Northward Again

The title remains appropriate for a life full of moves. I've rediscovered this place to write, and will hopefully find time to do so.
Another winter is beginning, and I've relocated to Gilford, 30 miles north of Concord, in a little house on 1/2 an acre across the street from 100 mostly wooded acres running up the northeast side of a 250' hill (from 560' at the house to around 800' at the top). There are trails for hiking and skiing, including some maintained by the Gunstock Nordic Association. The trails open up to a field near the top with beautiful views to the Sandwich Range and Mount Washington.
Currently we have about 12" of snow on the ground , courtesy of a couple of 3" storms, one 10" storm, and some rain. There are tracks around the yard from Kara and I trying out our cross-country skiis. It's hard to find time to get outside with days so short this close to the solstice (and a busy 18 month old keeping us occupied, indoors or close to home), but I make the occasional foray.
I was up Gunstock Mountain with a friend a week and a half ago, before any snow. We took a trail which starts at the base of the carriage road (closed this time of year) and heads straight up a ridge to the summit. It's a beautiful, direct hike, with a small amount of scrambling on some blocky rocks near the top. From oaks at the bottom to firs near the top, it's a quick trip through different forest types and a lot of elevation for the distance. Looks like 1200' in about a mile.
Somewhere to the north of there, skirting around the west side of the mountain, I should be able to find the Winnipesaukee Trail, cut in the 1930's when it was accessed by the nation's second rope tow. I finally picked up some cross country downhill skiis I'll have to try out in this new playground. Now we just need more snow!

Northbound Transient

This morning I listened to a white throated sparrow calling from my neighbor's silver maple tree. (Old-Sam Peabody Peabody Peabody.. one of the few bird calls I know) I couldn't see him hiding high up among the swelling buds, but his call was clear and frequent. Every year these guys pass through the area on their way back up to balsam-scented high places farther north. Perhaps due to all the snow remaining just north of here they'll stick around for a while. Whenever I hear his call I'm suddenly 100 miles north and 2000' up, so if this guy wants to enjoy our feeders and hang out in the backyard for a while, we're overjoyed to extend our hospitality to him. However, I understand if he feels the urge to continue his journey; I feel that call myself.

Friday I watched a pileated woodpecker slam his head into a towering dead branch on one of our old sugar maples. I had never seen this type of woodpecker- this wasn't the fast drilling sound I'm used to from smaller woodpeckers. This guy slammed his head repeatedly into the wood, sounding more like a hammer- I was getting a headache just watching him. A magnificent black and red bird and large- maybe 10" tall?

Running in the woods on Sunday with a friend and two dogs, our feet found mostly ground and water and only the occasional patch of snow. Chasing through the woods again felt great! Now that the days are so much longer I'll be out in the woods more often, watching the trees begin to bud. Quite a lot has changed in two weeks- I can see 80% of my yard, and with 60 degree temperatures for the rest of the week, it seems spring is here to stay, and we may not make our record snowfall. There's always next year.

I have crocuses around, impressive because we planted none last year. They have been out for two weeks, are exclusively purple, and are coming up in places no where near where we planted them. Fun; we suspect squirrels.

The tulips are poking through as well, but no flowers yet.

Oh, and the sap. To end on a sad note, we managed to burn our second run of sap as well, the product of many hours and perhaps 20 gallons of sap. We lost our willingness to burn more propane (and $) and abandoned the operation for the year. Lessons learned- we'll collect wood for next year, we need a large pan on which to boil (more evaporation area), and when the sap is getting close to finished it needs to be watched very very closely. Anyone need 40 gallons of sap?

Burning Sap

No, that's not a description of me, or my brain, while enduring a never-ending conference call and typing this at the same time.

It's the smell from the kitchen last night as our first seven gallons of sap, patiently boiled down to a half gallon then brought inside to finish almost caught fire as we neglected it. The house smells a bit like cotton candy. Smoky cotton candy.

We tapped three trees with seven taps and have (er, had) 36 gallons of sap in one week of tapping. Hopefully the sap will keep running all week.

Speaking of running; with sap, construction projects, and of course one 33 week pregnant wife, I have not done much running. I'm always running around, but that's different. I did, however, enjoy my neighborhood sledding hill yesterday and soaked up this beautiful april sunshine with my wife, brother, sister in law and nephews, five and two. What a day. Despite the foot and a half of snow almost everywhere, I am proud to report several crocuses poking up out of the soil on the south side of the house. Spring will be here someday.

Snow update- two and a half inches the other day- another seven inches and Concord breaks the all-time seasonal snowfall record. We're in second place. What the hay, why not?

Sometimes a good friend from the city comes and visits- a transition for me and for her. A reminder that we all can appreciate a change of scenery now and then. I'd better get down to the city soon and return the favor. Perhaps there's spring down there.

Yes, I started this blog hopping up and down loving the snow. Now I'm dreaming of all things green. We can't control our subconscious; we can track its progress through cabin fever and mud season and enjoy it all.

--All my random thoughts for now

snowy longings, or, Be Careful What you Wish For

I spend half the year performing mental snow-dances, hoping and waiting for days-long whiteouts leaving the world piled in a soft white blanket. Then I can venture forth into the woods and hills, sliding jumping and dancing through the bounty. And this year my hoping and dancing has been rewarded, and then some. As of this writing, with a foot on the way tonight, another 20" (not including that foot) will tie the all-time Concord snowfall record. This goes a ways towards making up for all those terrible near-snowless winters. I haven't seen a scrap of my yard (wistfully- my beautiful, sun-dappled emerald green yard.... , but none of that now.) since December. I can't remember a winter like that in a long time.

The problem is, my genius dog finally figured out (after a few months like this) that the snow is actually in some places up to the level of the fence surrounding the yard. I suppose something on the other side caught her attention and so she went for a walk out. We recovered her one street away, after wandering into the street, unharmed. I've since fenced off the section behind the shed and snowblowed down one particularly high section, but with this upcoming snowfall there's not much I can do. Since I don't plan on snowblowing the entire circumference of the yard into a giant snow pile in the middle (though I could make quite the snowman that way!), the dog may be on a leash until the snow melts.

Ahh, winter in New England. We are so lucky this winter. The plants are all well-insulated. Should be a good spring. And with that statement I reveal that, despite my love of the snow and desire for more, there is a portion of me which, with the lengthening days, starts to, unbidden, daydream of sunlight, green growing things and springtime! First we'll take a few more snowstorms, the sap running, a whole lot of runoff, flooding and mud and THEN we'll be ready to plant and grow. (and we'll have our own little baby to grow around that time.

turkeys? in the trees

huffing my way up the steep west side of the ridge trying in vain to keep up with the dog, I pause at the top to catch my breath near one of the old bullwheels from an old ski lift from an area possibly forgotten.

There's a short, steep pitch rising up above a parallel trail following a stream down below. The trail has been cut into the earth by feet and runoff; time, and use without maintenance compounding each other's effects. As the slope levels off at the top, I pass by a couple wheels nailed to trees, remnants of a ski pull from perhaps fifty years ago. (The trees in the area are fairly uniform so it's hard to tell where the ski trail was- my guess is the whole slope was open back then. There's no mention of this ski area on the New England Lost Ski Areas Project (nelsap.org))

Today as I crested the rise to where the trail levels out, I was stopped by a loud thwack from a tree ahead of me. I covered my head, and looked, expecting a branch to come down ahead of me. Another thwack and some rustling and I watched as what I think was a turkey vulture (or a turkey? It WAS getting dark) launched itself from a branch perhaps 20' in the air and flew off, thwacking into other branches as it made its awkward escape. No sooner had that one left my sight but another loud noise behind me and another lumbering bird bumbled its way through the branches and away. I disturbed a total of four or five big birds in this way. I don't think I've ever observed a bird so apparently out of its element.

I looped around to the water tower and back down the trail that parallels this first one, this time gradually dropping along the little stream, a great chance to stretch my legs out as the trail drops steadily. Then it's around the outskirts, past the back of the nursing home, up to the water tower and back on the road and out to the car. The last bit of road running was because the woods were becoming too dark on which to run.

A dusting on top of last week's snow. Some ice and rain tonight, more snow for thursday and hopefully a lot more for this weekend. With any luck people will keep helping me pack it down so my snowshoeing and running can continue. If not, I'll just have to find some used cross country skis!

the name

Looking up for graphics to describe I found the following:
www.des.state.nh.us/wet/spring99.pdf -
Look at the map on page 5.

I live in Concord, New Hampshire. Concord is just south, on that map, of the line between the Northern Hardwood forest to the north and the Oak and Pine forest to the south. We're blessed in my neighborhood with many of the trees and wildlife from both areas. Most of central northern New England (central northern?) is a transitional forest from the oak and pine forests of the southern areas to the boreal forests of the mountains and beyond to Labrador.

I grew up in the Merrimack Valley about 50 miles downstream from Concord. Since then I've lived high up in the Rocky Mountains, at sea level in the tropics, in the heart of the northern forest in upstate New York, and in both a similar transitional forest and a spectacular meadow bordered by a northern hardwood/spruce and fir forest only about thirty miles apart in central Vermont. I've travelled through the black spruce of Labrador and used perfect beech leaves as currency when playing as a child.

We ended up just far enough north where the woods and trails of the larger mountains are not so far away, and far enough south that family, friends and work are still close by. I'm doing my best to live the best of both worlds, here in the transition zone. With snowshoes in the back of my subaru and my hiking boots on my feet, I put on a button-down shirt and play the company role as necessary. I'm going to be raising a family soon, so right now I need both the stability of the working world, and the opportunities for soul renewal for myself, my wife and my unborn child the forests around me provide.

and so it begins

both this online posting of thoughts, and the winter of 07/08.

Yesterday I made time to snowshoe through the woods off Little Pond Road here in Concord. Approximately one mile by one mile in size, with a small piece called Walker State forest in the northwest corner, the rest of this land is owned by Concord Hospital, St.Paul's School, an ex-governor, and the City of Concord. Cris-crossed with trails and nothing else, it's a great treasure of peace and clean-air recreation within about a mile and a half of the state capitol. The land slopes generally from southeast to northwest about 150', and is covered in maple, beech, birch, hemlock, white pine, and oak, and is probably third-growth forest. Stone walls, cart paths, and even some old wheels bolted to the trees on the back side of the hill from apparently an old rope tow add some good New England history interest to the forest. (it's not yet listed on nelsap.org)It's a great place to wander slowly, drinking in the clean air, or blast around the corners and leap over logs by foot, snowshoe, ski or bike.

Madison (the dog) and I made our way along the (plowed, with only 2" of snow on it) access road and off onto the trails. The trails have a good 8-10", enough for snowshoeing and skiing, and judging by the tracks plenty of folks have been up here doing both. I ran into one retired gentleman enjoying an afternoon ski, carrying a broken pole from a recent fall on his way home.

A cloudy day, the weak late-afternoon light was still able to penetrate the cover enough to cast that special deep-winter light on the snow covering branches and ground, and lend extra color to the beech leaves still hanging on to those silvery trunks.

I found running with snowshoes to be difficult, as I remembered, especially after using weights in the morning, but I was able to run 70% of today's three-mile route, and emerged from the woods with snow up my back, sweaty and happy. The dog was esctatic.