what a difference two weeks and a bunch of sunny days make...

the sun has been shining a lot lately, so i have been outside playing rather than inside posting. but on at least a couple of my adventures, i had a camera along. bike rides two weeks apart gave me the idea for a 'that was then, this is now' display.

back on thursday, july 11th, we had a significant rain event. it rained, hard, all day at the house, and even harder over on the western flank of cardigan mt in orange. 

the rain gauge in my garden poured out 3.4 inches--nearly 9cm for you folks on metric. my friend carol, who lives over in the morning shadow of cardigan said they got over 7 inches--that's approaching 19cm. clouds seem to stack up on the west side of the ridge line and just dump water big time. i remember at least two other major flood events and one huge--as in more than four feet--snow since i have been around. 

deep snow is something i always welcome--deep water, especially flooding, not so much. this time, the flooding was more destructive than ever. i caught wind of some areas that were particularly hard hit and when the rain stopped on friday morning, i grabbed my camera and bike, and pedaled off to check things out.


going toward canaan, the water was pretty high, spilling over the banks of the indian river and into the fields. where the river banks contained things, a rushing, muddy flow made for a dramatic picture. when put side by side with a picture taken two fridays later, you can start to imagine how high and fast the water was.



water can cause a lot of damage flowing that high and fast, especially in places other than between the banks. that's exactly what happened up at the orange basin bridge. the valley news featured a picture of the washed out road at the culvert and up new colony road which runs alongside the brook as it flows down to the culvert.



this past friday, the 26th--the two weeks after the rain ride--i pedaled up the orange road to check out the bridge rebuild. the barriers were still up, but they let me lift my bike over. the pictures don't look nearly as crazy, things are close to being open again.



past the jersey barriers, i continued on up to the state park and raked down the clivus composting toilet--my summer 'friends of cardigan' assignment. on my way back down i passed jim, the man in the white t-shirt with the two kids inspecting the washout on new colony road pictured above. he was riding up hill and we stopped for a brief chat. 

i stopped on new colony and took the picture of the form where they were going to pour a cement header for the 'new' basin culvert.  a minute after i started on downhill, the cement truck passed me coming up. 

down in town i stopped two places, the darling's blueberry patch and the bridge behind the ball field where i had taken a photo of the river at 'high tide' two weeks ago. the debris building up against the bridge helped push the water out of the bank and into center field.





pam and i went back with buckets to pick blueberries on sunday and i showed her the river at "low tide". the water has much receded, they have mowed the grass, but the incredible debris-jam against the bridge is still there.


i walked around and took a shot of it from the bank. my thought would be to come in with a chain saw and clear it out before the next big rain event, but you never know about the state. plus at the moment they are still fixing roads and bridges.


my final stop on friday's ride was the usual, sweeping at drummonds. robbie and i have been talking about my buying his 'old' mtn bike and he had it set up for me to test ride. after making a clean sweep, i took off across the highway and onto the lasalette trails. a sweet drive train made going up that long hill almost a dream. almost being it was pretty hot, i sweat a lot, and it was buggy. on a good hill it's hard to wipe the sweat out of your eyes or swat a persistent deer fly.


i took a digger on the way down, but managed to land in a soft, muddy patch--likely the reason i fell in the first place--and avoid any injury, beyond more laundry that is. the bike is a lot of fun!


all in all, even though some of the washouts were still washed out, it was a fine day to 'go outside and play!'

this year's vacation...

popham beach, on the point of phippsburg that sticks out into the kennebeck river--



way back in the summer of '75, pam and i borrowed our friend cami's car and drove to the coast of maine. somehow, we chose popham beach state park and spent a couple of days. our attempt to sleep on the beach was cut short by mosquitoes, but we remember it fondly.

i went back for an afternoon after a three day timber framing workshop at the shelter institute i took in the early '80s, readying to build our first house. after kids, in 1991, we started going back to popham and have been going every year since, making this year our 28th. the kids don't always make it over, but when they do, we have a grand time--huggermugger© is often involved.

over the years, routines have changed. but one constant has been my early morning beach walks. i gather toys, rope, clothing, driftwood, all sorts of 'lost' stuff to make a yearly sculpture which i leave for the park visitors. sometimes they last for a good long while and i am able to reuse pieces.





last year, i built three playful figures, two of which were still standing when we got there this year. their clothing was a bit faded, "tattered and torn" according to tom, who photographed them over the winter a few times.


it is fun trying to work out what exactly i am going to build, according to what i find in the mornings. this year i had a grand idea of a giant windmill type structure, but didn't have the tools to pull that off. i stashed things under the cabin and will come better prepared next year.




another thing i do some of every year is skim board. i now have two boards that i bring for when kevin and family come over. for those of you who have never done it, you drop a thin 'board' into that little trickle of water when waves wash up on shore, jump on, and skim along.


pam got a nice picture this year with both of the islands in the background, fox in really nice afternoon light.




maybe half the mornings, i am up early enough to see the sun rise. since taking that series up on cardigan last month, i finally remembered the camera on thursday and took a one of the dawn 'fireworks' for the 4th.



while everyday at the beach is a good one, this year, there were five in a row that were spectacularly sunny. the only rain we got was on sunday and i got in a good amount of reading while that lasted. going outside and playing, on the beach, is special...

on a clear day, you can see for miles...

the salient word there is clear, and so far this year, there hasn't been much of that--at least in our sun loving memories. cloudy weather, often accompanied by precipitation, has been predominant. april and may each have had above average precip--2 and 3 inches respectively.

such were my thoughts sunday evening after a steady rain most of the day. cory and i were planning on hiking cardigan to see the sun and the moon on opposite horizons, one setting and one rising close to simultaneously. that happens once a month (theoretically it could happen twice, but i don't remember that occurring recently) + a day around the full moon.

before going to bed i emailed that perhaps we should put it off until july. in my mind, rain in the evening didn't bode well for a clear morning--not even partially clear which can lend itself to a very colorful event. i hadn't heard a peep from cory since friday when we originally talked. which also made an early morning hike less likely to happen.

when i woke up in the deep night to go pee, i knew something had radically changed. sitting on the toilet, a very bright light was shining through the skylight above my head. back in the bedroom i looked out the windows and saw plenty of faint starlight--the moon was full--and no clouds. 

even though i tried, a clear sky woke me up beyond falling back to sleep! i grabbed some clothes and made it down stairs without waking pam. it was 1:55a leaving me two hours to 'kill' before heading out. i emailed cory incase he was having the same problem sleeping, made some breakfast and a pot of tea.


i was at the trailhead at 4:05a, along with another couple with the same objective. i started hiking feeling a bit foolish for discouraging cory, but glad to be moving. it was headlamp dark until about halfway up, when i clicked it off and stowed it in a pocket. when i got up onto bare rock, it was clear all round and the moon was full, bright, and headed west. the sun was still below the horizon, but a couple of clouds near the horizon were starting to pink up, marking where it would finally show its face.

it is fairly rare to up on cardigan alone and i always relish the solitude. donning a jacket i snapped a picture of my pack resting under the moon. it was cold and windy enough that i tucked in behind the lower structure at the tower and waited.

looking off to the east i looking at a spot at the bottom of the franconia ridge line--lafayette, truman, lincoln, little haystack, liberty, and flume the over 4,000 footers--where the sun would poke above the horizon, thinking it would be so cool if it came up in a specific notch. it made me giggle that it did.




the moon was due to set twenty minutes after sunrise, but i was keeping my eye on it as it approached a thick haze. it started to be obstructed just as the sun rose above the ridge. i snapped both pictures below within a minute.



and lucky thing! in another minute, after a final swig of water, shouldering my pack, and turning to head down, the moon was barely visible. the other couple, who summited just as the action started, had settled down out of the wind looking east. if they didn't look very soon, they would miss the moon in the west.

i took mostly ski trail down, doing a bit of trail work along the way, scuffing out leaves damming up drainage, tossing blow downs--the ones i could actually move--off the path, rolling rocks out of the trail, and looking around for things that might need more attention.

back at the truck, the clock read 5:55 when i turned the key. that made me nod a yes! i enjoy digital palindromes and love that particular one. often i am setting the kettle to boil for my first pot of tea. to celebrate, i raised my thermos in a toast. going outside and playing was a great start to any day!

summer will happen--even if it has to be wet...

if the adage 'april showers...' is accurate, may should have been inundated with flowers! this year, much higher than average monthly rainfall, 2 and 3 inches respectively, has made for some cold, wet outside playtime. 

and now, halfway through june, the flowers are blooming like mad! friday, i pedaled by the junction of 4 and 4a and a sea of white daisies spilling down the road bank. that got me thinking that summer is going to happen even if it is going to be wetter than average.

i have been active enough outside though some might make an argument about my using the word playing. just yesterday, i spent ~9 hours collecting ticks--one per hour--finally planting the rest of our vegetable garden. i enjoyed it, despite a hot sun between two passing rain showers. oh, and did i mention bugs?! big winter & spring precipitation has pumped up the blackfly and mosquito population to just this side of unbearable.

two weeks ago, as may turned into june, i was down on the cape finally delivering sawyer the sewing table i made for him over the winter. i brought my bike along for a couple of days of riding. thursday after setting up the table and settling in, we took off toward the ocean. soy has done a good amount of exploring since he and hannah moved down there last summer, so well more than half our path was in the woods and along sandy access roads.

on one particularly narrow, twisty trail, we ran into a blowdown and had to dismount to climb over. as we went, i noticed a ubiquitous hazard down on the cape--poison ivy. duly noted, i picked my way carefully. we ended up dipping our feet into both the open ocean and then waquoit bay. it was an enjoyable afternoon.

friday, day two and the last one before 'the season' started with memorial day weekend, we took to the water in kayaks hoping to have low 'traffic' out on waquoit. 



soy and han house is right next to a dock on a creek flowing directly into a tidal pond. a dredged boat 'canal' or a large steel culvert both connected the pond to the bay. we took the culvert and planned on returning along the canal.



we were headed across the bay to washburn island, a popular camping spot in the national estuarine research reserve. we pulled ashore in two spots, the first midway along the eastern shoreline of the main wooded portion. we hiked up into the woods and peered about. soy and han had paddled out last fall to camp and had hiked the trails crossing the island. you could see why it would be poplular.


our second stop was out on the sandy spit at a channel into a pond on the western flank of the bay's mouth. we did a little bird watching, spotting both of the common white herons, the great and snowy egrets, willets, and a brilliant orange billed bird, the american oyster catcher.

i hadn't seen this bold looker since camping on north carolina's outer banks in 1980.

across on the eastern flank, we spotted an equally bold couple intimately enjoying their beach time in their birthday suits. we detoured into sage pond, paddling hard against a stiff onshore wind and the tide. 

after some time in the pool, we went with the flow, back out into the bay. we paddled quickly by the couple and into the boat channel. paddling past some huge boats, tied up to some even bigger docks, leading up to some downright huge mansions, i got the sense, some people on the cape have money.

when we pulled out back at soy's dock, pleasantly worked, we looked forward to making a tasty traditional friday night pizza. before going in, we checked on the porch for the moth's that had crawled out of their cocoons that morning and perched on the siding, drying out and pumping up their wings.

hannah, a professional entomologist, had four or five cocoons in a bucket, hoping for a hatch. she was away, and was missing this, so sawyer documented some of the process. it was like watching magic.

saturday, with more and more people arriving 'on cape', we planned to get back on our bikes and pedal back into the woods to avoid them. during breakfast and getting ready after, i noticed a steady engine sound just across the creek off the back porch. at first i thought it was the neighbor's boat, as i had just seen him walk past, down to the dock with his fishing gear. but no, it was a house across the way, blowing up two huge bouncy structures, a castle and a slide.

soy's comment struck my funny bone, "welcome to the cape! why have one bouncy castle, when you can have a castle and a bouncy slide?!" check out the ttyol post for a bit more to the story.

we pedaled off wondering what sort of crazyness we would run into out biking. soy took us back into the woods going away from the ocean this time. we ended up on a recently graveled power line gated a fair amount, at each road crossing. at some point we tired of the gates and took a road toward the falmouth rod and gun club, a large preserved area with lots of trails.

we got back in the woods fairly soon and road a good deal trying out new paths sawyer might use on his adventure bike meet-ups. when we hit a woods road, soy was pretty sure that we had crossed onto beagle club land. sure enough, we ran into some fencing and had to reverse it.

we passed by one of the biggest active ant hills i had ever seen. soy documented the sight with me standing beside it for scale. it was at least 4 feet across and had thousands of ants milling about. there was lots of activity a yard or two beyond the outer edge--hence i didn't stand there long. 

on the way back, a different route took us on a section of single track that ran along a trout stream in the process of being reclaimed. it was phenomenal. riding the falmouth & mashpee wilderness areas is impressive. 

as we were flying along a fairly flat area, i saw soy raise his phone and thought, "oh no...i hope we don't have another joel incident!" (you can read about that crash in a post on our gravel growler tour last august.)  just in case he was snapping pictures, i waved.

we continued through the woods until the last half mile or so to get to his driveway. i cleaned up my chain and thought, why not ride over to souke's folks house, only about five miles or so if i cut through the woods and wind through the golf course development.

i found dean cleaning a black sea bass he said was one of the best eating fish in the ocean. i noted he didn't offer me any. pat was inside reading the paper and we sat about and had a good visit. i hadn't been there in a couple of years, but things seemed very familiar.

i found another woods road to take back to soy's, making for a fine little, late afternoon loop. after loading the bike into the truck, i decided to straighten out the stones in his parking area. a bit of shoveling & some raking later and the place was looking pretty spiffy. it made sawyer smile and he was sure the dock users who walk by would appreciate the upgrade.

all and all it was a sweet visit to the cape--being outside and playing! and since i would be going back early sunday morning, i would miss the traffic too! 

#30daysofbiking -- part 2...

and april continues to be the cruelest of months! 

the wind, rain, and cold kept me actively manipulating my schedule to pedal between the bad weather. that and somedays, i was just wicked busy. like our mascoma outing club tuckerman ravine trip...



d17: every april vacation, the MOC takes a group up to see the iconic tuckerman ravine on the flank of mt washington. it is a long~ish hike in, an extreme up and down in the bowl, and a challenging ski out at the end of the day. by the time we get back to canaan, my 'old' body is tired. but i had committed...so i rode around the block, finishing with one more hill--just not as big as a white mountain!






d20: thursday and friday, d18-19, will remain undocumented, but rest assured they were wet. enough rain fell--and continued to fall--to raise the flood waters in the rivers, like the indian river where it comes into enfield proper. the water was not running so fast in mascoma lake, but the fog was pretty thick and there was still ice, but the rain was deteriorating it quickly.






d21: the rain was not quite so heavy today, but the 'puddles' were significant! i stopped on talbot hill to grab a shot of a couple of mallards paddling about in the front yard of the original talbot house. it was one of my favorite pictures of the month.










d22: the ducks in the puddle were sweet, but most people would probably prefer a vivid sunset. it had been a mostly sunny day, but true to the months' trend, it clouded up and rained hard all night. i got home just as it started to sprinkle.










d23: my commute home featured the year's first large chorus of spring peepers. i had heard a few frogs previously, but today, they were out in numbers! coming down from the school onto rt 4 i heard them above the traffic noise. riding past the wet area, the noise was really loud. and all that noise was coming from a tiny frog, hardly bigger than the end of your thumb.












d25: warm enough for a long ride through orange into grafton over the shoulder of cardigan. back in the woods, there was still snow and ice tucked away where the sun doesn't shine. following the turnpike road down mill brook, i saw both andrew and adam working on a 'mudroom' off the back. i stopped and had a good visit. 


back on rt 4, looking to cut off onto the rail trail. it hadn't rained--much--in a day or two, and i was checking to see how dry it was. turned out 50-50. no huge puddles, at least that i couldn't avoid, but a bit boggy here and there. i stopped at the little library boxes i had stopped at last fall on a ride looking for new titles. and since i had forgotten the camera, i used old pics.


two more no camera days...very wet, enough to discourage stopping for pictures anyway,  and fairly miserable to ride in.

d28: the rain was light enough to make me think it was almost dry. i had the camera today and took a picture of the ice totally out now. a photo from just about the same spot i had been, in early april. the log my bike leaned against on the left, was barely sticking out above the water on the left. remember, i walked on that ice 3 days plus 3 weeks earlier. 

d29: cold, but sunny! i rode off to canaan elementary for some tech support before pedaling back to the high school. on the way to ces i passed a pair of underwear and then a little later, another. since i had my 
camera, i thought i would get a picture of that on the way back. going the opposite way later, i forgot about the first two pairs, but ran into two more pairs. i stopped and circled around for pictures.











d30: the last day of the pledge, sunny for the second day in a row! i passed a lump of fabric on the side of the road and thought, "no way, more underwear!" something didn't quite look right and when i 'shook' the lump out, it turned out it was a sock. the camera came out and i snapped a picture to celebrate my disappointment. 






not a bad 30 days--if the forecasted rain for the next week doesn't wash me out, i am going to keep riding right into may. it is always a bonus--even when cold and wet--to "go outside and play!"


ps--rode may 1st and 3rd, it was raining...may 2nd it was pouring all day--i drove to ces, to the hs, and back to ces. i was only wet getting to the truck and lugging computers in and out of the schools.