Christmas week is a little out of the ordinary.

In deference to the special time with family during this holiday, we decided to forgo our usual Monday hike. Instead, I invited Kirstin, Jimmy, and my granddaughter, Lucy, to join us for a little walk.   Lucy took the lead, such as a 19th month toddler can do bundled into a snow suit.   When she bent over to pick up a stick, she practically did a somersault.   It was a short walk from Al's house up Lead Mine Road and back again.  Then, Lucy's favorite part of the day: Hot Chocolate.   She is quite able to say a number of words: Chocolate,  Peanut Butter- two essential food groups, and "more", "a bite", "please," and "eat," so food and drink figure prominently in Lucy's life at this time.  It was enough adventure for her: a little walk, and hot cocoa.  

Christmas day was full of family, from skyping with our two children serving missions for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cape Verde and Riverside, California, to opening presents and enjoying Christmas dinner.  So, I only had a little time to get outside for a walk with Bailey.  We headed down on the Murdough Hill Meander trail to the mill site.  The water still flowed through the mill race way, but with the cold weather, ice was beginning to form interesting and beautiful patterns on the edges of the stream and from overhanging branches.  

Today, I was blessed with a day off from work, so Al, my friend, Wendy Byrn, a new friend, Michael, and I decided to explore some more along Ellis Reservoir and Otter Brook.  At least that was the plan.  We drove to Sullivan to access the northern shore of Otter Brook via a class 6 road called Kendall Lane.  We parked at the end of the road with every intention of walking down to Kendall Lane to see what we would find.  Well, so much for that....

We had hardly stepped out of the car before we found ourselves looking down at a clear set of fisher tracks.   Change of plans--off to backtrack the fisher.  What fun to charge off into the woods to follow the tracks, to imagine the moves of the fisher, over fallen trees, rolling in leaves, and scent-marking.  We tracked the fisher to the edge of a wetland, where we couldn't find any more tracks.  More than likely, the fisher had crossed the wetland, but in such a way that we couldn't see the tracks anymore.   We also crossed tracks of a snowshoe hare, deer tracks, moose scat and browse, squirrels, and small voles and mice.  I missed the mink tracks that Al, Wendy, and Michael saw, in my haste to follow the fisher tracks (not like the tracks were going anywhere.).

After we came to the end of the fisher tracks, we conferred briefly and decided to follow a steep slope, with the belief that Otter Brook and Ellis Reservoir couldn't be far away. We found ourselves on the edge of a small open wetland, but it wasn't connected to Ellis Reservoir, at least not closely.  But we did investigate the wetland and found cranberry plants, but few berries.   Along its edge, we found more deer tracks, which appeared to be fairly new.  We also found a convenient spot to stop for a snack after which we decided to follow the stream that flowed from the wetlands to the southeast, toward what was proving to be the elusive Otter Brook.  At every turn, over every ridge, I expected to find myself looking down on the brook or the reservoir.

Truth be told, it never happened--we never found the reservoir.  But along the way, we found some more interesting tracks of coyote, fisher and gray fox, a beautiful area of the stream with intriguing ice formations and basins of water flowing under boulders.   We found bear clawed beech trees, a moose bed and very new moose browse, and, just before we returned to Kendall Lane probably a mile from the place where we had started, we found a monument marking the Sullivan/Stoddard town line.   We may never have made it into Nelson at all on this adventure. And we were a long way from Ellis Reservoir, our desired destination. Oh, well...find joy in the journey, so the saying goes.   To cap the day, we came upon a bear nest in a beech tree, just off the side of Kendall Lane.  We had covered a lot of ground, seen many interesting features and discovered a beautiful place on which we had never before walked.   All in all, another great day in the woods, not of Nelson, but of Sullivan and Stoddard, which we were happy to find at least as interesting and enjoyable as our hometown.

A Departure for the Holidays

Sorry, folks, but I have chosen to depart from my usual hiking account to share a story from my brother, Michael.  

The fall of 2012 was a strange ride.  Once head-hunters tried recruiting me for a job at Simmons College in Boston, all normalcy went out the window like an escaped parakeet, and I think now it’s gone for good.  Christmas didn’t get its due, and here it is Christmas Eve with no gift of any sort for my mother or sister or brothers or sisters-in-law or brothers-in-law or nieces or nephews.  What to do? 

Well, I’m always good for a story.  Not that I’ve had a blockbuster life, but I’ve had a life, and there have been turns and twists.  So Merry Christmas, and I will tell you a story.  I think it’s apropos of the season, even if it’s not a Christmas story, even if it’s not even a winter story.  Thirty eight years and six or seven months back and I was a missionary in the city of Sendai, Japan.  You’ve heard of Sendai.  Recently it got chomped by a tsunami—that’s why the name is familiar to you.  But in 1978 it was just where the mission home was, the headquarters of the Japan Sendai Mission.  It was also where the Sendai Kokuritsu Byooin was—the hospital that my mission president, Richard Kwak, got to know and trust because it took good care of one particular missionary who got in a bike accident.  Oh yeah—that was me.  But that’s not what this story is about.  This is, I guess you could say, a spin-off.   There is the story of Elder Haehnel crashing his bike and breaking his jaw and spending eight weeks in a hospital, and that is a story in its own right.  But this is a different story, tied to the first by the thread of the Sendai Kokuritsu Byooin. 

So there were a couple dozen missionaries in Sendai, and I was one of four in East Sendai, near the hospital, because I was still getting outpatient care.  The other three weren’t getting care—Elder Knox and the other two, Williams and Olson, were just there because somebody had to be there and they were it for the time being.  Knox—he was my senior companion and also the district leader—was probably also there to make sure I convalesced okay.  He was kind of fatherly.  But other than that, there was no connection for the rest of them to the hospital. 

That changed though, and here’s the story I mean to tell you.  Transfers came along as transfers did, Olson left for somewhere, and Elder Larsen took his place. Larsen was a fairly new missionary who had been serving up north in a part of the mission that was out of easy reach, especially once winter set in.  As it turned out, he had had medical problems before his mission, and President Kwak got an uneasy feeling one day.  He called Larsen to see what was up.  “Nothing really,” Larsen said.  “A little pain.  That’s all.”

So the president pulled him in and sent him to the Sendai Kokuritsu Byooin.  The doctors ran a few tests and told Larsen to lie low until the results came back.

Larsen was annoyed: just those Japanese doctors being over-cautious.  Well, he had a point.  After my bike accident, the doctors held me in the hospital a lot longer than American doctors would have.  Nevertheless, orders were orders, and Larsen was confined to quarters.  “They won’t see anything,” he said.  “The tests won’t show anything, and then I can get back to work.” 

So Mormon missionaries are like oxygen atoms: they don’t occur alone in nature.  It’s O₂ or sometimes O₃ but never just plain O.  In other words, Larsen couldn’t stay alone; one of us had to be with him at all times.  Usually the duty fell to Williams because, after all, he was Larsen’s companion, but Knox and I also took our turns. 

One day, when Williams had a few appointments to tend to, I accompanied him while Knox stayed with Larsen.  We rode our bikes some distance to the west and followed up with a few investigators.  The bulk of the time we spent with a man who, in America, we’d call an antique dealer.  The Japanese word for his vocation was more like junk-seller.  In any case, we met him in a small shop with wares hanging from the ceiling and piled up like leaning towers on the floor and crammed into every corner.  The man was amiable enough, but it soon became apparent that his interest was more in the novelty of us Americans than in truth from God.  We kind of realized he wasn’t going to become an investigator, and he kind of realized we weren’t going to become his new best friends, so we all started leaning in the direction of sayonara.  But the man was gracious; he didn’t want to end on a sour note.  He took out a stack of prints and told us to each pick one as a souvenir. 

They were reproductions of wood-block prints depicting Japanese rural life in the previous century.  They were beautifully rendered with vivid colors.  I chose one that showed two men bent under loads of sticks, trudging up a snow-swept mountainside with a village by the seashore far below.  It was as fine a souvenir as any missionary could ever want.  Matted and framed, it would look splendid hanging over a mantle piece. 

We bowed and arigato-ed many times over, then took our leave.  It was time to get back to our house, and we had a half-hour bike ride ahead.  Woo-wee, I was pumped.  Beautiful, beautiful souvenir. 

Not more than five minutes into the ride—if that long—a voice inside my head said, “That’s not yours, you know.  You came on this trip in Larsen’s place.”

I didn’t like the sound of that voice. 

But it wasn’t strident or insistent.  I heard it once, then didn’t hear it again.  Whoever was speaking knew how to let things simmer…

“All right,” I said.  “All right.  I will offer the print to Larsen.”

Of course, there was the possibility that he might accept. 

There had to be a way to make the offer that would both satisfy that little voice and also allow me to keep the print.  I’ve always been handy with words.  The right words—the right tone, the right facial expression and meaningful pause—would do the trick.  I could offer the gift selflessly and yet ensure that Larsen would recognize what a sacrifice it was and insist that I keep it.  I knew I could do it.  I had time to figure it out: we were still twenty minutes from home.  It was just a matter of the right words.

Then the voice again: “If you are going to show love, show it all the way.”

Well. 

Well, the voice was God, and God was onto me…  Of course He was. 

What He said was true.  Of course it was. 

I sighed and let go.  This beautiful, beautiful thing was no longer mine.  It hadn’t been from the start.  I opened my hand and let it go. 

When we came to the house, I pulled past Williams, parked my bike and ran inside.  “Elder Larsen,” I said, “the junk-seller asked me to give this to you.”

Williams came in behind me and heard what I said.  He kept mum. 

Larsen looked at the print and let out a whoop.  He took it with both hands.  “My first souvenir!  Wow!  That’s really cool!  My first souvenir!” 

You know, here’s the thing with God.  He works and works and works on getting us to act halfway decent, and then when we finally…finally…catch on, He gives us a big fat A-Plus Gold-Star.  Williams took me aside and said, “That was really good what you did.”  Meanwhile God was filling me up with such a measure of joy that I could barely stand it.  It wasn’t me!  Left to myself, I wouldn’t have done it.  God had had to coax me every step of the way.  I didn’t deserve the credit. 

But a cushion of joy had me floating for the rest of the night.  Sweeter than any fruit, warmer than any blanket, more beautiful than any Japanese print, be it a reproduction or original.  In the end all I could say was, “Thank you, God, for saving me from selfishness.” 

In a few days, I had to thank God all over again.  Larsen’s test results came back, and he was sent home on the next flight.  God knew.  Way back when it was just a “nothing really” kind of pain, God knew.  And He wasn’t going to send Larsen home without a souvenir. 

Now you might be saying, “You lied to Larsen: the junk-seller didn’t ask you to give him the print.”

No, I think he did—he just didn’t realize it.  He was the giver; I was the courier.  We just didn’t know it at the time.  I don’t regret my choice of words: that was only part I got right without God having to steer me. 

They say God is love.  Yes, that is what He is.  Perfect, seamless, practical, merciful, double-edged, implacable love.  I don’t always get it, but that day, thank God, I did.  

Merry Christmas, everyone!  And a Great New Year!

First Decent Snow

Al and I are getting to know the area between Bailey Brook and Kulish Ledges pretty well, having hiked it many times as we plot out a route for a trail to connect the two places. This past Monday, we returned to follow a possible route.  We traveled over some terrain that was not familiar to me, but  Al had been there before.  He had even given a name to one part of the trail; he called it "stove ridge." That seemed like a pretty arbitrary name to me and I said so.  "Why did you call it 'stove ridge?'" "Oh, I don't know; it needed a name."   Well, I found out farther along--a rusting wood stove with a cast iron pot was sitting in the woods just off the trail.  I knew there had to be a reason for the name.   Here are a few pictures of the stove and the somewhat leaky pot.   

The view from the vantage point overlooking White Swamp, Nubanusit Lake and Spoonwood Pond was obscured by the fog on this misty morning so once we reached that point, we chose not to linger.  In the woods, I could see evidence of porcupines at work: trees stripped of bark.  We decided not to follow the marked trail to Kulish Ledges, but to venture into some unknown territory.  We looked for more evidence of the porcupines, but didn't find it.  But we did find our way to a favorite spot which I call "Jigsaw Ice Falls" for the way that the rocks have fallen off the ledge like pieces of a puzzle and the water that drips off the ledge to form interesting icicles.  

A few pictures don't do justice to the beauty of this place.

Along our way back, we moved through a very thick spruce woods, with young spruce, which I characterized as toddlers spruce, older trees--teenagers, and the mature spruce-middle-aged and elderly.  Of course, getting through the toddler and teenage spruce was difficult, not unlike those years of parenting, but where the mature spruces were predominant, the way was a lot easier.

We found an interesting oak tree, the main trunk of which has grown in a triangular shape closest to the ground.  We wondered what could have caused the tree to grow this way and then to correct its growth further up the trunk.  It would be interesting to get a cross section of the trunk someday.  

Sometimes, it is a good idea to pause in the woods to look around and listen.  So much is missed when one is intent on "getting somewhere."   At one point, Al and I stood still, looking and listening.  I looked at some oak leaves that I could hear rustling in the woods.  They hung down from the top of the tree: why hadn't they fallen off?  Well, I was looking at a "bear nest."   Bears climb oak trees and break off the branches while the leaves are still on the tree.  These branches hang down from the top of the tree and don't lose their leaves.  We found faint claw marks in the rough bark at the base of the tree.  It is so much harder to see marks in a rough barked tree like oak as opposed to beech, in which the claw marks remain clear and discernible years after the bear climbed the tree for the tasty beech nuts.  We found a few branches on the ground, with bear chew marks in them.  The bear had visited this tree and another within sight of the first tree this past fall.  It wasn't a particularly good "mast year" for the oaks and beeches, that is, the trees didn't seem to produce many nuts, but these two trees must have had enough acorns for one bear.  

No dead cows today, no thick sphagnum moss, nothing overly spectacular, but the "little things in nature bring me back" (Tara Greenblatt) just the same, even on a misty, wet day, with just a bit of snow to make it interesting.  

Nelson's Northwest corner on a misty day

Early on Monday morning, it was pouring and I was sure that we were in for a very wet hike this day.  But as is often the case, by the time Al and I were ready to head out, the rain had abated.  We would still get wet, but not soaked.  With the right clothes, we could manage just fine.

Al's inclination on this foggy, misty day was to explore along the town line between Nelson and Stoddard, beginning on West Shore Road near Granite Lake.  I was up for anything so off we went.  We started in an area that had been logged about three or four years ago.  What looks like a nice open space is usually very difficult to get through; the dead fern hide fallen and rotting logs and the early succession growth is thick and prickly.  One of the first plants to appear after a clear cut is blackberry and there is just no easy way to get through it.  Oh, well... we did our best and soon found ourselves at the top of a steep rise in a much more open understory in a coniferous woods.

Consulting map and compass, we headed off in a northerly direction following what we believed to be about where the town line should be.  We followed a stone wall to a spot where two trails intersected.   I looked off to the right and noticed a pile of something white.  What was it?  Prepare yourselves, dear readers: it was not a pretty sight.   The pile of white was the guts of three butchered cows, including the intact stomach of one cow.  We also found three severed heads, hoofs and hides of the cows.  The remains must have been dumped recently, because I couldn't smell anything and clearly, the scavengers hadn't discovered them yet.  But they will and when they do, the pile will quickly disappear.   Nature has a way of taking care of its mess pretty quickly.   Nothing is wasted.

We didn't linger at the cow remains for long. We were on a mission to find what other interesting things we might discover in the northwest corner of Nelson.  For a time, we followed a stone wall, consulting the map often to determine where we were and to anticipate when we might verify that we were on the right course.   The area had been logged and it was more rough going, though we could find patches of wood in which to walk more easily.

We came upon a tree marked with bright orange survey.  This could indicate the town line!  We decided to look for the next mark and soon were rewarded with a clear path to follow: red blazes cut into the trees which delineated the boundary.  A stone wall also served as a reliable landmark to follow.  A clear path, yes, but not easy.  We had entered an area of large boulders and steep slopes.  The area resembled a gorge and Al chose the simple, but appropriate name for this place: "Town Line Gorge."  It works.  We paused at one point, Al perched on one side of the gorge and I on the other.  Towering ledges and small crevasses, boulders piled on top of one another, uprooted trees: these were the characteristic features of the land.  In one crevass  I saw a little mole scurry up the face of a rock.  Nearby, we observed branches stripped of their bark by porcupines.

Up and down we went, keeping the blazes in sight, checking in with each other as we found interesting spots along the way.  As we often do, we chose parallel paths, about 50 to 100 feet apart from each other so we might be able to find more interesting things.  At one point, I looked down and saw what looked like a teapot.  It was the remains of a rotted tree branch, with the larger part looking like the pot and a smaller branch like a spout.  It was hollowed out and had it a bottom, I would probably taken it with me to see what I might fashion from it.  Just as I found the "teapot", Al called me over to see something that he had found. I looked carefully at the ground as I walked.  Often Al will find something and leave it in its place and I will have to observe carefully to find it.  This time, Al was holding a small round something.  It was covered with a brown coating and soft to the touch. I had no idea what it was, but Al thought that it might be a truffle or false truffle.  He determined to check with his ex-wife, Sue, who is an expert in the woods, to see if she could identify it.

We found the corner, where the town line turns to the west.  We were sure that we were following the line, because the spot was marked with "TLNS" and the year on a post.   We turned west.   The slope was still steep, but we were no longer following the line of the gorge.  Soon, we came to a large wetlands, with deep sphagnum moss.  Because of the unusually warm late fall weather, the ground and the water were not frozen so we tried to step carefully to avoid getting our feet wet.  No such luck!   My boots were good, water-proof boots, but when one steps in a spot where the water is over the top of the boot, one can't avoid getting wet.  Thank goodness for good wool socks.

Even with good boots and socks, slogging through a wetlands gets tiresome after a while.  I headed for higher, dryer ground.  Al was not far behind.   Slogging also works up an appetite.  Time for a snack: cookies, a baked potato and clementines--our usual hiking fare.  Nothing better.   After a little break, we were back on track to follow the town line.  It was a short hike to Otter Brook and the end of our attempt to follow the boundary for today.  While the water didn't appear deep, it was much too cold for wading on this day.  We chose instead to follow a deer trail along the brook.

The trail took us through woods and across a partially frozen wetlands to what is best described as a moss garden:  boulders upon boulders covered with thick green mosses.   It was a feast for the eyes and felt luxurious on the feet.   On one boulder, we found a spruce and a yellow birch growing together, their roots entwined as if they were dancing.

We found our way back to the town  boundary markers and the gorge and discovered that the boulders we had seen coming up looked entirely different from the other direction.   We also found many boulders which seem to be delicately balanced, poised to tumble at any moment.  But our efforts to move them were in vain. What looks like a balancing boulder turned out to be pretty stable.

While we tried to avoid the logged areas, we still had to push through them near the end of our hike.  Along the way, we found four different types of club moss, a hollowed out ash tree that must have been massive in its hay day (I squeezed myself into the hollow and found rich, red soil--the happy result of decomposition), a maple tree that had fallen over a stone wall at an odd angle, and merged with the stone wall as it rotted away, and moose and deer scat and browse.   One of these days, we will see the actual animal again, or find that elusive shed antler.

We finished our hike near another deer stand, where we found a curious cylindrical container hanging about 12 feet off the ground.  We thought it looked like a cache up off the ground to prevent bears from getting into it, but not exactly.  We could use some help identifying this object.

Uggh--one of the cow heads, the least gory of the three.  

In the town line gorge.  

Al on the other side of the gorge.

At Otter Brook above Ellis Reservoir

Moss garden

Four kinds of club moss.

Here is how one gets inside a hollow tree.  Not always easy.  

Nice soil in the base at the tree.

Under the wildlife feeder.  

Across the power line tract, through a huge space which will  become a field, across McIntyre Road, and through the woods, and we were back on West Shore Road, with wonderful memories of a new place and pleasantly tired bodies.

Ellis Reservoir Revisited

Mary Oliver said, "What are you going to do with your one and beautiful life?" At least, that's how I remember it.  I tried to confirm the quote, but couldn't find the right poem right off the bat.  At any rate, the question makes me think.  What did I do with this one and beautiful day?

Well, it was Monday, which means hiking in Nelson, of course.  So, what did we do?  HIKE!  Today, we decided to return to a spot that we have visited before, but not really gotten to know well: Ellis Reservoir, which is a wetlands area in the northwest corner of town.  It also extends into Sullivan, but we won't hold that against it.

We started our hike at a trail off of Granite Lake Road, which led us into one of John and Anne Bunce's four fields.  Fields are nice, but don't usually offer too much of interest, so we soon headed into the woods.  We encountered some beautiful sphagnum moss areas, a couple new to us vernal pools, which we vowed to return to in the spring (we'll see if we remember), and some interesting fungi: shelf mushrooms with a bright red outer ring, which Al hypothesized might be the newest growth.

Moving up the hill, we came to an area that had recently been logged.  When we could, we followed a trail, since moving through a logged area is usually very challenging because of the thick new growth and the many briars, not to mention the downed trees and branches.   Along the way, we found a very dilapitated boat, which would not be sea or lake worthy any time soon, a bear-bitten utility pole, with hair stuck in it, many spots of deer and moose scat, which thankfully, were too fresh for Al to pick up and throw at me as he is prone to do on many occasions.

It was familiar territory, but we could always find something new along the way.  We found the first of what would be many tree stands at the edge of Ellis Reservoir. This first was old and probably did not see use anymore, but the second was one we had visited more than a year before.  The note we left at that time was no longer there, so we left another note on birch bark tucked behind a board at the top of the stand.  Moving around the knoll above the tree stand, I found a snapping turtle nest which had obviously been pilfered by predators some months earlier.  The egg shells littered the ground, along with scat from coyote and fox perhaps.  I could see bones in the coyote scat and hair in the fox scat.  We also observed deer tracks, which was no surprise considering the abundance of deer sign: scat, trails, scrapes that we had already seen in the area.

We decided to head out into the wetlands that is Ellis Reservoir to see what we could find.  The ground was partially frozen as was the water, though not secure enough to hold our weight, so we alternately walked on frozen and not so frozen sphagnum moss and tussocks of sedge.  I managed to keep fairly dry, and neither one of us ended up in water deeper than our ankles.   While Al was resting at the foot of the second deer stand, I had explored into the wetlands a bit and found three sizeable clumps of pitcher plants ( Pitcher plants are carnivorous plants which trap insects that are attracted to the smell of the liquid in the "pitcher."  The insects crawl unto the lip of the plant and the hairs and surface of the plant make it impossible for the insect to climb out.  They fall into the liquid which contains enzymes to digest the insects.) .  When Al joined me, we found another huge patch of Pitcher plants.  It will be nice to come back in the late spring and early summer to see the plants in bloom.  We found the dried remnants of last season's flowers and with the size of these patches, it must be an impressive sight in the spring.

We also found cranberries, though not in the abundance that we are used to on the Great Meadow.  Enough to eat, though.  Lots of plants, but not much fruit on them.   We made our way to open water, observing the dry grasses swept up on to the shore in times when the water must have been much higher.   As we returned to the edge of the wetlands, we observed much fresh beaver sign.  But we couldn't see a lodge or dam from our vantage point.  Obviously, the beavers are active, but we will have to explore on another day to find their  home.  We also found old otter scat, which we picked apart to find fish scales and parts of crayfish: a shell, part of a claw.

After a snack of our own (neither fish nor crawdad), we headed back into the woods toward home.  The way down to Ellis Reservoir is steep, so, of course, it  was a good climb out as well.   The legs burn and I, for one, don't move too fast on these uphill trek.  Moving slowly gives more time for observation. I looked up the hill and saw a downed tree with something that looked like a big shelf fungus.  I wasn't sure if it was really that--could have been a broken off limb or something.  I headed toward the spot to see if I was seeing what I thought.  Yes, it was a large shelf mushroom, black and pock-marked.  Smaller mushrooms surrounded it, but none could compare with the size of this mushroom.  It was big enough to serve as an umbrella, should the need arise.   The downed tree next to the "giant mushroom" tree also had shelf mushrooms of a different variety.  Lots of shelf mushrooms provide Al with an opportunity for an impromptu percussion jam.   The variety and size of the mushrooms elicit different tones and resonance.  And there's always room for a little bit of music on any hike.  I sat under the umbrella mushroom while Al drummed.  Good way to rest up for the next leg of our uphill climb.

Our route back to the car led us through Nature Conservancy land and over a stone wall which marked the boundary between the conservancy land and land owned by Chuck and Sandy Tatham.  Chuck and Sandy are avid hunters and as we moved through their property, we could see evidence of their interest at every turn.  One tree stand this way, another there, another and another.  Some are quite elaborate, with a corrugated metal roof and a couple of chairs.  Others were simpler;  one consisted of a chair at the base of a tree.  We also came upon a spot where they had set up cameras and set out bait to monitor the habits of the wildlife in the area.  We stayed clear of the cameras--nothing is more unflattering than a wildlife camera picture (I know from experience), but while we stood outside the circle of cameras and bait, we observed a very healthy nuthatch scoot down a tree, no doubt to snag a morsel of seed or nut left for the game animals.

We decided to move out of this active hunting area, so that if Chuck or Sandy were looking for deer, we wouldn't scare the deer away and so that we wouldn't inadvertently find ourselves in the line of fire.  As we headed out of this patch of woods, we observed a beech tree with many bear claw marks.  We followed the stream down the hill and back into familiar territory.  Along the way, we scared up a ruffed grouse and each had a separate encounter with some deep mud.   We also passed through an area of first, gray birch, then poplar, then balsam, then alder.  It is interesting to figure out what makes certain trees grow in certain places, when to the naked eye, conditions seem the same.

Al and I finished our exploration in a familiar place: the Munsonville cemetery.  We located the gravestones of Ralph Page, noted contra dance caller and musician, and Duane's maternal grandmother, Edith Pearl Frazier, who died when Rita was just a teenager.   We also visited the monument to Al's great, great, great uncle Frank Foster, who was a Freemason.  We wondered anew why the statue of some unknown goddess graced his gravestone; perhaps a connection to Freemasonry?  The last and most unexpected discovery of the day was the shell of a Monarch butterfly chrysalis attached to the stone statue, under the left arm.   It was clear and fragile, but unmistakably a monarch chrysalis.  A lovely little treat to round out another enjoyable day.

A few pictures from our tracking expedition and the Murdough Hill Meander

The cut deer hair that we found at the end of the wounded deer trail.

Canada geese in Bunce's field

Sunset from the woods of Murdough Hill

Cool Turkey tail fungus

All on this one branch

Deer hair on moss still life

This was the first sign of the wounded deer that we found

A most excellent tracking expedition

I honestly never know what will come of a particular hiking expedition.   Some hikes are fairly uneventful--a little scat here, a little salamander there, some interesting flora or fauna, or both.   Once in a while, we are pleasantly surprised by nature: like the time a bear came out of a tree right next to Al or the time I saw a bobcat walking through the woods about 50 feet from me.   Or the time we saw two bitterns in the Great Meadow.  Or the moose that practically ran into Al while he was looking the other way.

Well, okay, most of the time, we see something we've never seen before and a lot of the time, we are pleasantly surprised by what we encounter.  No hike is ordinary.

Today, we began our hike on Old Stoddard Road, just across the street from Maury and Martha Collins' house.  We headed into the woods following a old logging road toward an area that had been clear cut many years ago.  This is an area we have explored before, but we approached it from a new direction.   We came upon a familiar stone wall and followed it for a time until we reached an area with which we were familiar.  Al  suggested that we head toward one of the cellar holes we had visited before, so off we went to find it.   As we often do, we scanned the forest and ground around us for interesting features: scat, moose sign, bear clawed trees, whatever we can find to give us clues to the animals who had passed through the woods before us.

We usually walk a few feet apart from each other so that we can cover more ground and increase our chances of finding something cool.  So I wasn't surprised when Al called me to come and look at something that he had found.  I have learned not to look at where he is standing, but to look down and back at where he has been to find what he discovered.  Generally. Al doesn't tell me what he has found, but leaves it to me to find out for myself.  This time, he actually surprised me, pointing at the tuft of deer hair that he had found.

Not an unusual find, and one that prompts us to get down on the ground to find more hair.  On a previous trip near Kulish Ledges, Al, Lizza Backes, and I had been investigating a deer bed for hair when Al and Lizza looked over just a few feet from the bed and found a deer antler.  We always hope that this will be the day when we find another antler, so we are driven to investigate.  This time, it was easy to find more hair, and we followed what looked like a trail of hair.  Just a few feet from the first tuft of hair, I looked down and found blood.  This deer had been injured!  It was hunting season, after all, so it wasn't surprising to find blood on the ground.  But we had to try to piece together the story, at least from the evidence we could follow.

One drop of blood, another and a trail of blood.  The injured deer had most certainly passed this way.  We followed the trail of blood, not a steady trail, but one for which we had to get down on our hands and knees and search for the next clue.  Our first approach took us to a dead end under a small spruce tree.  We searched and searched for another blood spot, but could find nothing.  Perhaps, here was the spot where the deer was shot.

Al and I decided that we needed to go the other way, to find clues from the point where we first found the tuft of hair.   We marked the location of the last place where we found blood and followed the trail to the clump of hair.  We continued from that point, marking the track as we went along so that we could retrace our steps should we come to another difficult spot.   This was a good plan as we often had to return to the last spot we marked, the last place where we had found hair or blood and fan out to find the next spot.  I often stood up and tried to imagine which way the deer, wounded and probably panicked, would go.  Would it take the clearest route or head into a thicket where it was less likely to be discovered?

After an hour or more (we kind of lost track of time), we came to a point where there was more blood on the ground, more hair and two important clues that led us to believe that this was the place where the deer ultimately met its end.  Al was crawling along the ground looking for more blood drops and found two bloody rags stuffed into the cavity at the base of a tree and just a few feet from there, I found a spot near a small boulder where deer hair littered the ground, obviously cut instead of shed.  Here was where the hunters met the deer and prepared to take it out of the woods.

One more clue led us to believe that there were two hunters.  We found a sapling cut off at about waist height, with a section missing.  We concluded that the hunters had tied the deer to the section of the tree and hoisted it between them to carry it out.  We also thought that one hunter would have had to drag the deer and we could find no evidence of dragging.

We sat and snacked, so pleased with our tracking fun, but also still curious about the whole story.  Some day, maybe we will have the good fortune to meet the hunters who bagged the deer on the north shoulder of  Osgood Hill and hear the full story of their experience.  It would be interesting to find out how well our imagined story, based on the clues we found, matched up with what actually happened.

Great Meadow, November 2012

"A" Tree, or "4" tree, depending on how you look at it.

New beaver lodge on the Great Meadow

King of the Beaver Lodge

A Cranberry State of Mind

Okay, I know that I have been talking a lot about cranberries lately, but it is the season.  We took another canoe trip down the Great Meadow this afternoon to pick again.  We couldn't have picked a day more different from our last trip on the meadows two weeks ago.  That was the day that Hurricane Sandy rolled up the coast and wreaked havoc on New York and New Jersey.  We felt the effects of the storm with high winds and heavy rain.

When Al and I canoed on the Great Meadow that Monday morning, it was raining and windy, but not unbearable so.  We were prepared for the worst, but avoided it by starting and finishing our trip early in the day.  That day, we picked 2 gallons of cranberries and were quite pleased with our success.  

Today, we headed out in the early afternoon of an unseasonably warm November day.  Temperatures were in the 60s and the sky was clear, with a light wind.  Still we donned our waders because the water was high and the cranberries are most plentiful in the inundated areas.   But picking was much more pleasant.  Our hands soon adjusted to the cool water and we picked for at least 2 hours without any discomfort..  Okay, I take that back--we did have to stretch every once in a while because bending over to pick is hard on the spine.  

As often as we could, we sought out areas where the cranberries were out of the water or at least in less deep water so that we could kneel down to pick.  Al had brought a large basket, but we picked into plastic tubs which we then transferred to the basket.  Tubs float--a basket wouldn't.  The basket was helpful in draining off the water, however, so it served its purpose quite adequately.  While we picked, we wondered about how commercial cranberry farms manage to keep the "weeds" out, such as the leatherleaf, sweet gale, and grasses that we regularly encounter on the meadows.  We wondered what those farmers might use to harvest the cranberries more efficiently and how they get them to float.  We tried stomping about to loosen the berries from the plants, but that is only mildly effective.  We tried using a sieve to scoop the berries, but that didn't really work either.  The best method for our purposes was just to rake them off the plants with our hands.  

At any rate, Al and I were very pleased with our efforts--a beautiful full basket of cranberries, plenty for both of us and enough to share with friends, including the man working on the house at the end of Bancroft Road.  We met him before we headed out, and he was packing up to leave when we finished.  He was delighted to receive a portion of our abundant harvest and we were happy to share.   After all, what could make a successful day picking cranberries just a little bit better?   Sharing the joy, of course!  

And don't fret if you haven't gotten out there to pick yet.  We saved some for you too.

Natural highlights, aside from the sheer beauty of the day and the place were few, but we did see a new muskrat mound and a freshly built beaver lodge, with a well stocked cache of alder and service berry branches.  We also observed the effects of the hurricane in sedges and grasses twisted and swept through the high waters and wrapped around the roots of other vegetation on the edge of the stream.  We witnessed the early setting of the sun over the Great Meadow, a reminder that the long dark nights of winter will soon be upon us.

Cranberry picking Joy!

One of many

See what I mean?  

It was easier to lie down on my stomach and pick. 

Easement Monitor visits yeild tasty results.

So today, Al came along with me on two of my easement monitoring visits, one at Franklin Pierce University and the other at Mountain Brook Reservoir in Jaffrey.   I appreciate having his help with compass work and following the tough boundary lines.   We went to places on both easements that I have never been confident enough to find.   Thanks, Al.

We also found a new to me edible mushroom, inky caps.  I ate them already--not too much taste but fine.  We also found a good amount of oyster mushrooms, which were half frozen.  I don't know how well they will hold up, but we will give them a try.  Herb Gramm, the owner of the Mountain Brook Reservoir property was happy to take some back to his wife.  

We dropped Herb back at his house and headed back to the reservoir to finish walking the boundaries.  The  northern section of the easement is full of invasive plants of all sorts--discouraging array of bittersweet, multiflora rose (ouch!), buckthorn in hopeless abundance, and barberry.  In one spot, we found multiflora rose and buckthorn in a scrambled mass, intertwined together.  

But our discouragement disappeared at the sight of the most abundant patch of cranberries I have ever seen. It was an amazing spot--out of the water and so thick with berries that I could lie down on the ground and pick in one spot for quite a while.  

So, mushrooms and cranberries: a pretty productive day.  And on top of it all, when I got home after picking up my son, Geoffrey, we were delighted to find the red squirrel that has been terrorizing our kitchen cabinets had been caught in the havahart trap.  I sent Geoff with the squirrel down to Otter Brook to let it go where it wouldn't be close enough to come back to our house.  Happy Day!   No more chewed crackers and packages.   Thank goodness, and my son, Poul, for setting the trap.

Back on Osgood Hill

Al has been charged with working on developing a trail from Old Stoddard Road and the Sawmill Trail to Kulish Ledges and he takes this responsibility seriously.  He has spent countless hours exploring the land between the Ledges and the Sawmill Trail, discovering points of interest and looking for possible routes.

Today, Rick Church, Tom Murray and I joined Al to see if we could determine a good route.  The problem is  that there are so many points of interest and so many good routes that it is hard to choose.  Al  took us to a number of beautiful vistas, 2 cellar holes with which Rick was not familiar, which made Rick very happy, through the beautiful spruce woods and along the heights of scree slopes and cliffs.  

It was a long day!  I had thought that we would just be out for three hours, but the hike lasted 6 hours.  It was lovely, and it was nice to go back to places which are becoming favorites of mine, but I was not prepared for the length of the hike and hadn't brought enough food.  The terrain was also very challenging, up and down steep slopes and through thick woods.  Hurricane Sandy had also caused some damage and we discovered many newly downed trees and branches, which added to our challenge.  

It is a beautiful area, with many natural and man-made features.  It is so hard to decide on a route, but it appears that we will have to make a choice, based on the best points of interest, ease of terrain and length of the trail.   It won't necessarily cover everything that we would like people to see, but it will be a start.  

In the meantime, I came home today weary and sore, with a few new bumps and bruises, and I still needed to go grocery shopping.  Thankfully, Duane offered to take me out to dinner and we shopped together.  Now it's time to take my aching body to bed.

Great Meadow during Sandy Photos

The contrasting colors on this rock were so vivid in the rain.

Soldiers in the moss.

Still a nice view, even in the rain.

The reward for our labors.