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.

In the face of the coming storm, what to do?

Go cranberry picking, of course!   It was a dark and stormy day.  I know that's a slight variation on the well-known phrase, but that's the kind of day it was.   Al says there's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.   So, we tried to be as prepared as we could be as we headed out to canoe the Great Meadow and  pick cranberries. I had my waders.  Al had his waders and I had enough layers to hopefully keep me warm and dry.

It was not raining hard when we started down the Meadow, but the water was running really high.  Dave had told me that he had let the water down on the dam on Nubanusit Lake, so I expected it to be high.  Al thought that the beavers had been hard at work as well, but we didn't encounter any beaver dams high enough to slow us down.  In fact, all the dams that we normally have to pull over were so easily crossed that we were at the prime cranberry spot in no time.  

Thank goodness for our waders--the water was up to our knees.We picked for over an hour, two gallons between us.  I finally found that my hands were not working anymore and I decided to call it quits.   The wind and rain were picking up.  It was time to move on.

We didn't see much wildlife on this day: a duck frantically flying into the wind, crows, and we could hear ravens calling from the trees.   We also watched turkeys walking across the lawn of a house that borders the Meadows.  We heard something behind us, but neither of us could identify the source of the sound.  

It was an easy paddle to the portage, and I, for one, was grateful that we didn't have to work hard.  It was enough, at this point, just to keep warm.  I tried to add a layer at one point, but with my waders cinched tight over my raincoat, it was more effort than it was worth.  No matter.  We were soon at the portage and we carried our gear to Al's car as the water roared through the old mill site.

A wild day on the Great Meadow, but well worth it for the cranberries that we will enjoy in the coming months.