eye of crafters who make lovely wreaths from the thorny-stemmed hips. This Japanese native was first introduced in 1886 as a rootstock for cultivated roses. Later, the U.S. Soil Conservation Service promoted it for soil erosion control, and nurseries even promoted it as a “living fence” for livestock. Now it is a plague on old farms.

Birds eat and spread all these berries: bittersweet, rose hips and burning bush. At one time they were promoted as sources for food for birds in winter! These seeds germinate easily, and they sprout up at the edges of fields where birds rest in the hedgerows, near birdbaths and under shrubs where they nest.

Japanese knotweed, colloquially known as “bamboo,” flourishes along roadsides and flowers in the late summer to early fall. The six-foot-tall, hollow, arching branches produce clusters of white flowers along the stem. With the first frost, the entire plant dies back to the ground. This non-native plant, imported as an ornamental shrub, spreads by a dense mat of underground roots, totally overtaking other plants in its way. Any node that finds soil will root and form a new plant.

The milkweed-like pods of black swallow-wort are a curiosity in the fall when they burst open and release white fluff attached to a seed. Breezes and wind blow this fluff all over, spreading this nasty perennial vine far and wide. It has tenacious white roots that look like spaghetti when dug up. These root clumps get tangled up with shrub and flower roots and can quickly ruin a garden. They are especially annoying when entangled with lilacs because the swallow-wort leaves resemble lilac leaves.

As the trees begin to turn their vibrant fall colors, the ugliness of the Crimson King Norway maple becomes conspicuous. While all the native trees put on an exciting fall color show, this tree’s foliage turns black­a good time to make the case for cutting the Crimson Kings down. Many of these trees are now mature enough to produce seed, worsening their invasive impact.

The N.H. Department of Agriculture, Markets & Food took decisive action to prohibit certain invasive plants because these aggressive and prolific aliens crowd out native plants, reduce natural biodiversity, create overgrown jungles in our forests, old pastures and orchards, and block scenic views. The purple loosestrife that ruins wetlands is regulated as an aquatic invasive by the N.H. Department of Environmental Services.

For more information

Complete list of 26 New Hampshire legally prohibited invasive plants, photos of each, and tips for controlling them: http://bit.ly/invasives
 
Disposing of invasive plant materials: http://bit.ly/invasivesdisposal

Alternatives to Invasive Landscape Plants http://bit.ly/invasivealternatives
 
Doug Cygan, Invasive Species Coordinator for the Division of Plant Industry, works with community groups can advise and assist with specific problem situations: 271-3488, dcygan@agr.state.nh.us

Anne Krantz is also a member of the UNH Cooperative Extension Invasive Plant Outreach Group

Photo caption and credit: Purple loosestrife blooms along a highway. Photo by Anne Krantz.

Bee's the Buzzword

The 2009-2010 school year was coming to a rapid close. Teachers were reflecting on student performance and their own learning experiences with UBD, IB, COF, NECAPS, and NEWAS. There’s always a new buzzword in education, but on a particular day in late May at Webster Elementary, the word came to life.

Folks in northern New England were enduring unseasonably hot temperatures. The school children were already telling stories of swimming in back yard pools and nearby ponds. Recess duty on that day would involve the challenges of keeping the youngsters healthy and hydrated.

In hopes of catching an outdoor breeze and escape the oppressive heat in the building, one staff member had stepped outside, then hurried back inside to find the school nurse (me). The students would soon be running out to the playground, and she was concerned about a strange noise on the school property she thought might have a safety impact on recess.

The staff member and I cautiously made our way toward the sound, a loud buzzing just outside the door. Several yards from our vantage point, we could see a huge cloud of flying insects at least 20 feet up high and half way between a big tree and the playground. We agreed we needed to do something immediately.

I rushed back into the building to make a general announcement that the children would have to stay inside for recess. Within a few moments the bell would have sent the children out, running directly into the path of the unidentified flying insects.

Listening to the disappointed voices of children reverberating through the halls, I contacted the district maintenance supervisor to ask for help.

“How many insects?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “A lot.”

“More than 25 to 50? We need to assess before we can make a plan.”

“A lot more than 50. Thousands!” I said.

“We’ll be on it as soon as possible.”
After the maintenance crew arrived and proclaimed their suspicions that the cloud was actually a giant swarm of honeybees, my fears escalated. I worried about the dangers of multiple bee stings and the life-threatening circumstances that could prove deadly.

How does an emergency management team prepare for dozens of victims of anaphylactic shock? My imagination ran wild. But in reality, the children were safe inside the building.

To the onlookers’ surprise, the cloud dissipated and settled as a large brown mass within the tree branches. One brave teacher was able to photograph the site to validate the incident.

I soon received a call from the district facilities manager. “I’ve been thinking about this. I’m gonna go over to Larry Boucher’s house, see if Larry can positively identify and capture the insects,” he said.

Larry, a retired teacher and longtime beekeeper, has run a bee club at Merrimack Valley Middle School for 10 years. When he arrived, he estimated that about 25, 000 bees occupied the low tree branch­one of the biggest honeybee swarms he’d ever seen. It was shaped a little like a hot pepper about two feet long, about 45 inches in circumference at the top and 12 inches at the bottom. Larry said that with no nest or food stores to defend, the bees were clustered in a resting, non-aggressive mode.

We watched anxiously as Larry pulled his pick-up truck right up under the branch where the swarm had landed, then shook the branch so most of the bees fell into a “hive body” baited with honey. He put his bee suit on so he could confirm that the queen had gone into the box to take command of the hive and ensure the other bees would stay there.

When it was evident that most of the swarm was encased in the box, and Larry announced he was “pretty darn sure” the queen was in there, too, we all breathed a sigh of relief.

I was very grateful for the “bee whisperer” in our midst, grateful for everyone’s safety, grateful I didn’t have to deal with a health emergency, and grateful we didn’t have to hire an exterminator. The recent and ongoing die-off of honeybees that pollinate our flowers and food crops makes it all the more important that the swarm of beneficial insects was preserved.

Larry said the queen could have left her pheromones behind in the tree, so he cut and disposed of many branches to prevent more bees from congregating at the site. Caution tape secured an area of the playground for a few days, and the last of the homeless bees few away in search of a new home.

The children may have missed outside recess that day, but the bees surely got theirs during a visit we’re still buzzing about.

by Judy Elliott, UNH Cooperative Extension NH Outside volunteer

drawing by, Pamela Doherty, UNH Cooperative Extension

Playing Chicken with a Turkey

It was a beautiful late spring day when my husband, Jay, ventured out for a round of golf. He decided to play a New Hampshire course he’d never played before but had heard was good. Placed with a threesome of thirty-somethings, he immediately struck up a conversation about the course (the others had played it several times) and the hazards that lay ahead.

At the 10th hole each of the players teed off, the best golfer of the four hitting long and straight down the middle of the fairway. Two of the others hooked the ball to the left and my husband’s ball, though straight to begin with, hit the fairway and rolled off to the right near the woods. Disappointed with the result, he was searching for his ball near some bushes when he heard a strange sound coming from the underbrush, but chose to ignore it.

After locating his ball near the base of a tree, he lined up to examine the best possible angle for his shot when, again, he heard the sound and, out of the corner of his eye, saw some movement in the bushes. Looking up he spotted what he later described as one of the biggest wild turkeys he’d ever seen. “Holy cow! That’s one big bird!” he heard his companions exclaim from some 30 yards away.

Without taking his eyes off the turkey, Jay began to back off slowly. The bird took this as a signal to advance­slowly. My husband moved slightly to the left. The bird mirrored his movement. Jay stepped to the right. The turkey did the same. Then, without warning, the turkey took flight directly at Jay’s face. As he fell flat on his back, he remembered thinking, “Turkeys don’t attack people.”

Scrambling quickly to his feet he began to “dance” with the bird while holding his nine iron out in front of him to keep the bird at bay. They made a full 360-degree turn before the turkey retreated to the woods. The other golfers rushed in, incredulous.

Jay pulled himself together and set up, once again, to take his shot. “Hold on, Jay,” one of the guys said. “It’s coming at you again.”

Sure enough, the turkey wasn’t finished. Poking its head out of the tall grass, it glared at the players and flapped its wings as warning, then retreated after having the last word.

“Just take the shot, Jay. I got your back,” one of the guys said, placing himself between my husband and the woods. Jay duffed the shot but got it far enough away to feel safe from attack, and so the round continued.

Throughout the next eight holes the conversation rarely deviated from “turkey talk” and how bizarre the incident had been. Speculation as to why a normally shy bird would do such a thing ranged from thinking that it must have been a female protecting her family, to maybe it was simply nuts.

When we first moved to New Hampshire the natives told us we’d be lucky to ever see a wild turkey, and we found that to be true. As the years passed however, we’ve seen more and more of them, and now they strut through our yard on a regular basis.

Speaking with N.H. Fish and Game wildlife biologist Ted Walski, I learned why: Wild turkeys became extinct in New Hampshire in the mid 1850s due to habitat loss and over-hunting. But the department began restocking them in the 1970s, and the wild turkey population has expanded to around 35,000 statewide.

According to Walski, sometimes Tom turkeys will get into breeding mode during mating season and “forget themselves,” attacking a human­especially if the person is wearing bright colors. The hen turkeys will protect their young from anyone who gets too close.

After looking at a drawing of a hen and tom turkey, my husband said the turkey that flew at him was probably a female. So perhaps the lesson here is to keep your distance from turkeys, especially in the spring, when the birds are mating, nesting, and rearing young.

The day after the golf incident I was awakened at 5 a.m. by a loud gobbling outside and went to the window to see what the noise was about. There, strolling down our street was a huge Tom turkey, gobbling nonstop in full voice to the female turkey in front of him.

Another state wildlife biologist told my editor that the “turkey talk” was just the tom trying to persuade the female to mate with him. “That’s pretty much all they do,” the biologist said. “After the mating season, Tom Turkey retires to the couch with a beer to watch the ballgame and leaves the rest of the work­incubating the eggs and raising the young­to the hens.”

 

By Susan Ferber, Master Gardener
UNH Cooperative Extension

Birth of a Community Garden

The first week in April I filled my little greenhouse with trays of seeds and watched them sprout and grow. And grow. Soon they outgrew the confines of the greenhouse, but the garden needed more plants.

Enter Superhusband, who built two large, sturdy cold frames. We rushed the trays of eager plants out to the cold frames and started more seeds in the greenhouse. Shortly, burgeoning squash, pumpkins and cucumbers began peering over the tops of the cold frames trying to clamber out. We moved them to a holding area in the middle of the strawberry bed, shuttled replacements from the greenhouse to the cold frame, and started more plants in the warmth and generous light of the greenhouse.

All the plants are now flourishing in the Alexandria Community Garden. Town administrator Christie Phelps and I started the garden last spring. (I'm her assistant in the office; in the garden, she's my assistant.) Feeling depressed by the sparse grass and dingy subsoil sand and rock, and poor quality sand and rock at that around the Town Hall, and being frugal Yankees, we tilled up a 12-foot-wide strip between the building and the parking lot, improved the soil with lime and compost, and planted vegetables.

In late May this second season, we dug the squash, cucumbers and a few melon plants into their new home, surrounded with black plastic. They soon began to flower and by mid-June had set a respectable crop of two-inch squashes. Eggplants and peppers seemed less pleased by their move from the protected areas; weeks after their transplant, they're only now beginning to take hold. Tomatoes have grown tall enough to require staking. All have bloomed, and several have set tomatoes already.

Lettuces and cabbages came directly from the greenhouse and are doing well; the cabbages have already begun folding their leaves over each other as if in prayer. Green and yellow string beans, planted a couple of weeks ago, are fairly leaping up into the sun. We seeded mixed greens and after only a few short weeks have started handing out quart bags of lettuces and mesclun.

We put up a sign at the Town Clerk's window: Would you like some fresh salad greens? See Cat or Christie. This morning I harvested and gave away four quart bags of mixed greens, two of baby spinach, and two each of baby summer squash and zucchini.

The strip garden wraps around three sides of the building. Out back is a pile of horse manure where we’ve planted pumpkins that will provide the Alexandria Village School kids with jack-o-lanterns come October. This spring, we added seven blueberry bushes and 100 strawberry plants to the planting beds.

We've learned that people really like the idea of a town vegetable garden. Even if they don't ask for produce, they just like seeing it growing there. Christie and I gather the vegetables daily and set them in the lobby of the town hall for anyone who wants them. (We cut the salad greens to order.) The vegetables serve as a reminder of how good fresh food is, and we make sure people know that just about anyone can grow their own.

Almost every day I have somebody in here who wants to learn more about growing vegetables. Christie lets me leave my desk, spend 20 minutes to half an hour with these folks, show them what we've done, and explain how they can do it themselves.

Last year, we didn't keep track of how much produce we gave away and how many people wanted information about growing vegetables for themselves. This year, I'm keeping a tally.

We financed the seeds, soil-improving materials, and plants (though not the greenhouse or cold frames) with a grant from the N.H. Master Gardener Association. Last year we spent most of the money on tools. This year we're putting most of it into soil amendments. In just two years we have improved the soil tremendously.

All has not been skittles and beer. Last year we were hit with the late blight and lost 100 heavily laden tomato plants. This year I peer nervously at the garden each time I return from a day or more away. Something has nipped off a few tomato plants, and just yesterday a wretched rodent ate three full trays of seedlings I'd admired in the morning, planning to remove them to the garden on the weekend. In the evening, I found three trays of stubs and a red squirrel. While I didn’t get any fingerprints, the red squirrel is my prime suspect.

The first year the farmer who rototilled the garden leaned down from his tractor seat, fixed me with a steely glare, and said, “Ya do know, it’s just brown sand, don’cha?"

I acknowledged that I was indeed trying to grow stuff on sand. “But, I have a plan!” I exclaimed.

He nodded, “Well, just so ya know.” And he rumbled off nodding to himself­the equivalent in a Yankee farmer of a belly laugh in other folks.

Yet last week he allowed that the garden looked good. That was nice. But did he have to seem so darned surprised?

 

By: Carol “Cat” White, Master Gardener

Photo credit: Vegetables at Alexandria Town Hall, courtesy Carol White.

Just From a Different Angle

The bright, sunny morning after the February wind storm, I arrived at my office. Lugging armloads of work, I never even noticed that anything was amiss. But as I entered the building I saw an odd darkness in the usual sunniest space.

Looking in at me through the panes of two windows was a tree the beautiful, full, healthy, blue spruce I planted 30 years ago.

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed out loud, even though I was the only one there. I ran outside and looked up. There it leaned, toppled over, all 40 feet in full glory, resting on my office roof.

I ran to its base. Half the root system was out of the ground. “Oh, no!” I exclaimed again.

I checked the status of the office roof and windows. Nothing seemed damaged. The tree itself wasn’t either. I’d always thought of it as a protector, shielding the back of the office building. It had also provided a shelter for years to a pair of mourning doves. I scanned for them no sign. What must they have gone through when this happened?

So there lay my beautiful tree. I wet a sheet and covered the exposed roots. Burlap and a tarp came next.

Googling “uprooted trees” brought me to a University of Florida Cooperative Extension article. There was hope it might be saved!

I immediately called UNH Cooperative Extension’s Info Line to see what they thought. They didn’t discourage me but suggested I contact an arborist.

I called Chris, the arborist who sprays my apple tree. After I explained the situation, making sure he knew how beautiful the tree was, he said quietly, “I love trees. I don’t like being a tree mortician. But she will never survive. She’s too big.”

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’ll come and look,” he said, “but I don’t think she can be saved.”

Twenty-four hours later he called. “I stopped by and looked at your tree. I’m afraid she needs to be removed.”

“All right,” I conceded. “When will you do it?”

“Tomorrow,” he replied.

The next day Chris, two other men, and a bucket truck towing a chipper arrived. Branch by branch Chris sawed away, throwing the limbs down to the men.

I watched as he cut each piece and as workers dragged the blue spruce boughs past me and fed them to the noisy chipper, turning the tree into wood bits.

The freshly cut spruce made it smell like Christmas. It was cold like Christmas; even tiny snowflakes blew around. But it surely wasn’t a happy time like Christmas.

I had already decided that though the tree had to come down, it needed to stay. I motioned to Chris to bring the bucket loader down so I could speak to him.

“I want all the chips. I’m going to put them in the mulched area in front of the office. I have a large space, so I can use them there.”

“The needles will take a long time to disintegrate,” he cautioned.

“That’s OK,” I said. It was fine with me that this “mulch” was going to look different. It was different. It was my tree.

Once the deed was done and Chris had left, I examined the stump. It looked like an uneven star. I counted the rings. There were 35. The tree must have been five years old when I planted it.

Out front a massive pile of blue-spruce chips and needles had taken up residence alongside the road waiting to be transported to their final destination. The next weekend my landscape guy came and, wheelbarrow-load by wheelbarrow load, dispersed the remains of my tree across the 40-foot by 15-foot area I can see from my desk.

Now each morning as I start my work day, I look out at the chips. It makes me sad to realize that the towering presence of the tree is gone. Are the chips as beautiful as a 40 foot spruce? Hardly.

But, like the tree, I tell myself, the chips still provide protection to the property. And I can still look at my tree, just from a different angle.

 

By: Ann G. Haggart, Volunteer Writer

From Scratch

“You could have bought the peas for less time and effort,” my father said.

 

“But I like planting and harvesting,” I answered.

 

He frowned. “It makes no sense that you work in that field, when you could have a regular job and buy your food. I don’t like seeing my daughter as a subsistence farmer knee deep in animal manure.”

 

“You raised me to be self-supporting and hardworking. I love my farm. Besides, you’re my guest.”

 

He stomped off to the small, run-down farmhouse. Father would brag back at home about the wonderful meal and the animals and the fields. But he’d worked years to raise himself up from the farming grandparents, mill-working parents. He’d worked hard to educate his children, and it made him furious to see me doing manual labor.

 

I collected the rest of the peas and hustled into the house, where I began preparing lasagna from scratch. I’d actually started the meal months earlier. The baby shoats grew all summer to become round, fat pigs, later stuck and bled, cut, packaged and rendered into sausage. The ground had been tilled, hoed, raked, fertilized and sprinkled with seeds that grew into parsley, tomatoes, garlic, celery, onion and basil.

 

I made the noodles from artichoke flour traded at the whole-foods co-op for bookkeeping services. The eggs came from my own Rhode Island Reds and the milk from my beautiful goat herd. Only the olive oil and salt had been purchased from the store.

 

The main attraction at my farm was the 13 milking goats. They provided much love, as well as funding from sales of their milk, cheese and meat.

 

Mother asked, “Can I sit outside while you put the meal together? It is so hot with the wood stove going.”

 

“Sure Mom. Take a chair from the gazebo and put it out by the paddock and I’ll bring you some tea.”

 

I brought Mother some peppermint tea and left her to watch the farm. I rolled out the dough and cut the noodles. I simmered the onions, garlic and olive oil for a while before adding the scalded and peeled tomatoes, the basil and the parsley.

 

Then I browned the pork sausage. I always thought of the pigs living in the old Ford behind the pond when I cooked their parts. Pigs are nice animals, and many afternoons I’d sit by their sty, feed them apples, listen to their snorts and tell them all the disturbing things the other animals on the farm were up to.

 

I never named the animals I knew I would slaughter. But that didn’t keep me from knowing them.

 

The kitchen began to smell lovely. I had bread in the oven. My beige and lime-green wood cook stove had a high back with a shelf to raise the bread, curdle the milk and dry the herbs. It had four burners that lifted with a tool shaped like a bent fork. The oven was on one side with a big temperature gauge on the outside of the door, the fire box on the other side.

 

I’d learned to split the wood just right to lay it snug, so coals would form and keep the oven warm enough to cook but not too hot to burn. I’d gotten good at using this appliance­the only stove I had for eight years.

 

I finished layering the lasagna into a large glass baking dish I’d purchased at a discount store for this event. I took the bread out of the oven and put the lasagna in.

 

“Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!” I heard my mother scream.

 

I ran to the back door and out into the yard. My mother was sitting as I had left her, dressed in her best hat and gloves and nylons and heels. I think beige and pink was the theme that day.

 

I let out a guffaw. There in my mother’s lap sat the pet goat Tag-a-Long I let roam the farm at will. Tag-a-Long wasn’t good enough to breed, so I made him a pet. He loved peppermint. He’d hopped right into my mother’s lap and stolen the tea bag off her saucer, depositing a small pile of droppings in her lap.

 

“Oh! Oh! Oh!” she kept screaming.

 

We got Tag-a-long off Mother’s lap, cleaned her skirt, and retired to the house for the meal. I set the table, poured the wine, cut the bread and cheeses, and placed the fresh-churned butter on the table with plates and napkins and silverware.

 

Then it was my time to scream, “Oh! Oh! Oh!”

 

The baking dish I’d bought for the lasagna wasn’t ovenproof. The glass had cracked right down the middle. The 20 pounds of from-scratch lasagna was stuck to the bottom of the woodstove oven. I scooped it into a bucket and served it to the pigs.

 

We rounded up the animals for the evening, shut up the barn, closed the chicken coop, secured the paddock and went out to eat.

By Stephania Pearce, Master Gardener

Hello Spring

Like most New Hampshire folks, I’d been looking for a first sign of spring something significant and spectacular to symbolize the change of seasons. For the past few years I marked the long awaited arrival of spring with the happy sighting of early bluebirds, often in a late snow.

But no bluebirds yet. I did scare a few ducks in some open water on the frozen pond the other day, but they were gone before I could really enjoy them.

Unexpectedly, early one morning when I was out jogging, I literally stumbled on a ruffed grouse. This determined bird was pecking at dried leaves along the edge of the road perhaps for salt? I was within four feet of the busy creature, who was totally oblivious or unafraid of me.

What an elegant, beautiful bird with such complex and intricate plumage. So many different kinds of feathers no wonder ladies of 100 years ago wore feathered hats. The sophisticated coloring blended exactly with the dried leaves and debris of the forest floor that was emerging from the melting snow.

I inspected the beautiful feather designs: its breast was checkered with fluffy white and dark feathers alternating, creating an interesting geometric pattern. Above these soft looking feathers were some sharply outlined bars on its wings. Its back was polka dotted in shades of chestnut and tan.

Its foot long body was very round, and after looking at pictures of ruffed grouse, I now realize that was because its plumage was puffed up. The black disk around its neck was very noticeable, and arrayed on top of this disk were a row of lighter feathers that created a scalloped edge, like a ruffle. (For those of us who thought it was a “ruffled grouse,” we weren’t entirely wrong!)

A sharp crest, taller at the back, tops its brown head. At the other end is the blunt tail of beautiful feathers with a black band at the edge. The tail was half fanned so I could admire the lovely striped feathers. I stood in amazement as the grouse continued to peck, even as I took a few quiet steps.

The owner of the house behind the trees saw me from his upstairs window and opened it to inform me that Mr. Grouse showed up a few days ago near his backyard bird feeder and had been hanging around ever since. (Wildlife manuals say that male and female grouse are difficult to tell apart, but seeing that half fanned tail reminded me of the fanning displays ruffed grouse males make during courtship, so I pegged him as a Mr.)

Three days later, a drum roll spring event! As I began my morning outing, I was greeted with noisy quacking in the pond around the corner a pair of ducks, the quacker and a serene female. Continuing up the road to another pond, I heard more quacks.

But what was that black cat like creature crossing the road? Too huge for a cat, and the big fluffy long tail was definitely not like a cat’s, nor the pointed snout like a cat’s cute face. A fisher! It must have alarmed the ducks, but not enough to make them fly away. Now a new worry popped into my head fishers getting into the duck eggs. So much for the peacefulness of nature.

Looping back along the road through the swampy area, again, I almost stepped on my new friend, Mr. Grouse. Looking sleeker today, as his feathers weren’t puffed up, nor his tail fanned, he blended right into the leaf litter.

I studied the grouse in wonder. Does he know I’m watching? He pecked right up to me; just five feet, then feet away. He circled my legs. I observed the feathers again, noticing how they resemble in color and pattern the pine cones lying about. I'd missed the light colored stripe on each side of its back the other day.

I took a few stealthy steps and the bird seemed to be heading in the same direction along the road. Was he actually following me? I continued slowly and so did he, as if I had a string around his neck.

He pecked at everything, finding a fat green leaf under the litter that he plucked out with his beak and swallowed whole, along with the bits of acorns and pine nuts. We went along like this for a couple hundred yards, until I gave up and left him behind to wander into the nearby swamp.

Ruffed grouse are supposed to be loners, but this Mr. Grouse seemed especially lonely! According to the books, mating season is in April.  I hope this poor fellow can last that long. And I hope that fisher finds something better to do than eat duck eggs.

 

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

Photo Courtesy of Laura Erickson and Audobon.org (Common Birds in Decline)

Tea with Polly

One beautiful, sunny-but-frigid February afternoon, I bundled up in my new snow pants, hiking socks, heavy winter sweater and earmuffs, donned my trusty boots (this time without the ice grippers) and completed my cold-weather armor with warm mittens.

 

My friend Jan, who lives down the road, had agreed to join me in a mystery walk. I had a last-minute idea to pack supplies for a tea party in the woods. Jan had suffered several recent personal losses and needed a mood lifter. She loves tea and I knew this adventure would bring her joy.

 

As I walked down my icy driveway in my ever-faithful boots, I laughed at what I must look like, the neighbors might have thought I was running away. I wore a backpack filled with teacups, napkins, sweet treats, a teapot and a full thermos of hot water with the tea bags steeping for our winter beverage. I'd stuffed stadium pillows between the breakables to prevent transport calamities.

 

From a distance, I could see Jan waiting for me, wearing bright red pants. As I got closer, she told me they were pajama bottoms reinforced by her recently deceased father’s long underwear. She’s a Wisconsin girl who was accustomed to bundling up but had become a "house potato" and needed to scrounge through a limited supply of outerwear.

 

We continued our trek to an old country road. As we navigated ruts in the snow left by truck tires, we tried to find safe places to avoid slipping and falling. Jan found a strip of thin ice and delighted in stomping and cracking it. We shared memories of our mutual love of breaking the ice on our way home from school decades ago-I in New Hampshire and she in Wisconsin.

 

The roadway is usually active with snowmobiles this time of year, but that day the wooded path was silent. Rays of sunshine shone down between the bare hardwood trees. The old boulders in the stone walls wore capes of snow; occasional holes in the white stuff revealed where forest creatures scampered in and out of their homes. The birds and small animals must have been having a siesta because we didn’t hear a peep except the crunch of our feet on the packed snow.

 

As we scanned the wooded area for a perfect spot to sit for a break, I divulged the contents of my backpack. Jan suggested Bog Road cemetery, about a mile from my home, in an isolated area some distance from traffic and homes.

 

The backdrop of young pines cast shadows onto the undisturbed carpet of snow surrounding the granite and slate stones--a calming and peaceful view. We figured the inhabitants probably hadn’t had a tea party for a long time.

 

According to records kept by the local historical society, Bog Road Cemetery is a resting place for about a dozen families buried in the 1800s. The legible stones tell stories of lives lived long ago. Many of these hardy country folks lived well beyond the life expectancy of our 21st century.

 

After we arrived, we tried to position ourselves on the plastic stadium pillows, but they were like mini-sledding saucers on the heavily crusted snow. We imagined the old souls from centuries ago smiling at our antics.

 

After setting the cups and saucers out on napkins in the snow, we found the herbal tea had steeped just right in the small porcelain teapot. We were ready to share the warm drink and talk of hopes and dreams. We spoke of quilting and dancing and raising teens. The seasons of our personal lives were similar- two women ready to move beyond motherhood and embrace life with a daily supply of fun and whimsy.

 

When we finished our tea, we decided to recycle our teabags and threw them gently over our shoulders to rest in the snow near the cemetery stones. The predicted future snowfall would surely cover the tea. We assured ourselves that by springtime the tea leaves would have found a special place in the deep brown carpet, and the gesture seemed like a good luck wish to us.

 

We packed the dishes and gazed at the various stones before saying silent goodbyes to the cemetery folks. A tall stone with the inscription, Polly Whittemore, wife of Moses Eaton, Born Aug.1, 1793, Died Jan. 16, 1871, 34 years a Teacher of youth. Her works follow her, had always caught my attention on my walks to the cemetery. Polly had been a guest at our tea party. “Polly, it was a pleasure to be in your company,” I said.

 

As we walked away chuckling about the fun we'd shared, I’m sure the ghosts of Bog Road wondered about those two women, one with a backpack full of china, the other wearing red flannel pajamas.

 

By Judy Elliott, Writer

Bobcat Sightings

I revel in those moments spent sharing time and space with a wild creature. In the last 10 years, I’ve seen my first moose, wild otter, bear and bobcat, all within 20 feet of my house. Each sighting has been a thrill and I remember each one vividly. But the bobcat has excited my imagination the most because I know it to be a secretive creature, rarely seen by humans.

How long has the bobcat been moving through this area? How many times has it passed within sight of the house and not been seen by its human inhabitants? I’ve no way of knowing, but each time I find its footprints beyond the fence, I feel a chill of excitement.

When was it here? What prey was it hunting? Was it hunting by stealth or setting up an ambush as bobcats often do? If there are other tracks around, such as squirrel prints, then perhaps it was carefully stalking its prey. Mostly I wonder, where did it come from and when will it return?

The first time I saw the bobcat was at dusk one evening as I was preparing dinner. I looked out the window over the sink and saw a dark shape moving along behind the lilacs. I didn’t need the binoculars or a wildlife manual to know what I was seeing. The small head, surely misplaced on this larger animal, the short, bobbed tail, the gray mottled coat all declared Bobcat! I watched enthralled as it moved with grace along the line of lilacs, then behind the white picket fence and out of view beyond some tall, wide firs. What a sight!

A couple of years went by before I saw the bobcat again. This time, I was fixing lunch and noticed a dark shape down at the edge of the swamp. I grabbed the binoculars, but the creature had moved out of sight. As soon as lunch was finished, I snatched up a camera and yardstick, shrugged into a winter coat, and set out to try to photograph the footprints so I could match them up with an animal track book.

I quickly found the prints. The animal had walked along the fence then down towards the frozen swamp. I took several photographs of its prints, using the yardstick to measure the distance between prints as well as the size of them. There! Now I’d have something to go by when I got back to the house. I hoped it was the bobcat again.

I decided to follow the prints back as far as I could, and as I turned to do so, I caught a glimpse of something moving quickly on the far side of the swamp. Yes, it was the bobcat! All the time I was focusing on its prints, it was well aware of me and moving quickly away to safety. Which of us is the wiser animal?

Once the bobcat was out of sight, I did follow the trail back. I saw where it had climbed up onto and walked along a narrow, downed tree. Its path led along the edge of the lower beaver pond then curved up to the side of our garage. The tracks then disappeared in the driveway.

I’d had no idea the animal came so close to this building­and in daylight, too. I knew from reading wildlife books that bobcats are primarily nocturnal, yet I’d just seen one in the middle of the day.

While other large predators were nearly pushed out of New England forests, the bobcat remained. Its mottled coat and secretive habits actually have allowed it to expand its range since the time colonists began cutting down trees to build farms. Adaptable creatures, bobcats will eat anything from fawns, cottontails and snowshoe hares, to squirrels, voles, mice, fish, birds, and even insects.

One morning last October, in daylight once again, a family member called from downstairs. I quickly ran down, wondering if one of the dogs had gotten into mischief. “Out front!” came the whisper.

There moving gracefully across the front of the house was a bobcat. It looked neither left nor right, just moved purposefully across the driveway, the lawn, behind the large forsythia bush, along the edge of the arborvitae and then behind the tall grasses, before disappearing into the woods.

It certainly wasn’t running or showing any signs of fear. I was astonished that it would be so bold as to cross an open area in the middle of the day. I felt strongly that our home was a part of its territory and it really didn’t care that we lived there too. What a privilege to share this land with such a magnificent animal.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Drawing: Maggie Decker, UNH Cooperative Extension

Enjoying Winter

I found it! For years, I've been searching every woodpecker hole in every dead or live tree I could reach. All the books say that many birds use woodpecker holes for nesting sites, but I'd never found a nest in a hole.

I've seen many nests built in crotches of trees, including one I noticed only because a brilliant male scarlet tanager flew right in front of me and up into the nest to feed his young. I've seen nests in bird houses I've put out and robins' nests on the jut-out of the dining-room bay window under the shelter of the porch roof.

The phoebes also like the tops of our outside spotlights and frequently nest there. Once I found the nest of a northern Baltimore oriole out in the middle of the swamp. But a nest in a tree hollow carved out by woodpeckers? No, never. Until yesterday.

Each fresh coat of snow for snowshoeing and cross-country skiing means hours of clearing. By the time I've shoveled the paths to the woodpile and bird feeders, cleared the decks and porch, created paths for my little dogs, and pulled snow off the porch roof, I'm too tired to get out there and enjoy the snow.

Yesterday, however, I stole some time. I'd donned snowshoes to get behind the woodpile to clear snow off the back. So when I finished, I headed out into the woods. They were so lovely still, and peaceful, the snow clinging to many branches. I could walk everywhere since the fallen trees, small boulders, stone walls, and low shrubs were covered in snow.

I followed a path made by a deer, trekking over to a large, dead tree to check it out. This tree must have been a monster in life. It had at least four trunks, one which showed signs of someone attempting to cut it with a saw 10 feet above the ground. One of the trunks lay buried under the snow. The bark was gone, and I could see many tunnels made by grubs and holes made by woodpeckers. I searched carefully, but no sign of a nest.

Out onto the swamp I went. On my last visit, I'd noticed an odd hole, with dirty footprints all around it but none leading to or away from it. Some creature must have come up from under the snow, looked around, and headed back inside. The most recent snowfall, however, had left only a small opening under a dead tree.

Up above, the five heron nests, piled high with snow, stood out starkly from their tree supports. I hope that somewhere down south the heron pairs and their 14 young are feeding well and enjoying the warmth and sunshine. Next month, the first arrivals should be here, scouting out the territory and choosing the best nest site. I'm glad these nests are all still intact. A few additional branches to refurbish and they'll be all set for a new crop of squabbling youngsters.

A hairy woodpecker flew nearby and began working on a tree. Bits of bark and wood flew out and fell onto the snow below. The dead evergreens seemed almost alive again with green moss hanging from each branch. I love to look at the dead trunks. Stripped now of bark, they reveal the twists and turns each tree made as it reached for the sun, shifted slightly to one side to grow around another, repaired the damage from a broken limb. One tree in particular was covered with knobs formed when the tree grew out over a stub. Little insect holes filled the trunk as well as one or two larger ones made by the birds.

I moved to a new area and noticed a broad snag about eight feet tall. The lower portion was nearly hollow and above, at eye level, was a large hole clearly bored by a woodpecker. I peeked inside and there it was, a beautiful bird's nest.

Snow had filled the nest's cavity so I carefully removed it to see the construction of the nest itself. Dried mud and grasses formed a perfect circle. The inside was as smooth as a carefully turned and sanded wooden bowl. The nest was large, at least as large as the ones the robins build above our window. The birds had carefully selected an opening which faced east, avoiding both the heat of the summer sun and the winds from the north and west. Perfect.

I noted the location of that tree. In the spring and summer, I won't be able to see the opening from the shore, but I'll be able to watch for adult birds flying in and out of the nest. I'm curious to know what species built the nest. Now that I've found it, I'm going to enjoy it.

 

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Drawing: Pamela Doherty, UNH Cooperative Extension

Attachment to Place

Northfield, New Hampshire has been my home for 40 years. Five years ago I moved into a new home, but stayed in the same town.

Each move requires adjustment to new surroundings and a pulling away from the old. Pulling away from the old takes longer than adjusting to the new, because you usually have strong feelings invested there. The old place fit me like my skin after I’d lived there for 35 years. I felt I knew every blade of grass (most of it of the crabgrass variety), so I had mixed feelings about moving.

Although I've lived in urban or small-town environments, teaching and raising children for most of my adult life, I still have strong memories of other places I've lived. For example, the way I live now is heavily influenced by what I did as a youngster growing up on a farm in the Great Plains, where the principal activity was making things grow.

Our rural farm had 40 acres for growing things to sell and sustain ourselves. I learned to grow garden crops as well as orchard and vineyard products. We had a farm stand for the various vegetables and a pick-your-own arrangement for the orchard and grape vines. Planting, pruning, harvesting and general care of the livestock were skills I learned early on the farm. Like most boys, I didn't always enjoy what were, in retrospect, a lot of good life skills.

As I began my retirement, I made a conscious choice to go back to my rural roots. I wasn't inclined to return to the flatlands of Kansas. I wanted to stay in Northfield, so I began looking for land on which to build my dream house.

Neighbors were wondering if they had put me off somehow, but I assured them that now the children were grown, I wanted a place where I could apply some of the long-unused skills that were such a part of my early life. Simply stated, I wanted to play in the dirt and become more intimate with the seasonal changes.

I moved into my new place in the spring of 2005.The brand-new home was surrounded by a thin layer of topsoil in the front yard and some pretty rough stuff in the back and side yards. I must say that I worked harder those first two years than I ever did on the farm as a boy, because everything needed to done at once.

There was lawn to seed, wildlife-attracting shrubs to set in place, vegetable and flower gardens to plant, and piles of rocks to organize. I started saving table scraps and yard rakings and began to compost in earnest. With a strong back and planning, I brought order to the chaos. My wife worried that I'd have a heart attack, but I assured her that a broken finger was more likely. Actually, my muscle tone improved dramatically and I lost a few pounds of city fat. The amazing thing is that all those long-dormant skills developed in the fields of my youth came flooding back.

I took the UNH Cooperative Extension Community Tree Steward training, which helped me deal with the shrub planting I had in mind. I contacted the State Forest Nursery for a list of seedlings appropriate for my site and for sale at a reasonable price.

As soon as I let them know I was a Tree Steward, they asked me if I would like to volunteer when they sorted the plants in the spring, and I agreed. One side benefit of that ongoing relationship has been lots of expert advice and a pretty good selection of undersized but healthy plants for free.

As I prepare to launch into my fifth spring I’m beginning to feel a new sense of place, an attachment to this small space in the world and to what I have done here. When I pull into the driveway, I see a creation I have planned and shaped. As an encroacher on the woods around me, I 'm fulfilling a responsibility to make the land benefit not only me and my own aesthetic tastes, but the mammals, birds, snakes, amphibians, insects and other creatures who also have an attachment to this place.

By Bill Dawson, Community Tree Steward

Drawing by Mary West, UNH Cooperative Extension

Things Are Looking Up

Whenever my husband and I walk together in the woods, he is looking up and I am looking down. Up because he is thinking about his woodlands: which trees need thinning, which need to be allowed more light; down, because I am looking for anything that might grow on the forest floor: wildflowers, mosses, lichens, mushrooms, rocks.

 

Looking down keeps me from catching my toes on surface roots and fallen branches. (My husband is much more sure-footed than I.) But I have decided to look up more often. There’s so much to see­clouds, sky, the stars, bats and birds­that require leaning back and looking up.

 

In winter, cloud action has a different energy from that of summer; look up and you will see. The wind in the earth’s troposphere can be quite severe, and when it is, "lenticular" clouds appear more often. These clouds are lens-shaped, concave and smooth with curved tops like a lens. They occur more frequently over tall mountains and out west, but do happen here, just not as often.

 

One day a few weeks ago, I watched as three lenticular clouds became thinner and more stretched out over the course of 90 minutes. How long they had been there I didn’t know, but they are known to last quite awhile due to their location in the upper atmosphere and strong, circulating winds that swirl around mountain tops.

 

The smooth, rounded shapes may even pile neatly, one on top of another, making layered lentil-shaped clouds. Add a touch of color as occurs sometimes due to light and dust in the air, and…magic! Going back to my high school meteorology lessons, the more frequent denizens of the sky are delightful also, a sky full of mackerel cirrus or pink cumulus clouds make any day better. Look up.

 

Last September, in that too-brief time when summer-like conditions returned, I witnessed a spectacular sight that was seen all up and down the Asquamchumakee or Baker River Valley just south of the White Mountains.

 

Planting bulbs with my back to the sky and Carr Mountain, a light shower began just as the sun was setting in the west. I moved under an ancient apple tree waiting for the rain to pass. Thunder rumbled in the distance, but sunlight continued to spill over the low mountains to our west.

 

Suddenly, a rainbow began to appear in the northern sky, first faint and then full strength color arcing across the horizon. I dashed for my camera and got some great shots. At times it was a double rainbow and lasted much longer than usual. The combination of water droplets and sunlight at a low angle made for an amazingly bright and vivid rainbow.
The immediacy and rarity of such a sight left me feeling as though I alone had viewed it. Later, in speaking with others from up and down our valley, I was amazed to discover that many had shared my experience across at least three towns. Now, I was not alone but a member of a special club. Good thing I looked up, or I would’ve missed it all.

 

Looking up can also reap views of intrigue and adventure in the bird world. While looking up the other day I was fortunate enough to see a light-colored hawk being chased by several crows. The insouciance of the hawk with its mocking, leisurely glide and the raucousness of the harpy-like crows made me laugh out loud.

 

Later, studying some field guides to the birds, a northern goshawk seemed the likely upstart I would not have seen if I hadn’t looked...up.

 

Last winter, while filling a bird feeder I heard a slight noise from above, and when I looked up there sat a barred owl in broad daylight and in all of its feathery glory. I watched it for more than an hour from the relative warmth of my shed door as it waited patiently for mice and other prey. When it dove, it did so with a sureness and speed I wouldn’t have imagined. And, when it ascended to its perch, a tail dangled from its mouth. Breathtaking! Look up.

 

Sometimes, the reminder to look up comes from the source of wonder itself. While I was loading the birdfeeders again, a hairy woodpecker skimmed the top of my head as it dove from one tree to a nearby bush to feed on suet. I still remember with a shiver down my back the thrum of his wings, and the swoosh! of skimming feathers. Whether or not he meant to “buzz” my head, I felt as though he did mean his warning peek! for me and me alone! Translation: Look up!

 

Communing with nature resonates throughout our lives and enhances our days on this earth. That special connection to nature reminds us as humans we aren’t alone on our planet and in our natural environment. To reaffirm this, I’ll continue looking down but also occasionally remind myself to look up.

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

The Hawk and the Titmouse

Glancing out of my observation window in the living room, I saw a grey ball of feathers looking somewhat like a tufted titmouse, but this one had no tufts. The tiny bird had flattened his tufts, making himself as small as he could by hunkering down next to a branch on the lilac near my window. His eyes were as big as saucers; dark round pools of fear looking straight up at the sky.

Looking out the window I saw that Stumpy, the Eastern grey squirrel who lives in my backyard feasting on the remains of the feed from the birdfeeders, was also frozen in his tracks near the bird feeder, looking straight up. Hmmm, what’s up here? There was no one at the bird feeder; no sounds of goldfinches squabbling as they usually do or woodpeckers zipping in and out.

Living in a rural/suburban New Hampshire border town, I had never witnessed such behavior at my bird feeders. My birds fly in and out like most seed-loving birds, fight over the best spot, and in general have a good time. At night, I might have the occasional skunk or raccoon digging around my foundation for grubs or a deer or two munching on the hostas. That’s about all the wildlife I see, unless you count the turkeys and doves and the invasion of chipmunks that everyone has. But this behavior was different.

Gladly dropping what I was doing, I picked up my camera and headed for the screened porch, quietly watching the little titmouse wishing he were the size of a walking stick. I think if I’d tried to pry him lose he wouldn’t have let go.

Scanning the nearby trees, I saw it­a hawk, looking cool and confident of his next meal, perched on the branch at attention, slowing turning his head to take in the view. My camera in hand, set on continuous shutter speed, I found him in my screen and started shooting. Click, click, click. I must have gotten 30 exposures before he took off.

Looking around again for him, I saw him swoop, and Bam! Yellow, black, and white feathers drifted down from near the birdfeeder as he flew upward, the tiny body of an unlucky goldfinch hanging from his beak. Stumpy was still flat on the ground with one eye towards the sky and the titmouse was still holding fast to his branch.  The fear in the body of the titmouse told its story. The appearance of a hawk shadow causes these precious little birds to hide with fear and exhibit abnormal behaviors such as allowing me to photograph him so close, when he would have normally flown at the mere sound of the sliding door opening.

So who was the guy terrorizing my feeding station? From the field guide and my digital photos, a Cooper’s hawk, a small 14-inch by 20-inch, with a tail rounded at the tip. But what was he doing here in my suburban backyard? In the 10 years we've lived here, I’ve never seen a hawk, and according to the guide these hawks prefer deciduous forest near open fields for their hunting grounds, not backyards.

Reading further, I learned that some Cooper’s hawks have discovered the backyard bird feeder as a hawk supermarket.
But the fear Stumpy displayed puzzled me, as he looked to me to be too big for a small Cooper’s hawk to even think about having for dinner, especially since Cooper’s hawks aren’t normally found in suburban areas where a lot of squirrels dine at bird feeders.  Reading further, it appears small mammals are also on their menu as hawks with sharp beaks tear the flesh of their prey rather than gulping it whole like owls, making any live animal they can carry fair game.

After the attack and the settling of the feathers, the titmouse slowly turned his head to survey the trees, released his vise-grip on the tree branch, shivered as if he had dodged a bullet, and flew away to live another day. Stumpy, not as alarmed by the Cooper’s Hawk as the titmouse, straightened himself out, scratched his fur and starting looking for more leftover bird seed. Gradually the squabbling goldfinches came back, as did the woodpeckers and chickadees. Bird life was back to normal.

 

By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener

A Walk in the Woods

I picked up some leaves on my morning walk through the woods. One is an oak leaf, its vein a brilliant red amid the curled and mottled green. Two others are a maple turned yellow-orange and a pale-lemon-colored, oval leaf with pointed edges.

The change of leaves from green to gold, crimson and bronze is a miraculous yearly happening. In New Hampshire, where the colorscape is renowned for its beauty and draws tourists from all over the world, “leaf peepers” bring money to our state. To me, though, the value of the leaves is in the looking and smelling and appreciating the wonder of it all.

I recently returned to New Hampshire, my native state, after four decades of living elsewhere. No matter where I lived, I always had moments in September or October where I thought about fall back home. People I’ve met in those elsewhere places, who remembered I was from “up there in New England,” would remark knowingly to me about the beauty of fall in Vermont. Yes, fall is pretty in Vermont, I’d say, but I’m from New Hampshire and our trees are just as good-looking as those next door.

There are times when I stop and take in the magnificence of a scene. The swath of rubies, goldenrods, coppers and mahoganies blending with pointy green firs and stands of white birches against a radiant cerulean sky sometimes looks too surreal to be true, but I know it is. I imprint the panorama, because within a week or so after peak season, a rain storm or big blow will scatter those jewels to the ground where they quickly turn brown.

I walk along paths strewn in places with pine needles as thick as sponges underfoot. I see spring ferns that popped up along the sides of the trail and have now turned lime or rusty brown. The heavy summer rains this year spawned many mushrooms, which add to the wide-ranging flora layering the forest floor. Tranquil ponds along the way mirror the kaleidoscope of color and sky. Boulders, their rough surfaces covered in patches of velvety green moss, stand like sentinels watching the land. There’s a pleasant, decaying, earthy smell in the air. Most glorious of all: the canopy of red, orange and yellow I hike beneath.

I’ve read that leaf-color changes begin as deciduous trees sense the shortening days and longer nights. They stop making carbohydrate to feed themselves, and the chlorophyll breaks down, revealing the yellow and orange pigments that were always present in the leaves, but masked by green during the growing season. Bright light and sugars trapped in the leaves produce other pigments that dominate the fall color in many tree species.

I don’t know the names of all the trees whose leaves I picked up, but a Web site declares there are 70 native trees found growing wild in our state, and a state forestry report estimated four billion trees larger than an inch in diameter statewide. So many types, some rare, it often takes a tree expert to identify some of the trees that live here.

There are as many leaf shapes as tree species. Leaves are defined as simple (leaves with one leaflet per stem), or compound (many leaflets per stem). Leaf shapes are given names such as ovate, lanceolate, heart-shaped, and cordate and names such as entire, lobed, serrate, and crenate, to their margins (edges). Botanists say trees evolved their many leaf shapes to capture adequate sunlight and carbon dioxide for photosynthesis, to prevent overheating, and prevent excessive water loss.

An article in the Nashua Telegraph estimated that 608 billion colorful leaves fall in our state each year. Many homeowners grouse about all those falling leaves. They see red when they imagine themselves raking and bagging for weeks.

But what proves irritating to some is a rich food source for Mother Earth. As they decay, fallen leaves release nitrogen and minerals such as potassium, calcium, iron, manganese, iron, sodium and zinc to nourish and renew the forest for another growing season. Decaying leaves provide fodder for the lady slippers, wild calla, goldenrod, bittersweet and other woodland plants I see along trail edges early in the year. Smart homeowners mow, mulch and/or compost the leaves to use in flower beds and vegetable gardens.

Like a well-tended garden, my soul is enriched by autumn’s glory. I am reminded fall doesn’t spell the waning of another year, but signals the magic renewal of life itself.

By Pauline Pinard Bogaert, Master Gardener

Summer Storm

This morning I awoke to the sound of gentle rain hitting the porch roof. The sky was pale gray and furry like a mouse. The rain was falling straight down with no wind to weave it around obstacles and through open windows. Ah, I thought, nature is catching up on her watering today. This will be a good chance for me to catch up on some of my indoor work, too.

I sat down at the desk and started paying bills. The sky got lighter and brighter and before long a fully beaming sun was calling me outside. Nature had finished one chore and had moved on to another. I decided to do the same and wandered into the yard.

I deadheaded daylilies and checked the size of the cucumbers in the garden. Those darn Japanese beetles were back at the beans; I made short work of them and then went inside to fix lunch.

The day continued sunny and grew increasingly warm and humid. I forgot about the bills and other paperwork and decided to transplant some daylilies. It was hard work in that heat, but the finished product of three curves of arching tapered leaves was well worth the effort.

But what was that sound way off in the distance? It sounded like thunder. The sky was robin-egg blue and clear, but that thunder was definitely rolling along somewhere.

As I put away my various tools, I looked to the north, where the large beaver impoundment always beckons me. The water is nearly covered with lilies now and the bullfrogs are often quiet. The tall, dead trees with their massive great blue heron nests stood stark against clouds the color of wet rocks. Yes, a summer storm was coming our way, and it wasn’t going to bring a soft, gentle rainfall.

I watched as the clouds swung over the tops of the nests and began to fill the sky, spilling from the north, across the arch of the sky and towards the south. The wind began to build, and the thunder grew louder. As I finished a few quick chores outside, the darkness swept in the approaching storm. I decided it was time to head inside and quickly.

Just moments later, the first patter of raindrops began to play on the porch roof. The soft drumming lasted briefly then turned into a full orchestra of sound as the rain pounded the metal roof. The wind pulled leaves from trees and flung them in dervish circles. The water cascaded down as if off a tall cliff. There was something wonderful about the wildness of the storm – something elemental and it called to me. Had it not been for the flashes of electricity in the air and the quickly following thunder, I know I would have been tempted to run outside to feel the strength of the deluge, the exuberance of the storm. Would it have felt like needles on skin or would I have been pounded until I staggered? Would I have joined the leaves in their crazy dance or been pushed down and held there by the strength of the wind and rain? What would it have felt like to be a part of that display?

The storm left as it came, the rain and wind slowing down, a music box nearly unwound. The clouds seemed to turn over, revealing their white puffy side, and blue sky began to peek through. The rain petered out, allowing the returning sun to glisten on every wet leaf and flower. The hummingbird reappeared and moved rapidly among the monarda. A squirrel began to scold from the tall pine. All was peaceful again. It was as if the storm had never hovered briefly over us.

The sunlight after a storm seems nearly miraculous. How could it still exist after what had just occurred? Surely the wind and rain, thunder and lightning, must have broken the sunny day like a piece of crockery smacked against the edge of the counter. How could it be whole again? Where could it have been hiding? How could it have returned so quickly? It seemed to be laughing, as if it had enjoyed the storm.

The wildness of the storm made the day feel more alive. It seemed to dance now, lifted from humidity-induced torpor, enjoying the cooler temperatures. The water drops and little pools sparkled and sang and every blade of grass stood up straighter. It was beautiful. The entire day had been beautiful.

The day had made me feel a part of the symphony of nature. I wasn’t just a listener at the concert but a part of the orchestra. I played the music of each movement. Oh, I hope another day like this one comes along very soon.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

An Alpine Ramble

I don’t know what I expected, but I was a slightly disappointed when I got my first glimpse of the Alpine Garden near Mt. Washington’s summit. I didn’t expect to see Maria von Trapp whirling around a lush mountaintop of plateau-filled flowers, but I did expect to see more than the low-lying green patches around rocks and boulders.

On closer inspection, I saw a microcosmic plant world blooming in this inhabitable place. I’m awed so many of these plants, animals, birds and insects survive in this area’s most brutal weather. Some plants on this mighty mount have lived 100 years or more, and some are endangered.

I’d heard so much about this site, so when I read about a hike there in mid-June, I signed up. Rain poured the entire morning of the nearly three-hour trip to the meeting place. But, like magic, the rain disappeared as the 28 of us caravanned up the Mt. Washington Auto Road.

Our plan was to stop at two transition zones 2,000 and 4,000 feet before trekking down the trail to the Alpine Garden. The idea was to view different mountain environments at various elevations and observe the changes in the landscape as we climbed.

The lower elevation was mostly hardwood forests, thick with sugar and red maples, gray barked American beeches, paper birches and red oaks, all of which turn brilliant colors in fall and bring leaf-loving tourists. We saw yellow birches with peeling bark that glistened like metal. There was wild sarsaparilla, used as drink by colonists and American Indians. Sarsaparilla is sometimes confused with poison ivy, we were told, but the former has five leaflets with fine teeth running along is edges, while the poisonous latter has three leaflets with smooth edges.

As we climbed to the 4,000 foot zone, the hardwoods began to vanish and spruce and fir trees began to take over. Along the way, waterfalls sprouted along the roadside. The forest floor became rockier and the terrain was dotted with mosses, small pines and ferns.

The krummholz, meaning “crooked wood,” marks the 4,000 foot region. The balsam firs and black spruces here are dwarfed and look like broomstick freaks on the scenery. The black spruce, more of a blue-green color, is amazingly adaptable. In this zone, these trees lay flat along the ground and its branches root. This is a necessary adaptation in the alpine area, for if the trunk dies, the roots start new life.

Just down from the summit, our group caught the nearly one-mile trail to the Alpine Garden. This boulder-strewn trail, marked by five- to six-foot high cairns, was wet in spots and not easily traversable. About 40 minutes later, the trail flattened out, and before us was a swath of green among the lichen-embossed stones and boulders. We were warned not to step on anything green. It is important not to destroy these plants so future generations could enjoy them as well.

Among the blooms was the genuine arctic plant diapensia, whose white blossoms grow in tufts and which grows symbiotically with pink Lapland rosebay. There were alpine azaleas and rhodora, both of which are the same types as the larger shrubs budding below. The rhodora and Lapland rosebay are from the rhododendron family, and the flowers are thumb sized. There were little fingertip-sized alpine bluets white in the alpine garden, not blue colored as their relatives elsewhere. We also found skunk currant, whose red berries are edible, but whose fruit and leaves smell like skunk.

What impressed the group was that all this variety of plants could survive in this harshest of worlds, enduring excessive wind and extreme cold while we were there, swaths of snow still showed in some depressions. Their adaptability is key to their survival.

Coming down the mountain, we saw a bear and two cubs gamboling across a barren valley. We stopped a few times to photograph and admire the white-flower tipped hobblebush shrubs, painted trillium, and pink lady slippers orchid family members. What amazed me, a lady slipper lover, was seeing three white lady slippers.

I knew there were yellow lady slippers, and some colored both pink and white, but I never realized there were white lady slipper colonies. I guessed the whites were an aberration, but our guide Dana Sansom, a UNH associate professor, said she has seen vast colonies of white lady slippers in Jackson, N.H. She said they are a variety of the pink lady slipper, or Cypripedium acaule. After a 45-year absence, I moved back to New Hampshire three years ago. I questioned if this small state held any marvels for me. The discoveries of the white lady slippers and Alpine Garden were answers enough.

By Pauline Pinard Bogaert, Master Gardener

The Rescue

When the daylilies had expanded to the point that some had to be moved into a new bed, we walked around the yard to find a good spot for another garden. The area we chose was awkward to mow, with sparse grass and sandy soil. I set to work removing the grass before amending the soil and transplanting the daylilies. It was the height of the summer a hot, sunny day with high humidity, and the work was hard.

I developed a sequence: dig up a clod, bang it against the side of a pail to remove whatever good loam was attached to the roots, and toss the remains into another pail for removal to the compost pile. Dig, bang, toss; dig, bang, toss.

Suddenly, as I was tossing another clump, I heard a call for help. Instantly I froze and listened intently. Silence. I looked around, but saw nothing. I knew I had heard a call for aid. The language wasn’t English and the voice wasn’t human, but there was no mistaking the intent of that call.

After a few moments, I returned to my labor: dig, bang, toss. Soon the pail of remains would be full and I’d take a break after carrying it to the compost pile. Without warning, it came again: a definite, plaintive plea for help. This time, I put down the tools and stood up, carefully surveying the entire area around me.

Then I saw them well down into the grass, nearly hidden. A garter snake, not large, but certainly ambitious, had slithered silently up behind a toad and grabbed one rear leg. Every few minutes, the snake would inch a jaw further up the leg and the toad would call out again. I cannot describe the sound; it was soft but clear. That amphibian was begging to be rescued.

What to do? I know I shouldn’t interfere with nature. The snake had to eat to survive, and a healthy snake can rid a garden of a lot of insects. But the toad was begging for help! How could I turn away?

Well, I did. I went up the porch stairs, opened the door and into the kitchen, down the hall to the study and grabbed my camera. Then I ran back out and took a picture! After all, how often do you see a scene like that one?

The photography accomplished, I looked around for a way to save the toad. Finally, I picked up the shovel and slid it under the snake’s head and lifted, hoping to frighten the snake so it would let go. Quickly the snake wiggled off and plopped to the ground, toad still firmly held. I tried again with the same results. That snake just slid off the smooth shovel, keeping its grip intact. I couldn’t think of any other way to free the frog without hurting the snake, so I tried again.

This time, the snake must have gotten fed up, or perhaps thought it wiser to get away. At any rate, it opened its jaw as it slipped off the shovel. In a moment it was gone, leaving behind not even a wave in the grass to show it had been there. Gently, I used the shovel to pick up the toad and, moving it in the opposite direction from that taken by the snake, I set it down on a large rock.

The toad sat there in the sun. I visually checked its leg for damage but saw no bleeding or obvious signs of problems. Deciding the creature needed some time alone, and I needed to put the camera away, I went inside. When I returned, it was still there on the stone but had moved slightly, so I went back to work. Dig, bang, toss. Another area completed and the compost pail was full. I carried it off to empty it. When I returned, the toad was gone.

My rescued toad didn’t ask for a kiss and didn’t offer me a wish. I already have my handsome prince, but it’s gratifying to know that one hot summer day, in the midst of clearing some land, I rescued a creature that lived to enjoy another day.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Rows of Treasure

I don't mind picking berries alone.

When my children were young, we’d take an annual field trip to the local strawberry patch. They started off crawling on the matted straw between the rows. I quickly picked berries while their attention focused at their handfuls of straw. When they crawled towards the strawberry plants, I watched them explore, making sure they didn’t eat any leaves or moldy berries. The few berries they picked left red juice dripping through their chubby fingers.

As they got older, berry picking became an adventure. We'd wait for the hay wagon to take us to our pick-your-own row of strawberries. When the wagon arrived, passengers holding their brimming baskets of berries took a big step down from the wooden cart. I looked enviously at them and thought, "Did they get all the good ones? Were there any left for us?” My children were more interested in being the first ones on the wagon.

Once everyone was seated, the tractor bucked into gear and slowly pulled us towards the picking area. We lurched back and forth as the wheels dipped into the pot-holed, dirt road. We passed several rows with people picking, but didn’t stop until we reached a strawberry sign with the number 5 on it. The kids bounced up and down anxiously waiting to get off the wagon. We jumped down from the wagon and were directed to our designated row. The treasure hunt had begun.

I usually walked down the row about half way before starting to pick. I wanted to be immersed in the patch rather than sticking to the edges. As she found her first berry, my Kelly would boast, “Look at how big this one is!” My son, Casey, would retort, “I found the biggest, bestest one of all!”

Sometimes the berries were right on the edge of the row and easy to find. But the best ones often hid in the center of the plant under the leaves.

I loved gently brushing the leaves and stems aside to see what treasures were hidden. When I found the perfect berry, I cupped it in my hand with the stem between my fingers and gently pulled. The berry snapped off the stem and made a crisp, pop sound. Perfect berries had a squeaky, red shine and were evenly speckled with seeds. The caps provided handles to hold onto as you bit into the garnet delight. The warm red juices burst into your mouth and left your fingertips stained with precious memories.

I knew the treasure hunt was over by my children’s pinkened lips and face, filled baskets, and whines of “I’m hot!” As I slowly stood up, my back also creaked it was time to go. So, we started walking back to the farm stand in our red-blotched sneakers.

As we walked down the row, I inevitably spotted another strawberry that I had to pick. So I stopped and picked it. Even though my tray was full, I thought, “Just one more.” The strawberry fields bedazzled me, and I was addicted. That was it-the last one. But then it happened again. I had to pick another strawberry. I averted my eyes, looking toward the farm stand, trying not to look down. I quickened my pace and finally exited, leaving thousands of unclaimed jewels behind.

Now my children are older, so I go picking alone.

Occasionally, I eavesdrop on child-parent conversations. “Look Mom! It’s two strawberries stuck together.” I continue to listen as the mother gives instructions on which ones to pick. “Now Zachary, make sure you pick the nice red ones. The green ones aren’t ripe and the black ones are rotten.” As the children emerge from picking, they remind me of my children with red-stained lips and red smudges on their white tee shirts. I remember that I usually had Kelly and Casey wear red tee shirts when we went picking.

One June day in the strawberry patch, I wasn’t quite alone. I walked to the end of the row, close to the edge of the woods. I’d never seen a snake while picking berries, but this day I heard a rustling under the strawberry plants. Scared of snakes, I feared the worst and quickly hopped back from the row. I watched and waited for my nemesis to slither out from beneath the plant and onto the straw.

The leaves rustled again. I prepared to run. Then out popped the furry, striped face of a chipmunk with a huge strawberry in its mouth.

It looked side to side as if checking to make sure all was clear. As it hopped off into the woods, I compared his booty to the strawberry I’d just picked. He picked a good one, but I smiled and thought, Mine was the biggest, bestest ever!

By Alice Mullen, Family & Consumer Resources Educator

Returning the Pony

At the age of 40, I thought my childhood dream of having my own pony had finally come true.

The truth is, I'd had horses in my life before, but they were never mine.

Before I was born, my parents left New York City and bought a 55-acre farm in Vermont where I spent my first five years. It was an ideal setting in my child’s mind; fields to roam, a pond for skating parties and swimming, and lots of animals for playmates.

I loved the horses best, but as the youngest I wasn’t allowed to ride them unless it was with someone older. That’s why I wanted a pony all my own. Forward 35 years.

On a cool summer morning I stood by a row of windows in my second-floor bedroom and looked out onto the back lawn toward the woods that led to a golf course. With coffee in hand I luxuriated in the feeling that comes when a soft dawn breeze, pungent with sweet pine, wafts through the screens and promises another beautiful day. The mist on the grass was thigh-high and rising. The only sounds were the birds chirping their morning calls.

As I turned to head downstairs, something by the edge of the lawn caught my eye. Having the eyesight of a mole I never trust my un-spectacled eyes, so I raced frantically to the bedside table, jammed on my glasses and checked the spot again.

A pony! A lovely brown filly, grazing on the tall grass no more than 60 feet away. All logic left my brain. It seemed my dream had come true; my prayers had finally been answered.

Not wanting to frighten the pony, I flew silently down the stairs to enlist my husband’s help in corralling her. Looking like a player in a game of charades I began gesturing madly and mouthing “There’s a pony out there.”

“WHAT?” he replied in full voice.

“Shhhhhhh. A pony! A pony! Over by the woods. Help me get hold of her.”

We stepped outside and simultaneously assumed a stealthy crouch­­as if that would work. The pony nonchalantly lifted her head, continuing her munching as we moved slowly toward her. Making no attempt to run, she allowed my husband to clip our dog leash to her bridle.

For one brief moment I allowed time to slip away. I was a kid again and it felt like Christmas. While I held the lead, Jay called the police to see if anyone had reported a missing pony. No one had.

“Can we keep her?” I asked, half joking, half serious.

“Ya, right,” came the reply. “Let’s think about this for minute,” he said assuming his scholarly voice. “If we can retrace her hoof prints we can probably figure out where she came from.”

Although the prints led to a small stream and disappeared, that was enough evidence to give Jay the brilliant idea that she must have come from the estate on the other side of the golf course. So sure was he of this that after letting me play a while with the pony, he set off to return her to her rightful owner.

Down the cart path they went, the pony making no objections until they came to the barn. She wasn’t the least bit interested in going inside, but the horses in the stalls seemed delighted to have her back. It took some doing, but eventually with persuasive pushing, pulling and cajoling she was safely “installed.”

Since Amy, the woman who took care of the property, wasn’t home, Jay left with a satisfied feeling that he’d done his good deed for the day. I hung back, a bit sad at having to give “my” pony back.

A week later Jay ran into Amy in town and told her about returning the pony.

“Oh my gosh!” Amy laughed. “I wondered who had put her in the barn - I came in after work and almost died when I saw her there. She belongs to the Gordons on the other side of town.”

“Really?” Jay said, “But the other horses seemed so happy to see her.”

“That’s because she’s in season and they’re all stallions!”

By Susan Ferber, Master Gardener

Explosion of Life in the Pond

Snow lingers in the woods, though a few bare spots have emerged under the firs, where the snow never amounted to much. The ice is mostly gone from the pond, and now, in mid April, we listen carefully for the wood frogs, lovely tan creatures with black masks who find the merest signs of spring reason enough to wake up and go for a swim.

One day I hear a couple of frogs and then a day or two later, I hear hundreds of them, their low key quacking easily mistaken for ducks. If any other frogs are about, it’s only a few spring peepers that pierce the wood frogs’ soft symphony.

The males are the first to reach the pond. Some command a foot or so of shoreline, hoping a female will hop down the hillside; others spread out across one of the coves, spacing themselves about a yard apart, hoping to intercept the females who must swim across from the opposite shore.

When a female arrives, males will try to climb on her back and then grasp her very tightly around her neck, gaining a position that will allow them to fertilize the eggs when they are eventually deposited, a process known as “amplexis.” Since two or more males will, if they can, glom onto a single female, it is essential the females be much larger than the males so they can pop up for a breath of air whenever they want to.

One year the frogs arrived on a Sunday, April 19. I found a spot near the shore where I could see five dozen frogs without even moving my head. While sitting there, I would hear rustling behind me and then watch crazed males take wild leaps into the pond. While any quick movement would cause all the males to submerge, an extremely loud sneeze had no effect!

Finally, a female appeared. Redder and larger than the males, she swam up under some grass clippings and stuck her nose up, the grass hanging over her forehead, making her seem like a teenager who’d dyed her hair to upset her parents. She eventually moved to within an inch of the shoreline. After a while, she set out for the nearest male, who was just hanging in the water four feet away. But she quickly veered off and swam within a couple of inches of the next male, then sped past. This guy quickly caught up, jumped on, and grabbed her around the neck.

Another female made passes at three males. Each time she approached and stopped, allowing the male to swim by for her inspection. The first two times, she apparently didn’t like what she saw and swam away. The third time, she swam past the male, paused, and allowed the male to mount. A would be suitor contested the pairing, but the first male held on tightly enough and the pair swam off.

The wood frogs continued most of that Sunday, taking a break for a couple of hours during the middle of the afternoon, then continuing until at least 9 pm. On Monday morning, there were only a few dozen frogs left in the pond, but there were more than 325 clumps of eggs in the reeds, each with two hundred or so eggs well over 50,000 eggs!

It was a lovely 65 degree day, the first real day of spring, when I next went out to check on the wood frog eggs. Numerous migrating birds had arrived overnight, including a small flock of evening grosbeaks, a phoebe, a flicker, a pair of wood ducks and three mergansers. Two ruby crowned kinglets, faster even than warblers, flitted about in the willows and the brush, while a song sparrow serenaded a pair of tree swallows that were checking out a bird house by the pond.

The wood frogs were gone, but their egg masses attracted a lot of notice. Nine newts squirmed in, around and through the jumble of egg clumps, sometimes twisting around each other and at other times plunging solo through the gooey masses. Several huge leeches attached to the clumps of eggs, and a painted turtle swam by, checking out the whole operation.

Within five or six days, about half of the tadpoles were out or active within their sacs; within a week, all had emerged; within another day or two, the egg cases themselves were mostly gone. I couldn’t tell who was eating them, it could have been ducks, newts, other frogs, the muskrat I noted hiding in the reeds or perhaps they just dissolve.

It may or may not be coincidence that ducks and a magnificent pair of great blue herons began to visit our little pond just after the wood frogs arrived. They were certainly enjoying their feeding, though I never could see what they were capturing.

From time to time over the next several weeks, I would see a vast swarm of tadpoles a yard wide, a foot deep, and more than 50 feet long, moving slowly along the edge of the pond, feeding on minute bits of vegetation and detritus and generally cleaning up the grasses and sedges at the edge of the pond. What a marvelous example of the incredible explosion of life in the pond!

Carl D. Martland, Coverts Cooperator

Victory Gardens-Round IV

Vegetable gardening is back in fashion. The desire for locally grown produce, combined with economic pressures, has inspired homeowners to dig up their yards. Already, seed companies are reporting shortages of popular seed varieties. Fortunately I bought seeds in February, and my plants are growing nicely under lights in the basement.

All this enthusiasm about gardening reminds of the huge garden behind our house when I was growing up in New York State. We owned the 50-foot-wide lot behind our suburban house, and it was devoted entirely to food production. Although the family Victory Garden seemed to be in decline by the time I came along, I remember the apple and cherry trees, the asparagus and strawberry beds, the path down the middle with the rows of vegetable beds on either side, and an old chicken coop.

My father was a county extension agent in New York State, so he knew what he was doing. I suppose he was under lots of pressure to “teach by doing” and felt he had to have a showcase Victory Garden. Lucky for us-lots of fruits and vegetables. My older brothers were more involved in the work. I especially remember my father’s fantastic tomatoes that he raised from seed. I have tried to carry on his legacy, but with dismal results compared with his shoulder-high jungle of tomato bushes loaded with beautiful fruit.

The need for food during both World Wars I and II inspired the idea of backyard vegetable gardens. Home gardening also provided a way for everyone to help the war effort. My sister-in-law, who grew up in Virginia, told me that her dad borrowed a horse and plow to till up their yard for a garden. Although he was a civil engineer, who knew nothing about gardening, she remembers they grew lots of vegetables.

I’ve read that USDA estimated that during World War II, Americans planted 20 million garden plots that produced as much as 10 million pounds of fruit and vegetables a year - more than 40 percent the fresh vegetables cosumed in the United States at that time. In 1943, American families bought 315,000 pressure cookers for canning vegetables.

Round III of the victory garden movement came just after the oil embargo in the mid 1970s. The TV show Crockett’s Victory Garden aired in 1974 at WGBH, Boston’s public television station. The 75’ x 75’ garden was dug just outside the studio in ground that was like concrete - a former flood plain full of construction rubble and most recently a parking lot. Crews removed rocks and brought in tons of topsoil, built raised beds built and erected a greenhouse. Jim Crockett’s gardens were incredible. A garden writer, Jim proved to be a natural on TV, and the show was an instant hit. He probably taught more people how to garden and grow their own food than anyone since.

Victory Garden round IV is poised to happen this summer, responding to economic pressures, a desire for greater local self-reliance, and concerns about food safety. The White House lawn now sports a vegetable garden. Unlike Mr. Crockett’s parking-lot garden, the White House lawn probably has excellent, well-drained soil that will be tested and corrected for any problems: texture, organic material, pH, nutrient deficiencies. There is plenty of sun at the site, access to plenty of water, and no shortage of labor for weeding, watering, and monitoring for pests.

New gardeners, take heart! There’s a real element of beginner’s luck in gardening. New gardens are the naturally the “first rotation” of crops. Insects may not find the new site, and diseases have not contaminated the soil with spores that move on to the next season. Deer may take a couple of years to zero in on a new garden, and the woodchucks may be slow to locate the new food source.

If you are among the seven million Americans predicted to start their first vegetable gardens this season, take it from an old hand: Start small and build on your success.

Begin with the easy crops: green beans, lettuce, broccoli, summer squash /zucchini, a few herbs, and of course, a few tomatoes. Look to experienced gardeners for help preparing your ground, selecting varieties to grow, and dealing with garden-maintenance questions you can’t answer.

You can always call the toll-free UNH Cooperative Extension Family, Home & Garden Center Info Line, Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Trained volunteer staff, many of them gardeners themselves, will help you find answers to even your thorniest questions.
Happy gardening!

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

On Any Given Thursday

Actually, on any given day that's clear and not too adverse weather-wise, you can find an ideal place to take a walk. Seniors, including me, may get cabin fever during the winter months and cast about for something else to do besides card games and daytime television.

The Franklin Falls Dam is just a couple of miles from my house. So, on with the boots, coat, caps and gloves and off to the dam I go.

Here, the Army Corps of Engineers has provided the citizens of New Hampshire with an ideal multipurpose, year-round recreational facility, which draws dog-walkers, parents with small children, hikers, snowshoers, cross-county skiers, runners, mountain bikers, hunters­and in other parts of the Franklin Falls Reservoir, canoers, kayakers and fishermen.

The gate to the facility is open during most week days. As you arrive at the kiosk adjacent to the parking lot and want to know more, pick one of three brochures to peruse while you take your walk on a paved road that gently takes you to the dam.

As you stroll along, you pass a nice restroom facility on the right. Further along on the left you pass the ranger station that is staffed during the day. It houses the rangers' office and has a phone you can call on your cell phone if you have an emergency while visiting. The number is printed on all their brochures. They respond quickly and expertly when asked to do so, but otherwise remain discretely out of sight.

These rangers are an example of your tax dollars well spent. They not only keep watch on their facility, they provide educational programs to local schoolchildren and homeschoolers and host a variety of events throughout the year.

Past the ranger station, the road turns slightly left and goes down a gentle slope. Both sides of the road are lined with groves of evergreen trees planted several decades ago, which provide cooling shade in summer for folks who want to sit awhile on one of several picnic benches tucked under the trees.

For those who like to gather in groups, there is a pavilion that can be reserved for an afternoon gathering. There's also a playground for the children. I move on down the drive to a small sign that reads, "Piney Point." Just past the sign is another small parking area for those who don't have the energy to do the whole two miles of road. As I pass the parking area, an impressive vista opens.

The dam is about 200 hundred feet above the Pemigewasset River. Looking across the dam along the road that extends to the edge of the spillway on the west side, I can see the traffic along Route 3. To the left is a view of Piney Point as the birds see it. To the right is the so-called impoundment area. Unless there is a serious threat of downstream flooding, this is a prime recreational area. The Corps has built roads designed for their service vehicles that walkers can use.

The stroll along the top of the dam ends at still another parking area. A gazebo, complete with picnic table and benches, is perched on a flat expanse with a view of the river flowing from under the dam on one side and Piney Point on the other. There I have the feeling that I’m far from the cares of the world and daytime television. Only the walk back stands between me and the rest of the world, but it seems just far enough to change my feeling of being trapped by four walls and stale air.

I head to Piney Point­the trail for people who want a real hike. The trail down to the point provides the greatest challenge, dropping away from the road rather sharply through broken hardwoods and brush for a little less than a quarter of a mile.

Once at the base of the dam, I traverse to the point where the trail begins a loop through the woods on the point. It meanders along the shore of the flowing river until I reach the point and then reverses direction and proceeds along the back water section of the area.

The whole trip from the edge of the road and back is a little over a mile. (There are cutoff connectors for those who don't want to do the whole loop.) Wear your hiking boots for this trip, bring a walking stick and be prepared for a workout.

Of course, Piney Point and the dam walk are just a small part of the entire system associated with the trails, woods, and waters of Franklin Falls Reservoir. A mountain-bike trail map is available online-and of course, all the bike trails are also available to hikers. This map is just for the east side of the compound accessed by Route 127.

One of my favorite areas on the west side­quite a distance up the river, in the area between the towns of Hill and Bristol­is the Profile Falls Recreation Area, a real gem for those of us who like to fish and canoe or kayak.

You access the area off Route 3A about two miles north of Hill. Just beyond the bridge that crosses the Smith River, you make a left onto the road that leads to the parking area for the facility. I won't spoil the surprise of this little gem, beyond saying you won't be disappointed!

Editor's note: click here to learn more about Franklin Falls Dam.

By Bill Dawson, Tree Steward

Over and Under the Snow

Groundhog Day represents something far more significant than a rodent predicting the weather: it's the half-way point between the vernal equinox and the winter solstice. No matter what that hapless critter does-goes back in or stays out-it still means winter is half over.

Every couple of days, I snowshoe out into my yard to feed the birds. Yes, snowshoe. That’s how deep the snow has been here in northern Grafton County. The suet has disappeared quickly, and I've replenished the supplies a couple of times.

I’ve even made my own suet "pies" to help fill the birds’ need for insulating quantities of fat by mixing the suet with black sunflower seeds. One reward for putting out hulled sunflower seeds has been the appearance of a brilliant red cardinal.

After several years’ absence, the bluejays have come back to my feeders in groups of five or six. They love the cracked corn and oyster-shell grit I put out for them. I started putting out the oyster shells after I discovered that the rat-a-tat-tat I heard coming from the front of our house wasn't a woodpecker looking for insects, but a bluejay trying to find calcium in paint.

Like all female birds, the lady jays need calcium to strengthen their eggshells, and, as it turns out, calcium is an ingredient in most house paints. I also put out eggshells from hard-boiled eggs and from raw eggs, boiling the discarded shells first in hot water to make sure they won't pass along any diseases.

In my travels around the house and garden, I've noticed tracks on top of and tunnels into and beneath the snow. These tunnels into the “subnivean” (under-the-snow) zone intrigued me. The insulating snow traps heat from the earth below, so the temperature at the interface of soil and snow remains stable, hovering just around 32 degrees, no matter how cold it is above. Often I see a little head pop up from beneath, grab some seeds and vanish back under the snow.

Mice, red squirrels, weasels, voles, moles and shrews remain active in the subnivean zone. The weasel is the predator from within, living among the creatures he will prey on. Owls and hawks watch from branches above hoping to make a meal. Patterns made by the tunnels emanate on top of the snow; try looking down to see them from a window or higher ground. Predators such as coyotes, foxes, and the owls and hawks can often sense motion under the snow and make their strikes before actually seeing the animal below.

Sometimes, I even see where tiny tracks lead across the snow surface and then just stop. Evidence of an animal airlifted by an owl or hawk and quickly eaten. No trail of blood and feathers left to tell a gruesome story, just air and snow.

Another creature that benefits from the insulating qualities of snow: the Ruffed Grouse, Bonasa umbellus. Grouse often burrow into deep snow to spend the night. When fresh snowfall hides the entry hole, an unsuspecting snowshoer may get the surprise of her trip as the grouse suddenly bursts from the unmarked snow beneath her feet.

Not only mammals, but also insects and arthropods live below our line of vision under the snow. The Snow Fly, Chionea valga, and the Elongated Crab Spider, Tibellus oblongus, not only live in subnivean airspaces, but also mate and raise their young there, often providing nutrition for other creatures under the snow. Their sources for food are often the Springtails, Hypogastrura nivicola, which New Englanders refer to as snowfleas.

Harmless to humans, these tiny members of the order Collembola exist all over the world, but here in New Hampshire they remain subnivean most of the winter and come up into the daylight, scientists speculate, to mate. They usually appear on top of the snow only when the air starts to warm a bit in late February, and then resemble black pepper sprinkled over the snow.

Winter animals don't grumble about the snow and ice, they persevere or die. The myriad ways they’ve adapted to life beneath and above the snow testify to the web of life as simultaneously wonderful, awful and surreal.

Recent research in the Antarctic has revealed prolific life existing even beneath icebergs. When icebergs “calve” from glaciers, they carry with them minerals and nutrients from the soil encased within the glacier from whence it came. This enriches the waters below the ice, providing sustenance for microscopic and larger life forms, which in turn provide food for animals in a wide radius.

Some research evolving from this source of life may help solve problems caused by global warming. There are theories that the deep oceans of our polar areas may actually serve as carbon repositories.

Whether spring returns in six weeks or less, all that life below and out of our sight may prove to be more important than we realized.

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

Snowy Sojourn

The “world’s worst weather” isn’t found in the Arctic or Antarctic, but here in New Hampshire on Mount Washington. I hiked this mighty mount one summer. It was thrilling to reach the summit then, and I longed to go there again in winter.

When I got an email from the Mount Washington Observatory (MWO) about winter day trips to this 6,288-foot peak, I immediately sent my money for one of the 12 trips.

Later, I leashed my enthusiasm when I read the “average mid-winter day on Mount Washington has a temperature of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit and a wind near 50 miles per hour...typical 'wind chill equivalent' approaching 25 below! Temperatures of minus 20 degrees can occur even in April! Never underestimate the severity of summit weather conditions!”

More than 100 people have died in the White Mountains, and nearly two dozen of those froze while summiting Mt. Washington. This was no spree, but an extreme experience that could lead to death if we didn’t take care. The MWO issues a 17-item list of clothes and gear needed. Cotton is a no-no, because it absorbs and holds moisture, whether from fog, snow or perspiration. Wool or synthetic wear is best.

I considered renting equipment and called Charlie Townsend, Eastern Mountain Sports climbing school director, in North Conway. “I have one of those baklavas,” I said, mispronouncing balaclava, the facial hood with eye and mouth holes. “Well, you don’t want to wear a Greek dessert on your head,” he joked. Townsend, who leads winter and summer hikes in the White Mountains, told me MWO wanted people to comprehend these hazardous conditions, and if an emergency arose, all that equipment was lifesaving.

A few days before my scheduled expedition, the Northeast was steeped in single-digit temperatures and stormy weather. I thought the trip would be cancelled, but the day dawned clear. The mountaintop temperature was 9 degrees F (minus 10 degrees wind chill), and winds were 15 to 30 mph with a three-mile visibility.

Besides high-tech underwear, I wore four layers under a heavy fur-trimmed parka, and two pairs of insulated pants. I felt bulky and moved like a turtle. There were seven of us in the snow tractor-a machine with huge, rolling blades that deeply grips the snow and ice along the road, while its front plow smoothes the eight-mile road’s snowdrifts. It’s a three-hour round trip, with several stops to view the prominent peaks and valleys in the White Mountains.

Dr. Peter Crane, director of programs, who oversees MWO’s educational efforts, told us about the history of the peak, located in the 52-acre Mt. Washington State Park. A non-profit scientific and educational institution, MWO is funded by private and corporate donations, grants and other sources. Not part of the National Weather Service (NWS), as people think, MWO is private but has contracts with NWS to provide weather data.

The highest recorded surface winds gusted at 231 mph on April 12, 1934, and the official low was minus 47 degrees. “The wild weather on the mountain,” Crane said, “is due to its location at the juncture of three major storm tracks, plus the enhancing effect of altitude.”

When we arrived at the spectacular summit, we went inside MWO’s headquarters, which it shares with the state park. After hot drinks, snacks and talk with a half dozen personnel, we suited up and climbed the observatory’s tower. I had difficulty breathing, and thought: Must be getting old. Crane and young people working there later explained most people need time to acclimate to the altitude.

Leaving the tower, we took more than an hour’s walk to the official summit top and around its historic buildings. During that time, I saw two teams of four climbers crest the mountain.

I was awed by the vast whiteness, where wind artistically sculpts rime ice (frozen fog) into sharp, horizontal points on tower wires, and snow into fanciful swirls on the landscape. Beautiful, I thought, but deadly.

I was struck, too, by the swift change from clear to cloudy skies, and back again. I would start to take a photo, and seconds later clouds obscured the view. Most days, it’s cloudy 60 percent of the time. When it’s clearest, you can see New York, 130 miles west, and the Atlantic Ocean, 60 miles east. Visible also are mountains in the Presidential Range: Madison, Adams, Jefferson and others.

Back inside after lunch-soup, sandwiches, and beans-we toured the station’s meteorological area, with Crane explaining various functions. All too soon, it was time to board the tractor for the world below.

Back on ground level, I looked up from where we had come, but clouds hid the view. Native Americans named Mt. Washington Agiocochook, meaning place of Great Spirit. In my memory this spirited mountain will never be shrouded.

By Pauline Pinard Bogaert, Master Gardener

Tracking

Recent fluctuating temperatures make venturing out onto the swamp a somewhat dicey activity. To be on the safe side, I decided instead to snowshoe around, rather than onto, the swamp and investigate an area I’d not explored before. It rises up behind the swamp to the north and had long been calling to me.

I headed down the path and out the gate, continuing into the woods. In no time the old stone wall that still marks the boundary between our stewardship and the next was standing before me. I found it easy enough to clamber over the wall, even with snowshoes on. The deer I was tracking had found it equally easy. These tracks were on the small side, so perhaps it was a young animal and it clearly came alone. I looked for evidence of browse but didn’t see any. Did nothing appeal to it?

Soon a lovely pine grove enveloped me. The trees were tall and the snow depth light. I saw pine cones and the little tracks of squirrels moving from tree to tree. A peaceful quiet hung there, with just a gentle murmur from the mild movement of the trees. I was reminded of a Robert Frost poem “The Sound of Trees,” in which he comments that the voice of trees is the one sound we “wish to bear” near our homes. The trees call to him, talking of going. I know they often call me to come and explore. They are most persuasive.

But today I was exploring tracks, and there in the grove were the unmistakable marks of a turkey. This was a treat. I love those ugly, gawky-looking birds. After moving into this house, I waited six years to see a turkey before looking out one afternoon a couple years ago and finding 42 in front of the house! They pecked along the driveway and into the front yard, while I ran from window to window, counting, taking pictures, and enjoying. Since then, we’ve had occasional sightings, and now, here I was following where one had gone not long before.

Up an incline it went (did it pant as I was doing?) and across a flowing stream. The rushing water confirmed my fears for walking on the swamp. Better to be here on a knoll, following a turkey’s path. Thanks to the snowshoes, crossing on the large snow-covered stones in the stream bed was no trouble at all. Soon I had moved into another grove of big pine trees, their edged bark dark against the snow.

It’s easy to understand why prehistoric peoples considered groves to be sacred places. Their height blocks out everything outside them. Every sound uttered within takes on a deeper meaning. Surely here spirits can communicate with us mere mortals. Is that chickadee really calling out to another of its flock or is it speaking to me? And what is its message? If I concentrate, can I decipher it?

Eventually, I leave the grove and turkey trail and wander down to the edge of the swamp. How often I’ve looked up at this area while pushing through the wind on the swamp’s snow-covered surface. Here, the trees break the wind and I can easily explore the stumps the beavers have left behind. There are few hardwoods here, just a couple of stumps of young trees a few inches in diameter. The cuts are old and gray. The beavers have moved to other areas around the swamp. From here, I can see all the heron nests from last summer. The older ones, big and solid looking, sit firmly on the dead pines. They look like they will be there forever. The newest ones appear to barely cling to the branches. If they aren’t refurbished in spring, they will be gone by July.

As I continue my journey, I cross the stream again farther up. I’ve lost the turkey tracks, but have found some even more interesting to me: two small paw prints, one slightly ahead of the other; and ahead of both, two larger prints side by side. Later at home, a check in a book on animal tracks confirms my suspicions. Earlier in the day, a rabbit had hopped through the upper edge of the pine forest. If you’ve ever watched a rabbit jump, you know the rear feet come forward ahead of the front feet. Thus its direction was clear­up the hill, into the sunnier area of young hardwood saplings and brush.

I would have enjoyed following it a while longer, but, unfortunately, my time grew short. I turned and headed back towards the house. Sharing time with the wild beings that live in this land is a privilege. I had seen the tracks of three fellow creatures and heard the calls of a few more, but my senses are imperfect. How many other creatures had been watching me, while I, all unawares, blundered around in the snow? Quite a few, I hope.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Bluebirds for the New Year

What a wonderful way to begin a new year-three fluffy male bluebirds fluttering about outside our back picture window. If it weren’t for the glass, I could reach right out and grab them, they are so close. They flew in to our bird feeder near the window with a flock of assorted winter birds: finches, phoebes, titmice and chickadees.

I’ve seen bluebirds as late as Christmas in the past, but this is my first midwinter sighting. They are such a spectacular sight; their colors seem even more vivid against the drab trees and the bright white snow. “The blue-bird carries the sky on his back,” Thoreau wrote in his Journal of September 7, 1851.

Peterson’s Field Guide for Eastern Birds shows the northern edge of the bluebirds’ year-round range along the Connecticut and Rhode Island coasts and out to the Cape, so it isn’t as if they forgot to fly to South America. And these bluebirds looked perky and happy.

After great success last summer with a “full house”­both bluebirds and swallows successfully fledging their broods in our garden bird boxes and the wrens successful in their gourd house nearby, we added another bluebird box in the garden this fall.

Since bluebirds are insect eaters, I’m delighted to have them at work picking off the garden pests. Just days after we finally got the extra box up in November before deep frosts, five bluebirds stopped by to check out the boxes, and one actually sat on the roof of the new box. I have heard that they can be suspicious of a new box, so I was happy they’d at least perched on it. We carefully cleaned the three old boxes in the fall, removing the debris of sticks typical of house wrens and the softer nesting materials­pine needles, grasses and feathers of the bluebird. I read that it is important to clean out the boxes to remove parasites.

We learned just how important two years ago, when after brushing out the debris, my husband exclaimed, “What’s that? It just moved!” He was looking at a disgusting black blob about the size of a small bean attached to the floor of the box. Arrrgggh! We were looking at live blowfly larvae, a nasty parasite of bluebirds. Blowflies are often the reason a second bluebird brood is unsuccessful. The larvae (maggots) in the boxes crawl out at night to drink the blood of the little nestlings­the ugly side of nature!

Despite such predators, we’ve had bluebirds nesting in the garden boxes for about 20 years. They love our open field surrounded by shrubs and woods. Our gardens, with lots of fence posts, old sunflower stalks and some young Christmas trees, attract them because they can land and spot insects from these perches three or four feet from the ground. There’s lots of food for them in our garden, a good reason for not using pesticides.

They typically arrive at the bird boxes in March, when the ground is still snow-covered. But in spite of the snow, they get busy building their nests, beating out competing birds such as swallows and house wrens. This is the reason we have several boxes.

Last summer the swallows did arrive later and began swooping all about the boxes. I ran to the garden to shoo them away, but they swooped and dive-bombed me. Happily they figured out that they were to nest in the empty box and didn’t chase out the nesting bluebirds. The two species lived in peace and harmony.

Fledging is exciting to watch and I luckily caught fledging day for each of the three species. I’ve seen the bluebirds fledge before, although I wasn’t sure of the reason for all the twittering and fluttering about the box. Once they learn to fly, bluebirds leave the box and disappear into the surrounding shrubs.

I was working in the garden the day the swallows fledged, and it was truly a spectacular show. The parents chased the flock of young swallows about for what seemed to me an exhausting length of time, swooping in great arcs and circles with NO stopping. Of course I assumed that it would take several days for them to perfect their soaring techniques, and was waiting for it to happen the next day, but that was it. They were gone.

The wrens’ gourd house is attached to a tree branch so the fledging wrens flew about the tree branches making lots of noise as they perfected their flying skills. They, too, were gone in a day. So now I’m waiting for another winter bluebird sighting. One theory is that over-wintering bluebirds have the advantage of the best bluebird boxes in the spring. The first brood generally seems to be the more successful. So perhaps my bluebirds are so happy with their life here that they didn’t want to risk losing their homes by flying south for the winter. I guess they hide in the shrubs for the winter, surviving on berries and maybe frozen insects.

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener & Community Tree Steward

Aftermath

Sometimes, we’re so used to seeing something, we don’t notice it at all. You know what I mean. It’s there, but we don’t truly see it. Whenever I drove by a nearby forest, I knew I was looking at trees and undergrowth. Sometimes I did think about how different it would look if the land were developed and houses grew there instead of nature’s plantings, but I never really looked at the land.

I didn’t notice the ratio of hardwoods to evergreens. What kind of oaks grew there? What species of plants made up the undergrowth? Had invasive burning bush or oriental bittersweet moved in? Were there native viburnums growing? Did the red color of winterberry hint at wet ground? Was the land bisected by old stone walls? What lay beyond the trees?

I didn’t think to ask. No, I drove by and saw only green and brown. I was glad to see the wilderness left uncut, undeveloped, undisturbed, but I never really looked at it.

And now, it’s gone. In just a few minutes, minutes, it was all destroyed as surely as if man had come in and clear-cut.

In July of this year, a tornado swept through the land, twisting the trees as I would twist a handkerchief. The aftermath was stunning. Of course, I’d seen images on television of the damage a twister could do­houses without roofs, cars lifted up and carried away, but it’s hard to truly grasp the power of a tornado, even when the images are on a large-screen television. But this, this used-to-be forest, this was real, and it was frightening.

The tornado began south of us, tearing its way through woods, damaging houses. It raged across one lake, more woods, across our lake, just catching a corner of a summer camp, where moments before children had been boarding busses to take them on an outing. It crossed a busy road, where a mother and her young child narrowly escaped the crashing trees, barreled across more woods and another road, then veered around as it raced up a hill and on into the next town.

The devastation it left in its wake stunned us. For weeks afterwards, people’s first words to acquaintances were, “Have you seen it? Have you been to look at the damage?” Friends told one another of their close calls­the house with downed trees all around it but undamaged itself, the driver who got through just before the trees blocked the road.

Then came the chainsaws with their incessant whining and the massive chippers with their deep drone. The heavy trucks rumbled by our home several times a day, coming in empty and going out filled with wood chips for some distant wood-fired power plant. The trailers filled with oak and maple and pine seemed to be everywhere. The work has gone on for weeks and weeks. Months later, it’s still continuing.

The finished areas are now clear-cut. Where once deer and bear and moose browsed for food, where birds built their nests and searched for seed, where smaller mammals like squirrels and skunks found shelter­now, there is almost nothing. A few small shrubs, a sapling or two standing starkly against the sky­nothing else remains.

How could it all go in such a short time? Nature spent years and years building up that forest, then destroyed it in a few short minutes. A clear sky one minute, then storm clouds the next­we’re used to that sort of change.

But this? This total devastation seems alien to us. Unreal. A mistake.

Now, when I drive down that road, I wish I could recall what the forest looked like. The starkness of the landscape disturbs me and not even the new vista can erase the sorrow I feel.

Now, instead of green and brown, far down the hill of stumps and low brush, is the lake itself. It’s peaceful and lovely in the sunlight, but I don’t feel serene looking at it, as I usually do when viewing the water. I see destruction and I feel disquiet. I’m uneasy and insecure.

And I wonder, what other surprises does Nature have in her magic bag? Which one will she produce next?

One either side of the devastation lie intact woods. Now I notice the trees, picking out the oaks which hold their leaves so long into the fall and winter. I see an old stone wall, its stones tumbled thanks to the growth of trees and the pull of frost. I see the winterberry and the fir and the hemlock. I look at the landscape. Nature has taught me a lesson and I intend to remember it.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

A Walk on the Wild Side

When I want to get away from traffic and noise, I take a long walk on the Winnipesaukee Trail.

My walk begins in a parking lot near the library in Northfield and follows the river from which it gets its name until it ends in downtown Franklin. The nearly four miles of trail makes a great retreat from busy town life. Bicycles and horses are welcome and joggers and dog walkers abound.

As I begin, I can look across the river and see a lovely park created on the Tilton side of the river. Turning toward the trail, I see a favorite place for the young people, a skateboard park. Passing the skateboard park I see a small dam used to generate power and impound water for those who like to fish from the piers provided on the Tilton park side.

The trail follows an old railroad bed out of town past the town transfer station. The transition to the wild side begins after I pass over a bridge spanning a small brook that gurgles into the river just out of sight from the trail. Birds and furry creatures teem as I pass a meadow on one side and a bend in the river on the other. In the summer, I can notice a drop in the temperature as the cool breeze rises from the river. The river flows lazily at this point and the trail is level or nearly so.

As the river makes a turn away from the trail, a large wetland appears on both sides of the trail. Birds and butterflies abound. Frogs and salamanders often crawl out of the bog and take some sun on the margin of the trail. Beyond the bog, a dense grove of evergreen trees provides a cooling interlude and a large rock provides a place to rest a bit before moving on.

When next we meet the river, it is starting to fall and create noise as it rushes among the rocks in its bed. A few observation spots have been carved in from the trail to the river bank so a visitor can observe or photograph the watercourse. Moving on down the trail through a large pasture on both sides of the trail, I encounter another bridge over yet another small stream. Just beyond the bridge, you return briefly to the more-hurried world as you cross a road, called Cross Mill Road. It comes by its name honestly because it was formerly the access to a number of mills that used the rushing water of the Winnipesaukee to power their processes. As I continue toward Franklin, I see the crumbling remains of several mill races.

For those interested in the past, a historical marker gives some of the uses made of the river in the late 19th and early 20th century. Although the Winnipesaukee is now a haven for kayakers and fishermen, it was once a thriving manufacturing center. Linen mills and leather plants dotted the course of the river with dams and mill races for power. A few of the dams remain but the manufacturing and the attendant pollution are gone.

Beyond the marker, a unique railroad bridge crosses the river. Although it is no longer in use, it once provided a rail crossing, and under it there was a pedestrian crossing for the mill workers coming from Franklin. It was once touted as the only upside-down covered bridge. About 20 years ago, it caught fire and burned away the wood portion that hung under the rails overhead, but the metal roof still remains and is visible through the rails.

Between the rail bridge and Franklin, the trail becomes steep and the river races madly on one side and on the other side the bank rises almost vertically. The bluff is almost 200 feet high in places.

Finally I reach the end, cross Central Street in Franklin, and enter a small city park along the river. The four-mile segment of the trail I’ve traveled from Tilton to Franklin is but a small segment of the trail system planned to use old rail beds parallel to the river for hiking.

Some of us who like river walks take River Street south out of Franklin some two miles and return. When we get back to Franklin, we can cross the bridge and head south on the old rail bed heading toward Boscawen. We tire long before the rail trail ends.

I like to think large, and when I do, I see trails on all the old rail beds throughout New Hampshire. Hiking such trails is such a pleasure. If you meet someone, a friendly hello is the only requirement. You don’t even have to do that if you encounter wildlife.

By Bill Dawson, Community Tree Steward

Just Beyond the Hemlocks

Half a century ago, my father took me walking in the woods. Not a huge wood by New England standards, but from a six-year-old’s viewpoint, three feet above ground, it seemed to go on forever.

We worked our way along a deer path, through laurel and spindly undergrowth until we came to where the ground grew green again, all the brighter for our having last passed beneath a covert of hemlocks, where dirt, dry leaves, and shade mixed with dappled sun to make a deep, yet bright and shimmering brown. It hypnotized and held me captive until my father, calling my name, broke the spell.

Here the woods surrounded and kept secret another world. The long, splayed roots of fallen trees stood tall, forming castles and villages for (I hoped) gnomes and fairies. Pedestals of mud and grass rose among them, and thin bands of water ran between them. Atop the pedestals grew sculptured vases of mottled purple and green (which would later become recognizable as ordinary skunk cabbage). Wood ferns, preened and plumed, formed circles­graceful green dancers, holding hands, backs arched, waiting for the music to begin, their dainty toes hidden in the earth-tone carpet of the forest floor.

“Now sit and be still.” Dad squatted down and led me by example looking from ground to treetop, side to side, moving only his eyes. “If we don’t move or make noise, we might see something!”

I chose a nearby patch of moss growing close enough to the shell of an old oak to lean my back against. Dad stood and started to move away.

“Where are you going?” I whispered.

“There.” He indicated a direction with his chin. “Right behind you. I’ll pretend to be a rock, you pretend to be a stump.” I thought this was a fine idea. Maybe we’d see elves.

The memories of that six-year-old child are now encased in a 56-year-old body. Where I now sit is many miles and a lifetime away from that place, but much the same: a rivulet, just outside the shade of hemlocks, a stone's throw from a magic village made of plant and earth and fallen trees. I come here often, but now instead of sitting cross-legged, I hug my knees, thereby reassuring them that I have neither forgotten nor taken them for granted.

Here I always feel my father’s presence sitting quietly behind me. This place centers me. I come here knowing I will return home wet and muddy and bug-bitten, because the closer I can get to the earth, the more grounded and alive I feel.

A Blanding’s turtle joined me here once. I was sitting as still as possible considering the sign over my head, written in mosquitoese: “Free Food Here.” For whatever reasons, the turtle considered me harmless, settled in, and we sat in companionable silence. Too soon, sufficiently rested, he rose and strode forward until his front legs stood in the gently running water. He submerged his head and drank for so long I thought he’d drown. Once sated, he lifted his head from the water stretching his neck towards the sun, his beautiful golden-orange throat seeming to glow. He appeared to be considering the world around him, and smiling.

We both enjoyed the scenery for a while, neither of us in a rush. The pale white spots on his shell became clearer to me the longer I looked at him. It struck me that perhaps this was a descendant of the turtle in the Iroquois creation myth that once carried the earth upon his back, his carapace­high, rounded and elongated like the milky way­a map of the heavens, its throat the color of a sunrise or sunset. Perhaps he is still holding up the earth, keeping it in place as long as he is on it. Lose him, and we’ll all be lost.

The turtle made an almost imperceptible movement, and I knew he was ready to travel on. I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to see him go. The temptation to follow would have been too great.

By Lynn Quinlan, Volunteer

Life in the Woods

Thoreau reminds us that “we are surrounded by a rich and fertile mystery,” and implores us to spend time in the natural world, simply enjoying what is here and available to any of us. That may explain why I frequently head for the Lower 40 with clippers and a folding saw (for trail work), binoculars or a camera, guidebooks, notebook, and lunch.

I may look like a hiker, but I am definitely not going hiking. Instead, in Thoreau’s terms, I’m simply going into the woods to “probe and pry” into the “rich and fertile mystery of life.”

This probing and prying encompasses several levels of activity, all of which can be described by the same term: life in the woods. At first, it’s enough just to identify the frogs, the birds, the dragonflies, and the flowers­hence the guidebooks, the binoculars, the camera and the notebook.

After a while, though, it’s natural to go further, to enjoy what Thoreau called “gazing with interest at swamps,” which is much more than creating a life list or taking pretty pictures. Careful observation helps to sense and perhaps understand more about life in the woods.

For example, consider the wood frog’s beautiful skin, almost a fawn color, offset only by a black mask. Why the mask? Well, one day in the spring I came across an adult wood frog sitting among the rotting leaves and other detritus of the forest floor; the fawn color was exactly the color of the leaves, and the black mask was the color of the soil. The coloration provides perfect camouflage in early spring, when these frogs travel to vernal pools to mate.

I never know what to expect. Last summer I was surprised to see many pickerel frogs stationed in the grass about a foot from the edge of the pond, surprised because I had seldom seen even one of these frogs. That same day I noticed, also for the first time, a dragonfly with very clear wings and no evident distinguishing marks, just hanging there in the grass.

Further examination revealed that dozens of dragonfly nymphs were emerging from the pond, walking 12 to18 inches inland, then climbing and eventually clinging to stalks of grass or weeds. After a while, the dragonflies would break out of their larval skins and just hang there, letting their wings dry. As I approached, they would fly straight up 15 to 20 feet, look around, and then fly off on their maiden voyages.

The two new sightings were, of course, related. The frogs were there for a nice brunch, a delightful meal served but once a year. And other obstacles confronted the young dragonflies: tree swallows zipping back and forth across the pond, rather than flying in their usual circles. In fact, as I watched through binoculars, a tree swallow slammed into a dragonfly that had just risen to make its first-and last-voyage.

This brings me to the second reflection on life in the woods, namely the sheer abundance and exuberance of life there. The wood frogs, protected by their perfect coloration, assemble early in the spring by the hundreds at the pond, and each female produces hundreds of eggs. I’ve seen swarms of tadpoles, 20,000 to 40,000 of them in a dense ribbon 50 yards long and a yard or two wide. Like seeds of a pine tree, few will survive to adulthood, but most will make it out of the pond, valiantly moving through the fields to the woods and their new life.

A third perspective on life in the woods concerns my life in the woods. I’m not just an observer and a student there, but a participant. I cut trails, prune trees, leave a border around the pond for the dragonflies and the frogs, and help conserve some open space. We all need to do this, protecting and preserving habitats and, where possible, reintroducing habitats.

While pursuing these activities, we may find the essence of our own lives in the woods. Time loses its constancy-my split-second sighting of the swallow catching the newly-emerged dragonfly will stay with me the rest of my life, yet an afternoon clearing trails passes in a flash, a Zen-like experience of being one with nature.

I am endlessly fascinated by life in the woods, and each time I set out for the Lower 40, I hope to pry a bit further into its “rich and fertile mystery.”

Carl D. Martland, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

The State Bacterium Why not? New Hampshire has a state bird, flower, tree, mineral, gem, even an insect. Why not a bacterium?

All that's needed is a proposal to the legislature, a committee to select the potential candidates, the selection, and a photo contest. The ultimate recognition might come with all the votes cast and a species chosen, published and posted on the state Web site: a U.S Postal Service stamp bearing an image of the New Hampshire state bacterium.

Bacteria live in every environment on earth and possibly other worlds as well. Between 100 million to one billion of these "animalcules" inhabit each teaspoon of the garden soil you moved while planting your new perennials.

And that nice, fresh scent of warm spring soil we all associate as clean and natural? Thank those one-celled actinomycetes, bacteria that sleep through the winter only to awaken to the increase in the sun's energy that brings us spring.

Their relatives, archeabacteria, were there at the beginning of life on the earth, 3.5 billion years ago, capturing the sun's energy and opening the door for the incredible variety of life on our earth.

Although news stories generally feature harmful bacteria such as Salmonella saintpaul that's been sickening people across the nation, or E. coli O157:H7, responsible for so many ground-meat recalls, the bad guys are a tiny fraction of a huge world of bacteria, a life-world so important that taxonomists classify bacteria as a separate kingdom.

Consider a road kill at the side of the road. Watch over time as the carcass begins its ancient reversal back into the soil. Before the maggots began devouring it, bacteria worked inside the body from the moment of its passing, breaking down and recycling its carbon-based molecules.

Bacteria help decompose the remains of everything: insects, flowers, leaves, trees-even other bacteria-recycling the carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, sulfur, and oxygen through their bodies to be used by your grass, your tomatoes, and eventually by you.

But which one of our little creatures in the environment works enough magic in our state to be worthy of recognition as the official state bacterium? One of the species that work so tirelessly to decompose all the materials you placed in your compost pile would find its way to the top of anyone's list. Or perhaps one of the nitrogen-fixing bacteria, working with peas, beans and other legumes to add nitrogen to the soil.

My vote though, goes for Aquaspirillium magnetotacticum, a dumpy, rod-shaped, bacterium, with one whip-like flagellum at each end, found in the oxygen-poor muds of our coastal environments and freshwater lakes.

As its name implies, A. magnetotacticum has magnetic properties resulting from small (especially small in bacteria) pieces of lodestone (Fe3O4) in its little tiny body allowing it to serve as a biological compass. The addition of lodestone in this bacterium's body gives it the ability in the Northern Hemisphere to swim up and down relative to the earth's magnetic field to the low-oxygen environment they favor. The advantage for this organism is, in a magnetic field like the Earth's, A .mag, it can sense oxygen's presence and then move away to a friendly environment.

Like many bacteria, it prefers to decompose organic material found in low oxygen levels of our salt marshes and in the soft mud of our New Hampshire lakes. Once these muds are disturbed by kids swimming, dogs frolicking, and lake shore life in general, these bacteria use the downward trend of the Earth's magnetic field to find their way back to a low-oxygen environment.

If A. magnetotactium is found everywhere, what’s the value to New Hampshire? It turns out that A. mag. was first identified in the 1970s by Richard Blakemore, PhD, of our own University of New Hampshire.

As a graduate student in Georgia, I remember a page in my bacterial physiology textbook describing A.mag. and there, underneath the photo I found this caption: A magnetotactic bacterium found in a freshwater pond in New Hampshire. (Courtesy of R. and N. Blakemore of the University of New Hampshire.)

What serendipity! Here studying late at night in a cold, steel, laboratory, as far away from a freshwater pond in New Hampshire as I could be, a picture of a little bacterium was taking me to a remote corner of my brain, stimulating those storage neurons to release the sounds of loons, the smell of white pine, and images of bunchberry on the forest floor. A. mag was pointing the way home.

By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener
UNH Cooperative Extension

Floating Above Elvers

It started with an eel.

When it came writhing out of the black water that long-ago summer night, my second thought, after first wondering how I would get it off my line, was how it ended up here in a small Chester bog pond almost 40 miles from its origin in the Atlantic Ocean.

I knew from past reading the eel had made its way upstream as a one-inch elver nearly a decade earlier and would soon return to the saltwater as a full-grown adult. The contemplation of that epic journey inspired me to retrace its route.

And so some years later on a spring flood, my 12-year old son and I retraced the eel’s journey in a canoe and, in so doing, discovered the Exeter River.

The Exeter is one of the family of New Hampshire coastal rivers that flow eventually to the Atlantic. The Lamprey, Winnicutt, Oyster, and the river I grew up on the Bellamy are virtually indistinguishable from one another. A voyager plunked blindfolded in a kayak into one of these rivers would be hard-pressed to identify it as one or the other when the blindfold was removed.

The rivers are uniformly tea-colored from the leaf tannins, mixing slow bends with fast-drops over shale rapids, but at some point or another­usually over dams constructed by the first settlers to capture the power of falling water­they become salt water.

Over the 20 years or so following my first spring trip, various companions and I made the Exeter River trip several times, dubbing our adventure “Chester to the Sea” the "sea" liberally defined as the salt water below the dam at Exeter.

We typically leave at first light from a roadside in Chester and finish, sometimes in the dark, at Newfields, Adams Point or Newmarket, depending on how well we judged the outgoing tide. We may portage as many as 20 times over dams and blowdowns along the river’s length.

A friend and I once estimated we dipped our paddles 20,000 times during the 12- to 14-hour trip.

We start out bundled against the morning chill, shed clothes in the midday warmth, and rebundle as the shore lights twinkle. Along the way,we see the best and worst of this coastal river that rises in hillside seeps in Chester, gathers itself from many streams, then passes largely unnoticed through six towns on its way to becoming the Squamscott River that finishes in Great Bay.

The best parts of the river are the confusing swamps, where the river’s true course is often determined by the bend of the underwater grass, and the stretches of dark rapids where the tea-colored water disguises the rocks that scrape plastic curlicues from our boats.

The worst parts of the trip aren’t the natural hardships of the journey but seeing the insults to the river done by those who see it as convenient disposal for their leaf piles, old tires and worse. Less obvious, but more damaging, are the chemically-treated lawns at the river’s edge whose lushness spells slow death for the river.

It has been the misfortune of the Exeter River, like the other coastal rivers, to flow through some of the most heavily populated areas of New Hampshire, doubly unfortunate because the rivers have been largely unprotected by the state’s Shoreland Protection Program and so have suffered more insults than their larger inland counterparts.

Each year we’d set out optimistic, hoping that for every clear-cut shoreline with a lawn sweeping down from the house to the water’s edge, we’d find a secluded river bend, and for each discarded tire, we’d find a log covered with painted turtles.

This year, we have cause for new optimism. Changes to the Comprehensive Shoreland Protection Act due to take effect July 1 will protect the Exeter River from Sandown to the sea. The new rules will prohibit many insults to the river.

So each spring when the trout lilies bloom and the water is high enough to allow passage, we’ll once again dip our paddles and head downstream. I like to think that as we paddle, we float above elvers squirming upstream toward a distant bog pond.

By Greg Lowell, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

Hard Rock Landscape

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

Autumn's Gold

These are the days to drink in the precious gold of autumn. As the sun slants low in the sky, the golden hues dazzle us in their brilliance. The black-eyed Susans in the garden flaunt their yellow petals at the wind, which replies by swinging them jauntily in the sunshine. Behind them, tall golden sunflowers nod their huge heads. Each day, the centers expand outward, enveloping the yellow petals until all that’s left are the seeds.

The chipmunks race up the tall stalks to stuff their cheeks with seeds. The chickadees are there too, often hanging upside down as they peck away. A bird releases one seed from its cradle then flies away to crack it open and feast. Are they the birds that have been here all summer long? Or have our birds flown south already and these are migrants from further north, happy to have found a feast to sustain them on their long journey?

Other birds are busy gathering seeds, too. Another flash of gold announces the goldfinch, and soon a small flock of finches is busy eating seedheads around the garden. I watch one bird land on a grass blade nearby and the light stalk sways nearly to the ground. Undeterred, the bird moves along to the very end of the stalk and nibbles on the seed.

The sun dazzles today. It lights up the fading black-eyed Susans and the heavily blooming sunflower stalks, and behind them, the pale gold of clumps of Karl Foerster ornamental grasses. A light breeze is music to the grass, which seems to dance with wild joy.

The goldenrod is buzzing as the bees cover the surface of each cluster of blooms. The bees seem to know that the oncoming cold will soon take the flowers, so they hurry from blossom to blossom. The bees themselves are a golden hue, as are the pouches of pollen on their legs. From sun to flower to bee to pollen, the circle of life itself is represented in the colors of this pigment we humans value so much.

I pick up a fallen maple leaf. The outer edges are a rich, deep red which subtly melds into orange and then gold. In the low sunshine, the colors speak of many things: of spring showers and slowly lengthening days, of the warmth of summer; of cool fall evenings with bright full moons.

On one edge of the leaf, a little grey spider eyes me, then hops to another part of the leaf further away. “Where will you spend the winter?” I ask him. He doesn’t answer, so I put the leaf down where I found it and hope he will survive until spring.

By Susan M. Poirier, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

The Biggest Black Birch

We needed to remeasure the incredible shrinking tree. Last fall, our team of measurers from Hillsborough County went out to measure our national champion sweet birch (called black birch around here). The circumference measurement they submitted was smaller than when the tree was measured in 1988. How could that happen? We had to find out. American Forests, keeper of the National Big Tree List, tries to update its list every 10 years.

I had just taken over the volunteer position of N.H. Big Tree Coordinator. One beautiful day in early spring, Mary Jane Sheldon, who maintains our database, my husband Gordon, and I set out to find the tree. After a sandwich and some map consulting at the New Boston general store, we ended up having to ask some kids where to find the road that would take us to the big black birch.

We stopped at the address given in our records and were met by a lovely woman who came to investigate the commotion caused by her dog’s greeting our team. She directed us to a far corner of her field and told us the tree we were looking for was just inside the woods.

So off across the field we went with our bag of tools: a 100-foot tape measure, the clinometer we use to measure the height of the tree, and the GPS (global positioning system). Trying to find the same tree again after 10 or more years can be difficult. Landmarks change, owners move, phone numbers and addresses get changed. We hoped that GPS coordinates will help solve that problem in the future.

Toward the end of the field we scanned the tree line and saw nothing spectacular. But as soon as we stepped inside the woods and looked to the right as instructed, there it was!

As a novice, I find it difficult to identify the species of big trees because most of the parts used to do it­the leaves, twigs, and buds­are 50 to 100 feet above my head. I was explaining this to UNH Cooperative Extension Forest Resources Educator Phil Auger while taking his Tree Identification workshop, foolishly mentioning that the bark looks the same on all species of big trees. He smiled and said, “That's like telling me the Beetles sound just like Beethoven!”

But this time we knew we’d found our champion birch without needing those identifying clues. It was the biggest tree around. It must have been growing on that stone wall for hundreds of years.

The stone wall turned out to be one of the problems. The tree straddled it. The Big Tree rules specify taking the “circumference at breast height” at about four and a half  feet. “Breast height” was a foot higher on the other side of the tree.

We immediately saw another problem. Picture the trunk of a tree as a human body. The roots are the legs. Where they start to flare out from the trunk is like the hips flaring out from the waist. Then think of a long waist up to where the arms or branches leave the body. This particular tree had normal legs and arms, but it also had two breasts, one in front, one in back!

The two bulges were right where the tape measure should go around. This meant we had to find a spot on the trunk under the bulges and above the root flare. Doing this, we measured 165 inches. Eeeek! Even smaller than the measurement done in the fall. Moving the tape up to include part of the bumps, we got the same 170-inch measurement as the fall team. But the original 182-inch measurement remains a mystery.

Would the smaller measurement eliminate this New Hampshire tree from the National Register? No matter, I had to send the current accurate measurement to American Forests. Months passed before we heard the status of our latest measurement. Finally, in July I got an email stating that the tree is still the largest specimen of its kind in the nation.

The new roster from National Forests will come out in 2008. The Granite State has two other champs and two pending. You can check out the New Hampshire list of Big Trees at www.nhbigtrees.org. Information on the national program is available at www.americanforests.org.

If you know of a big tree, put a tape around it at breast height (watch out for those bumps), and check out our website. If your measurement comes close to the circumference of the current Big Tree of that species, email me at carolyn_page@hotmail.com. P.S. If there is no listing for your county, your tree is an automatic champ!

By Carolyn Enz Page, Community Tree Steward
UNH Cooperative Extension

The Visitors

The pewter gray late winter sky hung menacingly, blocking any glimmer from the midday sun. Snowflakes fell intermittently and a cold wind tossed the trees across the horizon. The gloomy surroundings matched my mood of despair, sadness and loneliness. For the third time in two years, we'd had to put down a beloved pet.

Unlike the other dogs, this one was still young; its death unanticipated and shocking. Although the vets had assured me that I could have done nothing to save him, the problem had likely been congenital, I felt such guilt. Shouldn't I have noticed something earlier? He had been my constant shadow, following me despite his trepidation onto the beaver dam in the fall, refusing to leave my side when others offered to take him for walks. He depended on me and I believed I had let him down.

I packed away his bowls,leashes and collar. I knew we'd get another dog in time so I wouldn't get rid of these things. But the open bag of dog food couldn't be kept, so one morning I decided to toss some kibble from it out for the squawking blue jays to eat. Perhaps they'd leave the sunflower feeders alone for a while with kibble so easily obtainable.

Later that day, I sat at the counter that overlooks the back yard. With my mate away for a few days and the dog gone, the house reverberated with emptiness. I settled down with a sandwich and a book and tried to block out the pain. At the end of a chapter, I looked up from the book and blinked twice. Quick! The binoculars!

There on the path were two gray foxes, calmly but rapidly eating the dog kibble. They were the first gray foxes I'd seen.The reddish coat below, the coat of grizzled gray above, the black tipped tail, and the white throat made identification easy. The abdomen of one was somewhat distended, very full and rounded. A later check of a wildlife book confirmed that gray foxes mate in February or March and give birth in March or April. I felt they must be a breeding pair, happy to have obtained a winter meal so easily.

In too short a time, they finished the few pieces and headed down the path towards the woods. I sat there for some time, just savoring the visit of these two wild foxes. I knew they were primarily nocturnal, but do sometimes forage by day. Probably the winter snow had made hunting difficult for them so they had ventured out in daylight.

Now I had a dilemma. I knew it was ill-advised to feed wild mammals. Doing so habituates them to humans, making them more likely to come closer to people and thus putting their lives at jeopardy. But it was winter. There was still snow on the ground. Their main winter food,cottontail rabbits and other small mammals and rodents,had to be hard to catch with this snow. Soon they would have kits to feed and I still had a partial bag of dog food to get rid of.

For the next few days, I scattered some kibble along the path. Throughout the day, I watched whenever I had the chance. Nearly every day they would return. My spirits lifted as I watched the pair feed. The house no longer seemed empty and my loneliness and grief receded.

One day, a solitary fox appeared. Was the other one surrounded by young in a hidden den? If so, he'd need to bring food back to her. I gave in and when my bag of food was empty, I bought another at the store. Over the next few days, I continued to put out the food and to enjoy the fox's brief visits. The snow was melting rapidly. I knew he'd soon be able to catch prey for his growing family. One day I waited in vain. The jays came and ate the kibble. I saw the foxes no more and when the bag was empty, I didn't replace it.

The visiting foxes came five years ago. I've never seen them again, but I still treasure the memory of that brief encounter. At the time my heart most needed easing, and the foxes appeared, helping me far more than I helped them. Of course it's fanciful to think that my beloved pet somehow sent his wild cousins to cheer me; but the Natives who once lived so close to nature would have understood and shared that belief. We are all one in nature, part of a large circle, our lives touching endlessly and seamlessly. My dog is gone, but the memory of this gift remains.

By Susan M. Poirier, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

One Square Foot of the Earth

When I was an English teacher, teaching poetry was one of my favorite activities. For my sophomore classes, I decided to do nature poetry. Each day we read and discussed some famous and not-so-famous nature poems. For inspiration, we studied nature photographs and went outside for walks around the campus and across the street to the little pond.

While outside, each of us made a list down the middle of a piece of paper of the things we had seen or heard, and when we got back into the class room, on the left side of the paper, we wrote down three adjectives for each living creature or thing we saw and three adverbs for each sound we heard. We couldn't overuse any adjectives or adverbs and they had to be descriptive. On the right side of the paper, we wrote similes or metaphors describing the noun or sound.

Then, choosing words from our list, we each wrote a poem. These usually came out well, and the students were amazed that, although we had all looked at the same things, the poems were very different. I always participated in these poetry-writing exercises alongside my students. Their poems were often better than mine, a fact that amazed them and delighted me.

We did this exercise every year, and I looked forward to it. I wanted my students to think of poetry not as something rarefied that took exceptional talent, but as a way of communicating anyone could use.

During one class, to push them, and myself, a little harder, I borrowed rulers from the art department and we went outside, spread out, and each measured off one square foot of ground. We marked the corners with debris we found or stuck pencils in the corners.

Then we each got down close and looked long and carefully in our square foot. A square foot is pretty small, but we found amazing things. Ants, lots and lots of ants: red ants, black ants and red-and-black ants. Worn-down grass with roots twisted at the surface competed with spindly weeds for a bit of sun and space, and dead pine needles crisscrossed each other, making delicate patterns on the of the ground.

Dried bits of seeds, bark, and tiny twigs filled in spaces, and here and there rocks and stones pushed up through the gray dirt. In some of the squares we found beetles; once someone found a spider with eggs. It seemed that everyone found pieces of acorns or the husks of seeds. We all wrote down our observations of our square foot of earth.

Back inside the classroom, I had the students read quietly to themselves the poem, "To Look at Any Thing" by John Moffitt, which begins: To look at any thing, If you would know that thing, You must look at it long.

Then for homework, I asked them to use their observations of their square foot of earth to write a free-verse poem between 10 and 20 lines. I struggled with my poem until I simply focused on all that was going on in that one square foot of earth and how amazing each thing in it was, and then I wrote it as if that one square foot was all there was to the Earth.

When we read our poems to each other, a quiet reverence filled the room. No one laughed or said anything crude or cruel. After we shared, one girl said, "Who would have thought we'd see all that in one square foot of earth!" Who indeed.

So go outside and, as Moffitt advises, "enter in to the small silences between the leaves." Let the natural world around you and beneath your feet fill you with wonder. You don't need to be a poet or a student to learn to have an appreciation for nature. Just imagine all the earth in square feet, imagine all the life teeming within each square foot, and tread carefully.

By Sheila Roberge, UNH Cooperative Extension NH Outside Volunteer

The Bitter Effects of Bittersweet

It’s leaf-peeping season in New England, a time when visitors and locals alike visit farmstands for pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks, or tramp nearby fields and roadsides for weeds and berries to decorate their doors, porches, and mailboxes.

You may still find fat bunches of oriental bittersweet hanging with the Indian corn and bunches of upside-down strawflowers at farmstands. Or you may collect some from your favorite spot near the railroad trestle where the vines grow lush and thick with yellow-orange berries.

But if you’ve ever spent your summer weekends trying to eradicate this scourge, you probably won’t be tempted to decorate your home with it.

Oriental bittersweet, Celastrus orbiculatus, imported from Asia in the mid-1800’s, was widely planted along new railroad beds to prevent the soil from eroding. Gardeners quickly adapted it, training the vine to climb garden trellises. It quickly became established from Louisiana to Maine. Its bright orange berries and twisting stems make it a natural choice for making wreaths and sprays that decorate New England doors each year.

How could such a charming ornamental plant become such a problem? In its native Asia, bittersweet dominates lowland slopes and thickets. Here in North America, oriental bittersweet is extremely successful in almost every habitat, from floodplain forests to dry, rocky slopes.

It poses a serious threat to other species and to entire habitats because of its ability to twine around and grow over other vegetation. In addition it has a high reproductive rate, long-range seed dispersal, and the ability to produce new plants from its root system.

Bittersweet has an affinity for forest edges, where it has an opportunity to twine around and grow over other plants, while also receiving the light it needs to flourish and set fruit. It often strangles the trees and shrubs it climbs by twining around their trunks and branches, eventually constricting the flow of water and nutrients to their leaves. Trees girdled and weighted down by bittersweet vines growing up into their canopies also become more susceptible to damage by wind, snow and ice.

Birds and other wildlife that eat the bright orange fruit in winter disperse its seeds in their droppings. Unfortunately, we humans also spread this invasive plant by decorating with the beautiful berries, then tossing them into compost or brush piles or other outdoor locations.

To make matters worse, oriental bittersweet readily hybridizes with its native cousin, American bittersweet, Celastrus scandens, which occurs in similar habitats. Hybridization may ultimately destroy the genetic integrity of the native species.

How do you tell the difference? Both varieties produce waxy orange berries, which burst out of pale yellow seedcases as they ripen in the fall. American bittersweet sets its berries in clusters at the end of a branch while Oriental bittersweet distributes its fruits evenly along the stem. The oriental species also has a decidedly more rounded leaf than that of American bittersweet.
           
Because of these characteristics and the threat this plant poses to native plant communities,
in 2004, the N.H. Invasive Species Committee placed oriental bittersweet on a list of 18 invasive land plants now prohibited from sale, transport, distribution, propagation or transplantation in New Hampshire.
           
If you have an infestation of oriental bittersweet, how do you cope? The most effective way is to watch for and remove new small plants. Larger plants will require cutting combined with herbicides. If you have only a few small plants, you may be able to control them mowing or cutting the vines and pulling the roots. Weekly mowing will eventually kill plants, but less frequent mowing (fewer than three times per year) will only stimulate root-suckering. You can treat older, taller bittersweet plants—vines can climb 60 feet or more, with stems growing several inches in diameter—by cutting vines and immediately treating cut stems with the herbicide triclopyr.

For more information on invasive plants in New Hampshire, download the N.H. Department of Agriculture, Markets & Food’s Guide to Invasive Upland Plant species.

By Margaret Hagen, Director of UNH Cooperative Extension Family, Home & Garden Education Center

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.

October Magic

I sat down and waited for the magic. The grass was pushed down from previous visits, and I leaned against a large, solitary white pine. My muscles and tendons soon relaxed. My body sank softly into the cool earth. The grasshoppers and crickets hummed and sang and lulled my mind to a quieter state. The south sun warmed us all—the insects and birds, the plants and trees, the rocks, and me.

To my left, a dragonfly sunned itself on the siding of the house. A yellowjacket whizzed by quickly, looking for the last flowers and a morsel of food. I took off my glasses to see the true colors and shapes surrounding me. I removed my shoes and socks and let my bare feet rest on the cool grass and pine straw. The feeling from the earth soothed them. I rolled up my pantlegs. The sun shone brightly, warming my bare skin and a passing fly who stopped to bask. I grew sleepy. My body wanted to lie down, but that would be an invitation for Sam, the barn cat, to curl up on me and scare away the magic.

Birds sang now and again. I heard some kind of warbler and a male chickadee with his fee-bee song. Did the warm sun fool them? Did they think it was spring?
           
A bee—or was it a jellowjacket?—flew to a lone yellow flower, a fall dandelion. I put on my glasses and crawled over. A fuzzy-eyed Apis mellifera. Where was its nest? Where is your honey, honeybee?
           
I strolled over to the garden, careful to keep my body language carefree like a child’s, so as not to cause any bird alarms. So much life still left in the little garden. Broccoli, carrots, and beets. Edging of long, thick grass that escaped the lawn mower’s reach. Scores of crickets and grasshoppers. A few flies. My garden is a cricket’s jungle. That’s why the turkeys walked through each morning, I imagined—to eat crickets and grasshoppers and spiders. I wondered what would be left in December. Would a few plants, hidden under frost and snow, still cling to life and the color green?
           
I wandered slowly back to my pine tree and sat down. I took off my glasses and listened. Listened for the faint warning of a junco or the bold cry of a jay. Watched for movement out of the corners of my vision. I heard the wind before I felt it. A roar flew in from the north. Suddenly the trees and plants rattled and shook. Then the wind died down and left us again.
           
Still I waited, resting. I quieted myself until I became a small part of the rhythms dancing around me. Sometimes the magic comes quickly and surprises me. My favorite kind of magic: when the golden crowned kinglets decide I am one of them and swoop around my shoulders, close enough for me to reach out and touch them.

Sometimes the magic takes a while to show itself—like when the doe, who has never decided I am a deer, brings her fawn out to graze in the pasture. However, one time I did manage to convince a group of feeding deer and their accompanying lookouts (a group of juncos) that a small group of 10-year olds and I were also grass grazers and no threat at all. But that’s another story. Whatever form it takes, the magic always comes, if you wait joyfully, quietly, and long enough.

A truck rumbled up the long, winding driveway and stopped next to the house, disrupting the peace around me. I peeked around my tree, spotted my husband, and smiled.

Well, I thought, maybe not today. The cattle and pigeons around the barn had straightened up and stared for a moment at the intruder to ascertain the danger. And the close-by songbirds had stiffened and become alert, which then would have tipped off the mice and squirrels and deer to stop everything and watch out. With a ripple effect, an intruding human alarm spread from our house outward in all directions. Which meant the magic was now wary.

Then I spotted it. High in the sky and flying from the north. White on its body? No. Dark, curved wings. Narrow tail. A falcon? It soared southwest, not pausing much at all, and disappeared over the hill. Ah! If you’re patient, the magic always comes.

Sam the barn cat strolled sleepily around the corner and brushed against my leg, looking for attention. I stroked his warm, black fur, then stood and walked inside. Tomorrow, Sam, we’ll wait for the magic again.

by Mary Doyle, UNH Cooperative Extension Volunteer NH Outside writer

New Hampshire from its Trails: Behind the Scene

To many people, the favored portal to the natural world in New Hampshire is the extensive network of trails and footpaths found in the state. Trails allow us to move at a pace that encourages close up views of the natural world while hiking, snowshoeing, or cross-country skiing. Unlike bushwhacking through the woods, using a developed trail allows us to concentrate on where we are, rather than on how we are getting to our destination.

Trails offer the added benefit of having features such as a summit viewpoint or a lake or pond as their destination. When designed properly, trails also lead hikers past the most significant and most interesting parts of the landscape they travel through. We expect all of these things from our trails, but few of us have an appreciation for the effort behind creating and maintaining them.

In 1819, Abel and Ethan Crawford used axes to create the oldest continuous-use footpath in New Hampshire, the Crawford Path, designed to carry tourists on horseback from their inns to the summit of Mount Washington. As increasing numbers of summer tourists came north from Massachusetts and other parts of southern New England, innkeepers began to cut trails to other mountain summits.

The boom in trail construction in New Hampshire really took off after the Appalachian Mountain Club was founded in 1876, and the following fifty years were filled with exploration, mapping, and trail building in New Hampshire’s White Mountains Region. Trail building was so successful that the crews who built the Appalachian Trail had to cut only one eighteen-mile link to join existing segments and complete the Trail in New Hampshire.

Other trail and outing clubs, such as the Dartmouth Outdoor Club, Randolph Mountain Club, and smaller local clubs, also built and maintained trails throughout the state during the same period. While the original trail-building boom has passed, those organizations remain integral to the work of protecting and maintaining the trails in use today.

The White Mountains Region alone contains more than a thousand miles of hiking trails; the U.S. Forest Service maintains 670 miles of those trails, with volunteers adopting sections of trail and performing much of the routine maintenance work. The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) also maintains more than 260 miles of trails there, using professional crews, volunteer trail adopters, and weeklong volunteer trail crews led by AMC staff.

Terry Robinson, the AMC North Country Volunteer Coordinator, guides the work of nearly 150 Adopt-A-Trail volunteers who donate their time with three or more work trips each year to perform basic maintenance on trails. The volunteers, each responsible for a section of trail one to three miles in length, clear and repair water-bars and dips that keep the trail’s tread-way from eroding. They also brush the trail by trimming back vegetation and maintain the blazes that mark the route. Interestingly, Terry said that, while 45 percent of AMC’s trail adopters come from New Hampshire, one-third are Massachusetts residents who continue the long tradition of trail work in our state.

While volunteer adopters perform basic maintenance, AMC paid professional crews and volunteer trail crews spend their time performing heavier maintenance, such as building rock water-bars and rock steps or bog bridges. The rock steps are placed in particularly steep sections of trail where erosion is a serious concern. The steps are placed with such care and skill that most hikers aren’t even aware that they are hiking on an improved surface. The twenty- member pro crews also cruise every section of AMC-maintained trails in late spring, removing the blow-downs caused by winter storms and winds.

Even with the donated time of volunteers, the cost of maintaining trails is high. Andrew Norkin, AMC White Mountains Trails Manager, says he budgets approximately $320,000 for AMC trail maintenance programs each year. About $80,000 comes from Forest Service cost sharing and other grants, leaving the remainder to be raised from AMC members and donors. He also said that dedicated volunteer crews based at Camp Dodge pay participation fees of about $20,000 to help fund their own volunteer work.

New Hampshire’s temperate climate and ample rainfall are great for growing trees, and it takes only a few seasons’ neglect for a trail to be lost to the closing forest. Hikers and other users should be grateful to all the clubs and organizations that maintain our trails.

One way to express that gratitude would be to join volunteers at AMC or any of the local trail maintenance organizations. National Trails Day and New Hampshire Trails Day also provide a perfect opportunity each summer for people to get involved and learn about trail maintenance. Contact your local hiking club or visit the AMC Web page for more information about how you can help.

Larry E. Ely, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

 

Letting Nature Do Its Work

Many New Hampshire residents enjoy living in a heavily forested landscape where they can live close to the natural environment. Suburban house lots often contain manicured lawns surrounded by woodland, or are adjacent to large tracts of forestland.

Despite this closeness to the natural world, we often try to tame and domesticate nature around us. I am reminded of this tendency when I see piles of brush and limbs stacked on the roadside after each spring cleanup, or rows of bagged leaves in the fall, all bound for municipal composting facilities.

New Hampshire prohibited the disposal of leaf and yard waste in landfills or incinerators in 1993, and many towns created municipal composting facilities to comply with that law. As a result, many residents bag leaves and stack brush for recycling at the municipal facility. Yet it seems foolish to spend tax dollars to haul away these valuable natural resources from our land.

Since the last glacier receded some 12,000 years ago, the soils in New Hampshire are being constantly replenished. The slow, ongoing natural processes that build soil will continue as long as we don’t interfere.

Pennsylvania State University Professor Richard Yahner has estimated that as much as two tons of leaf litter per acre can accumulate in a mature forest during a single season. Fortunately, naturally occurring bacteria and fungi, along with a large number of other organisms, decompose the material and return nutrients to the soil.

Someone walking through a deciduous forest for the first time and observing the deep carpet of fall leaves might think the forest would eventually be buried under the accumulation. From experience, we know the mass of leaves will have mostly disappeared by mid-summer. Nature’s recyclers will have finished their work and returned to the soil the nutrients vital to the growth of all plants in the forest.

But it isn’t only falling leaves that return nutrients and energy to the forest. Falling limbs, branches, twigs, and even whole trees add to the process. In his book, The Trees in My Forest, Bernd Heinrich summed up this whole dynamic process by writing: “The tree’s decaying body releases the resources collected throughout its life, passing them back into the forest.” All living things in the forest, not just plants, benefit from the recycled energy.

Leaf litter is important to many species of wildlife that inhabit the forest floor. Shrews and rufous-sided towhees search the leaf litter for invertebrates that are one of their primary food sources. Hollow logs on the forest floor are favorite den sites for up to seventeen species of mammals in New Hampshire. The coarse, woody debris is used as habitat by 30 percent of the state’s mammal species, 45 percent of the amphibians, and 50 percent of the reptiles.

One of the amphibians, the Eastern Newt in its “red eft” (terrestrial) stage, lives in woodlands under rocks and logs on the forest floor for up to seven years before returning to water and transforming into an aquatic adult.

Downed logs and woody debris also provide habitat for insects and other invertebrates, as well as mosses, fungi, and lichens. The larger the log, the more value it offers to a wider range of species, but all woody debris on the forest floor has value to some species.

When we recognize the value of these natural resources, we might change how we view woodlands. We have become conditioned to looking at woodland around our homes as an extension of the lawn, to be kept neat and manicured. But nature is not tidy,

If the woods in and around your home landscape seem messy and you cannot let nature take its course, then go ahead and clean things up: break fallen branches into smaller pieces and spread them on the forest floor, limb fallen trees so they lie on the ground, and create brush piles in a hidden corner of the woods. The piles provide tunneling space and cover for wildlife and are easy to build. On their Web site, the National Wildlife Federation offers detailed instructions for constructing a brush pile.

Consider raking your leaves from lawns and spreading them directly into adjacent woodland, which is much less labor intensive than bagging them. If you don’t have woods nearby, create a compost pile, simple or elaborate to match your ambition.

Reduce the size of your lawn by allowing surrounding woodland to expand into the yard and by using the fallen leaves to define the new border. Instead of a lawn that may require a significant addition of nutrients, pest controls and irrigation water, the natural woodland will maintain its own health, returning nutrients to the soil through natural processes.

Live with nature, don’t fight it.

by Larry E. Ely, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

Green

I love green. In nature, green means a time of growth and renewal. In times of rest and slumber we see browns and grays, and white that comes with ice and snow. So far the latter hasn’t put in much of an appearance here in the Northeast. Instead of the usual first couple of inches of the fluffy stuff that we get at Thanksgiving, this year, white has eluded us.

I’ve begun noticing something I’ve missed in whiter years: the beauty of the woods if you but look at all the evergreen mosses and ferns.  I’ve never had the chance to admire their brilliance and have overlooked their beauty, because most years they’re obscured by an inch or more of snow. This year, on those rare sunny days that come with late fall and early winter, the ferns and mosses glow with an emerald effervescence.

Recently, I arose to find my little farmhouse surrounded by thick, white fog. As the sun began to rise, breaks in the fog allowed me to peek into the world outside: greens so bright they hurt the eyes as they reflected back the richness and depth of the world of mosses. The mosses lie hidden during most of the year by shrubs and ferns, themselves green, but now dormant and for the most part leafless. Mosses come in so many shapes and sizes, but, unnoticed by most, they can coat rocks, replace lawns, climb trees, or help fallen logs decay and mellow into the earth.

Hidden among the mosses lies a whole ecosystem we can’t see and don’t understand. Microorganisms in those mossy beds go about performing their daily functions oblivious to us, much as the characters in one of my all-time favorite stories, Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss.

In that book only Horton the Elephant can see the tiny inhabitants of Whoville. Similarly, water bears remain invisible to the naked eye unless viewed under a microscope. Minuscule one-celled invertebrates, they resemble white, translucent polar bears, albeit with eight legs, according to Robin Wall Kimmerer the author of Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (a book not at all as pedantic as its title makes it sound).

Kimmerer, a wonderful writer who makes the world of moss a fun, interesting and magical place, explains that these tiny creatures depend on moss in much the same way that pandas depend on bamboo; they are inextricably intertwined for survival. The water bear can insert its mouth into a moss cell and suck out its contents. It relies on drops of moisture in moss to convey it from leaf to leaf.

The tiny water bears, however, have an adaptive technique that pandas might envy: if conditions become too dry, too hot, or too cold, poof! water bears can enter a state of anabiosis, or suspended animation. When conditions improve, they rejoin the living. Under the right conditions, mosses can do the same. 

Moss can become a lawn replacement, sometimes by default, but also by intention. In Japan and other countries, whole gardens of different mosses are tended lovingly. Try walking barefoot in moss for summer pleasure. Imagine never having to spread lime and fertilizer again.

Evergreen applies not only to conifer trees, but also to some species of ferns and mosses. The Christmas fern, so named because it remains green at Christmas when others have turned brown or disappeared, remains vibrant when all else has become drab. In the same category, lycopods, often called ground pines, or club mosses, also remain green. These can look like miniature pine trees that grow singly and also in vine-like groundcover form.

Finally, I can’t forget the deciduous evergreens—the rhododendrons and the mountain laurels. Although green, they tend to telegraph their true feelings about cold by shriveling when temperatures go below freezing, and would probably agree with Kermit the Frog that it ain’t easy being green.

Winter may eventually turn the landscapes around me white, but I’ve learned to enjoy the subdued greens of the season until now. I’ve walked and hiked through the bare landscape, looking more closely than I ever have before at mosses, ferns and other greens. Yes, they always emerge from beneath the snow each spring, but living in the present has made me much more aware of green as Mother Nature’s gift.

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

1/16/07

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.

Old Roads and Ancient Traces

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.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

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.

Leave those Snags and Brush Piles in the Woods

A dead tree? Your impulse is to cut it down and remove it. Branches on the ground, brush from pruning your shrubs? Gather ‘em up and take ‘em to the transfer station or to the curb for pick-up.

But wait! The mammals, birds, and other animals would appreciate less clean-up in your woods.

Leaving dead or dying trees where they stand is one way to help your local wildlife. Some people are concerned that these “snags” are a sign of forest ill health. This is rarely the case. Instead, snags are part of the natural forest life cycle that provides habitat for animals and then returns nutrients stored in the tree to the soil.

Snags provide food, shelter, and nesting places for many birds, mammals and other animals. Many species of birds in New Hampshire nest in holes made or found in snags. Mammals, amphibians and reptiles also use these cavities as shelters, nests, or food storage bins.

A woodpecker fashions a hole in a snag and uses it for nesting. If the location is right, chickadees, owls, titmice, wrens, swallows—even bluebirds—may use the cavity when the woodpecker is done. Bluebirds like snags at the edge of fields.

Snags provide insect-eating birds, such as nuthatches and woodpeckers, with a reliable food source. These birds also eat insects in the surrounding area. Another insect-eater, the bat, seeks shelter under the loose bark of snags.

While bigger is better, a snag at least three inches in diameter at breast height (referred to as dbh) and at least six feet tall has value for wildlife. Ideally, you’ll have snags from several species of trees located at a distance from another, with at least three of them 12 inches dbh or more. Different animals will use varying sizes.

Particularly good locations for snags include field edges, clear-cuts, wildlife openings, and spots within 100 feet of a wetland, stream, or body of water. Of course, snags eventually fall down and thus could pose a safety hazard if left standing near a building, trail, or road.

Snags provide food and shelter for insects and other invertebrates. Squirrels and other small mammals store winter food in snags. They nourish lichens and fungi. Snags next to streams and water bodies often fall into the water, improving habitat for young fish. Snags may provide places for turtles to sunbathe next to the stream.

A brush pile is a pile of logs, sticks and brush. While you can simply collect in one place branches you’ve pruned or found on the ground, a constructed brush pile will provide a better shelter for animals. The National Wildlife Federation Web site describes the goal as a “topography of nooks and crannies, a fortress of crevices and interlocking branches to provide hiding places for dozens of animal species.”

A brush pile has two layers, a base and a top. The base should provide easy access for animals seeking shelter. Construct the base of logs, large rocks, or piles of stones. If you use logs, you’ll need about a dozen, four to six inches in diameter and six to 10 feet long Arrange half the logs about 10 inches apart as the first layer. Then put a second layer at right angles to the first. Alternatively, you could use four to six large rocks or piles of stones as a base instead of logs.

After the base, add smaller branches and brush to provide shelter. Including some evergreen branches will increase the pile’s value as a winter shelter. The ideal brush pile is four to eight feet tall and 10 to 20 feet in diameter.

Where should you construct your brush pile? The edges of fields or in the woods within 10 feet of a field or open area make good locations. Near a stream or water body is also good, so long as the site is well-drained. At least half of the pile should get daily sun. The animals will appreciate our locating the brush pile close to food sources such as viburnum or other native fruit-bearing shrubs.

It’s better to build several small brush piles than one large one, ideally at least four piles per acre placed at least 100 feet apart.

Do keep your piles away from buildings and children’s play areas, to minimize confrontations with the animals that may choose to live in your brush pile.

To learn more about improving wildlife habitat see “Wildlife Habitat Improvement - Woodlands and Wildlife” and “Protecting and Enhancing Shorelands for Wildlife”. Click here for other information, including a diagram of a brush pile, check.

By Honey Hastings, UNH Cooperative Extension Coverts Cooperator

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.

3/15/06

Rocks

As many gardeners know, it is in late autumn that granite breeds. Its gestation period generally lasts through the winter, with the resulting offspring appearing by planting time. At leaf-drop we will notice again just how many rocks there are. Bradford, New Hampshire, where I live, has, by one reckoning, at least 250 miles of stone walls.

Stones, however, were not always in such obvious abundance.

What is now central New Hampshire was once the northwestern coast of Africa, while most of Vermont is part of the original North American continent. This accounts for the differences in geology in general and the rocks in particular between the two states, but perhaps not for the differences in politics.

The stones in New Hampshire formed at the core of the Appalachian Mountain range created when Africa and North America collided 680 million years ago. A similar collision is taking place today, as India is slowly being pushed into the soft underbelly of Asia. The Himalayas are currently rising at a rate of about ½ inch per year.

New England didn’t become rocky until the appearance of the Laurentide Ice Sheet. The ancient soils were scoured down to bedrock. Stone slabs were heaved, broken, and scattered about. The lush temperate forests eventually began to return 10 thousand years ago, continuing the slow buildup of organic soils begun by the enterprising lichens and which would again bury a great many of the smaller stones.

The pervasive mythology of this region relates that heroic pioneers cleared a rocky wasteland to create farms. Though not without extensive exposed outcroppings, early hill farms were not heart-breakingly stony. According to historians, geologists, and historical records of the time) upland farms were largely fertile in the early 1700s, and remained so if treated with care.

In a crude oversimplification of complicated and profound events, one could say that the social and political changes in colonial agriculture from communal food production to self-sufficiency, the exploding population of Europeans and removal of native peoples, the deforestation of New England, and the culmination of the “Little Ice Age” by the early 1900s all contributed to the emergence of slumbering hordes of stonewall-sized rocks.

The first European coastal settlements were built on soils first cleared for cultivation by the Native Americans. These lands were sandy and largely devoid of rocks. Most stonewalls were built further inland in the first half of the 1800s, well after the American Revolution.

Although many walls were built to delineate ownership, most walls needed the addition of wood (and later, wire) to function as animal barriers. Disrespectful though it may sound, many stone walls were in fact only linear waste heaps for the surfacing surplus. Rocks were moved to the sides of pasture, hayfield, and cropland according to the preponderance of stone, availability of labor, and the turning radius of the given farm equipment. The average stone-walled field is between two and five acres for these reasons.

The heaving of rocks is a complicated and much-studied process. In heavily forested areas, normal winter snow, a heavy layer of leaves, and a modicum of topsoil prevents the ground from freezing more than a couple of inches deep. By contrast, a pasture or thinly wooded area may freeze to the depth of several feet.

Frost heaving begins when water in the surface soil freezes. Water expands as it turns to ice, thus soils expand during freezing. Water in liquid or vapor form is attracted toward soil that is already frozen and each speck of ice between grains of soil consolidates the particles into a single rigid mass. As the frost line deepens it reaches the tops of rocks.

When the “head” of the rock is frozen into the descending frost layer a small void is created beneath the base of the rock. Because spring thawing happens from below as well as from above (deep subsoil remains at about 55 degrees F.), soil adjacent to this void falls in while the stone itself is still frozen in place from above. The stone, once the thawing ground above releases it, is unable to return to its original niche and thus over time may eventually poke through the thawing and descending upper soil.

A distinct process called “frost push” can happen at shallower depths. Cold is conducted at a faster rate through stone than through the surrounding soil. This causes the bases of these rocks to freeze; the cradling soil then freezes and expands, pushing rocks up.

These forces of frost heave and frost push after the large-scale felling of the original forests were not the only processes luring stones up into the sunlight. Loss of topsoil and compaction caused by overgrazing, especially on slopes, were other significant factors.

What farmers, scientists, and even amateur naturalists such as Thoreau documented in the 1800s in North America (and much earlier in Northern Europe) was that the supply of stones, not too troublesome at first, appeared within a few decades after the trees came down.

The clearing of stones at the first half of the 19th century was an annual chore for several generations of farmers, though a picnic compared to the job of supplying 20 or more cords of wood to heat the average home. After that time the rate of rock “production” slowed.

Though not yet in my garden.

By J. Ann Eldridge, UNH Cooperative Extension Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

2/23/06