knee high by the fourth of july...

plenty of sun and warm, but we need more water! last friday i packed up some food and water and pedaled out the door-yard headed to north haverhill and the nh-dmv to renew my driver's license. i joined up with will hively toward the north end of goose pond and we went right along. i was looking around the roadside fields and forest and for some reason, started remembering old idioms: a cardinal flew in front of me and joined its mate in a big maple along the road--"a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"; a dog sniffing and running about behind a house--"barking up the wrong tree"; going by post pond in lyme and my friend david's house, thinking when i get back here 60-ish miles from now, i am still going to have 15 miles to go to get home--"bite off more than you can chew"; and passing the first corn fields, south of orford--"knee high by the fourth of july".

a couple of miles further we came to several more fields and i thought of stopping for a picture. will snapped the first one in the short field. i went across rt 10 and took a 'selfie' in the tall field. i hatched a plan to document corn fields along our route and somehow weave a blog around them. 

we passed  several corn fields between orford and piermont and i decided that there were just too many to stop and document each one, but i still liked the idea. beyond piermont and heading into haverhill, we started discussing alternative routes off of 10. will knew a way on brushwood rd off 25. i got to thinking it would be fun to check in on ken and lesley over in newbury and see if ken wanted to ride up to the dmv and back. if we went over to the vermont side here and rode up rt 5 we could cross back and come back down rt 10. we crossed.

when we pulled into ken and lesley's door yard, things looked quiet and sure enough, nobody was home--"back to the drawing board". taking advantage of shade and a lawn, we had a snack, drank some water, and stretched a bit. back on the bikes we continued towards wells river on a freshly paved rt 5. the ultra-smooth ride made me think of all the different pavements i wheeled over last year...

that section went fast and soon enough we went back over the connecticut into new hampshire at woodsville and cut back on a side road to rt 10 heading south now. the dmv is in the court house in a mix of state buildings and we parked the bikes in the shade and went in. when i asked for the office, the security guards told me i didn't need a license to operate a bike. about a half hour later, i was back outside for a second snack, water, and some more stretching. we packed up again and pedaled away.

soon enough, we were passing plenty of corn fields again, until i saw a really short looking one and stopped. within a mile or so we came to a fairly tall one and stopped once more. i wondered if it was soil composition, water availability, or just the timing of planting that made the difference in height. will mentioned that the forecast for the next stretch of weather was for sunny and warm. corn loves sun and heat and with a week of that ahead, there was a good chance the short stalks would shoot by the old.



back in college plant physiology though i had read that a field of corn transpires an enormous amount of water on a sunny day. corn is one of the highest of all the farm and garden plants--54 gallons a plant / season. that said to me, unless we get some substantial rain with that sun, these plants won't be growing as much as a farmer or gardener might wish--"don't count your chickens before they hatch".

we took the river road leaving haverhill and snuck back into vermont at bradford. i was hoping to get some more fresh black top but will informed me that there was about two miles of grooved road that we would miss heading that way. before we got to fairlee i saw a sawyer road sign and after a quick look for will behind me, i braked hard and stopped for a picture--and a bathroom break.

we crossed back over to new hampshire at orford and then took off on the river road again. when we hit the lyme bridge and started climbing up to town i had to whistle will to stop as i could feel some cramps coming on--"a stich in time saves nine". i figured a rest, some snack, water, and stretching would forestall that. we took off again and stopped shortly at the lyme store where i got a sports drink and will got a cold coffee.




fueled up for the final leg, will chose goose pond road, it only had one steep section! i dropped it down to the granny gear and made my way up, slowly but with no cramps. we came on to goose pond and spotted helen, will's wife (and mother of two former students--the younger, michael, was an active outing club member!), out for a walk and watching a baby loon. the chick was rising up out of the water and flapping as we watched. 

a mile more down the pond will split off at his and helen's house. i had another three miles, mostly flat until the steep, but thankfully short hill up to our house. back down on the granny, i chugged my way up and pedaled right past the drive choosing to ride a bit on the flat before dismounting. i stopped and chatted with bob and midge some before heading home for some snack, water, and a bit of stretching--to "make a long story short" it was a very fine day!

into summer...

celebrating the end of the school year and the solstice at the same time! last thursday, we--lenny, christian, and i--got in one more field trip to the town natural area. we took a 6th grade class on a loop from the pull off over to the nature hut and then back out to rt. 4. we elevated the presentation we had been giving the younger grades and spent some great observation, question, and answer time, both outside and in.

starting off with a bang, lenny pulled a black and white warbler out of a cloth bird-bag and after a brief introduction, let three or four students hold it in their 'hand's. it was definitely worth at least "two in the bush"...we showed everyone how we had been capturing birds in a mist net and explained banding them. on CAWA (canada warbler) males that had never been caught before, he and christian have been placing geolocators to track their migration paths. i got to cut three or four of the 'little backpacks' off of returning males, caught, banded, and set up with the locators last year. the devices are sent into the company that makes them and the bird's path is downloaded--way cool.

we stopped once before the beaver dam for my LNT spiel, and a short bit on plant life in a wetland forest. when i drew four lines across the white board for the typical bottom to top layers found in a forest, i asked for ideas on how else could a wooded environment be divided up. we got some way creative answers along with the two that i wanted to expand upon--horizontally, from in to out, and time-wise. the black and white warbler, BAWW, was a perfect species to look at for understanding how some bird species not only focus their activities higher or lower in a tree, but closer in or further out from the trunk. the black and white forages directly on the trunks of trees while other species prefer the outer branches. the owl vs a hawk were great examples of two animals in a very similar niche only at different times.

When we stopped on the old beaver dam, we discussed the idea that like animals, plants also had preferred habitats, in this case 'wet feet' vs 'dry feet'. on the deeper side of the dam, several dead maples and a whole bunch of healthy alders, indicated which ones preferred putting down roots in super saturated soil under standing water. looking out from the boardwalk over the dam, we saw a couple of tiny birds flitting about and heard a northern waterthrush singing his territorial song. one of lenny's first big studies after grad school was done on the northern warterthrush.

when we got to the nature hut the students immediately crowded around the specimen trays, pointing and exclaiming...christian and lenny had dip-netted all kinds of critters from two different ponds and two vernal pools out in the woods at lenny's. eastern newts, crayfish, wood frog tadpoles, a pickerel frog, caddis fly larvae, a water beetle, mosquito larvae, damsel fly larvae, and more than likely at least several species i can't remember or didn't see, were divided up in the trays according to where they were found. it was an intense hands on session with many student questions and nearly as many student answers.

eggs on the underside of at least one crayfish were discovered, the caddisfly casing was closely examined, a newts 'artistic' red spots were admired, all sorts of information was shared around. bio-mimicry, symbiosis, vernal, genetic variability, were some of the bigger words i remember being discussed.

as we walked out of the woods we stopped at a tree with several types of lichen and got in a final mini-lesson before boarding the bus. it was a fine day to be out, curious in the woods.

speaking of getting out, on friday i went up the south ridge trail on cardigan and hooked a right onto the skyland trail. craig sanborn and i, as cardigan highlander volunteer trail crew, were checking out the bigger 'mud hole' just below orange mtn summit. we spent an hour ditching and such to try and drain things a bit, but it is one of those problem spots. when i got back to the summer parking lot on the west side of the park i put in some time in 'friends of mount cardigan' mode: mowing, picking up trash, and sprucing up the bathrooms.




on saturday our friend souke came up from the boston area and got in a couple days in the north country. there was plenty of porch time along with a great little hike around one of the shaker wildlife management area trails. it was somewhat remarkable how dry things were where normally it was not. i got a funny picture of the two women checking a phone--something about arranging a swim and dinner with sadie for fathers' day!




the summer solstice fell on the same day the full-moonrise sunset happened. i went up and hung out in the parking lot to see if any students from MOC came up. at a bit past 7pm, i started up. i met some old friends half way and slowed a bit to hike along with them. betsy and bill live just over the river in vermont and it seems like i see them on these full moon hikes every couple of years or so. the reason i hadn't seen them in a while was that betsy is recovering from rebuilding her feet. i think bill's description was "when she used to be hiking north, her feet were headed east and west!" she was trooping along with dozens of solstice celebrators. at the summit i saw a few other familiar faces and spoke with people who knew a lot of my old friends. the most amazing part, at least to me, was the food folks were pulling out of their bags...

i am pretty sure bill's neck is not always in this position, but his posture kept the container of curried chicken, closer to his mouth.

substantial cloud banks kept us from seeing the sun and moon directly at the horizons, but we still got a bit of a show, at least to the west.

i always appreciate being atop a mountain to see the day leaving and night coming on. a good amount of wind kept any bugs away even on the descent down below treeline. those western clouds spoke of a later storm scheduled to come through after midnight. i imagine that nobody would complain about some wetness to keep the dust down in folks gardens. as i tossed my pack into the back of the truck, i caught a bit of light from the moon popping above the trees and through the eastern cloud bank.

a fine end to spring...hoping the summer was a good one.

what does the fox say...?

"ring-ding-ding-ding-dingeringeding"--and it runs fast! while riding to canaan tuesday, i surprised a fox thinking about crossing route 4. i saw it dash out of the woods the same time it saw me and instead of crossing in front of me, it turned and ran parallel, leaping and bounding through the tall grass, its white tipped tail flagging behind. it was going about the same speed i was and it kept with me for about ten or twenty yards, finally ducking back into the woods and disappearing. i was making up words to 'that' pop song the rest of the way to school.

for three days last week i took the third graders on mini-field trips across the stream bordering the northwest side of the ballfields. while we observed plenty of plants and fungi, stopping frequently for question and discussion sessions,  it was pretty clear that being still was hard to maintain. i had introduced them to the 'edge' effect when we measured dandelion roots and tops and now we were back in that zone between 'field' and 'woods'. there is always a lot to talk about in these dense growth areas. at a fallen birch tree, where as soon as we stopped students started peeling the bark, i gave them the LNT, leave no trace, talk and pointed out three different plants growing on the trunk's bark. focusing an entire class--15-17 eight year olds-- is not easy even in the classroom, out in a woody area, it is all but impossible.

that being said, on monday we listened to a half-dozen different bird species singing or pecking away just out of sight. a good many of the students were even able to see a common yellowthroat  skulking about in the brush and witchety-witchety-witchety-ing away. once one student saw the 'little bandit', they actually got really still and hoped they would too. the same thing happened on tuesday, only with a "huge beaver", which turned out to be a woodchuck.

it was like a huge game of red light-green light with every student standing stock still as the woodchuck speed-waddled towards us then stopped to eat some grass. as soon as it stopped and was eating, the whole class would take three giant steps and refreeze, whereupon it would move towards us. the third time we shared this little exchange, 'chucky' was within twenty feet and the kids looked at me wide-eyed...a few giggling or drawing in huge breaths of disbelief. that got the groundhog's attention and it stood, gave us a good look and dove off into the bushes, disappearing much like the fox had done with me that morning.

wednesday's group was not impressed with any of their classmate's stories and as one youngster put it to his teacher when we got back in, "all we saw was a squirrel!" maybe it was the day or maybe the class makeup, i can't really say, but the last day didn't turn out to be the best. not only was it the last trip out that week, it was the last time i would be with the grade school for this year. it would have been more fun if they had gotten something more 'special' than what they did. but, the kids seemed to have picked up a lot the semester i was on for STEM and always perked up when i came into the classroom. any outdoor activity really excited them. they also loved the computer programing we did, along with their work in google docs. we had a blast building the 1 square meter and trying to fit everybody in. there never seemed to be a dull moment. from my experience as a teacher, new and different was always healthy, and i guess i was definitely that.

carrying on the animal sitings into the weekend, pam and i were on the look out for red efts , the juvenile, land stage of the eastern newt, as we stepped through the woods, up and over town hill. saturday's rain brought out a bunch of what pam refered to as "FLF's" or frail little friends. at one point, she grabbed my arm for balance and was asking if i was stopped for another one. when i made a little squish sound a very young fawn popped up out of the leaves less than step away from us. it tottered off, so well camouflaged, that it was not too long or far away when it too disappeared. it had been snuggled down into a little bed, not moving at all. had it not sprung up and taken off, i might have walked within inches of it and not seen it.

it is not everyday i almost step on a deer and i do love seeing the animal life in the woods but...last weekend pam an i went over to the AT next to the skiway to see the lady slippers in bloom. about halfway up to the ledges, there are dozens of plants. a heavy 1/2 inch of rain over just 10 minutes on friday scoured the trail, and gave some much needed water to the plants.

it was a really grand show!  plus as i was getting back on the trail, i met diane riley, ben silberfarb's wife. ben is always excited about 'koby sitings' as i tend to hike in bare feet. sure enough i was shoeless, but diane was ben-less so we just talked flowers. she had just been to the eshqua bog over near woodstock vt. and seen the yellow lady slippers. as we ambled up the path we saw several interesting species, including an indian cucumber plant!





such was my week outside. things got a bit exciting inside too. on saturday, lenny came over and had me cut away a bunch of his cast that he got for a spiral fracture of one of his metacarpals. (turns out he may have to have it operated on by diane riley who just happens to be the go-to hand surgeon in the area--when she is not chasing wildflowers...) he was having trouble putting the geotrackers on the canada warblers he and christian were mist-netting. i offered to help and expect to get a call soon on that front. we are also due to take a 6th grade class out to the town forest next thursday. all that, and some trail work with MOC plus out the environmental science class should keep my string of outdoor adventures going. all i have to say to that is "fraka-kaka-kaka-kaka-kow!"

go outside and play...

and while you are there, share some learning! lenny, christian, kevin, mike, and i spent three mornings with canaan elementary school classes out in the canaan town forest on the trails about the nature hut. leading groups of 15-20, kindergartners-forth graders, was a lesson in engaging curiosities and harnessing energies.

before we even got the kids into the woods, i had to grit my way through a barrage of logistics involved with moving school children off campus. getting the word out to teachers--after developing a 'word' to actually get out--arranging bussing, permission slips for parents, bus forms for teachers, special medical issues for students, all individually important in making field trips work, together almost overwhelmed me. i don't do well coordinating what i reflexively put in the 'bureaucracy' bucket. but with clear direction and help from kamala, it was all done without leaving any scars.


while these logistical ducks were being arranged in tidy rows, lenny and i were creating curriculum. given the site's environment, three focus areas stood out and would match perfectly with three classes with each busload: forested wetlands, animals, and plants. our individual expertise also matched, christian and kevin took the wetlands, lenny  got animals, and i plants. we took some umbrella terms and objectives for each and discussed possible schemes to address them across the different age levels. intellectual exchange is almost as much fun for me as being with the kids and doesn't get any better than designing and generating with someone like lenny.

wednesday, thursday, and friday, from 8:30 to just past 12:00, about 250 children came out and took in what we arranged...




lenny and christian had brought a few buckets of pond life, along with a 'small' collection of lenny's animal artifacts and set them up in the hut.







each group spent two half of their animal and wetland sessions in the hut discovering all sorts of things at each table...

the plant group started with a leave no trace lesson, gathered around a lone lady slipper just behind the hut. amazingly the plant lasted all three days with only one 'semi-trampling' under the foot of an eager kinder in the very last group, on the very last day. leave as small a trace as you can...





when groups weren't at the hut, they were slowly filing along the trails, observing: looking, hearing, smelling, and feeling--which often included resisting the urge to pick, maybe even taste. while there were challenges to walking single file along a rather narrow trail, imagine how hard it would be for a youngster not to jump off into the woods to point out or just touch some way cool thing they just spotted.

staying on the trail was fairly imperative when the groups got to the old beaver damn. len and i had come out the weekend before and built a few sections of boardwalk across the wettest of spots. even with the 'bridge' more than a foot wide, we were hoping we didn't lose anybody into the wet and muck. the damn was no longer active as the beavers had built a newer one further north.

in the picture above, one of 4th grade lad gets precariously close to at least one wet foot, and dr reitsma looks like an owl! over the three days one student fell in--but not above their knees--and one child left a sneaker 'suctioned' into the mud. while there were students who would have welcomed a dip into the 'pond', there were a few of the youngest that seemed a bit anxious, even of walking through the dry parts of the forest.

all in all, it was a fine week and feedback from teachers, staff, students, even a grandparent, only made it finer. getting all those classes out into the local woods worked so well we agreed that we will definitely do it again next year.

more early birding...

doing point, species counts with dr. reitsma! it was another "just like christmas, only different," morning--i woke up a quarter to four and decided i would pedal over to the town forest and meet lenny. first breakfast in the tank and tea in the thermos, i switched on the bike lights and strobed away. i made it to the back entrance on switch road before lenny and christian so i ducked through the gate and watched a few birds on my own. a huge splash announced a 'monster' beaver at the same time the professor pulled up. christian got out and i got in; he was headed into the nature area and we were going back to lenny and denise's acres for the point count.

point counts are pretty straight forward, what happens is you go out and stand in an established spot, look and listen*--but mostly listen. len does back to back five minute stints, recording bird species and location--direction the call came from. it sounds a bit ho-hum for a non-birder wishing they were back in bed considering it was before 6:00 on a saturday morning. surprisingly, there is quite a flurry of activity in the short time you stand still with your ears 'perked' up. here is a series of lenny, counting at six of the different points we visited.

having spent time in my youth working at a factory printing sears catalogue, i have lost hearing range and can barely detect the higher buzzes, chips, and chirps of many of the warbler species that len works with and was now hearing--black throated blue, nashville, magnolia, canada, blackburnian were all notes on a page rather than in my ears. i did hear a woodpecker, a sapsucker because it's the only peck, peck, peck that slows down as it goes. american robin, phoebe, blue jay, common yellow throat, red eyed vireo, crow, morning dove, a turkey's gobbles, and an oven bird's teacher, teacher, teacher. i actually see one of those little brown forest thrushes as we are about to leave site #1. less than ten feet away lenny stops and points to the ground at a small mound of leaves with a hole about the size of a golf ball through which i can see at least three eggs. it looks just like a little beehive oven, no wonder the bird got that name.


now and again i leave lenny standing and counting as i go off listening and looking at what i can hear and things i can see. i hunt up the super bright scarlet tanager,  singing away at the tippy top of a large pine tree. i photograph some lady slipper orchids and an interesting line of mushrooms growing along where a large oak limb had fallen. i look into a vernal pool with a mass of wood frog tadpoles wriggling just under the surface. lenny sends me off to find the clutch of woodpecker young he hears peeping away in a nearby tree cavity. we walk past a sheep skeleton with dozens of sow or pill bugs (thank you hannah broadley for looking at them closely) foraging over the vertebrae and skull for the last scraps of cartilage.





there is so much going on in a forest. even though i am not able to hear it all and i am certain i only see a fraction, it makes me feel rich to be out here observing what i can. being aware of ones environment is something i have long pushed in school and out. as i type, i take a binocular break to watch a red squirrel scramble about the trees along the stone wall beyond the screen door. outdoor things seem to encourage my tendency toward adhd...there is so much going on period.


*speaking of listening, the front door was open to the porch and as i sipped my tea and typed, i heard a lot more chirping than usual from the active robin nest up in the rafters. through the window over the kitchen cutting board i saw why. a broadwing hawk landed on the rafter plate over on the wood shed with the male robin harassing it. it didn't stay too long before being chased off down the drive. i thought it might land in a tree out front so i got up to look. no such 'luck' today, at least for the hawk, the robins had successfully protected the eggs in the nest from being broadwing breakfast.

which reminds me, i could go for a 2nd breakfast...