Category: Local

Scenes of October

The month is winding down in a whirl of autumn leaves and chilly breezes hinting that winter is not far off.

Gold and red autumn leaves over house


Foliage was especially bright this year thanks to regular rainfall after the semi-dry conditions of the past few years. The only drawback to it all is having to rake the leaves up afterwards. Some people toss their leaves after bagging them up as if it was all some sort of rubbish. But doing that robs the soil of critical nutrients which would have been recycled and reused by the trees if left to break down naturally. My method of disposal involves my composter. Once that is full, there is a chicken wire leaf bin. Since that is mostly full anyway, that fills up rapidly and the remainder I dump in the small patch of woods in back of the house.

As all this starts to break down, fungi of all sorts get to work. If it wasn’t for these hidden allies, leaves, and deadwood would remain on the surface of the ground, their nutrients inaccessible, the material becoming a potential fire hazard. So a near invisible clean up crew of earthworms, millipedes, mites, insect larvae and other micro-critters start chowing down on all this material.

As they chew up, digest and process the leaves, an enormous tribe of fungi begin the next step of reducing it even further. The vast majority of fungal forms live unnoticed in the soil under our feet sending microscopic filaments through all the leaf waste. But every so often they send up a fruiting body called a mushroom or toadstool. These can come in all forms and sizes from mini-mushrooms,

Tiny mushroom next to lettuce leaf.

to dinner-plate sized.

mushroom wide as open hand.

By the time they are done, the result is fragrant humus, ready for the next generation of plants.

By the end of October, wildflowers have largely gone by with the occasional exception of a late blooming dandelion or tardy fall wild aster. At this time of year, it is the seed heads of these flowers which are the main feature. They are often food for migrating birds and small rodents such as chipmunks, voles and mice. The seed heads themselves can often be as striking as the flowers. The picture below is of a patch of goldenrod gone to seed. The seedheads look more like flowers than the flowers do!

goldenrod seed heads

Last but not least it wouldn’t be October without that classic fixture of every end-of-month decoration.

pile of pumpkins

Happy Halloween everyone!

Northern Pass – Last Call

Downed Power Line Tower

This past Thursday, Eversource, the company attempting to building Northern Pass as a way to funnel electric power into the New England electric grid finally threw in the towel and issued a statement indicating they were removing the project from the table, after the New Hampshire State Supreme Court upheld the project’s 2018 rejection by the state Site Evaluation Committee.

Now does this mean the project is a dead duck? Probably not. Like the undead from a bad movie sequel, Northern Pass may get revived some time in the future under a different name and return once again in an effort to uglify New Hampshire. But for now it has bit the dust.

Eversource really has no one to blame but themselves. Watching their perpetual efforts to ram the project through, in spite of the vehement protests by residents in the northern half of the state, it was clear this was strictly a project for the benefit of the shareholders, not for the benefit of anyone who actually lives here. All too often residents’ efforts for their concerns to be heard were treated as a minor nuisance, soon to be overcome in the name of ‘progress’. Demands for the line to be buried received a token nod at best.

One of their selling points was the ‘need for abundant energy.’ They touted the project as being the most advanced project to bring low cost clean energy for their customers. The customers in question were for the most part not people in New Hampshire but residents of Massachusetts. No one up here in northern New Hampshire wanted to see huge transmission towers marching through the countryside delivering little if any benefits to compensate for the disfigured landscape.

But aside from the pros and cons of Northern Pass, the issue that never really gets addressed is whether or not this project is really the clean energy it’s touted to be or even if it is really needed. Efforts to reduce energy usage are certainly doable and save money in the long run. Shutting lights off when not needed, constructing houses which are smaller and energy efficient, using cold water for laundry, all these nickel and dime efforts add up over time, particularly if everyone does them.

Was the project sustainable? Not really. Our ongoing mania for interconnectivity has turned the electric grid so many depend on into a ginormous interlaced network that is tricky to maintain and is highly vulnerable to hackers or just plain breakdown. The recent massive black out in South America which affected at least three countries clearly reveals the domino effect that can occur when failure happens in part of the network. Interestingly Tierra Del Fuego was not affected as it was not connected to the grid. If this isn’t a big hint from the Fates, I don’t know what is. We’ve clearly overbuilt to the point the systems we create are too fragile to last for long and keel over at the least excuse.

Like it or not, we are going to need to swallow the bitter pill of downsizing as resource shortages make these projects harder to build and nearly impossible to maintain for any length of time. Let’s keep our projects small, local and easy to maintain. Instead of waiting until we’re hitting the wall and forced to make these changes, in a panic, in hysteria, let’s do it now while we have a bit of wiggling room and have time to see what’s workable and what isn’t.

Tiny mushroom in flower pot

Spring into Summer

Here in northern New Hampshire, spring was late coming and grudging as it spread across the landscape. Rain was a big feature with April and May. It was cloudy most of the time with the sun making occasional appearances teasing us into thinking finally some decent weather, then disappearing behind clouds which pelted us with raw chilly rain. Over the past decade or two, weather was often abnormally warm and dry, enough so it seemed like the new normal. Hard to say if this spring will be the next ‘normal’. We’ll just have to wait and see.

bunch berry flowers

One benefit of the heavy rains is a very lush growth of greenery. There are the usual wildflowers such as bunchberry, forget-me-nots, star-flowers and so forth. But garden flowers come popping up one at a time as well: snow-drops, crocuses, daffodils, iris and lily-of-the-valley.

five foot tall Russian comfrey

Many years ago I bought a small seed packet containing a handful of seed from a variety called Russian Comfrey. I don’t know which cultivar it was but it has since prospered. It has never been necessary to fertilize it as this plant can put down roots as deep as six or more feet and suck up its own nutrients.

It can be used as a cover plant and will (at least for me) grow to Brobdingnagian proportions providing plenty of greenery to add to the compost pile. The ones pictured above are over five feet tall. Bumblebees love the tiny flowers and will squeeze themselves into one to get at the nectar, buzzing cheerfully all the while. Comfrey will reseed itself though it has not really been invasive. Some studies seem to suggest the leaves may contain carcinogenic compounds but if they do, the deer and woodchucks obviously don’t read the literature as they happily chow down on the leaves. One time I watched a woodchuck nip off an enormous leaf bigger than a dinner plate and placidly sit down to eat it all at one sitting.

garden rhubarb

Rhubarb also is doing well this year. The above plant is the last survivor of a small patch managed by my late father who had it tucked in a shady corner of the garden. It never grew that big for him but he would gather the leaf stalks to cook up and eat. I found the smell of cooking rhubarb revolting and would rapidly flee the vicinity of the kitchen. After he passed away, the patch went neglected, dwindling until only one scrawny plant was left. Finally taking pity on it, I moved it to a more sunny part of the old garden. This clearly did the trick and now it is growing more than triple the size it did for my father. This year it produced a flower stalk. The stalk towers over me and had a huge cluster of seeds on it. I have no idea if the seeds are fertile but will plant them to see what happens.

Sweet William flowers, dark pink color

Sometimes when I have left over flower seeds and no room to put them, I will toss what is left on the bank out in front of the house. If they grow, fine; if not also fine. Apparently some of the seed I tossed was Sweet William and I was pleasantly surprised to see some dark pink blossoms peeking through the weeds on the bank the other day.

Swallow-tail butterflies, bumblebees, and even a few honey bees have been making their appearance visiting the different flowers. Mindful of the recent reports of drops in the number of insects, particularly pollinating ones, I avoid the use of insecticides except for naturally derived ones such as neem oil for spot use use on lily beetles. Interestingly enough I have not seen any Japanese beetles for a number of years especially after using a beneficial nematode in the front lawn to chow down on beetle larvae. It must have effective as the beetles disappeared in subsequent years. I don’t use the beetle traps hawked in various gardening catalogs as these are really beetle magnets and will draw in every beetle in the neighborhood. Your neighbors may like this but not you.

Since summer has only just gotten underway, it will be interesting to see what else pops up.

multiple mushrooms growing on a bank

Memorial Day 2019

As is customary in many towns here in New Hampshire, Memorial Day was observed with a small parade in the late morning. The town newspaper billed it as a ‘procession’ but since it had a small marching band, I believe that elevates it to the level of a parade. Granted it was quite modest compared with the more extravagant celebrations elsewhere but still enjoyable to watch. The weather was clear if a bit crisp so it was perfect for the memorial procession.

Memorial Day American Flag
Memorial Day Float with veterans
National Guard Vehicle
Marching veterans

The parade culminated with a ceremony held at the Veterans Memorial Bridge honoring current and past veterans.

The origins of Memorial Day stem from observances made both in the North and in the South to honor the fallen. It was often called Decoration Day as it didn’t commemorate any particular battle. It wasn’t until 1968 that Congress passed the Uniform Monday Holiday Act which officially made the last Monday in May as a federal holiday.

Memorial day isn’t just for remembering veterans however. Many, including myself, use it as a way to recall loved ones now no longer with us. Granted we should remember them whenever possible but Memorial day serves as a more solemn means of honoring those who mattered in our lives, as well as those who sacrificed their own lives to keep ours more livable.

Vets in Revolutionary War costumes

Lest we forget.

More Turkey?

A week after Thanksgiving, it’s pretty certain everyone is more than satiated with every possible dish one can think of to make use of leftover turkey meat with. Since I didn’t have company visit this year, the leftovers were the result of a pair of turkey thighs, rather than the whole bird, making it easier to polish them off.

A few days after the holiday kickoff, a small flock of wild turkeys came strolling up my driveway and into the small patch of woods in back of the house. Wild turkeys are surprisingly large, leaving prints behind very reminiscent of dinosaur tracks.

Given that the height of the Thanksgiving feast involves a native American bird, one can’t help wondering why it is called a turkey instead of whatever the First Nation peoples called them. It turns out that invading Europeans tended to name anything they came across after something they were already familiar with in their homeland. One good example is corn. The word corn originally applied to wheat or any other cereal grains. Maize by the way is not really a name from any of the First Nations but has its origins in Spanish. Each local ethnic group had their own name for this staple of life.

As for the turkey, this name was actually applied to a different bird, the guinea fowl. Originally from Africa, it was brought to Europe via the Ottoman Empire (which included the present day Turkey) and was referred to as turkey cocks or hens (depending on gender) because of that. Since the bird from North America superficially resembled the guinea fowl, it came to be referred to as a turkey as well. Because it had a better flavor than the guinea fowl, the American ‘turkey’ supplanted it on many tables and eventually became the centerpiece for our current Thanksgiving celebration.

This past year must have been a good one for wild turkeys as their numbers (based on the size of the flocks I have seen) really jumped. The current turkeys are not really native to New Hampshire. The original turkeys we had disappeared from the state 150 years ago because of habitat destruction and overhunting. Reintroduced in the 1970’s using birds from the Mid Atlantic states their population quickly boomed, helped along by an increasingly mild climate as well as a supply of well stocked bird feeders. Now they are a common sight throughout New Hampshire.

I always get a chuckle when I see wild turkeys. There’s just something so goofy looking about them. But while turkeys have a reputation for being stupid, that’s more likely true of the over-bred domestic varieties. The wild turkey is sharp-eyed and canny, necessary traits for surviving in the forest, where they are often on the menu of hungry foxes, coyotes and other critters.

The mothers carefully shepherd their offspring about. In early summer the chicks resemble fuzzy little footballs. By midsummer they have grown and feathered out enough so they can briefly get air-born for about five seconds or so when they flap their wings. Because factory farm turkeys are so heavily bred for size, many can barely walk much less fly, so it can be surprising to discover that wild turkeys can not only fly but do so very well.

By summers end, they are nearly full grown and can often be seen along with their mothers teaming up with other turkey hens, forming sizable flocks. The males seem to congregate in their own flocks as I have often seen groups of turkeys consisting almost entirely of males.

There’s an old belief that Benjamin Franklin wanted the wild turkey rather than the bald eagle to be the national bird. This is actually a culture myth. It seems Mr. Franklin didn’t feel the eagle was the best representative of American character. In fact he thought the eagle was a bit of a coward and believed the turkey was more courageous than the bald eagle. But there is no indication he wanted the turkey to be the national bird.

In any case, the turkey today is a welcome addition to the local wildlife and I hope will continue to stroll by my house from time to time to give me a good chuckle.