Category: Outdoors

What to do if you lose your compass

I sometimes go for a week or more without getting into the woods, then I go there and remember why I was feeling so badly about not.

I was able to visit my dry vernal pool Monday. Sure enough, a few of the recent rain clouds passed over and made it a pool with water in it. I shot a few minutes of underwater video and there clearly were multiple somethings, looking like translucent polliwogs, swimming around in there. Really tiny, but a few got to the correct focal distance and I could see their bulbous heads and skinny tails trailing behind like pieces of thread in need of a pair of scissors.

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Why the old man laughs

Somewhere near the head of a stream, water seeps slowly into a flaw in the granite. Winter cold freezes the mixture of oxygen and hydrogen into an expanding wedge that forces the boulder to crack in two pieces, then more. Gradually, over several winters, the stream grows larger and the boulder pieces smaller.

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Walt was (almost) correct

An ent? or a tree?“Trees are ents who moved too slowly and have taken root,” Treebeard explained in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, by J.R.R. Tolkein. Treebeard was an ent and being long-lived, had much to say.

Research published in recent years appears to indicate that while ents may be fictional, trees do have feelings and do communicate among themselves, usually along pathways made possible by a multitude of fungi growing at the feet, er, roots of those slow-growing, long-living organisms that clean our air, filter our water and provide the raw materials that form our wooden caves.

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Waddya mean, “Water shortage”

There is plenty of water for one duck. for the rest of us, not so much.I saw a Black and White Warbler in the tree outside my window. My first ever. A tiny thing, about the size of a goldfinch, but all longitudinal patterns of black and white stripes.

What I am pretty certain was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak lit momentarily within sight, then departed before I could take the camera in hand.

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Thoughts on unfreezing

No ice, just babies for Mrs Canada.We human mammals love water. We spend nine months in a balloon full of the stuff, presumedly plotting our escape, then spend much of our air-breathing lives trying to at least live next to it.

Those of us fortunate enough to gain housing close to a stream, lake or ocean often post signs around it announcing our success to neighbors who must settle for looking out their front windows at our back doors.

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‘Tis the (vernal) season

Future Frogs of Michaux begin life hatched from egg masses in a vernal pond.Rain beats against my bedroom walls like bacon sizzling on a stove for breakfast I am too comfortable to climb out of bed to prepare or even eat once I had.

It seems only a week ago the crocuses popped out of the mulch and leftover snow to welcome spring and the Persian New Year.

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Make plastics-makers responsible for their product

Bottle deposits encourage users to turn them in for recycling.Nine state legislatures are considering bills to make plastics manufacturers responsible for their products end-of-life.

Pennsylvania is not one of them. It should be.

The concept is not a new one. Battery makers must process their products when they no longer start our cars. We buy new tires for our chariot and pay to have the dealer dispose of them.

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Avian invasion

Standing in line for a look at the fixer-upper at the end of the fence.Bluebirds, starlings and sparrows line up atop the fence outside my window, anxiously jockeying to see who will take over the fixer-upper mounted atop the fence post at the far end. The starling tries to bully his way to head of the line, but will lose the contest, because he’s too big to get through the hole, but he’s sure making life miserable for the others.

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No strangers

Here's looking at you.Funny how we remember some things and not others, especially parts of the same story. Like my first deer hunt. Dad and Mom hunted every year on Roy Stewart’s orchards, but that was adult sport; kids not invited.

Then one day Mom handed me her rifle and a bullet and sent me forth.

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Set it down, would ya, Jim

Searching for spring in the Silver maple knot.Sugaring-off when I was a kid was a sure sign of summer’s on the way. Nights below freezing and days in the low to mid 40s made the sap run in the sugar maple trees. In those days, we donned snowshoes and hiked from tree to tree, boring a half-inch hole in each trunk, hammering in the spile, then hanging a collection bucket from an attached hook.

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Trading water

Beaver are only one species that relies on water for life.Some people claim the stock market is an indicator of the health of our economy. In truth, as indicated by the newsworthy reactions of the Big Investors to being outfoxed last week by what they call “Dumb Money,” it is a way for (mostly already) wealthy folks to shuffle money around giving the appearance of making more of it.

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Making Christmas

A time of dreams and memories.Christmas, it has been said, is about the gifts we give. One of the great things about living in Adams County is not only so many generous people are willing to pitch in help when it’s needed, but the county still is small enough that we know most of them. At least, we know their names when we hear them, even if we have not actually met them.

Adams Countians have, for instance, contributed more than 80 winter coats and jackets as Christmas gifts to kids who would not otherwise have them.

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Level playing fields

Most playing fields are level, just not with each other.“OK, Boomer.” The phrase is meant to express youthful disdain for us so-called Baby Boomers – we whose parents went off to war, then returned, victorious in battle, to create the boom of babies that resulted in humungous profits for the cookie-cutter housing industry, and a plethora of job opportunities for soldiers returning from war knowing how to follow direction and willing to trade a rifle for a hammer.

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