NH Outside: Seasons Archives

Hasn’t it gone quiet? The only natural sound seems to be the wind as it blows the leaves in swirls and sways the tall grasses. There are still birds around – sudden little flocks of chickadees landing in the elderberry bush, feeding for a bit, then moving on. They’re here, but so quiet. Even the blue jays move noiselessly through the trees. A shadow on the ground is the only indication that they have swept through the yard. I see a squirrel dash across the yard, but quietly. He hasn’t scolded in weeks.

The sunflower heads hang heavy with seed. They appear bowed in prayer. The bright yellow petals of the black-eyed Susans show only the cone-shaped centers now. The petals have all withered away. In the daylily bed, only Ollalie Keith stands tall and budding. All the other plants have been shorn of scapes and are now resting. The red leaves of the aruncus brighten a dark corner of the woodland garden.

Even the raspberry patch is quiet. The canes are bent over with ripe, purple fruit. The sweet aroma still draws the bees and wasps but they move slowly now. I inadvertently touch one while picking berries and it simply, slowly flies away. I fill a large bowl with the fruit, tossing a berry occasionally to the dog that sniffs around the ground-touching canes.

The other dog has discovered something near the daylily bed and can’t be tempted away. At last, my bowl full, I walk over to check out her discovery. She’s found a new hole near the corner of the stone wall. As always, I’m amazed at the perfect roundness of the hole. Only two inches in diameter, it is as round as a pipe and hidden in the grass. There are no piles of dirt nearby, not like the piles the moles leave around. I once saw a chipmunk come out of just such a hole so I presume a chipmunk made this one. Where is the dirt? How could it have hidden the entrance so well? When I think of the size of the animal and the tiny size of its brain, I’m in awe of what it has accomplished.

This past summer, we’ve been visited by several Northern water snakes. Their black skin is checked with dull red, black, and tan figures, most easily seen when they are digesting a nice meal. Dull from the warmth of the sun and the energy they need to digest, they lounge on the rocks around the vegetable garden. The bulging meal expands the skin, easily revealing the intricate pattern. I know the garden is riddled with chipmunk holes and tunnels, and I wonder if the snakes simply wait near a hole to grab a meal or if they move down into the tunnels to seek their prey. I think they dined well this summer, but I haven’t seen any snakes at all for weeks now. Are they already hibernating, wound around each other in some den?

The ground is littered with acorns, making walking dangerous for the unwary. I pick up empty caps and save them for the fairy houses I hope to make this winter. Perhaps I’ll also scoop up some of the acorns and set them aside to throw out when the winter snow has hidden all other food. I know the blue jays and the squirrels will enjoy them. I wonder if a bear or deer will come by tonight to feast on the acorns. Surely this is food they need to help them fatten up before winter comes.

The pine trees look so odd at this time of year. The old needles are turning brown. Before they fall off, they make a sad contrast to the green of the new needles at the ends of the branches. Once they are gone, the tree looks fine again, the spaces simply dark, not empty.

The needles fall on the lawn and the creeping thyme and the driveway and we rake them up. Some I’ll use in the compost bin throughout the winter to balance out the wet greens from the kitchen. Others I’ll save for an experiment in discouraging slugs from getting to the green beans. Some needles fall among the leaves under the trees and these we leave to compost and give back nutrients to the soil. The lush pile of colored leaves and brown needles are Mother Nature’s own fertilizer, one that has worked well for millennia. I kneel down to smell the aroma of earth and fall and the promise of regrowth come spring.

The air is chilly now. A frost has been predicted for tonight. My outdoor tasks for today are done. It’s time to freeze some raspberries.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

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

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

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

March is for skiing. The days are longer and warmer, the snow sometimes mushy but usually adequate, and you’re finally in shape. Then April. T.S. Eliot knew whereof he wrote. Mud, cold, late snow, teasing warmth.

Finally the yellow arrives. First the goldfinches appear at the feeders in bright new coats-yellow, enhanced by black wings. Evening grosbeaks, bigger than the goldfinches, but similarly dressed.

Daffodils-the first green shoots appear in a sunny, protected spot, then among the trees where they have naturalized. A warm day and they burst forth, first the bright yellow ones, later the more subtle narcissus, with yellow centers. The forsythia explodes in yellow, sunlight on a bush, seeming all the brighter on a cloudy morning.

The daffodils and narcissus are my special favorites. I am a lazy gardener. Once planted in a convenient spot, they come back and spread, each clump expanding, year after year, where you had forgotten you put them. Mine are in an open grove of deciduous trees, so the flowers bloom before the trees leaf out and their leaves have time to feed next spring’s celebration.

Of course not everything in spring is yellow. A clump of bloodroot suddenly creates a white carpet, -short-lived and glorious, in open shade by the stone wall. These are the progeny of a few plants borrowed from a neighbor’s property where they had taken over the site of a long-gone farmstead improbably located on the northern slope of a hill. A few crocuses come and go, also more or less self-perpetuating. Red trillium appears here and there.

But yellow dominates. The daffodils persist. They survive a late snow unscathed and they don’t object when I pick a bunch to bring some spring inside, although the woodstove continues its service. A branch of forsythia, brought in before it blooms, obliges by allowing itself to be forced a bit before its time.

As the early yellow fades, spring begins in earnest. The fruit trees blossom white, then drop snowstorms of petals; lilacs' perfume surprises. Tulips may bloom in all kinds of exotic shades, but they don’t persist and naturalize the way the varieties of narcissus do. The wild and naturalized and the cultivated mix and match. In open, rocky places ground phlox, once it takes hold, provides a welcome splash of color.

My garden isn’t the well organized, well-tended example seen in fashionable brochures and catalogs. It’s very much hit or miss. There’s less work that way, although sometimes I seem to spend most of my energy controlling the excess of the successful plantings. After the forsythia finishes blossoming, it must be restrained with the pruning shears or it will overwhelm its neighbors. In an open sunny spot, even the daffodils become too aggressive. Come fall some will be dug up and moved.

When someone has given me a plant, it gets planted. Some do well, some don’t. The wild and the planted mix, and the planted sometimes go wild. A late-blooming rhododendron, brought from my childhood home in Massachusetts, brings forth pale pink blooms in July, long after normal rhododendrons have completed their show. By now it’s July. A clematis that climbs a trellis on my deck is a shower of purple. A little rose bush by the stone wall is covered in pink blossoms. (I’ve gone to war with the wild roses, one of the few plants other than poison ivy that I challenge aggressively.)

The yellow persists. I plant tall yellow marigolds in the garden, supposed to ward off some pests. Black-eyed Susans flourish on the edge of the pasture and anywhere else that isn’t extensively mowed. A plant with daisy-like flowers appeared by the gate. I don’t remember planting it, but it faithfully reappears in late summer each year.

The gladiolas, dug up in the fall and replanted in May, look promising for late summer enjoyment. For some reason the red and pink gladiolas are the first to bloom. The last are the yellows, which continue until every last one has been cut and brought inside to brighten the dining table.

Then there is autumn. Yellow leaves are a splash of sunlight underfoot or gleam from the trees in the afternoon sun. The beeches, especially, hang on to their yellowing leaves until forced to release them by a cold snap or strong wind.

Only when winter sets in, late November, does the yellow disappear, except for the gleam of sunlight, low in the sky, warming the spot where my lab basks. But the yellow waits, under the snow, for the chance to burst forth again, when I’ve put my skis away for another season.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Wildlife Coverts Cooperator

I know of no one who likes grey squirrels. They take over bird feeders, live in attics, and are considered an all-around pest.

But once in a while, a pest becomes an individual, a sympathetic individual, who captures your heart. Enter Stumpy the Squirrel.

Two years ago, shortly after I retired from high-school biology teaching, Stumpy appeared at my bird feeders with the other squirrels, eating my expensive “sunflower chips” and causing anxiety in my feather-lined heart. On second glance though, I noticed he was different, an apparent target of bullying. What was going on here?

Stumpy was missing half of his long, furry, squirrel tail. What had happened to him? He didn't seem to be the worse for wear, so I put him in my Oh, there's Stumpy file as the only gray squirrel I could distinguish from the rest of the horde. A squirrel I could use perhaps as an indicator for how long they stay in the same place and perhaps even how long they live.

Last fall, when I again had time to observe my backyard, there was Stumpy, now frolicking with his pals: fat, happy, and eating his share and more of the gold-plated sunflower chips. Winter three was coming up. I knew that one squirrel does not a population make, but Stumpy could still serve as a pretty good indicator about local grey squirrel life. In fact, life seemed not too bad in my back yard: great food, plenty of places for nests, friends to play with. But what about sex, I wondered? Was Stumpy ignored by the girls because of his tail? (Or the boys? I’d assumed Stumpy was a male, but I don’t really know.)

By midwinter, Stumpy's fur appeared a little less thick and full. He wasn’t frisky, but lethargic. There must be something wrong with him. With binoculars, I saw him close up, and what a sight! He had a patch on his right side that had no fur, with one big, red open sore on the skin.

What had happened? It was 15 degrees. I figured that might be the end of Stumpy. But how would I know? Do a squirrel inventory every day? Stumpy didn’t show up on a regular basis. I went searching for information.

A local veterinarian told me Stumpy might be suffering from mange, a mite infection. Or he might be biting and irritating an itchy spot. As winter is stressful on all wildlife, Stumpy’s tail problem, possible mange, or even feeding on contaminated bird feed could all have contributed to his appearance.

Following the habits of grey squirrels may not seem exciting, but I did want to see how Stumpy fared. I set up a blog to record my Stumpy watch. In response, a college friend suggested I trap him and take him to a recovery center. Hmmm, not sure about that one.

When I showed Stumpy’s picture to my next door neighbor, his comment was, “Oughta be shot for eating my bird seed.” Not what I really wanted to hear. Our four-year-old granddaughter followed Stumpy and wanted to make him into a princess.

As the winter wore on, Stumpy appeared, though not regularly. When I did see him, his skin looked better, and his appetite was great. As squirrels aren’t herd animals, his solitary appearances didn’t seem abnormal.

Perched on a tree branch during a January snowstorm, Stumpy looked shocked at having to go through 12 inches of snow to the birdfeeders. Instead, he went back up his tree making noises whose meaning I could only imagine.

On a sunny but cold March day, Stumpy sat on his branch again, with his injury facing the sun, seeming to just enjoy the warmth. I startled him and he ran around the back of the tree and disappeared. I could see his naked skin and his injury were still there, but he seemed none the worse for it.

Now it’s May. The trees have leafed out, the grass is up, and I continue to see Stumpy at the feeder every couple of days. Amazingly, most of his fur has grown back, except for a small spot, and he looks fat and happy. But a number of other squirrels, including a red squirrel, now seem to be afflicted with the same skin condition.

What I’d taken for granted, the presence of grey squirrels just outside my window, has turned me, an experienced science teacher, into to a humble observer. It’s given me the awareness that my condo backyard is not just as a grassy knoll mowed all summer by noisy machines, but an inspiring and thought-provoking corner of our planet with its own secrets and mysteries.


By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

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

In Just-spring when the world is mud-luscious...

Surely the poet e.e. cummings was thinking about New Hampshire as he wrote the opening lines to his poem in Just. And isn't the word mudluscious just perfect to describe the month of April? Unless you are a newcomer here, you know that the Granite State has four seasons: summer, fall, winter, and mud.

With the deeper ground often still frozen, the spring rains and the melting snow turn the top layer of soil into a quagmire which makes traveling on our dirt roads a challenge. After a long cold winter though, it’s a challenge many welcome, for with it comes the first signs of returning life.

Cummings goes on to say that in spring, the world is puddle-wonderful. And so it is. Suddenly one day you hear a strange cracking sound and you know the frogs and toads are back. Ending their winter hibernation, the Eastern American toads have dug their way out of their burrows and traveled back to their vernal breeding pools, and now the males are croaking away for a mate with all the volume, enthusiasm, and ardor the mating season demands.

Joining them are the big bullfrogs that wintered underwater in the mud and leaves. From the hearty trill of the gray treefrog to the high-pitched, bell-like chorus of the spring peepers, the night sounds of spring give us reason to rejoice in mud. Without standing water, few if any of the toads or frogs would be able to mate, and our springs would be strangely and sadly quiet without their calls.

If you sit quietly for a while near a vernal pool or a ditch or the backwaters of a stream, you’re likely to find another amphibian now that spring has encouraged you to explore-the eastern or red-spotted newt. Although the young efts (terrestrial stage of a newt) will hibernate under logs or rocks all winter, the adult newts are often still active under the ice. Come spring, though, they are ready to mate. The adult females can lay 200-375 eggs, but only in unpolluted water. Since adults consume thousands of mosquito larvae and ticks, they, like the frogs and toads, are nice to have around.

For months, the landscape has been brown, the ground covered with snow. But now, the melting and slowly increasing warmth have brought about a transformation at the ends of certain branches. Here the pussy willow, with its happy wet feet, starts to show just a bit of gray. In a short time, the gray expands to the soft, familiar flower of the plant. The sight of the pussy willow in the wetlands bordering a road is another welcome reminder of the value of these watery areas.

And here in this soggy area, the green leaves of the marsh marigold appear. It won't be long before its yellow flowers will burst out. Does any flower proclaim spring with as much vigor and pizzazz? Much lovelier than the later dandelion, the marsh marigold makes a joyful statement about marsh life in the spring.

In cummings’s poem, the children eddieandbill and bettyandisbel come out to enjoy the spring. The whistle of the “old balloonman” beckon them to follow him. You can almost smell the fresh, stirring air as they play marbles and pirates and jump-rope and hop-scotch. Their names run together as they run around, exploding in the warmth of the new season.

The poem hints at a darker, deeper side of the mudluscious and puddle-wonderful season, hinting at the loss of innocence, as the “goat-footed balloonMan” (Pan) leads the children farther and farther away. We hear his whistle far and wee and understand that the children have gone with him. Are we, too, being led astray? Are we following paths that may destroy that which we so enjoy and need?

The plants and amphibians who live in our muddy pools bring us not only early signs of returning life after a long winter; they also act as barometers of the health of the wetlands, and ultimately, to the health of the planet. From newts’ breeding only in unpolluted waters, to the sad and alarming disappearance of many of our native toads and frogs, we can learn much about the effects of pollution and habitat loss.

How long can marsh marigolds and pussy willows live in water too sick for a newt to survive in? How sad would spring be if the frogs and toads, newts and marsh marigolds disappeared? Mud alone is not enough to make spring a beautiful time of the year.

Personally, I hope the sound of the frog choruses will drown out Pan as he whistles his way through our “mudlucious” spring. I bet you do too.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Yesterday, the old wooden bench was still covered by snow from last week’s storm, its location found only by memory. Today, the entire top of the back is visible. Today also, the first stones of the vegetable garden’s raised bed have begun to peek out through the snow. I know that once the first stones are visible, they’ll absorb the sun’s warmth and the melting will accelerate. Soon, the entire south face will appear, as if by magic.

The metal roof of the three-season room resounds to the dripping of the melting snow off the back roof of the house. It sounds like rain and makes talking impossible. Each morning, the dogs wake a bit earlier, aroused by the sun leaking through the bedroom shades. In the evening, we leave the dining room windows uncovered while we eat. To watch the daylight as it lingers longer and longer is such a delight. We don’t need a calendar to know that spring is coming.

Last night, we left the wood stove empty. The day had been so warm we didn’t need to build a fire to heat the house. The room itself was empty as we all moved off to other rooms, no longer drawn by the heat and dancing flames. In the bitterest cold of winter, we seem to live in that one room. All the others feel cold by comparison. Last night, all were equally comfortable so we strayed to occupations in other areas.

The ski shop in town sends out emails starting with, “Spring skiing!” My friends and I find ourselves shedding coats as we glide along the groomed trails. Last week, we stopped for a while to watch a chipmunk on a tree. It seemed to revel in the warming sunshine and it too, noticing the different scent to the air. Spring.

The trees near the bird feeders are often now filled with flocks of finches. They sit there and chatter away. “Doesn’t that sun feel good? Shall we fly north tomorrow? I’m so glad she feeds us hulled sunflower seeds, aren’t you?”

Are they really saying all that? I don’t know, but it seems to me that their conversations must run along those lines. I know that soon I must bring the feeders in, well before the bears come out of their long hibernation.

On a snowshoe outing yesterday we saw rabbit tracks and deer tracks. The deer had come across the swamp and up into the woods behind the house. Suddenly the tracks changed dramatically from sedate, discrete hoof prints to widely spaced, deep marks, indicating that they had begun to leap through the snow, leaving long empty spaces between the tracks. I expect their white flag tails had flown up suddenly, alerting each other to danger. Had they spotted the bobcat, or had my wildly barking dogs frightened them?

The vernal ponds along both sides of the driveway are starting to melt. Down deep in the frozen mud, the frogs and salamanders are waiting to emerge and begin their mating rituals. The strengthening sun is warming down through the snow, melting the ice and unlocking the life hidden below.

The seed catalogs are all spread out on my desk, awaiting my belated, final decisions. Everything looks so good and tempting, but my garden space is limited; I must make hard decisions today and get the order out in tomorrow’s mail.

I wander to the back of the house to look out at the yard. Last fall, I stared to clear a new area and extend a stone wall around it. We talked about planting blueberries there, but there are several shrubs I’d like to buy as well. I know the birds will appreciate the blueberries as much as I will. Which of us will get the lion’s share? The partially finished wall called to me all late fall, but the frost had glued the stones to the ground so I couldn’t move them around as I wished. How soon will I be able to tackle that project? There’s no moving a wheelbarrow around in mud season!

As long as the snow holds out, I’ll snowshoe and cross-country ski. I’ll enjoy the winter for as long as possible. But I’ll also enjoy the warmer days and the strong sunlight. I’ll delight in wearing a lighter coat and thinner gloves. I’ll watch, as I go, for the first swelling of buds on trees and shrubs. I’ll note the behavior of the squirrels and birds and chipmunks. They know better than any meteorologist what’s happening and how spring is progressing.

Before long, the robin’s nest will once more be filled with chirping, gaping beaks. The nuthatches will come to the bag of dog hair I’ve hung out and pull out tufts for their nests. The frogs will fill the night air with throaty calls of love.

I’m not impatient for all that. I can wait. And I’ll enjoy the waiting and the watching for each sign of spring.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

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

Sunday, January 7, 2009 at about 11:30 am, I spotted 30 to 40 turkeys crossing the field, across our back yard, on to our front yard and up the street. I got home in time to see them heading into the woods and up the hill, a swarm of curved dark shapes against the snow. A friend who lives at the top of the hill next to the oak forest watched them descend on her large crabapple tree still loaded with apples. The apples are gone now.

These aren't the first turkeys that have come to visit. Several summers ago we had what became almost a pet family of turkeys living in the neighborhood. One morning in mid-June I looked out the kitchen window and saw what looked like a flock of turtles at the base of a rock in the hedgerow. Dumbfounded, I stayed glued to the sight and watched the strange menagerie move across the field toward our garden. As they came closer, I realized I was watching nine baby turkeys under the watchful eye of the proud, stately mother.

They grew fast, feasting on field insects. Grasshoppers weren't a problem that summer. In about two months they grew to adult size, and it became hard to distinguish the mother among all the long necks poking above the field grasses. Although we'd heard turkeys can damage gardens, other than scuffing up some bare ground, we found no damage. But they did leave a wonderful collection of turkey feathers.

The turkeys gradually became braver, waddling right up to the house and circling about the lawn, feeding ravenously. One day in late summer, I watched in astonishment as they marched up from the garden across the lawn right up to our back patio, and hovered about the drive, gazing at the garage end of our two-story saltbox-style house. Then, with an awkward fluttering of huge wings, one flew to the ridgepole of the garage, landing near the weathervane.

Soon all nine were on the roof and proceeded to trot across the breezeway section of the roof, from which they then jumped to the peak of the main house. Next, I saw one on top of the chimney. We have a huge maple tree that soars above the house, and I was totally flabbergasted when one flew up to a branch in the tree. Cautiously, one after another, they all summoned up the courage to follow.

The last one was obviously not enthused about the idea, but finally made the leap from the roof ridgepole. They continued on to adjacent trees where they were surprisingly well hidden for their night-time roost. By roosting in a different location every night, turkeys hide from predators.

Checking the N.H. Fish and Game Web site, I learned that 25 turkeys were re-introduced to New Hampshire in 1975. Today, about 36,000 turkeys live here. If the flock of 30 really has only one tom, and 29 hens that each lay 10 eggs, with a conservative survival rate of five, we could have 145 more turkeys next summer plus the 30 parents. That’s 175 turkeys!

Obviously, they're thriving in our wooded suburban setting, with its combination of lawns full of insects, native shrubs full of berries, and mature oak forests producing nutrient-rich acorns. The pond where we saw them first is fed by small streams flowing off the nearby forest-covered hill. The stream flows all winter long, icing over only during the most brutal cold snaps.

I read that turkeys mate in March. Their nests are just hollows in grass on the ground. Hens lay 10 to 12 eggs; one a day for almost two weeks. The hens incubate the eggs for 28 days, but are sensitive to disturbances during this time and will readily abandon a nest. The poults are ready to leave the nest 24 hours after hatching. The poults I saw in mid-June must have been about four to six weeks old. The poults can fly when they are two or three weeks old; from then on they will roost in trees at night.

A New York Department of Environmental Conservation pamphlet, The Wild Turkey in New York, explains how turkeys survive the bitter winter weather:
During the winter, turkeys reduce their range, diminish their daily activities and often form large flocks. They frequently spend time in valley farm fields feeding on waste grain and manure spread by the farmers. Spring seeps, which are usually free of ice and snow, are also favorite feeding areas. When a severe winter storms strikes, turkeys can spend as much as a week or more on the roost, waiting the weather out. Studies have shown that healthy wild turkeys can live up to 2 weeks without food.

Incredible! As I write, my 30 turkeys, stuffed full of crabapples, must be roosting on tree branches waiting for the sun to break through tomorrow. That will be a sight to see.

By Anne Krantz, Master Gardener and Community Tree Steward

Editor's note: To help biologists gather data on the health and distribution of turkeys during the challenging winter months, the state Fish and Game Department wants to hear from you. If you see a flock of wild turkeys flock between now and the end of March, report your sighting using the electronic survey form at www.wildnh.com/turkeysurvey. Please don't report multiple sightings of the same flock.

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

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

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

Remember those soft little snowflakes falling from the sky, attaching to your eyelashes, mittens, and tongue during those snowy days when you were growing up? Oh, how my friends and I loved to get up and out when the announcement came, SNOW DAY. NO SCHOOL!

Remember sitting outside by yourself and listening to the snow fall, how quiet and secure it made you feel?

Growing up in the fifties and sixties, I never really understood why snowflakes were so wonderful or why the water they’re made from is so powerful. How could the substance in those delicate little flakes from my childhood float on the top of a pond, move mountains, and kill living plant tissue?

I never really made the connection between liquid water and ice until I was studying to teach Advanced Placement biology. I had a wonderful instructor whose job it was to bring all of us pre-1963 high school science teachers up to date.

This class brought me one of those “aha” moments when things suddenly come together and begin to make sense. My moment of enlightenment came when our instructor explained water and all its properties.

We began with the structure of the simple H2O molecule everyone knows by its chemical formula: two hydrogen atoms (H) and one oxygen atom (O). The way in which the hydrogen and oxygen atoms bond and by which the molecules attach to each other causes liquid water molecules to attach and break apart constantly, giving water its familiar fluid appearance. But what about ice? How does water become ice and float?

The unique bonding properties of the water molecule also account for ice. As liquid water begins to lose its heat and freeze, the molecules attach to one another in such a way as to keep each molecule at arm’s length from its neighbors, creating the rigid lattice structure we know as ice. This ice lattice creates space between the molecules, making ice less dense than water and causing it to expand and float.

Also due to this shape, when liquid water flows between rocks and down into cracks in rocks and freezes, the ice lattice expands to nine percent more than the water’s liquid shape and exerts a tremendous force on the surrounding rock. This expansion causes fractures along the rocks’ natural weak points. Adding gravity explains why the Old Man in the Mountain was doomed to fall in spite of the valiant attempts to hold it in place.

Now as fall fades and the woods turn white with snow, what caused those maple leaves to shrivel and fall and your geraniums to turn to brown mush and begin to rot, but doesn’t damage evergreen shrubs and trees? It seems water and freezing temperatures again are the culprits. Leaves on deciduous trees die as part of a plan.

As sunlight and temperatures decrease, photosynthesis slows and the tree begins to use more energy than its leaves produce. These are the clues for the tree to reduce its energy budget and remove all those things causing a negative draw on its energy stores. Trees drop their leaves and take a long winter’s nap.

But many of our cold-tolerant evergreen trees and shrubs have adapted to freezing temperatures by moving water out of their cells to spaces between the cells, allowing the cells to survive by lowering their freezing points. When the temperature rises, melting occurs, water moves back into the cells, and the plant resumes its growth activities, though there may be some cell damage. But not all trees survive, as the drying winds so common here in winter can kill a tree by drying out the water between its cells.

That explains how trees may (or may not) survive, but what about geraniums? Geraniums and other summer-flowering annuals, due to their genetics, don't transport water out of their cells, so ice forms in their cells and kills the plants.

So, as daylight decreases and gardens are put to sleep, I look out my window at the frozen pond, the surrounding trees and shrubs, and the deflated, brown vegetation of the flower garden, and I think: I now understand why ice floats, snowflakes form, leaves die, and The Old Man in the Mountain fell. It’s all because of the simple structure of ice-crystal lattices created as liquid water freezes.

And, as winter advances, snowflakes fly, and the woods look dead, I know that even in winter, plant cells in my trees and shrubs are performing tiny miracles, preparing for spring.

By Suzy Martin, Master Gardener,Community Tree Steward

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

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

The thermometer read 24, no wind whispered, and I stood on the driveway inhaling that fine autumn air. The sky, as blue as a kid’s crayon, shimmered as the sun climbed over the ridge to warm our valley. With maple leaves having already dropped, copper and gold blinded me with their fluorescence. A gorgeous autumn morning.

So quiet, so still, and then I heard it: fall. Fall, the verb.

Warmth from the sun had finally reached the treetops behind our home, melting the frost and knocking the final bits of stubbornness from the leaves. They fluttered and cascaded to the forest floor, scratching branches along the way, swooshing a bit in an unfelt air current. With no other sound to compete, they cluttered and clanked, sounding almost as metallic as they looked.

A blue jay squawked, perhaps alerting the others that summer’s camouflage would soon no longer protect them. Perhaps the jay complained about the first deep, deep frost. Perhaps it called an early morning greeting, to wake up the rest of the flock.

Nevertheless, in a week or two, the trees will be bare of this vibrant splendor and we will enter the second phase of autumn: Stick Season. Lovely for its austere elbows and knees of silver and pewter, Stick Season allows us to peer deeper into the woods, watching wildlife meander through the underbrush.

We watch as boulders appear: big, granite, glacial erratics that we haven’t seen since last winter. We welcome them back, though, obviously, they've been sitting there year-round for thousands of years. With each new layer of fall leaves slowly decomposing, the soil around them gets richer each year. Little critters burrow into that soft, matted fluff, hiding seeds and making well-insulated nests.

Perhaps the weathered boulders shift a bit, or crack apart through the freeze-and-thaw cycles during the year, but for the most part they stay put. Some of these boulders, at least the parts we can see, are much bigger than our cars. We are happy to have them remain where they are.

We admire gravity, keeping all that rock in place, and we dodge gravity as our big old oak trees release their acorns. It’s a hard-hat zone near our wood-yard. We hear those plump, nut-nuggets pummel and ricochet off the wheelbarrow, the log-pile covers, and the car if we've forgotten to move it from the ambush. Sometimes, for only for a second or two, we mistake those gray, lichen- and moss-covered boulders for visiting wildlife. Once we debated the bizarre winter arrival of a 36-inch-long rock under our bird feeder. That bobcat quickly decimated the gray squirrel population that frequents our winter-only bird feeders.

Soon, the white stuff will fall. It will cover those fallen leaves and highlight the boulders. Snow will allow us to see the animal tracks of those that live and forage in the forest behind us.

Some beech and oak leaves will cling all winter to the branches. The sun bleaches them of color and they’ll flutter in unseen breezes making a racket of white noise. Finally, they’ll either slowly tatter to pieces or drop when spring’s new buds push their stubborn selves off the branch.

The morning was really waking up now, the sun higher in that cyan sky. Suddenly I heard it dripping, then raining: Ping, ping, ping. How could that be, without a cloud in the sky?

I puzzled for only a second, then grinned and turned to our house. The sun had finally hit the metal roof. The white layer of frost had melted off the edges and dripped to the next roof. Plunk, plunk, plunk.

The frost shower only lasted a minute or two, and I thought of the fleeting moments of life that we so often miss. Find your minute of wonder. Listen to the leaves fall or the frost melt and drip. Inhale that crisp air in the morning or the sensuous deep funk of decaying leaves in the late afternoon. Embrace that tapestry of color by jumping into the leaf pile you just raked. Or crush one of those leaves in your hand and inhale its fragrance. Soon, it will be gone for another year.

By Laura Richardson, Master Gardener

A pair of white ducks appeared in our neighborhood pond in August. Each time we drove by, we saw them reveling in their element, bottoms up, foraging for food or just swimming around unimpeded in the pond.

It was obvious these weren’t wild ducks, accustomed to the seasonal comings and goings of nature’s cycles. They were domestic ducks, unable to fly or to defend themselves from predators. Still, they survived happily in the pond in late summer.

As fall approached, several of the neighbors joined us in concern for their fate. My grandsons, with their mother, brought food and the ducks welcomed them and even seemed to anticipate the children’s visits complete with handouts. These ducks were used to human beings. No doubt they had been adorable, fluffy ducklings at Easter time.

But by the end of summer, the charming babies had become full-grown ducks, perhaps a bit aggressive and needing accommodations that some suburban family couldn’t provide. Were they then abandoned to fend for themselves, without thought for their ultimate fate? Did parents persuade their children, and perhaps themselves, that the ducks would live happily ever after in our neighborhood pond?

September passed, and then as October moved on, the neighborhood became increasingly concerned. The ducks themselves grew more dependent on the children’s provisions. We all knew if we did nothing these two couldn’t survive once the pond froze over. They would become dinner for someone, if not for Mr. Fox, then for the coyotes or a fisher.

So, one day the children and their mother arrived at our barn with the ducks in the back of the Subaru. The female had been easily captured, but the drake was skittish. The timely arrival of a neighbor saved the day and the pair came to their adopted home in a pen by the barn.

We wondered how they would get on with our ancient Chinese geese­noisy creatures but otherwise harmless. A single Indian Runner drake shares their pen. (His mate succumbed to a weasel last winter. I found her headless carcass in the pen one snowy morning.) What would they think of these new arrivals?

As it turned out, the ducks were welcomed and moved in without incident. They may have missed the freedom of the pond, but they were glad to have food and shelter as winter approached and the cold intensified. Each morning I broke the ice in their water pans, and all drank gratefully.

No sooner had the days begun noticeably to lengthen, in late February or early March, than a white egg appeared in the shelter. Every day, through the spring and early summer, Mrs. Duck produced a single egg. We used them in various ways and found them rich and tasty. We saved a half dozen for the nearby Montessori pre-school that likes to hatch some chicks or ducks each spring in their incubator. Some of these orphans come back to our farm, either to lay eggs or to find their way to the freezer in the fall.

Sure enough, after 28 days of incubation, the duck eggs hatched, producing four fluffy ducklings. School was over, so home they came to our “nursery.” When they outgrew the small nursery pen, we introduced them to the ducks and geese at the barn.

Mrs. Goose embraced motherhood so enthusiastically that she crushed one of her offspring. Another succumbed to her overprotective instincts; she was too big and her size overwhelmed them. The others were returned to a safer pen.

After a few weeks we tried again to integrate the little flock of water fowl. This time the Indian Runner drake proved such an ardent lover that the poor ducklings were tattered and thoroughly intimidated by his attentions. So, they are back in a safe haven for now, and we shall have roast duck later this fall.

Such a responsibility we assume for our fellow creatures even if we will eventually eat them! And the parent ducks, rescued from the pond, will survive another winter to produce eggs. The children at the Montessori school can again experience the miracle of tiny ducklings emerging from their shells. We’ll make egg salad of the rest.

By Carolyn Baldwin, Community Tree Steward

The swamp is quiet now. The great nests high atop the dead trees stand empty and silent. The 18 young great blue herons and their parents have all left. Quiet reigns where once there were raucous cries.

The red-winged blackbirds and grackles have also left, as well as the tree swallows with their iridescent blue wings. The very air seems empty, bereft of their brilliant colors and acrobatic swoops. The deep-throated croaks of the bullfrogs have disappeared. Once the night was filled with their symphonic calls. I look in vain for the four young mallards that swam along so comically behind their mother. She and they have left. Where are they now? Have they joined a group on a larger body of water or have they already begun the great trek south to warmer weather?

The crickets still grind out their evening songs, but slower now, as the cooler nights lessen their enthusiasm. Sometimes a blue jay will squawk about something as it flies over, but mostly, there’s a sense of waiting, a pause in time between the noise and exuberance of summer and the slumber of winter. It’s like the time in the evening when you lie in bed, waiting for sleep, and you listen hard for sounds. Each seems magnified against the empty background.

After clear skies for much of the summer, we’ve had thick gray clouds and heavy precipitation. The rain has brought a new sound, one missing for most of the summer: water running over and through the beavers’ dam. I expect the beavers hear it too and are working to shore up their construction before the winter ice appears. I like the sound of the running water. It’s a soft sound, a background sound, a soothing cadence to the soft rustle of dried grasses.

A swamp maple is already showing off its new garment, the first of many to add a final burst of color before the bare starkness of early winter comes. Soon the sound of wind in the trees will change from a whisper of moving foliage to a rustling of desiccated brown leaves.

Up in the evergreens, the squirrels are busy and not as quiet. With self-important chirps, they dash from limb to limb, out to the very end, knocking off seeds and pine cones, then quickly scurry down the trunk to the ground to gather up all they can. Last fall they must have buried some sunflower seeds in the area behind our shed, for now tall sunflowers nod their heavy heads there like small giants asleep on their feet. How many other plants have begun life thanks to the squirrels’ need to stash food away for colder days?

Suddenly, the winterberry has erupted in brilliant red. One day the berries were a subtle green and the next, scarlet pearls shone out from the leaves. How did it happen so quickly? Nearby, the goldenrod is flaunting sunny hues to light up the shortening days, while the asters add soft shades of purple to the final hours of summer. The elderberries too, are rich in color now, the deep purple looking luscious enough to eat. A small cluster of black-capped chickadees flits from branch to branch, calling as they go, while searching the bark for insects. They let me stand close by, still and silent, and eavesdrop on their conversation.

Evening slips in earlier now. The air is different­crisper, sharper. The sun, already lower in the sky, begins to sink down behind the tall pines long before I’ve finished my twilight walks. I watch the bats dart about overhead. Flit, flit­and gone, lost against the darkening trunks. Only when they fly above the treetops can I see them silhouetted against the sky. Feast now, I tell them, winter is coming.

Everything is in abeyance, waiting, waiting. Standing here, I feel as if Mother Nature is holding her breath, stretching out the last, lingering days of summer while she gathers her energies for the great burst of autumn and its riotous exuberance of reds, oranges, and yellows. And then, at last, the deep rest and deeper quiet of winter.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

Dancing with the weeds,
Swaying in time to nature,
Try a step, you’ll see.

"Why aren’t you out dancing with the weeds?” asked my husband.

Still embracing sleep, I lay in bed and took a few seconds before mumbling, “Too early. Later. Did you make coffee?”

It had been a few days since I'd begun weeding with a passion, and this day in particular, I had planned an early trip to the garden to really muck about. Weeding in cool fall weather is so much better that in the heat of summer.

And so, a few hours later than was my plan, there I was, involved in a sultry tango, with all those invaders of my perennial beds. As I pulled and clipped, my mind debated the relative virtues of the lively common vetch, the not-so-obedient plant, and the volunteer brown-eyed Susans. How were they different from the wild goldenrod I had saved from the lawnmower a few days before, the ox-eye daisies my husband always insists on avoiding as he mows, and the lush purple clover I just couldn’t find the heart to pull out from my beds early in June when they framed the volunteer Gloriosa daisies so perfectly? These weeds are all beautiful even though they don’t have the fancy breeding and pages in a plant catalog to laud their many good qualities. This year especially, fields and meadows have overflowed with goldenrod. Whether due to all the rain we had this summer or to some other unknown variable, they’ve been lovely and abundant. Considering that goldenrod is an under-appreciated native wildflower many regard as a weed, it’s no surprise that we still don’t see it in many gardens. This may be due to the old belief that goldenrod causes autumn hay fever, when in fact the culprit is usually the ragweed blooming at the same time.

But our native goldenrod (solidago) has been taken abroad and cultivated as a garden flower in Europe for many years; a few of those relatively new cultivars have come back to America. ‘Fireworks’ and ‘Golden Fleece’ are two varieties of cultivated goldenrod that pair up especially nicely with blue or purple asters. The former grows to four feet tall and the latter is a dwarf variety of 18-24 inches. There’s even a white form of goldenrod called silver rod, which blooms in August, though not as prolifically as its golden relative. These cultivated varieties have been bred to stay within the confines of our garden beds.

Speaking of asters, these native wildflower/weeds were cultivated in Europe before becoming popular in gardens and nurseries here. Close relatives, goldenrod and asters can also hybridize; varieties of these hybrid “Solidasters” have been around since the early 1900s. You may have seen them in florists’ bouquets and not even realized their true identity.

Another weed/wildflower of European heritage, common chicory (Cichorium intybus), deserves a place in our gardens. I happened to notice its clear blue flowers alongside a country road one fall. That cerulean color continued to dance in my mind’s eye until I knew I had to grow it. Chicory grows to three or four feet tall and blossoms from spring through fall. You can purchase seed from wildflower catalogs, or just go out and find some in bloom and save the seed. It's easy to germinate and never tries to spread itself about.

Finally, who can dance with the weeds in their garden without joining hands with common milkweed as it sends up its stems with sturdy green leaves? I certainly can’t, and so allow them to dance and sway in the wilder parts of my garden, where the taller, woody perennials grow.

Later in fall, I do-si-do from plant to plant looking for tattered, munched-upon leaves where I might find a Monarch butterfly caterpillar or two to put in a bottle. I'll feed the tiny creatures milkweed leaves until they burst out of their striped yellow, black, and white skins for the last time and move on to the next stage in their metamorphosis, forming green-and-gold chrysalises.

I give these precious packages of life to the children in our family, or neighbors who work with children, so others can witness this small miracle. I recently brought one to my 90-year old mother who doted on it and shared the experience with others in her assisted-living facility.

To watch the chrysalis open and a monarch butterfly emerge is gratifying, to watch it propel itself from its self-made container and glide confidently south to the mountains of Mexico gives me goosebumps. I have danced with weeds, and now we have come full circle.

By Helen Downing, Master Gardener

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

By Carolyn Enz Page, Community Tree Steward
UNH Cooperative Extension

While I love gardening and swimming in the summer, watching the foliage change in the fall, and skiing and snowshoeing in the winter, there's nothing that makes me feel alive quite like the first warm days of spring. A scent calls to me, and I simply must get outside to enjoy the unique aromas of the season.

This corner of New Hampshire was buried under nearly 150 inches of snow this past winter, a record for us. Now, each day I count how many stones in the garden wall are newly visible, which trees are starting to bud out, and how much more brown earth is visible near the dirty piles of snow. Those piles are still high, but they are melting and spring is definitely here.

In one patch of earth, I notice a small flock of juncos feeding. Since they weren't here during the long winter months, I assume they've journeyed from somewhere south of us. They bustle about, finding a few stray seeds scattered by the blue jays, which roil the feeders by suddenly taking off. A robin hops along, searching for something tasty in the ground.

On my walk, I'm serenaded along the way by the red-winged blackbirds. First comes a little bell-like sound and then the wings open, flashing the distinctive red patch, and the head bends down and forward for the big "scree." Three males are dueling furiously. First one sings out and the moment he's finished, a second starts up, followed immediately by a third. Their perches are only a few feet apart. Will they really nest so closely or will one remain victorious while the others leave for new territories?

The common grackles have returned, too. Their brilliant yellow eyes stand out from their lustrous blue-black coats, shining iridescently in the sunlight. Clustering together on a tall tree, they have long and raucous discussions about what? Their recent flights north? The quality of the sunflower seeds at my feeders (duly brought in each night now that the bears are astir)? The depth of snow on the still-frozen swamp? Perhaps they, like me, are simply delighting in the warm spring air.

Nearby, great blue heron couples are choosing their nesting sites. Two of last year's nests are already taken. Refurbished a bit, they're now ready and a heron stands guard over each while the mates are off doing some fishing. Perhaps the first eggs have already been laid. A third nest is being looked over by a pair in mating plumage. They stand on the nest and peer down at it, appearing to ask: What do you think? Will this one do? I call that nest "faraway" because it's off by itself, a short distance from the remaining nests used last summer.

In another tree, two birds stand near a small pile of sticks. I watch while one flies off to a pine and pulls some foliage to spruce up their new home. When it returns, the mate calls out to him before taking the bough and carefully trying it here and then there until just the perfect spot is found. Slowly, the nest takes shape.

Although two more of last year's nests stand empty, the heron activity is far from over. A fifth pair has also chosen a new site for their nest. They've placed few shortish branches in a crotch where two limbs meet the trunk of a long-dead pine. The herons stand one above the other and peer out in different directions over the swamp. I love their looks: plumage flying off the back of the heads, bold orange bills contrasting with the blue-gray feathers.

Nearby I spot yet another pair. They stand side by side in a tree to the south of the others, looking off over the swamp. Last year's five mating couples produced fourteen young; I can hardly wait to see how many six pairs will produce this season.

Meanwhile, one small area of the swamp has freed itself of ice and snow. The opening starts at the beavers' spillway and runs out for perhaps 20 feet. I scan it for ducks, but see none. I know some have returned to the larger lakes and ponds in the surrounding areas. Perhaps soon the swamp will have enough open water to tempt a mallard pair or a beautiful hooded merganser and his mate to fly in for a rest. Or maybe a wood duck couple will discover the nesting box high in the tree on the west side of the swamp.

It's spring. They'll be here soon.

By Susan M. Poirier, Master Gardener

UNH Cooperative Extension

The fall precipitation has gotten me to thinking of puffballs and bird’s nest fungus. Autumn weather in New England is always a catalyst for mushrooms, and water may be the most important ingredient.

Fungi are neither plant nor animal, but ancient beings that have made up their own rules. This causes abrupt name changes whenever a mycologist discovers some new chemical contortion or connection. Any habitat with even a dribble of moisture has been colonized by some fungal form and there seems no reproductive method that they haven’t tried.

Hardly a matrix remains unchallenged by the astonishing array of fungal enzymes, and many plants over the millennia have made symbiotic alliances with fungi; some plants, including many orchids, can’t live without them. In trees, wood-decay fungi play a key role in producing beautiful, multicolored patterns in the wood called “spalting,” an embellishment especially prized by woodworkers.

Water may be the only commonality agreed upon by all species of fungi. Water awakens the microscopic, thready hyhpae, which comprise the main body of a fungus. This tangle of threads perforates what we persist in believing is solid ground. In industrious self-employment, these hyphae transform larger things into smaller things. These larger things are as varied as granite, trees, leaves, feathers, insects, shower curtains, and the contents of my refrigerator. The foam in brooks is most often a by-product of aquatic fungi.

Dampness finalizes a fungus’s plan to organize and send forth the familiar mushroom. A particle of evaporated water in an intentionally self-cooled mushroom cap catapults a spore on its journey out of the gill or pore off to a suitably damp new beginning or a desiccated and sorry death. The design is so precise that with all our apparatus we could not duplicate it. Even the shape of a mushroom cap is adapted to allow an appropriate air current to move the spore along its way.

I am thinking in tonight’s rain about more unusual forms of fungus though. The bird’s nest fungi are easy to overlook. Very small, but quite common, they look like groups of quarter-inch cups, leftover dinnerware from some Lilliputian gathering. Each contains a few lentil-shaped “eggs.” These capsules contain the spores, and they are waiting for rain. A well-placed raindrop can propel one of these carriers a surprising distance—up to several yards—which is the point. Offspring must be sent off to fresh food supplies.

Some species of these miniscule nests eject “eggs” trailing sticky threads, which cause these reproductive structures to adhere to any surface they strike. With luck, one of these eggs, called peridioles, will accidentally become part of some herbivore’s meal, eventually left behind somewhere, complete with a ready-to-eat lunch.

Rain is also crucial for the continuation of many kinds of puffballs. Unlike the commonly depicted children’s-book mushroom, puffballs have neither gills nor pores to send their spores aloft. Instead, their reproductive dust matures within the protective sphere, a system that prevents premature drying. Expecting rain, a pre-ordained pore enlarges and opens on the upper surface. A few good smacks of a downpour and puffs of spore erupt into a stiff, damp breeze—perfect for starting more puffball mycelium to continue the process of decay beneath a lawn.

The deluges of this past month have caused puffballs galore on a baseball field I know. They glow in the moonlight like little Halloween ghouls arisen mysteriously from barren turf. Some are large enough for late-season myopic outfielders to prematurely explode them. Enough will have escaped intact, awaiting the rain.

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

It happened about two weeks ago. My husband and I, our two grown sons, and their young families were standing around the kitchen, preparing a weekend meal, when out the kitchen window I saw a sign from above: the chaff from pine cones and needles now spent with the summer’s heat and rain, slowly drifting down to the lawn and forest floor behind our 1800’s farmhouse.

Everyone agreed, if you could do nothing else but look out the window, you would know: no longer high summer, not autumn yet, but late summer. Perhaps a time to regret opportunities missed before school begins and chilling weather becomes the norm, but for others, time to get out and garden!

In the garden, cooler days mean you don’t feel dehydrated and burned to a crisp by end of day; fewer insects mean less aggravation; you can count on more regular rains. Fewer weeds need pulling—a few hours’ work and a perennial bed returned to a weed-free condition does the gardener’s soul good. Newly planted perennials have time to develop good root systems to make it through the winter. A few more weeks and bulbs will become another item on the list of things to plant, but not yet. Late summer.

The nights have become cooler, dipping into the 50s after weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, a delicious change. Time to dispense with fans and air conditioners, light blankets, and thin cotton pajamas. Time to throw open the windows, pull up an extra blanket, and don the predecessors to the flannels of winter, not quite so thick and warm, but longer and useful when you, the first one up, need warmth to keep you from running back to bed.

The days warm quickly, and often require removing a layer of clothing to keep up with the more summer-like temperatures of the afternoon, but at night, it all goes back to that cool of the evening we associate with this time of year.

Listen! The insects of night also make different sounds: the crickets croon instead of chirp; the saw-whet owl’s raspy metallic call has become more intense somehow; in some areas, the whippoorwill startles you out of sleep, now that fans and such no longer hum a soothing lullaby.

The ferns start to turn; their fronds change from green to gold and bronze. Mosses green and lush have taken over vast areas of our yard, something I never mind. The thick, velvety surfaces make

By Helen Downing, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

“You’ve got a bad attitude,” my husband said, that cool autumn day last year as we started to prepare our shrubs for winter weather. He was right. Since moving north from Concord five years ago, I’ve created a pleasing landscape in this old pasture, but I struggle to keep it alive during the harsh winter months, and it makes me grumpy.

The desiccating winds and cold temperatures at 1800 feet above sea level have killed two evergreen trees, a PJM rhododendron, five peonies and several daylilies. We’ve learned to cover the shrubs with particleboard teepees and burlap jackets, leaving us with an ugly yard for six bleak months and no guarantee that our landscaping investment will survive. Last year the wind blew so strong it transformed my creative stake-and-burlap bungalows into tattered flags beating in the crisp winds.

Yes, I had a bad attitude. I love sunshine on my back and warm air lifting my hair. I love the bluebirds, hummingbirds and tree swallows that delight me with their colors and playful flights. I actually saw the tree swallows catch insects in the air this summer. Reducing the insect population by birds rather than mechanical contraptions pleases me, so I planted more trees in our field this year. I hope they will slip into dormancy with adequate water and minerals to help them survive the drying winds and cold winter chill.

Yes, winter challenges my adaptability to North Country living. Every other season brings a feeling of joy and contentment. I am delighted when a grandchild helps to plant the garlic in September, or enjoys a fresh string bean from the vine in August. In October they seek out the biggest pumpkin, and I’m always thrilled when a child likes to ride in the wagon I tow behind my little red riding lawnmower. They giggle, say “cool,” and I feel a touch of machismo. Yeah, I am a strong, cool nana!

But as my plants face another winter, I am filled with concern about my ability to provide proper care for the landscape. The soil freezes so solidly around my granite steps and planters that entire root systems freeze. Two years ago I lost five peonies.

“Peonies don’t freeze,” the catalogues say. “They have centuries of hardy ancestry to help them tough out the cold, even in Siberia or Manchuria.”

“They die in my yard,” I whimper.

I’m reminded of the need for flexibility in life, so I replace dead plants with hardier ones. Canadian growers have developed a hardy climbing rose, with which I replaced two dead clematis (hardy for Zone 3, but not in my yard). The first William Baffin grew with vigor in the warm summer sunshine. Last fall, I covered William’s roots with a foot of good loam after tacking his climbing canes to the ground with landscape staples. The special protection was so successful I added another rose this summer. Was it truly a warmer winter last year? Will the pair continue to thrive?

After making holiday wreaths in November, I covered the ground phlox, thyme and dianthus with a light layer of evergreen boughs nailed to the ground with landscape staples to prevent them from blowing away. That also seemed to work successfully around the painted daisies.

This spring I planted tiny members of the dianthus family called “steppables,” They bloomed with bitty pink carnations in late summer. I hope they’ll spread around the granite walk. They’re rated to survive temperatures to 40 below zero!

Perhaps I’m beginning to recognize the importance of gardening responsively. North Country winters require me to be more mindful of their intensity. If I want to garden here, I must respect the requirements for survival. I remember the warning to prepare adequately for a hiking trip in the wilderness, and I do so without hesitation. I remember the need to water the vegetable garden and all the new plants consistently in the summer sunshine to achieve adequate growth. I am reminded that a successful life is tied to preparedness.

It’s almost time to cover the yard again. I’ll try to have a better attitude this year. I’ll exercise in our new indoor community pool, or force myself out into the bright winter sun on a pair of cross-country skis. I’ll remember the joy of working outside in my gardens, and I’ll begin to prepare for next summer. I’ll remember the real reason I love to garden is the smell of the good earth, the warm winds, the bright sunlight, and the magnificent colors dotting my hillside from each beautiful flower.

And I’ll remember, “To every thing there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven. A time to reap and a time to sow.” But most especially, a time to be grateful for my little section of this great earth and the good health to till it.

Brenda Tibbetts, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

Photo courtesy of Grand Traverse Conservation District

It happened about two weeks ago. My husband and I, our two grown sons, and their young families were standing around the kitchen, preparing a weekend meal, when out the kitchen window, I saw a sign from above: the chaff from pine cones and needles now spent with the summer’s heat and rain, slowly drifting down to the lawn and forest floor behind our 1800’s farmhouse.

Everyone agreed, if you could do nothing else but look out the window, you would know: no longer high summer, not autumn yet, but late summer. Perhaps a time to regret opportunities missed before school begins and chilling weather becomes the norm, but for others, time to get out and garden!

In the garden, cooler days mean you don’t feel dehydrated and burned to a crisp by end of day; fewer insects mean less aggravation; you can count on more regular rains. Fewer weeds need pulling—a few hours’ work and a perennial bed returned to a weed-free condition does the gardener’s soul good. Newly planted perennials have time to develop good root systems to make it through the winter. A few more weeks and bulbs will become another item on the list of things to plant, but not yet. Late summer.

The nights have become cooler, dipping into the 50s after weeks of temperatures in the 80s and 90s, a delicious change. Time to dispense with fans and air conditioners, light blankets, and thin cotton pajamas. Time to throw open the windows, pull up an extra blanket, and don the predecessors to the flannels of winter, not quite so thick and warm, but longer and useful when you, the first one up, need warmth to keep you from running back to bed.

The days warm quickly and often require removing a layer of clothing to keep up with the summery temperatures of the afternoon, but at night the layer goes back on to protect against the cool evening air.

Listen! The nocturnal creatures also make different sounds in late summer: the crickets croon instead of chirp; the saw-whet owl’s raspy metallic call has become more intense somehow.  In some areas, the whippoorwill startles you out of sleep, now that fans and such no longer hum a soothing lullaby.

The ferns start to turn; their fronds change from green to gold and bronze. Mosses green and lush have taken over vast areas of our yard, something I never mind. The thick, velvety surfaces make walking barefoot a sensory treat. Mushrooms have begun to multiply. The other day, my four grandchildren and I had a great time throwing puffballs at our big gray barn. Splat! A chorus of giggles followed by more splats. Then the big rush to find more before their siblings do!

Farmstands begin to pile up ripe tomatoes and sell them by the bushel, early apples appear, and “Silver Queen” corn, long awaited, lavished with butter, turns up on dinner plates. Pumpkins and winter squashes wait in fields to ripen and harden off.

The song sparrow who sang so forcefully all summer long has disappeared into the field somewhere, and instead we hear the constant thrum of the Chipping Sparrows; the Goldfinches with their chink-y flight sounds, and the Eastern Bluebirds churring contentedly before they leave for the winter. The crows and turkeys search for grasshoppers and crickets. Late summer.

Time to look back, to plan for next spring and summer, to look for gaps in the gardens. I need more grasses to fill out the perennial beds: more varieties of miscanthus especially. I just can’t get enough of them. I love their height, their late summer colors, the way they add winter interest, and after a snowstorm turn into a display of delicate, spidery crystals.

I need more daylilies to fill in gaps between other perennial blooms. I need more irises—German, Siberian, Japanese, and Dutch. Their varying blooming times spread colorful flowers out over a longer period of time. My peonies will need transplanting. Poor perennial sites remind me of the business slogan: location, location, location, a saying equally important for plants. While dormant, peonies transplant just fine and should begin to grow as soil warms in spring, hopefully more bountifully than before.

The gardener in me realizes that the seasons come and go because they must. I never feel ready for the changes that natural forces mandate, but this time of year makes me especially aware of the continual march of time and how little control I have of it. I enjoy the brief time allotted to me and make ready for transition in late summer.

By Helen Downing, UNH Cooperative Extension Master Gardener

09/01/2006

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.