NH Outside: Natural Resources Archives

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

12/20/06

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

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

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