Roundtop Ruminations

Soggy

2012-01-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

Winters should not be soggy but today is just that. Soggy and foggy and mushy underfoot. Although it is warm enough to be a spring rain or a spring day, it doesn’t smell like spring. Nor do the woods smell like winter. To my nose, the air doesn’t smell like much of anything at all.

At this point in the season, daylight remains into the evenings quite a bit longer than just a week or so ago. The mornings are lighter earlier, too. This morning I saw crows, the first time I’ve seen any bird in the mornings before work for many weeks. In winter, they are the first bird I usually see in the mornings. Sometimes cardinals come early to my feeders but they are skulkers and wary. Crows are obvious and seem to think they have to inspect their territories first thing in the morning to make sure nothing awful, or even anything at all, happened while they were sleeping.

This small group of them was plying the stone parking lot at Roundtop, no doubt scavenging for lost French fries or other edible goodies dropped by skiers last evening after dark. The crows aren’t picky and will try to eat anything dropped by humans. To them the parking lots are just fast food joints—no work, no waiting—just food appearing on the ground, free for the taking. They want to be sure they get first pick of whatever is available. It’s good to see them again, good to have something to look at so early in the morning. I watch them for a few moments and then leave them to continue their scavenging.

Tempted

2012-01-25T15:21:00.004-05:00

One warm day with fog was all it took for the snow to disappear literally overnight. Oh, a few patches of it remained this morning, but with rain in the forecast for tonight, whatever may remain will certainly be gone. The feeder birds have already disappeared, gone back to their natural food supply and ignoring my offerings. I’m sure they will return whenever the next blast of winter reappears.

The warm winter evenings have tempted me outside my cabin on more than one occasion lately. When the wind is calm, walking in the woods at night is a rare pleasure. Two nights ago I could smell the snow, all crisp and cold. I didn’t take a headlamp, as white snow underfoot is just as good or even better. A thin slice of moon curled just above the horizon, a deep orange.

By summer, underbrush impedes such off-trail meanderings, which accounts for the rarity of such an adventure. I try to look at everything, to memorize the sky, the moon. I draw the winter scents deeply into my lungs, somehow hoping they won’t disappear as soon as I’m inside again. I never know how long it might be before another chance to wander at night comes my way. Better to take advantage while I can.

Foggy morning

2012-01-24T12:51:00.001-05:00

View from the backyard of dad's farm (west), taken on Saturday

Fog still obscures Roundtop mountain this morning. Trees are just shadows of their clear-day selves. The distance is entirely invisible, lost in the grayish white of snow and fog. Sounds are amplified or distorted, seemingly disembodied from any one place.

It’s as though nothing exists beyond a middle distance. My cabin, the trees that surround it may as well be the only thing in this world that’s closer to a dreamscape than a landscape.

Dog and I penetrate the shadows carefully, slowly, avoiding the ice. Dog is elderly now and more cautious than he used to be. He slips once but recovers. I move haltingly, afraid to slip. The headlamp does me no good. We move slowly, going half the distance, or less, than we usually do. He is glad, I think, when we turn around and head back. I know I am.

The fog is pretty, in the way that things that are different are pretty or at least interesting. After a day or so the novelty wears off, long before the fog does.

Snow! (and ice and fog and ice fog)

2012-01-23T11:03:00.000-05:00

Odd, how a few inches of snow has changed my mood, softening my anxious mind. Winter looks like winter for the first time this year. The season is as it should be, for at least the next little while.

Winters should not feel and look like November, or like a winter in Georgia, when I live on a mountain in Pennsylvania. Now that I have snow, winter feels like itself again. I only hope it’s not a momentary aberration.

The dreaded ice storm did not materialize, though this morning produced a bit of freezing drizzle. I even have an ice fog, as you can tell from this morning’s photo. That is an uncommon occurrence here. Fog usually comes with warmer temperatures.

The feeder birds suddenly remember where my feeders are and have arrived hungry and demanding. So far, no unusual or even uncommon species are in evidence, just the usual suspects—titmice, chickadees, nuthatches, a wary blue jay, the odd starling and the like.

In this era of warming trends, it’s comforting to know that winter is not yet dead. Doom and gloom can wait for another day. Or year. Or decade.

Snow! (I hope)

2012-01-20T13:30:00.001-05:00

This may turn out to be the last non-snowy photo you see on Roundtop Ruminations for a while. If the forecast holds true, I will see 3-5 inches of snow tonight. If the forecast is not true, I will end up with ice. I'm trying to ignore that as a possibility.

I enjoy a fine, snowy winter. To me that also means birds at my feeders, a warm fire, dogs and cats at my feet, a good book, warm sweaters and a mug of something hot and steaming or compfortably alcoholic, depending on the time of day. I can do most of those things when there's no snow, but snow completes the picture for me. A non-snowy winter is simply less fun and a lot less pretty, despite the clouds in this photo. A pink sunrise is glorious whatever the season. But sunrises soon fade, replaced by lots of brown during the rest of the day. Snow on the ground is something I can enjoy all day long.

This time of year, 3-5 inches of snow would normally not be something to crow about. This year it's the best we can manage so far. Therefore, I will.crow in anticipation. And continue to ignore the possibility of ice.

Woodland surprise

2012-01-19T16:15:00.000-05:00

I must confess that when I first saw what you see in today's photo, I didn't think it was what it turned out to be.

I'm finding this brown winter difficult, sometimes, to photograph. Landscapes, particularly, aren't satisfying me at all, so I decided to wander across my little patch of forest and look for small things that came my way. And that's how I found this.

When I first saw it, I thought it was a curled up catepillar. Readers from this region certain know about wooly bear catepillars that local legends say predicts the weather by the size of their red and black bands. That legend aside, when you pick up one of those, they curl up into a defensive little fuzzy ball. And when I first found this, I thought it was some catepillar, though obviously not the red and black wooly bear, that was doing the same defensive move.

But then I touched it and turned it over and discovered it was the underside of a piece of fungus or mushroom, species unknown to me. I still can't tell you what kind it is. Only this piece of it was left. Somehow it hadn't rotted or turned black in the winter. I just liked how it looked, a little not-caterpillar curled up among the leaves.

Is it real or is it...?

2012-01-18T13:11:00.000-05:00

Can you tell by looking that this isn’t natural snow? I hesitate to call it fake snow, which in my mind implies plastic or some other non-snow material. This is manmade snow from the ski resort that blew over to the bottom of my lane during fierce winds yesterday.

During this snow-less and mostly warm-ish winter, the neighboring ski resort has been forced to make snow when they can, which hasn’t been all that often. They make snow by shooting aerated water over the ski slopes when the temperature is below freezing. Voila! Snow results.

I can’t tell you the number of times people have asked me in October when the ski resort was going to make snow. It’s the kind of question for which guest service people like to make up snarky answers that of course are never delivered to the callers. The second question in a similar vein that we often get is “It’s 31 degrees (at my house at 6 a.m.), why aren’t you making snow?” The answer to that one is a tad more complicated, but usually boils down to the fact that the ski resort isn’t at their house, and it doesn’t do the resort much good if the temperature isn’t below freezing throughout the majority of the night (as opposed to just at 6 a.m.). The ski resort is at the mercy of Mother Nature like everyone else.

When you look at this manufactured snow up close, the flakes look a lot like naturally falling snowflakes, but there are some differences. Typically, the natural snowflakes are more complex, with more points and more variety to their shapes. At least most of the time. Even natural snowflakes have several general types that are shaped by temperature, ice and wind. There’s the dendrite snowflake, the plate snowflake, the plate-dendritic snowflake that starts as a plate-shaped and ends as a dendric type. There’s simple prisms, stellar plates, sectored plates, stellar dendrites, and at least a dozen more types of more and less complexity. Manmade snow always has fewer points and less definition but sometimes natural snowflakes are just as lacking in complexity and diversity.

This morning, after I took this photo, I had the natural kind of snow, too. Typical of this winter, it didn’t last long.

Nature's Ice Sculpture (Weird)

2012-01-17T10:40:00.000-05:00

Who am I to call Grandmother Nature’s ice sculptures weird? Perhaps I’m just not able to appreciate her handiwork in all its complexity. Interesting? Of course, but the artistry needs a bit of work, in my opinion.

Winter made a brief visit to the mountain this weekend, with temperatures dipping below the ‘teens overnight and that made even worse both by a substantial wind and the rapid drop from above normal temperatures. Our bodies just aren’t made to get used to quick changes in temperatures.

Never fear! Winter wasn’t moving in after all, just checking out the accommodations (and apparently finding them not to her liking) because today the weather is warmer again.

The warm winter is having an adverse effect on my sleeping. Not because I toss and turn. Oh, no. It’s because the raccoons are still around and attempting to forage in my bird feeders at night. Last night Pig the raccoon (or its latest incarnation) attempted the raid five different times. That means Baby Dog’s wild barking woke me up five different times, and both meant I had to go to the door, turn on the light and save the day by shooing Pig off the deck and away from the feeders.

Pig is not the dumbest raccoon on the block as each attempt was slightly different. The first time was the straight on approach across the deck railing. The second was the most inventive, mounting the assault from a nearby tree. Pig was balanced precariously on a branch that was much too small for his girth. That attack never would have worked, even had I not shushed him away. The branch would have broken or Pig would have fallen or simply been forced to retreat.

The next time, the assault came from up the stairs, as though tiptoeing across the deck was the answer. That didn’t work either. The next time was an assault up the railing of my raised deck. Truthfully, I’ve forgotten what happened the last time. By then I was a bit punchy from the constant awakenings.

Tonight? The birds will have to do without their crack-of-dawn feeding tomorrow morning, because that feeder will not be outside overnight.

Dark and stormy

2012-01-13T10:12:00.001-05:00

The morning the sky is dark and angry. Snow blew sideways, like scores of white ribbons waving in the wind. Large white flakes didn’t so much sting as bite. I turned my back to avoid those bites. Dog was soon dusted, like a canine sugar doughnut, though his thick and long fur protected him from the biting snow.

As quickly as it started, the snow was over, leaving only the angry clouds and a momentary covering of snow on the ground. And the wind. And the much colder temperatures. Winter has returned to the mountains.

Last night, before winter arrived, I took a late evening walk in the warm rain, only partially protected from the wet. I don’t mind the rain or the cold that came today, but I don’t do wind very well. I’ve tried to learn to enjoy the experience of it, to take some enjoyment in its fierce wildness, but I’m not doing very well with that. When the wind arrives, my favored response is to retreat to the warmth of the cabin and wait for it to grow calm again.

I have tried to analyze this aversion, in some hope that I can find a way through or around it. To no avail. When I’m in the woods, I use all my senses, sight and smell and hearing. When the wind roars, that is disrupted. Watering eyes limit seeing, and even when I can avoid that, I find the birds and animals I look for are hunkered down, away from the wind and not very interested in being out and about or seen. The only sound I can hear is the wind itself. Bird calls, the stamp of a deer are all covered by the wind.

The wind tears at uncovered skin, reddening it, making it numb. My hands are covered, my face is covered, my eyes hide behind goggles. I may as well be a deep sea diver, so covered and so protected, so distant from the experience am I. And yet even with all that, the wind finds tiny openings, a pinhole perhaps, to force its way past my armor.

Wind reigns supreme and I retreat. The warm, calm cabin awaits.

2012-01-12T09:40:00.002-05:00

Foggy morning

Fog has ruled the mornings here on Roundtop the past few mornings. It’s the kind of fog that might make for a good photo at 10 a.m., but certainly not at 7:30 a.m. when I am out and about. So today’s photo is not current. I took it earlier in the week when the fog wasn’t so soupy.

The spate of mild January weather is soon to end with a bit of snow and a lot of wind. It will come as a shock to all, from me to the wintering animals. I miss having a snowy winter and I worry about how this might signal yet more climate change. Still, the balmy temperatures are easier on my heating bill and make the outside chores a lot easier. And that’s all about to come to a screeching halt. I am trying to prepare myself for the sudden change, but winters are much easier to grow accustomed to when the temperature changes little by little.

At least I know the change is coming and can prepare for it in some ways. How much can the deer do? The summer fawns know little of winter’s harshness, and the old does are likely not looking forward to it. The squirrels should be fine. Those fat little rats with bushy tails eat more birdseed than the birds do. The winter birds have largely ignored my feeders for much of the winter so far. Now, they will have to push the squirrels away to get anything. I’m confident the local birds at least know where my feeders are, even if they haven’t partaken of it much.

So, though it’s long overdue, winter appears poised to make an appearance. Whether it will take up residence just for a few days or for the duration is anyone’s guess.

Listening

2012-01-10T15:34:00.000-05:00

Yellow Breeches Creek - Bowmansdale, Pennsylvania

Winter is a good time for listening. Last night fog reflected light from the full moon and made the winter woods nearly as bright as dusk. I could see as far into the forest as hills would allow. The air was damp, ahead of more rain (!) tomorrow, but the wind was calm. Standing outside, I listened to the call of a very distant great horned owl somewhere far down in the valley.

Somewhere nearby, I’m certain, other people must have been around. Perhaps an employee of the ski area, locking the lodge door after closing for the night, though I didn’t hear a sound or see a sign of anyone. For all I could sense, I was alone on the mountain, with only the owl or the occasional snap or crunch to break the stillness. The deer, likely were feeding just out of sight.

I have long loved the quiet of a calm winter night. Summer’s nights are never so still or so quiet. The leaves whisper too much, like the town gossip. Perhaps they have much news to spread in the half year of their existence. In winter, covering the ground, they are quiet, unless an unwary deer awakens one with a misstep.

In winter, the silent woods makes my senses seem stronger. I hear only distant sounds, a train whistle, the pounding of the train on the rails, a dog on the other side of the mountain. In warmer months, those all are too faint to compete with the rustle of millions of leaves. But not in winter.

I am surprised, often, by just how quiet the night can be. I don’t hear shouts or calls from people, even those that live within a mile. Surely those would be as loud as a dog’s bark. I don’t hear doors slam either, not car doors or house doors. In fact, I rarely hear the sound of a car at all. Are those quieter than a tree falling or a train whistle?

And so I stand outside, listening not for breaks in the silence so much as to the silence itself. I find the quiet comforting. The quiet tells me all around my little corner of the territory is well. Winter is a good time for listening.

Bad boy!

2012-01-09T13:02:00.000-05:00

Sharp-shinned hawk - likely a male

This bad boy was likely the reason I was foiled this weekend in my quest to add a few new sparrow species to my 2012 bird list. Mr. sharp-shinned hawk was plying the air around my cabin on both Saturday and Sunday. I was hard-pressed to find even one unwary junco out and about, let alone anything else.

The local crows spent the weekend alarming the forest, screeching at the sharpie and adding to the cacophany that was also augmented by pileated woodpeckers and blue jays alike. The little birds hid. The larger birds were outraged and were not above letting everyone know about their outrage. Even the squirrels got into the act, though their constant chattering did not stop them from foraging at my bird feeders.

Life in the forest is not always quiet and serene. Sometimes it's as noisy as a chain saw. This was one of those weekends.

Darkened times

2012-01-06T15:06:00.000-05:00

Pinchot Lakte, drained

Sometimes I wonder what the point is of looking forward to the weekend. They are over in the blink of an eye. That seems especially true in winter when the days are so short.

One of the reasons I like to rise early, whatever the day, is so that I don’t waste what is already precious little time. I confess that rising before dawn’s light can be more difficult in winter. Climbing out of a warm bed is never easy and is only made worse by darkness. In winter, I try to time it so that by the time I’m dressed, the animals fed and me with coffee in hand, light is already beginning to seep through the darkened woods.

This time of year, the only time I get to see the birds that come to my feeders is on the weekends. It is starting to be light enough in the mornings that it won’t be long before I can enjoy breakfast and the birds at the same time. Maybe even next week if it’s not cloudy in the mornings. At least I hope it will be next week.

Weeks will pass before the evenings are light enough for me to enjoy them. These days, I couldn’t live without my headlamp, and I run through batteries like water. Every now and again I remind myself that if I’d lived 100 years ago, I’d be doing the same things I do today but it would take twice as long to accomplish them since one hand would be carrying a lantern. That’s cold comfort.

The lack of daylight is winter’s cruelest twist, I feel. Cold weather has never bothered me. I prefer the cold to the heat. It’s the short days that rub, that make time slip away even faster than it usually does.

Not looking very much like winter

2012-01-05T14:16:00.000-05:00

January has only just started, but I’m already wondering how much winter I’m going to see this year. So far the season is not impressive. Open water? Got that. No snow cover? Got that. One day of winter temperatures sandwiched between 50 degree weather? Got that.

Even looking out a full week, nothing is on the horizon or further west that signals an approaching storm or spate of winter-normal temperatures. It’s mid-November all over again. Even the winter birding feeding has slowed, as though the feeder birds are still finding natural food.

Winter could still arrive with a vengeance, but even if it does, winter is unlikely to last much past late March. So instead of winter weather beginning by Thanksgiving and lasting until late March, a span of some 16 weeks, a winter that begins in mid-January is one that will last only about 9-10 weeks. And even that assumes actual winter weather will begin by the middle of next week. It seems as though the weird weather of 2011 is stretching over into 2012, too. I just hope 2012 doesn’t bring another tornado, earthquake, the hurricanes or another 6ft. of rain to Roundtop Mtn.

2012-01-04T10:29:00.000-05:00

Hooded merganser (male)

After the horse roundup I wrote about in yesterday’s post, I proceeded on to the Susquehanna River to do my planned new year’s birding. Overall, I had a successful, if not an outstanding day. I ended up with 33 species of birds, well short of the 40 I believe is possible in York County in early January. High winds kept the count of little birds less than I’d hoped; high water kept me from reaching one area where I’d planned to bird heavily, and a variety of duck species were also nowhere to be found.

2nd year Bald Eagle

That said, the day was certainly not without some great sightings (if not great photos). My first not great photo today is of a male hooded merganser. Many people think the male wood duck is the prettiest North American duck, but the male hooded merganser can’t be far behind. These little diving ducks are pretty shy, too, so I was glad to get any photo at all, especially since I was shooting from inside the car and from across a road. After a few shots I tried to get closer, and all that accomplished was that the duck slipped out of sight and hid in the underbrush.

My second photo today is of a young bald eagle, likely a second year bird. It was high and soaring in less than optimal light, so the markings are not as distinct as I’d like. Bald eagles can virtually be counted as common these days, a fact I still find amazing. Back in the bad old days after DDT, bald eagles were rare in the east. Seeing one was a cause for a major celebration. Now, in migration I’ve had days when I’ve seen more than 20 in a single day. And on this trip I saw 2, both younger birds.

So my 2012 York County bird list is started, if not yet firing on all cylinders. Next, I need to concentrate on finding some of those missing ducks and sparrows!

I don't see this every day

2012-01-03T12:35:00.000-05:00

Fireworks from the deck of my cabin

As readers of Roundtop Ruminations might remember, my plan for the New Year’s weekend included some birding to start the new year off properly. I birded a bit on January 1, after watching a midnight fireworks display put up by the ski resort from the front door of my cabin.

I’d also planned to go birding a bit more extensively on January 2, as I wouldn’t have my family’s traditional pork and sauerkraut dinner to attend in the middle of the day.

True to the plan I set off in the morning, heading towards the Susquehanna River, about 10 miles from the cabin. While on the way, I was driving past this farm that raises alpacas. The farm is run by what some would call a gentleman farmer. That simply means someone whose main livelihood does not come from farming. For a while the folks raised horses and then the horses gave way to sheep and a few years ago the alpacas arrived.

Anyway, as I was driving past, I looked up their long, long driveway (close to .25 mile) and saw two horses walking down the driveway along the fence. Both horses had expensive blankets on. It was only half a second after I’d passed the driveway that I realized the horses weren’t inside the fence but actually walking down the driveway all by themselves. So I stopped the car and backed up. By this time, the horses had reached the end of the driveway to appear on the public road.

So I got out and walked up to the grey horse (the other was black with a lot of white markings) and caught it by the halter. I tried to catch the second horse but he tossed his head a bit so I figured I’d better just take one at a time. I started to walk the one horse up the driveway and saw a gate to the big pasture where the alpacas were. Rather than walk the whole way up the driveway and then go back for the second horse, I figured I’d put the first one in the pasture and then go back and see if I could catch the second horse. By this time, the second horse had crossed the road, and a car came by (filled with teenaged skiers who avoided the horse but kept on going).

Then the second horse showed up next to me, following his friend, though I wasn’t leading him. So I opened the gate (the alpacas are on the other side of the pasture, which must be 5-6 acres). I lead the grey horse in and the second horse follows. Then I release them and go out, closing the gate behind me. The horses start running across the pasture, having a wonderful time. They reach the alpacas and they run a bit, too.

So now, I figure I’d better let someone know that I put these horses in the pasture with the alpacas. I was going to call the police, but out at the road, I saw a sign for the farm and it had a phone number on it. So I called. After 5-6 rings a man answered and I told him his horses were loose and that I caught them and put them in the pasture with the alpacas. And the man said, “They’re not my horses.”

Now would be a good time to report that this was not my first livestock roundup. In fact, in this rural area, they happen rather frequently. I’d say once a year is about right. Usually, it’s cows or sheep that escape, though these were not even my first horse adventurers. This past spring I encountered a tiny calf that had wandered out onto a road by easily walking underneath an electric fence that kept mamma on the other side. That little one was herded back in without further incident. The strangest roundup happened years ago near Hawk Mountain Sanctuary when friends and I were returning from an evening dinner only to find a bison calmly lying in the middle of the road. That one had broken out of its pasture and was enjoying the warmth of the macadam on a chilly November evening. In those pre-cellphone days we were lucky to find the owners at home and left them to manage the animal.

But on this day, I discovered I’d just put two horses in a pasture where they didn’t belong with a herd of alpacas. Half-panicked, I apologized profusely to the man and told I’d seen the horses walking down his driveway from up by the barn somewhere and I just assumed they were his. “No,” he said. “I think they belong up the road. I’ve been trying to call but I’m not getting an answer.” I apologized again, and said I was afraid they’d get hit out on the road. To my great relief, the man didn’t seem upset that I’d just put two strange horses in the pasture with his alpacas. When I eventually rang off, the man was going to try and find the horses’ owners, and the two escapees were still in pasture with the alpacas. So I got back in my car and went birding. Isn’t that something? What a way to start the new year!

A winter's morning

2011-12-30T12:12:00.000-05:00

December is a good time for sunrise and sunset photos. You need interesting cloud cover to make a good sunrise or sunset photo, and I guess Roundtop gets a lot of that in December. Last night I had a dusting of snow up on the mountain, and at dawn the clouds were still pretty thick, if already beginning to clear.

The landscape is starting to look more like winter now. It is cold, too, but not the bone-chilling mid-winter kind of cold. Still, it's got me thinking I should soon dig out my down parka, which is somewhere in the back of the closet.

The ski resort opened this morning, though only with a few slopes. People were already lining up when I left the mountain. The night time temperatures here just haven’t been cold enough yet to make a lot of snow. That will change after New Year’s, if the forecast is at all correct. The temperature will drop and the wind will rise. Well, what do I expect? It will be January.

What will be different this year for me is that the ski resort is planning fireworks on New Year’s Eve. I will have a ringside seat for that, which should be fun. Usually, I don’t stay up to midnight, though I’m not infrequently awakened by the sound of fireworks from elsewhere, or even homegrown fireworks or gunshots. The dogs are quick to bark at any noise and their noise is more likely to awaken me than the shooting or fireworks themselves. I wonder what they will think of fireworks? It won’t be long before I find out the answer to that one.

Wishing and hoping

2011-12-29T10:24:00.000-05:00

Along Mt. Airy Rd. - gorgeous sunrise light

Now that Christmas is over, with no more presents to be bought or opened, no more food to be cooked or eaten, my mind automatically turns to what comes next. For me, this means the start of a new year and with that, the start of a new bird list.

For many years I’ve been atop the Ebird listings in my home county. My county is where I have always done the bulk of my birding. I haven’t the means or the time to travel any further than that to maintain a sighting list. Even so, for the last few years, family and work obligations have kept me from doing much birding. EBird, that Cornell database of bird sightings from literally everywhere, has also become more popular and more used. Those two facts combined to drop me further down the leaderboard than I am used to finding myself.

Now truth be told, I am not much of a lister when it comes to my bird sightings. But I am rather competitive, so finding my name further down than the top of the list simply does not sit well with me. As a result, I am planning to start 2012 with some serious birding, in hopes that during the new year I will have again have the time to put into keeping my name atop the county list.

This week I am planning my assault to regain my top slot. That means figuring out where I will bird over January 1 and 2, planning the route and configuring the GPS to get me from here to there in the fastest time possible. It means having the camera ready to record anything exotic or so unusual that no one will believe that I saw it without documentation. It means studying and re-studying my bird books to make sure I can quickly ID every distant and fast-moving speck of a bird in an instant (ha!).

Now I have no idea if work, family and better birders will keep me from seriously working my list in 2012, but I’m determined to get a good start on the year. York County is not a birder’s paradise, either, so those of us crazed enough to seriously bird here (likely for the same reasons I have—lack of means and time) will never be at the same level of competition as those souls from, say, Cape May County in New Jersey.

None of that is the point. The point is I can start a new list with the new year and maybe, just maybe, in 2012 I will get to see oodles of really good birds. And see my name back at the top of the county list again. Hope—that’s what the new year always brings.

It's only time

2011-12-28T11:23:00.000-05:00

Christmas fern

Is it my imagination or is it already possible to tell that the days are longer? Here in my corner of Pennsylvania, the days only lengthen at this time of year by a minute each day.

In fact the sunrise is now actually later than it was on the solstice, when it rose at 7:26 a.m. Sunrise is now at 7:29 a.m., on its way to a sunrise of 7:30 a.m., where it will remain until January 9, when it will inch back one minute. It’s the sunsets that are arriving later now. Still the earliest sunset was not on the solstice but from December 4-11, when the sun set each day at 4:42 p.m.

Today the sun sets at 4:50 p.m., and it’s only when you add up the daylight hours between the sunrises and the sunsets that you can find the shortest day on December 22. I am nearly always up before sunrise in all seasons of the year, but I can already tell when I return to the cabin in the evenings that it’s not as dark as it was during that long, dark week after Thanksgiving. So the day feels longer to me, though the actual length of the daylight hours is hardly different. Somehow, those few minutes seem to make a big difference.

My photo today is of the common Christmas fern, which is lovely even in winter. The fern retains its bright green color, even though the fronds no longer stand up and are nearly hidden by the fallen leaves.

Not a white Christmas

2011-12-27T12:11:00.000-05:00

Old bridge and steers - near Bowmansdale, Pennsylvania

It didn’t snow on Roundtop for Christmas this year. In fact, the ski area on the mountain was not even able to make enough snow over the past few weeks to open for the season yet. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is normally their biggest week of the year, so when they lose Christmas week, much of the season goes with it. I’ve lived on Roundtop Mtn. nearly 20 years now, and I believe this is only the second time the ski area hasn’t been open for Christmas week (though they’ve had some close calls).

As I am typing, it is raining again. The rain today will certainly push 2011’s rain total above 60 inches, which is nearly twice what this area normally sees. Given the weird weather this year, I’m about half afraid 2012 will bring no rain at all.

Snow or no snow, Christmas on Roundtop is both fun and hectic. Without skiers, the holiday was much quieter than is typical—unless you count the nightly raccoon attacks on the bird feeders, which has shortened my sleep every night this week. I’d be happily content to let the raccoon eat all the bird seed and even the feeders themselves, if only Baby Dog wouldn’t wake me up with her barking to announce their arrival.

I did take advantage of the quiet to wander through the brown forests of the mountain. Not much is going on. The woods are still and quiet and brown, and I’m starting to find the snowless winter difficult to photograph in any way that I find interesting. Better lighting would help or at least clearer skies, though I find it hard to get very excited about winter without snow.

Odds and ends

2011-12-21T15:41:00.000-05:00

This is the last of my Sunday snow photos, a view from my back deck. I’ve always had a soft spot for that big rock. Boulders of all sizes are common in this area of Pennsylvania, but they appear where they choose, sometimes a forest is dense with them, while nearby there are none. That rock is “mine,” the largest on my property. I have a few other almost-boulders, too, but none are larger than this one.

Don’t expect any sun photos tomorrow, neither setting nor rising, to mark the solstice. I am socked in with rain and fog. Solstice means the days will again grow longer, but I won’t be able to see evidence of the return of the light until the sky clears.

It always seems a bit odd to me that the days begin to lengthen just as winter begins. To me it would feel more appropriate if longer days began midway through winter—to mark the beginning of the ending of that season. I understand the science behind how the seasons operate. I just feel, emotionally, that they should operate differently.

The fog on the mountain makes sounds travel further than usual, but I think that distance distorts the sounds I hear, too. Last night I’d almost convinced myself I heard wood frogs in the distance. It’s warmer than average for late December, but it’s not warm enough for that. Those little frogs are buried in some nice deep mud by now. They may deign to reappear in very late February if there’s a warm spate of days. Late March is more likely.

Sun or no sun, frogs or no frogs, autumn will end today, and by the time I wake in the morning, a new season, a new day, a longer day will be here. Let the season begin. Winter is here.

A little light at night

2011-12-20T14:33:00.000-05:00

Snow on marcescent American beech leaf

The snow of Sunday morning is gone, leaving in its wake weather warmer than normal for late December. The ski resort will likely not be able to open for at least part of the Christmas week, traditionally its biggest week of the entire ski season.

Crews make snow for 2-3 nights, then it rains and ruins it all. They make snow again for 2-3 nights and then it warms up and the newly-made snow melts. My weather forecast predicts rain and above freezing nights over the next few days. The crew needs temperatures below freezing by at least a few degrees for most of the night in order to make snow.

When crews make snow, the lights along the slopes are lit, and when they aren’t, all the lights are off. You would think I would see a big difference whether the lights are on or off, but most of the time I don’t. Over by my cabin, I get a fair amount of winter light from the night sky. It’s actually lighter at night in the winter without Roundtop’s lights than it is in the summer when all the leaves are on the trees.

Of course, a few leaves remain on the trees most of the winter. The American beech tree retains many of its leaves right up until the dead ones are pushed off the twigs by the new growth in spring. A few years ago I learned this is called marcescence, which means the leaves wither but don’t fall off.

Theories abound about the purpose of marcescence, but from what I’ve read nobody really knows why some leaves don’t fall off. Certain species, like beech, are more prone to it than other species. Younger trees and the lower branches also seem more likely to display marcescence.

Still, the vast majority of the trees have lost all their leaves, and that lets the light of the wintry night shine all the way down by my cabin.

Snowy surprise

2011-12-19T12:08:00.000-05:00

I woke up to a bit of snow on Sunday morning, which was something of a surprise. On Saturday afternoon, snow showers were the order of the day, but the snow was so fine I could only see it against a background of dark green spruces. By late evening, the snow showers seemed over, and I even saw a few stars when I ran the dogs outside for the last time.

So I was not expecting to wake up to a pretty little dusting of snow the next morning. Fearing the snow would not last through the morning, I took this photo before the day was well lit, and the snow still threatened to obscure the western mountain. The dogs were just as excited as I was, more so actually.

My dogs forget everything they have ever learned when they see snow. They forget their names, let alone any of those tedious commands I spend so much time trying to teach them. The term “domesticated” does not apply to them when snow is on the ground. They turn wild as quickly as I turn off a light switch, wolfishly dipping their noses into the white stuff and racing along a trail. They are shocked, dumbfounded even, when they reach the end of the long lead and are forced to a neck-rattling stop, leaving me with a sore arm. Truly, snow makes them feral.

I, myself, am too domesticated to turn feral so quickly. I need a couple of days, at least.

Perhaps some would disagree.

Unexpected weirdness

2011-12-16T14:56:00.000-05:00

I can’t really give you a good reason why I like this photo of vines twisted around a couple of saplings. I just do. Perhaps it’s the way the morning light warms the background, perhaps it’s the twists themselves. No matter.

Last night I was watching a TV show on DVD on my computer. The show took place in a rural setting, and in the background of one of the scenes I could hear a red fox barking. Now, this sound was probably added in some studio, simply as a way to add more “atmosphere” to the scene. I probably wasn’t even supposed to notice the sound, but being the kind of person I am, I did. And so did my dogs.

Dog and Baby Dog went nuts. They are attuned to the sound of a fox barking as much as I am. We have suffered many fox attacks on my poor chickens in the middle of the night. A pair of local foxes lives near the cabin and frequently bark to tell each other where the other is. I’ve had them gallop under the cabin, under one side and out the other. I’ve had them race down my driveway.

Well, those two dogs thought I had a red fox in the bedroom. They started barking, which soon turned into howling and later degenerated into lunging, utter chaos and full-scale destruction. The cats scattered and hid under the nearest piece of furniture. I had to the turn the DVD off to get them to calm down.

That’s the first thing they’ve ever paid attention to on the TV or computer. They totally ignore dogs barking on TV. They ignore wolves howling. Nothing else on TV has ever made me think they even heard the sound. But they sure heard that fox.

2011-12-15T12:55:00.000-05:00

Frosted moss

After several mornings with a heavy frost, today the forest at Roundtop is somewhat warmer ahead of a showery afternoon. As is to be expected on such a day, the sky is grey and heavy with clouds. Though warmer, the day is still not so very warm. With a bit of a breeze and the dampness in the air, the day is verging on raw.

Even though the sun is now well above the horizon, I wouldn’t want to bet I could get a decent photo in this light. So today I am posting a photo from yesterday, a lovely moss, dusted with frost. I must confess that although I love mosses, I am virtually incompetent at identifying them. Partly the fault is in the available guides, partly it’s the mosses themselves, which often require a microscope or at least an excellent hand lens to be reasonably sure of them. I look at the super close-up moss photos and find I don’t have a glass that lets me see them in that fine a detail. Photos in field guides taken from further away all look the same to me. A good moss class is probably what I need, but there’s not much hope of finding one of those that’s free, within a reasonable driving distance and at a time that’s convenient for me to attend. So I remain incompetent at identifying them. Instead I will have to be content merely to admire their delicate beauty.

A fern in frost

2011-12-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

Christmas fern (frosted)

In my winter landscape, not much has a color other than some shade of brown. So when I’m out in the woods, anything that is non-brown is quick to catch my eye. One thing I always know to look for is the Christmas fern.

Christmas ferns stay green all winter, though they flatten out and don’t stand up the way they do during the growing season. Because they stay green, they were favored as household Christmas decorations at least as late as the 19th Century, particularly in those pre-electricity, pre-Christmas lights days that seem unimaginable today.

And really, those days were not that long ago. Even my father claims (though my mother always denied) that he did his schoolwork by a kerosene lantern because rural electrification did not arrive until he was in high school. Going into the forest to cut the fronds of the fern that soon came to be called a Christmas fern was a family tradition, as much as going to a farm to get a tree is today.

I’ve always tried to picture, and usually my imagination fails me, those Victorian ladies in their corsets and long skirts out in a forest delicately snipping Christmas ferns with their sewing scissors to decorate their living rooms and hallways. I just can’t make that whole picture work. But so they did, or so I’m told.

Today’s Christmas fern captured my eye because of the frost on the fronds, but I would have been just as glad to see it for its greenery alone on this grey day in an otherwise brown landscape.

Sunrise snowmaking

2011-12-13T12:19:00.000-05:00

As the season is now in that time where little is green or growing, I set off this morning looking for tiny things to photograph. I looked at the designs made by frost. I looked at brown and dried things, some of which were unrecognizable in their current state (though I’m sure I knew what they were when they were green). I looked at twisted vines, frost-stunted mosses, and Christmas ferns laying flat on the forest floor.

And then I turned around and saw the sunrise and decided the little things can wait another day, perhaps for a grey day when winter’s poor morning light foils any attempts at photography. But had I not spent those minutes looking for those little gifts of the forest, I wouldn’t have seen the sun rise in all its glory over the eastern mountains.

Winter mountains, winter fields

2011-12-12T13:48:00.000-05:00

South Mountains

Clear and cold, a perfect almost-winter weekend at my cabin, at least as far as the weather goes. After the surprise snowstorm in late October, I spent time on Sunday getting the chickens ready for winter. The early snowstorm gave little notice and the work I did to get them through it was just a stopgap measure. This time I did the job properly, so now they are protected and ready for winter.

I didn’t do this work any too soon. This morning the chicken water was frozen solid. Fortunately, in winter I have a second waterer so I can switch them back and forth between frozen and not-frozen. I bring the frozen one into the house, set it in a sink or bathtub and let it thaw. Twelve hours later, I repeat the process.

Sunday, the weather never got above freezing at my cabin. Roundtop made snow all weekend except for a few hours on Sunday afternoon. When they turned the guns off, I checked my thermometer, thinking the temperature had finally reached 32. Maybe over on the sunny ski slopes the temperature got too warm to make snow, but at my cabin it never got there.

The mountain and the area around my cabin look like early winter now, lacking only a cover of snow to complete the picture. In my mind, the brown November landscape starts to take shape once the harvests are over. The harvest was finished in October, and the the brown November landscape is just showing up in mid-December this year.

Snowmaking!

2011-12-09T13:32:00.000-05:00

Snowmaking for the new ski season has started at Roundtop!

I first heard the sound of the snowmaking guns shortly before 9 p.m. last night, and it took a few minutes for the sound to register. It's a bit like remembering what a robin's song is the first time you hear it in the spring after months of not hearing it at all. Finally, it occured to me that I'd been hearing the sound for a few minutes. Snowmaking!

My cabin is on the west side of the mountain, and over there the sound isn't all that loud. If you've ever heard grain being milled, that's a similar sound, just a constant hum. It's only when I walk down around the slopes that the noise can get pretty loud. It's not so loud that I can't deal with it, but it is too loud for the dogs. It hurts their very sensitive ears.

This morning I discovered that I'd forgotten another aspect of the dogs and the snowmaking guns. They can't hear me over the guns even when we're not close enough for the sound to hurt their ears. For a few minutes I just thought they were being exceptionally bad, and then I remembered. Some days I'm not sure which of us needs more training--them or me.

If the weather holds, Roundtop will probably open for skiing sometime next week. When the weather stays cold, it doesn't take the snowmaking crew very long to cover the mountain well enough to open for business. Even after the mountain is open, they will continue to make snow to build up the base. Later in the season they will make snow to cover up any melting spots.

In the first photo, you can just barely see what looks like windblown snow at the top of the mountain. That's from the snowmaking. Natural snow still covered the top of the mountain but melted off the lower section during the day on Thursday. The snow you see in the foreground of the second photo is the remains of the natural snow I had on Wednesday night.You can also see one of the snowmaking guns on the right side of the second photo.

It won't be long before the skiers arrive!

Snow!

2011-12-08T12:21:00.000-05:00

Snow arrived with a bang and a flourish last night. The temperature dropped some 20 degrees in a matter of 90 minutes. The bang was provided by thunder. At the time I heard the thunder, it was still raining torrents, and though the snow started within minutes after the thunder, I’m not sure I can accurately call it a thundersnow. Close, but no cigar.

It was a vicious storm, thankfully gone this morning. It’s a rare day when I’m under both a winter storm warning and a flood warning. I ended up with less snow than was predicted. What did fall is now pasted to the sides of the trees and makes them, at least to my eyes, look almost like white birch trees instead of the oaks that make up the bulk of the forest at Roundtop.

The extreme change in weather brought another kind of flood to my doorstep. The wintering birds arrived at my feeders before dawn, first demanding food and then announcing its presence. The birds even arrived before the squirrels, for once. The unseasonably warm weather let the birds find natural food later into the season than is typical. Obviously, judging by their instantaneous arrive, the birds knew the feeders were armed and loaded even if they didn’t partake of them. Add a dollop of snow to the landscape and suddenly dozens of them appear.

The calendar won’t proclaim winter for another few weeks, yet, but at least for the moment, that season has arrived on Roundtop.

Grey

2011-12-06T14:48:00.000-05:00

It’s gray today. Or perhaps grey. I'm never sure. And foggy, when it’s not raining. In other words, the day is about as gloomy as a day can be. Sound travels better in the thick air, making distant sounds audible and nearer sounds louder and jarring. Baby Dog skittered and barked when something over by the paintball fields clattered to the ground, not even making a loud sound. Even her barks sounded louder to me.

Early this morning a pileated woodpecker, loud on any day of the year, announced its presence as it flew from tree to tree, landing for just a moment or two before taking off for the next tree. It was, apparently, on some kind of woodpecker mission about something, but its goal was not clear to either human or canines.

A great blue heron stalked the edge of the pond, eyeing me warily but not flying off. Most of them have migrated, though a few always hang around. I’ve even seen them in snow, standing in a cold, rushing stream and looking miserable. The warm weather so far this December has likely kept this one from rushing further south and gives it no reason to look miserable, at least not at the moment.

Over by another pond, I hear the rattle of a belted kingfisher, another bird that can be seen more or less all year when open water remains. They disappear in an instant when everything freezes shut but somehow manage to reappear just as quickly on the first warm day when the water is flowing again, even temporarily.

I saw turkey vultures last evening, 6 or 7 of them. They rarely disappear over the winter entirely. Even after a heavy snow, I can often find them on the first sunny day after a storm. Where they go during the storms is anyone’s guess and something I’ve always wondered about. It can’t be far, but it’s not here.

For the moment, Roundtop is a stopping point for these birds. Most will stay as long as the weather holds. The woodpecker will stay regardless of the weather. The heron and the vultures are likely from further north, as the local birds of those species moved out several weeks ago. The presence of these birds here today tells me winter is approaching, even if it gives no immediate sign of arriving.

December ain't what it used to be

2011-12-05T13:13:00.000-05:00

Early December sunset from the cabin

Though December is barely started, already I can say that my warmer than normal November is turning into a warmer than normal December. The forecast for the next week or so continues that trend, though several upcoming days appear to be headed more towards normal than above normal. The result of the temperature and the rain forest-like precipitation experienced at Roundtop this year is that the forest around my cabin doesn’t look much like December. If I was being especially curmudgeonly today, I’d say it barely looks like late October.

Of course, that would be the late October of 20-30 years ago, not the late October of the past 5-10 years. Taking more recent history into consideration, I’d say the forest looks like almost mid-November. Still, I finally have back my full view out the western windows to gaze on all winter. Sometime in May, the woods will grow so thick that I won’t see a sunset again until roughly this point of the year. I actually have more sunlight in winter than in summer, despite the fewer hours of daylight now.

With one week of deer season gone and the second just starting, so far the semi-tame doe and her two fawns have survived. I saw all three of them this morning, safe at the bottom of my lane for the night. The problem is that they don’t stay where they are safe. They wander out on the abandoned ski slope to graze, but so far the hunters have ventured deeper into the woods and the trio has been safe.

Hunters seeking venison for the winter tend to get less picky about the deer they will take as the season progresses. At first, they want that good-sized buck, by which they normally mean a big deer with a big rack of antlers. If, after several days of hunting, such a creature does not materialize, they downsize their expectations to any sized buck with a legal rack. If that one doesn’t play out, by the end of the season they have doe season for several days, where just about anything goes. So this white-tailed family has a ways to go before the toughest thing they will have to deal with is the upcoming winter.

What worries me is that their tameness could be their undoing. Deer are curious, and these are no exception. It’s their curiosity that has caused them to become half-tame. I wouldn’t be surprised if they would walk right up to a hunter or a tree stand, just to check it out and see what it was. Normally, I don’t pay much attention to deer, mostly because it’s hard to tell one from another. I have watched this doe and her fawns all summer, from when the fawns were tiny, spotted things, just testing their feet for the first time on a dirt road and watching me walk by with the dogs. I think of them as neighbors now and hope they remain so.

A frosty morning

2011-12-02T11:21:00.000-05:00

The temperature dropped low enough for a decent frost last night, as you can see from today’s photos. November was unseasonably warm and frosts this season have been few and far between. Usually by this point in the year I’ve lost count of the number of frosts I’ve had.

The warmer weather has lulled me into poor thinking. In a normal year, the temperature slowly but steadily declines, week by week, after the fall equinox. Each little drop in temperature is a signal to me that winter is coming, and certain household projects should be accomplished in preparation. With the weather staying warmer than usual, it was easy to put off some of those jobs for (yet) another week. And now, suddenly, it is December.

The temperature is now just a bit warmer than is normal for here, which still feels a bit like a rude awakening. I’m rather far behind my winter readiness schedule, and I have no one to blame for my own procrastination. What is likely to happen—and likely to happen very shortly—is that winter will arrive with a bang. In other words, if I don’t get moving and quickly, I’m going to find myself hip-deep in snow, with the chickens still in their late fall quarters and stuff outside that should be inside.

So this weekend, I am resolved to ignore the warmer temperatures and get to it. No wandering around the woods this weekend, no hours of birdwatching or looking for things to photograph, just a weekend of work around the cabin (and with a few minutes of birdwatching and photographing, I hope). Just because the cold and snow is arriving late this year doesn’t mean it will wait for me.

2011-11-30T10:38:00.000-05:00

Along North Lewisberry Rd.

The morning light was especially lovely this last day of November. For some reason, I was late heading off the mountain, which resulted in the morning being brighter than at the time when I usually leave. I made myself even later by stopping to take a few photos of the light playing across a field. I figured that since I was already late, there was no harm in being a bit later, and light like this doesn’t come around every day.

Some days I have to consciously decide to spend more time enjoying my surroundings. It’s so easy, and so empty, to race from one thing to another. Now that I am older, I am more inclined to somehow make a few more moments for that enjoyment. My time on earth grows shorter with each passing day, and really, if I don’t enjoy myself along the way, what’s the point? Trying to make someone else happy is a fool’s errand, whether that person be a boss or a family member. If they aren’t happy, that’s their own problem to fix, not mine.

Still, I have to remind myself to slow down. It doesn’t come naturally to me. I tend to be way too logical and way too linear. What the shortest, fastest, most efficient way to accomplish this task? That thinking leads to nothing but frustration as nothing ever operates at maximum speed or efficiency. Often, I think that faster and more efficient will lead to more “free” time to enjoy my surroundings. Over the years I’ve found that life doesn’t really work that way. There’s always some other task to do. Better to notice the morning light in those few moments when it is especially lovely than to expect it to be there when I have more time.

Gloomy

2011-11-29T10:42:00.000-05:00

Goodbye, 60 degrees. I’ll see you again in March or April. It’s been nice to have you around but you’ve kind of overstayed your holiday. I really don’t expect to see you for day upon day in November, especially not at the end of November.

For a very brief moment at sunrise today, the sun made an appearance. This was immediately followed by rain and a steadily dropping temperature ever since. It’s not cold enough to make snow on the mountain yet, but I’m thinking it will be in another week.

The rain this morning was enough to keep the hunters away from Roundtop. I didn’t hear any shooting or see any vehicles inching their way up the mountain. The deer, assuming they weren’t shot, are in hiding and were not in evidence anywhere this morning either. And so the dogs got their normal early morning walk by the light of my dimming headlamp. It was only a week or so ago that the morning walks still had some beginnings of the morning’s light. Now, it’s as dark as midnight again. The darkest days of the year have arrived.

These are the days when it’s nearly dark when I leave the cabin in the mornings and quite dark when I return home. The birdseed disappears daily, but I won’t get to see the birds until the weekend. I hate that. I always imagine the rarest of the rare arriving at my feeders when I can’t see them. Logically, I know this is unlikely, particularly in November, but logic isn’t the point, is it? Sometimes November can be a hard month, even when it is 60 degrees.

Odds and ends

2011-11-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

The weather is unseasonably mild, or at least it has been over the long Thanksgiving holiday. Even on Roundtop, where the temperature is nearly always 4-5 degrees cooler than down in the towns, the temperature hovered near 60 degrees. I took advantage of it to do some more cleaning of the brush and tree tops that came down during the October snowstorm. Mostly, I’m just dragging what I can further into the woods. Most of it is too heavy to load into my car. As long as I don’t have snow on the ground, this is a project I can work on all winter.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat outside on my deck, facing the sun’s warmth, comfortable without a jacket. The woods was quiet, except for when a blue jay or the crows split the silence. I doubt I’ll be able to do that again until spring, at least not without a jacket. Since the snowstorm, the weather has been unseasonably mild, and I know I’ve thought a few times that “today” would be the last time only to find out there was another “today” or two left in the season.

Today in Pennsylvania is the first day of rifle deer season. A couple of trucks edged slowly up the mountain past my cabin just before 6 a.m., setting the dogs to barking though even on a good day they don’t need much of an excuse to start that. Later on, when it was light, I heard a few shots, though none were close enough to be the hunters I saw.

I did see a total of 8 deer this morning, none with antlers. Three of them were the doe and twins that hang out around my cabin. The others were in two groups, racing across the road in front of me, no doubt spooked out of their beds by the unfamiliar presence of hunters. It was a reminder to me that the deer will now be on the move to avoid hunters and can appear anywhere and at anytime as a result.

While I was cleaning up the brush this weekend, I started noticing all the fungus on other pieces of downed branches. November is a good time to see fungus—the leaves are down and no underbrush obscures the view. And, truth be told, there aren’t many exciting birds left around the mountain or any wildflowers, so November is the time when there’s not too much else to look at either. Still, I like the textures and patterns on them so I don’t mind if they aren’t as exciting as a wild geranium or an American redstart.

The first photo is, I believe, the turkey tail fungus, though it’s still small compared to other turkey tail fungus I’ve seen. The colored bands that mark the growth of the fungus are supposed to resemble the bands on a turkey’s tail. The orange fungus might be sulfur shelf, also known as chicken of the woods, but I’m not sure because it’s still much smaller than others I’ve seen, at least so far. I’ll have to keep an eye on them and see if they grow.

2011-11-22T13:35:00.000-05:00

Milkweed pod

Chilly, rainy, gray November day.

Dog and Baby Dog curl up by the fire.

I hold steaming coffee laced with hot chocolate.

Dog and Baby Dog seemed to appreciate the rubdown they both got after their morning walks more than the wet and raw walk itself.

The rain didn’t stop the half-tame doe and her twins from making an appearance this morning. I first saw her eyes glint in my headlamp and wondered what animal it was. When I got a bit closer, I could just make out her silhouette in the gloom. She didn’t mind my headlamp or our passing. She is used to all of us and is often the recipient of a few withered apples that come my way here and there. I often find their hoofprints in my driveway, sometimes right up to the front door or beside the chicken pen. What must the girls think when three big, four-legged creatures amble by their pen?

November is a time of settling-in, of slowing down. The days are short, the evenings long. More time is spent inside than out. The woods are quieter; few birds sing other than the irrepressible cardinals. Perhaps the bluebird will sing a brief morning song, just a few notes really, at the coming of the dawn.

By late February or early March, the itch for warmer weather and longer days will take hold of me again, but for now the slowing down, the quieter days, are a welcome counterpoint to the long and busy days of summer.

Snow-damaged forest

2011-11-21T13:33:00.000-05:00

Over the weekend, I tried to take a few photos that show what the damage left by “Snowtober” looks like around my cabin. I’m not really happy with any of the photos but these will have to do. The real problem, I suspect, is that when I look around I can see the tops of trees and large branches on the ground everywhere, but when I take a photo you can only see a small portion of my view.

And it’s not just around my own cabin that’s damaged. Literally everywhere I go, I can see pale wood exposed and branches down where trees are broken. I stood in one spot at the top of the mountain yesterday and soon counted 16 trees with visible breaks. It’s going to take a long time before the forest looks “normal” again.

Small birds and animals will likely appreciate the sudden appearance of more cover. The downside of that is that the predators are probably going to be less successful in their hunting for a while. They aren’t going to have clear views and they’re going to have a lot of cover to search through to find anything uncautious enough to allow them to approach close enough for a kill.

Eventually, the branches will rot and create more soil for the woods. Rotting takes a long time, though. Perhaps 15 years ago, I was forced to cut down a large oak tree that loomed ominously over the cabin. I’d avoided taking down that beautiful, 125-year old tree for a few years, but a winter blizzard where the oak leaned precipitously during the gale-force winds that accompanied the storm finally convinced me I had no choice. The stump from that oak is still standing, if no longer as dense as it was originally.

The smaller branches and treetops from this storm will likely rot faster than a huge stump, but it still won’t be fast. I’ll be looking at this damage for years.

Fallen

2011-11-18T10:35:00.000-05:00

Mostly red oak, with one tulip poplar and one unidentified leaf

This morning I had to chip ice out of the chickens’ water. The pieces were a little more than .25 inch thick, a sign the temperature dropped below freezing early in the night and not just in the hour or so before dawn. For me this means two things.

The first is that I will soon have to bring one of the chicken waterers inside at night. I switch the waterers every 12 hours during the winter, once in the morning and again in the evening, so one is always or nearly always free of ice. I bring the frozen waterer into the house and put it upside down in my bathtub. After an hour or two or three, the ice melts enough for it to fall out of the drinking area, clattering into the tub. When that happens I know it will be ready to put back out with the chickens the next time the water needs switched.

The second thing the overnight ice means is that it will soon be time for the ski area to start blowing snow in readiness for the start of the new ski season. The snow blowing probably won’t start until after Thanksgiving this year. After a quick look at the forecast, the temperature won’t stay this low long enough for a decent run at snow-blowing. And it might rain a bit next week, another negative. But it won’t be long, I’m sure of that.

Yesterday when I got home I discovered a huge limb or the top of a red oak tree blocking one side of my driveway. Somehow and luckily the limb missed the cabin and the chicken pen, by a distance of no more than 6 and 4 ft., respectively. The limb was what I hope is the last casualty of “Snowtober.” Apparently, it clung precariously to the red oak after the storm and yesterday 25+ mph wind was the last straw.

I could barely drag the limb from the driveway, it was that heavy. And it’s not a lot of fun, either, trying to drag a 10-12 ft. tree top far enough into the woods on a cold, dark and windy November evening so that I can park the car. Truthfully, if that limb had hit a person (for person, read “me”) it would have killed them. If it had hit the cabin, I’m sure it would have broken the window and very possibly damaged the roof. The chain link fence around the chickens may or may not have survived. When I got home the chickens were calm enough, indication that the limb likely fell earlier enough in the day for them to have calmed down already. I’m not expecting any eggs today, though. That’s certainly the kind of event that can stop them from laying for a day or two.

Quintessential

2011-11-17T11:54:00.000-05:00

November has reached the point where it feels and looks quintessentially Novemberian to me. The sky is grey and heavy. The leaves have fallen. The air is chilly, if only just beginning to verge on raw. The day lacks only, perhaps, that “wintry mix” of precipitation to make it not only quintessential but a stereotypically quintessential November day.

Notice that it’s more than leaves on the ground underneath these apple trees. The ground is littered with yellow apples, probably Yellow Delicious apples. It’s enough to make my heart sink. My farmer neighbor has lost a lot of his crop, and selfishly, that probably also means the ones he has will sell out quickly, depriving me of extending the enjoyment of that most perfect of all apples.

I have eaten Golden or Yellow Delicious apples from other areas. They aren’t half as good as local Pennsylvania Yellow Delicious. A good Pennsylvania Yellow Delicious apple is large and has a wonderful “sandy” texture to the fruit, in addition to the wonderful flavor. I don’t know if it’s the soil here that’s just perfect for them or if they lose something in the shipping from the west.

In any event, readers will likely notice more of my photos are not taken on the mountain right now. When I leave the cabin in the mornings, the light is darker than I like for photos. Soon, too soon, the decreasing daylight will force me to take all my blog photos for a week over the weekend. That’s one thing about November I don’t like. So I am extending my own photo season by taking photos out and away from the cover of the forest. I’m at that point in the season where the few minutes it takes me to reach the orchard on my drive down into the city, is enough to give me slightly better light, even on a quintessentially gray November morning.

2011-11-16T09:17:00.000-05:00

Eastern bluebird

My photo today was not taken today. Yesterday Blogger was being difficult and wouldn't let me upload any photos. Today my morning walk with Dog around Roundtop was rainy and foggy. In fact, it was so foggy that at one point I took a wrong turn. Even with my headlamp I couldn't see where I was going and almost ended up walking into some bushes. You know it's pretty bad when I can lose my way within yards of the cabin. Even Dog wondered what I was doing.

For early November the weather is downright balmy and that is bringing out the nighttime visitors. Both raccoon and oppossum have paid 2 a.m. visits this week. Baby Dog can't sleep through any visits and barks wildly so I am forced to get up, go to the door and look out. That's all it really takes to chase off a visitor. Baby Dog believes this is my job, perhaps my only job, around the cabin. Her own fierce barking isn't good enough, though the visitor is usually gone by the time I reach the door. She simply will not stop barking until I've gone to the door and assured that we are all safe from attack. She has me well trained.

If the visitor returns, and if it's a raccoon it usually does, I have to repeat this procedure every time. Last night the raccoon returned at least 3-4 times between 2-3 a.m., though by the second or third trip the last of my bird seed had disappeared and there was nothing for it to eat.

The raccoon is fattening itself up for what passes for raccoon hibernation during the winter. They don't go into anything like a full hibernation but they do hole up for extended periods of bad weather. That can't come soon enough for me. I sure could use a full night's sleep without any interruptions.

2011-11-14T14:54:00.000-05:00

One thing about “Snowtober” that can be turned into a positive is that no one who uses wood for heating should run low this year. I’m still cleaning up the mess from that storm. Even the areas that I’ve cleared still look pretty bad. Removing the downed branches from my driveway and pathways has only created hedge-high brush piles that look nearly as bad.

This weekend, the tree guy came and took down a broken limb and cleaned the branches off my cabin roof. I also discovered another tree, this one leaning ominously over the cable for my internet, and he agreed to take that one down another time.

The rest of my own winter preparations are proceeding, if ever slower than I would wish. The chickens are now moved partially into their winter quarters, which is under my raised cabin. They get less daylight in there, but they are somewhat protected from bad weather, as well. I still would like to move them a bit further under the cabin and will need to cover part of the pen with my winter tarp, but at least progress was made.

The hours of daylight diminish ever faster now, which is part of the reason why I never seem to make as much progress as I’d like. The forecast was for a sunny Sunday afternoon, so I waited to start my outside work until then, forgetting, perhaps conveniently, that darkness comes shortly after 5 p.m. now. So that pleasant afternoon is a lot shorter than it was just a week or so ago.

The leaves are nearly all on the ground. On Saturday I broomed off the front and back decks. This morning, both looked as bad as they did before. I haven’t had much rain since leaves began to fall in earnest, so they are all still fluttery and dry. A little breeze blows them onto the deck time and time again. Until I get another soaking rain or two, the leaves will continued to clutter the decks and follow me inside.

Yesterday I found a white oak leaf in my kitchen sink, another on my bed and yet a third in the bathroom. They are like puppies, always on my heels and suddenly appearing in very odd spots.

Sunsets

2011-11-11T08:49:00.000-05:00

I couldn't decide which one I liked the best, so I'm posting four of them.

This is the scene I came home to last evening on my way up to the cabin. Sunset (or sunrise) reflected over water has to the best, don't you think?

Here where I live, my best sunrise and sunset photos always seem to be taken in November and early December. At first, I thought that was because the times I was out and about corresponded to the times of sunrise and sunset. That's not it. One major reason why these are the best is because of the position of the sun on the horizon at sunrise and sunset. In summer and later in winter, the sunsets and sunrises don't reflect into the pond so much because they are further south or further north. Even that doesn't appear to be the entire story, though. Summer sunsets and rises are often hazy with humidy and so the sky isn't as crisp as it appears this time of year.

So here's another reason to enjoy November. It's hard to argue with a sunset like this one!!

Full moon rising

2011-11-10T10:53:00.000-05:00

November’s full moon is my favorite. Oh, I know that most people would say the Harvest Moon of October is their favorite. That’s the one full moon everyone seems to know about. There’s this whole romantic notion surrounding the Harvest moon—walks among falling leaves and the like. But for me November’s full moon is my favorite. October’s full moon comes too early in the fall for me to take much benefit from it.

November marks the first time since May or so that enough leaves are down for the moon’s glow to penetrate into the forest around my cabin. Last night the sky was so clear and the moon so bright that I could see my shadow at 10 p.m. Dog and I walked in the woods, still balmy from the day’s warmth, without the need for a flashlight.

I saw the doe first, as I am taller than Dog. She stood by herself, without the twins, just off the lane. Her head was up, ears forward, as still as a tree. We walked ever closer, and soon Dog caught her scent and then saw her himself. He stood on his hind legs to get a better view, no mean feat for his age. That made her twitch her tail and start to move deeper into the woods, soon disappearing into the tangle of brush and understory.

I saw the doe after he couldn’t any longer. She stood, thinking she was hidden, behind a boulder, peering at us. I ignored her. Dog was less inclined to call the event over and done with, his nose to the ground trying to find where she’d gone. In the distance a few of the Canada geese honked, took flight long enough to circle around the mountain top and then land again. I could hear them splash down in the water, the sound no longer muted by the presence of leaves.

It’s a good feeling to be able to see and hear across a wider distance again. I’m glad summer is over. November’s full moon is my favorite.

Small and sneaky

2011-11-09T14:04:00.000-05:00

American coot

This small and sneaky American coot was spotted this past weekend while I was taking advantage of the hour longer weekend created by the change back to standard time. I saw 6 of them, 3 each in two different places, though I'm pretty certain they weren't the same 3. Coots are interesting birds. They aren't ducks; their feet are lobed not webbed. They don't fly very well and really have to work hard to get airborne, often running on the water to get started.

Here in Pennsylvania they aren't hunted and are considered inedible. In a handful of states, hunting them is considered sport and the birds are heavily hunted, though the meat still isn't eaten. I read one report that indicated about 720,000 were killed for sport in a recent year, especially in the south. I come from a family of hunters and hunted myself when I was younger. I've never understood the idea of killing something you didn't (or couldn't) eat.

I saw two of the coots move into the sticks you can see in the background of this photo and walk out of the water, balancing just above the water line. Coots are related to moorhens and even remind me a bit of the southern waterbird, the jacana, when they are out of the water. I see them often enough in open water, but they seem to especially like areas where they can hide in bushes and shrubs along the the edge of the water. They aren't glamorous by any means, but they are still a cool bird to see and watch.

Changing for the seasons

2011-11-08T14:28:00.000-05:00

The color change this autumn seems more variable than is typical. By that I mean that I can still find spots where the leaves are green and haven’t changed at all. In other spots a lot of the leaves are down and the trees completely bare. And yet on other trees the colors have faded but the leaves still hang on. Some variability is always present; this year it simply feels to me as though there’s more of it than usual.

Take today’s photo, for example. I took the photo on Sunday, but the overall impression of fall barely registers in it. The dominant colors are the green of the spruce tree and the paler green tree in front of it. Yes, you can see leaves littering the lane, but the main impression is still greenish. And yet just a few feet away the trees were mostly bare, with that vaguely spooky look twisted branches have in winter.

Migration is largely over for the season, as it should be. Oh, yes, the rough-legged hawks and golden eagles will still fly, but the songbirds are gone—except for the newly arrived northern robins, who have already migrated for a thousand miles or so and seem to think they have now arrived in the south. They have displaced the local robins, who headed off a month ago, feeling that same need to travel to warmer climes as the northern robins.

For them the difference is one of perspective, I think. Perhaps both feel the need to travel south by a thousand miles or so, no matter where that drops them off. For the local robins that puts them in Georgia or northern Florida. For the Canadian robins, that same 1000 miles or so puts them in my woods. Many will stay through the winter, often flocking up with their cousins the bluebirds, seeking out puddles of open water or soft ground.

I am back to my normal pre-winter preparation pace, after the shock of suddenly dealing with a large, early-season snow. Although the chicken pen is mostly moved to its winter location, I still need to do more with it, and I will, just not this week. The fallen leaves are now ankle deep on my decks. The front deck was just broomed off on Sunday but today looks as bad as the back deck, which I didn’t touch this weekend. Fighting off hordes of forest leaves is a battle that won’t end for weeks yet.

My snow shovel is still in my car, put there when I had to dig out from my parking spot. I think I’ll just leave it there now until March is over. No need to remove it at this point, when I’ll only need to put it back into the car within a few weeks anyway. Some winter preparation jobs just don’t need to be repeated, even though winter hasn’t arrived yet. There’s enough to do yet to get ready for winter without doing it over again.

No drama

2011-11-07T14:53:00.000-05:00

My weekend wish for no weather drama was granted. The weather was calm in every aspect, which gave me the chance to more fully observe the season than is possible in the middle of a snowstorm with no electricity. Today’s photo looks to me like a quintessential November evening—thick clouds in an overcast sky, geese in the forefront and the remnants of fall’s brilliant autumn display turning to duller, deeper shades in the background.

Over the weekend I was raided by raccoons again for the first time since early spring. In the few moments it took me to stagger our of bed in the middle of the night, awakened by Baby Dog’s frantic barking, one very large raccoon managed to destroy not one but both of the new bird feeders I’d gotten for this year. It’s because of raccoon predation that I virtually never have a bird feeder that lasts more than a single season. It’s not common to lose both of them within a few weeks of setting them out, though. One of them might be repairable or at least usable. The second has disappeared entirely. The next night an opossum showed up, no doubt disappointed that nothing was left to raid.

I always have resident Canada geese here on Roundtop, but ever since September, the number of them that appear to be residents is increasing. Roughly 17 live here full time. That’s 3 pairs of parents and the surviving number of goslings from the spring. In October that number grew to 36, and on Friday evening I counted 75. I don’t know where the other ones are coming from or why they suddenly prefer Roundtop’s ponds to wherever they came from. But they are here now and will likely remain until the pond is iced in.

The nights are cold enough now that skim ice forms in puddles or the chicken water, though the ice still disappears pretty quickly in the morning. So far, I haven’t seen ice on any of the ponds yet. I think even a slight breeze ripples the ponds too much for them to freeze when the temperature is only a few degrees below freezing.

For me, the quiet weather this past weekend was much appreciated. I have long understood that living where I do, as I do, puts me a lot closer to the vagaries of poor weather than more urban dwellers experience. For the most part, I enjoy that closeness even when the weather is poor. Having a town or a city shield someone from nature just makes it easier for them to feel that nature is something "other," something apart from their everyday life. I never want to feel that way. Our earth needs more understanding about its mechanics, not less. That said, for once I was glad the weekend didn't provide me with anything extreme to experience.

2011-11-04T14:55:00.000-04:00

Early November sunset

I am hoping this weekend doesn't bring any drama--no snowstorms, no power outages, no half of a tree falling onto my roof. I'd like a nice, quiet weekend with decent weather and perhaps a few hours of birding. Maybe an extra hour of sleep, too.

Do you think that might be arranged? I sure hope so.

Clean-up continues

2011-11-03T13:34:00.000-04:00

Clean-up from the October snowstorm continues everywhere in my area, though today the only snow left is the plowed piles. In fact, now that the snow is gone, it’s even easier to see the damage left in its wake. I am finding that when I take a photo of the damage, it doesn’t show very much. One photo of a damaged tree or even a few trees doesn’t give any sense of the extent. I can say that this is worse than any ice storm I’ve had—and I’ve had quite a few of those.

I suppose I could look on the bright side and say that all those downed clumps of branches should provide nice cover for the smaller woodland birds and animals. And the deer won’t have to wait for the acorns to fall off the trees to get a nice meal. The more open forest will get more sun next summer and that might alter, at least somewhat, which plants and flowers will flourish over the next several years.
The forest is a constantly changing entity, even when the weather is calmer than it’s been this year. One year is drier or wetter, the next hotter or cooler. A couple of years of hotter than average weather or wetter weather is all it takes to favor slightly different plants within the forest. And that slight alteration can then affect breeding success or populations of the birds and small animals. This time around it’s going to be several years of a more open forest as a result of this storm. It’s always something.

Damage from the snow

2011-11-02T16:04:00.000-04:00

Downed red oak

Who would have thought that 10 inches of snow could disappear so quickly? Oh, it’s not all gone, but it’s mostly gone. Only patches remain. And the debris.

I have been picking up what feels like truckloads of broken trees, downed branches, downed twigs and leaves. The forest will not look as it did before the storm for a long time, I am sure of that. Not all of the damage is on the ground, either. Many, many trees are broken, with the branches still partially attached to the trees, sometimes hanging precariously to the trunk. Now, when I look out my north window, I see an open vista, where before I saw a tangle of trunks and branches. And what will happen over the next year or so? Likely, some of the trees will become infested with something and end up not surviving over the long term.

I couldn’t help but notice the species of the branches I am picking up. Two of them were not a surprise to me, though the third was until I thought about it a bit. Tulip poplar is one of the species I am picking up a lot. This one is not a surprise. Tulip poplar is a soft wood, a tree with notoriously shallow roots. And it has large leaves, which makes it even more likely to break when those leaves are covered with wet snow. The second unsurprising species is the American beech. I have several in my front forest. They are a beautiful, gray-barked tree, notorious for being “dirty” as I’ve heard them described by people who have them on their properties. Dirty simply means that the trees drop their lower branches regularly.

The third species of tree I’m seeing during this clean-up (and the one pictured in my photo today) is the one that surprised me. It’s the red oak, a lovely hardwood tree, perhaps second only to its cousin the white oak in size and stateliness. So why was such a strong and hardy tree one of the ones to break the most?

Though both are hardwoods, white oaks have a stronger and harder wood than the faster-growing red oak. The ship “old Ironsides” was made of white oak, which is waterproof. Red oaks are less dense and not waterproof and the wood is used in furniture or other primarily indoor uses. White oak wood is often used in fence posts or for other things that will be used outdoors. Red oaks produce acorns every other year, while white oaks produce them every year. This year the red oaks are heavy with acorns.

I believe the lesser density of the red oak wood, combined with it being the year for lots of acorns, were the main factors in causing more damage to this species than to the white oaks or even hickories around the mountain. How this damage will affect the diversity and even the composition of the forest itself over the next years has yet to be determined, but is something I will keep an eye on.

Snowtober

2011-10-31T12:00:00.000-04:00

Cabin "driveway"

"Snowtober" was not a welcome visitor to Roundtop Mtn. The forest now looks like a war zone. With so many trees still carrying the season’s leaves when this storm began on Saturday, the extremely wet and heavy 10 inches of snow that fell broke scores of branches and often the trees themselves.

Center of driveway

Although I am out of power and my internet/TV cable now lies on the ground, I was lucky at the cabin. I didn’t have any structural damage. I can tell you that it’s a very scary sound to hear a loud, close crack and then hear the branch or half a tree fall to the ground or the roof. I would cringe, and the cats would run under the bed. The dogs headed for their beds.

The good news from this storm is that the forecasted 20 mph winds did not materialize or the damage and broken trees would be far worse, I expect. So far no one knows when power will be restored, and my internet won’t be restored until the electricity is back and running. So posting here on Roundtop Ruminations will likely be spotty for a while.

I cleaned up some of the downed branches yesterday, but will need a tree guy to help with the larger branches or the ones that are still attached to the trees. And getting one of those on the phone today, let alone scheduled, is proving to be a challenge.

So, it could be worse. At least it’s not terribly cold. The temperature will get above freezing today and will likely reach 50 tomorrow or Wednesday. Much of the snow is already disappearing. The chickens are okay, too. Doodle even crowed this morning. Getting back to normal again is going to take a while, though.

2011-10-28T13:01:00.000-04:00

I took today’s photo earlier this week during an especially nice sunrise. Already, it looks wildly out of date to me. The forecast for tomorrow is for 5-9 inches of snow, so a scene like this one is already passé.

It’s not out of the norm for my area to see a late October snow. It’s just that they don’t usually arrive the day after the first frost and they aren’t usually measurable. Any snow that arrives when many leaves are still on the trees is bad. The snow will cling to the leaves and weigh down the branches they are on. The branches break and fall on power lines and roads. The trees break and fall on who-knows-what.

And I am not yet prepared for winter. My chickens and their pen will need to be moved to a sheltered spot tonight, something I normally wouldn’t do for another 3-4 weeks. And even then I usually have more than 24 hours notice of an impending storm to get everything organized and everyone moved. This particular storm was pooh-poohed all week by the forecasters: an early snow, so what, no worries. It was only this morning that the forecast went from pooh-pooh to 5-9 inches.

While this snow may well be a pretty snow, it won’t be a pretty weekend dealing with it. Unless the snow goes somewhere else. Or is all rain. I can only hope. But for now, enjoy the sunrise.

2011-10-27T13:32:00.000-04:00

Nell's Hill, peak color

Today is rainy, and most of the fall leaves will be down before the weekend ends. Still, I didn’t want the season to pass without posting a few of the photos I took of the peak color on Nell’s Hill. I took the photos last Saturday morning not long after sunrise. The sun still hadn’t reached the bottom of the mountain. The overcast sky added a beautifully odd light to the early morning. Combined with the brilliance of the fall leaves, the mountain glowed like a flame. Ah, how lucky can I get?

By the next day, the color was still gorgeous, but the sky was not. It was dull and heavy with gray clouds. The mountain didn’t shine at all. The sun was hidden and didn’t light up the top of the mountain. So Saturday was the best day to see the colors, and it seems greedy to have hoped for a second day to repeat such beauty.

Just so you can see the difference, I’m including the photos of the same view taken the week and two weeks before this photo. Ah, how quickly the year can change. If I’d taken photos in midsummer the same two weeks apart, you probably couldn’t see any difference among them at all. But at this point, this cusp, of the year, the difference is astonishing.

And today, snow is in the forecast for this Saturday. It likely won’t be much and likely won’t stick to the ground, but looking at the photos of peak color, it’s hard to imagine that this color and snow will be separated by a mere week.

Last night, the temperature was almost balmy. The early evening still held the heat of the day. I sat outside on my front deck for a while, thinking that it might be the last time I could do so for the next four or five months without being bundled up. I love the winter and feel it is already too short, but for a few minutes on one evening I could enjoy the warmth and feel a touch sad at its passing.

Nell's Hill week 2

Nell's hill week 1

Woods hike - part 2

2011-10-26T11:01:00.000-04:00

Walking through the wooded valley between Nell’s Hill and Roundtop Mtn. is a joy in any season, but it’s hard to argue against fall being the best of the best. A snow-covered walk is fine, too, but sometimes hard to accomplish, even on snowshoes. In spring the beauties tend to be smaller--tiny wildflowers and unfolding ferns. In summer I can nearly always find a respite from the heat down here (if not on the climb back up). But fall is simply hard to beat, with its glorious colors and long views.

The walk through the valley isn’t long. After clambering down the mountain, the trip to my destination is only another mile or so. Down near the old summer camp is a small pond, and I like to end my walk here before I turn around and head back up the mountain to my cabin. The pond isn’t more than a few acres, but even so, those few acres give me a nice, open view of the sky, where I can enjoy the sun and see vultures or hawks circle up above. And in fall, especially on a calm day, I like to try and capture the reflections of the yellow or orange trees when I take a photo.

If it is still along the forested valley, down by the pond it is even quieter, unless I startle a bird or a goose. Here, apart from the forest, I don’t hear any creaks or rustles from the trees. The squirrels stay under the canopy. I don’t even hear the more comforting sound of Beaver Creek splashing over the stones. It is simply quiet.

However long I stay by the side of the pond, it is never long enough. Sometimes I can lose hours here, stretched out in the grass staring into the sky. Sometimes it takes a chilly breeze or the intrusion of dampness to get me moving again. Too often, though, thoughts of all that is left undone back up on the mountain, back in my life, begin to intrude. I suppose it’s good that something eventually intrudes or I would likely lay there forever. That would be so easy to do.

Fall hike - part 1

2011-10-25T10:50:00.000-04:00

I took so many photos on my walk down into the forest valley this weekend that I’ve decided to post them over two days instead of just one. I simply can’t choose only a few. Today’s batch will show my walk down to the pond deep in the valley—a favored spot of mine, both for its quiet and its beauty.

Sunday was a day of blue skies, abundant sunshine and no wind—perfect for a hike. A forest can be a noisy place when there’s even a slight breeze. All those leaves rustling in unison can easily hide the sounds of the forest’s birds and animals. It’s a rare treat when not even a hint of a breeze dulls the sound of the rest of the forest. The only sound most of the time was that of my own footfalls.

Between Roundtop Mountain and Nell’s Hill runs a narrow valley that also contains Beaver Creek. The valley is not developed in any way, except for this old woods road that once led to a long-abandoned summer camp for girls. The mountains on either side help to block sounds from outside the forest but also keep the valley in shade for much of the day. Sunrise is late coming here, and sunset is early. This is especially so during the short hours of winter, but even in fall the valley doesn’t get more than about 6 hours of sunlight. The valley also holds water and dampness more than up on the mountains, so ferns are lush here and the more shade-loving trees grow tall and large.

Beech trees predominate over the red oak, which here is more prolific than white oak. Sassafras and tulip poplar are more common than hickory. Deer are less common here than higher up, perhaps preferring the more open spaces with more grazing. Chipmunks and squirrels are the animals I see the most, and they aren’t shy about warning every soul for half a mile around that I am invading their territory. In spring and summer, the valley is a haven for forest birds. Scarlet tanagers are yearly nesters, as are wood thrush, ovenbirds, pewees and phoebes. In fall, only the year-round avian residents remain. I am frequently scolded by titmice and chickadees.

Most valleys in this part of Pennsylvania are developed in some way. Flat land is at a premium here, and is of course preferred for everything from houses to farmland. That this valley has remained undeveloped is partly due to luck, though I’m sure its narrowness is also a major factor. The valley is so narrow that building a two-lane road through it is probably impossible, and even if that were not impossible, any houses would need to be perched on the steep hillsides, not an ideal situation in any case. So the valley has remained forested and undeveloped, for which I am eternally grateful.

The valley and the two mountains that surround it are forested havens in the midst of the long-cleared surrounding farmland and the encroaching housing developments that threaten to gobble up our open land. The valley is also my own personal haven, where I can imagine and experience, on some level, the depth and breadth of the eastern forests before our population leveled many of them. Here, I can’t even hear the sound of cars, though the nearest public road is probably only a mile away. The forest is as quiet as it has been for millions of years, and it is here where I can feel that sense of the earth’s timelessness as I feel the closeness of its narrow valley.

Hawkwatching

2011-10-24T12:02:00.000-04:00

View to the north from Waggoner's Gap

Hawkwatching at Waggoner’s Gap near Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on Friday was outstanding. The day had most of the elements for what I consider a great day: clouds and lots of low-flying raptors. Wind that didn’t blow me off the mountain or make the temperature feel brutal was also plus. And having the fall colors near their peak didn’t hurt either.

Often, people who are new to hawkwatching choose a day with a beautiful blue sky to show up, and they are usually disappointed. On a day without clouds, the hawks can fly thousands of feet high, and squinting at teeny, tiny specks (or even finding a teeny, tiny speck) isn’t a lot of fun for them or for me. What is fun is having the birds fly low past wherever I’m sitting, and for that kind of day you need clouds to hold them lower. And Friday was that kind of day. Most of the time my binoculars were lowered, and I just watched the raptors fly past.

The hint of a rainbow

The overcast sky was a bit too overcast for hawk photography, so I settled for views from the mountain on the few times the sun came out or nearly came out. The colors were very near the peak on Friday, and watching the ever-changing light skitter across the valley to the north was a treat. The hawks flew often, though, and I didn’t have tons of time to contemplate the view. A couple of time a few drops of rain fell, not enough to even wet the rocks but enough to start the edge of a rainbow for a few moments.

The main hawk flying on Friday was the little sharp-shinned hawk, a feisty accipiter that doesn’t like to share the sky with other raptors or even members of its own species for very long. They will dive-bomb each other and other raptors with impunity, and seeing the aerial acrobatics simply adds to the fun.

“Sharpies” were the main attraction but not the only one. Cooper’s hawks were pretty abundant. Two peregrine falcons flew by, one very close, as did a couple of bald eagles, some red-tailed hawks and American kestrels. For the non-raptor species, I always look forward to seeing the ravens, even if some are likely local birds, and an unexpected highlight were the 7 common loons flying south in formation, flapping hard across the mountain.

Saturday and Sunday were both perfectly gorgeous weather days here. I’m unofficially calling Sunday the peak of the fall color. Part of that is simply because rain is predicted for this evening and the mid-week, and that will likely bring down a lot of the leaves. I took a lot of photos this weekend, and you’ll get to see the best of them this week in Roundtop Ruminations.

Gone hawkwatching!

2011-10-20T11:51:00.000-04:00

Cabin lane

One thing about all the rain that’s fallen this fall: whenever the weather does clear, the temperature change is always noticeably different than before the storm. Usually in the fall the gradual downturn in the season’s temperature is not something that’s particularly noticeable. Up a degree, down two degrees, up two degrees—the change is subtle, more noticeable over a week or two than day to day.

This year there’s been no gradual or variable downshifting of the temperature. When the rainstorm for this week is over, the day’s high temperature is yet another 4-5 degrees cooler than it was before the latest rainstorm. That means I have to change the clothing in my closet again. I barely got a chance to wear my after-summer-but-not-quite-fall clothing this year.

At 7 a.m. the morning is still dark and has now grown too dark for morning photography, especially on a dreary morning. The time has arrived when I need to take photos in the evening. Then in no more than two weeks, it will be too dark to take photos at any time before or after work. I’ll be taking (or trying to) photos for the entire week of Roundtop Ruminations over a weekend.

Tomorrow I am heading out to go hawkwatching. The weather is clearing as I type and so should bring a nice batch of fall hawks. In this area the third week of October is my second most favorite time for hawkwatching (the first is the Broad-winged Hawk migration in mid-September). The reason I like this part of October for hawkwatching is that it’s the week that produces the highest species variety of the fall migration. A few of the early migrants might still be seen. The first of the late season migrants might show up, and the middle season migrants should be out in full force.

On a very good day during the third week of October, it is possible to see every species of raptor migrant that is normally possible in the fall. That doesn’t happen regularly, but it’s possible. More typical would be a day when I see 11-12 of the possible 14 regular species. Specifically, I will likely see a lot of Red-tailed Hawks and I’m hoping for several Golden Eagles, as well. Theoretically, some late, lost Broad-winged Hawk might show up, and if I get really luck some late-season Northern Goshawks or a Rough-legged Hawk might fly past the mountain too.

For the non-hawkwatchers amongst my readers (which is pretty much everyone), the mountains should be near the peak of color, so if I’m wrong about the hawk migration I’ll have plenty of beautiful mountains to look at. And take photos of. For that you’ll have to wait until Saturday morning or so, because tomorrow I’ll be…

Gone Hawkwatching!

Completly different - part 2

2011-10-19T12:31:00.001-04:00

Tractors along York St.

Probably it won’t come as a surprise to anyone reading this blog that a highlight of a fair dedicated to farmers and farming is the old tractor show. The Farmer’s Fair tractor show has takes up two blocks of town. Two groups of people seem to love the tractors the most—the oldtimers who stand around talking to other oldtimers about how their farm used to have that exact same tractor, and the kids.

Another old fire truck, though not as old as the 1919 truck posted yesterday

The tractors are such a hit that just having them sit around during the weekend isn’t enough. A tractor leads each section of the parade on Saturday night, too. Often, the tractors are driven by oldtimers with a kid on their lap. Little kids know they have become big kids when they are allowed to ride on a tractor with grandpa (or grandma).

By the standards of the county fair, Dillsburg’s exhibit hall doesn’t have nearly the variety of contests, awards or entrants. Quilts and whoopee pies win the most money and bragging rights here. Crop art is also a pretty big draw, though I’ve never understood the judging rules of what makes one piece of crop art better than another. Is it the number of different types of seeds used? Artistic merit? The ones I think should win are never the winners, so there must be something more to it that I’m not understanding. Still, I think I’d enjoy making a crop art during a cold week of winter than I would doing a jigsaw puzzle. Maybe I’ll get around to it one of these years.

You, however, will not need to wait for years for Roundtop Ruminations to get back to its usual woodsy topics. That should happen tomorrow, assuming of course that the predicted rain doesn’t make the forest so dark I can’t take one.

And now for something completely different

2011-10-18T10:21:00.000-04:00

Disclaimer: For today and tomorrow Roundtop Ruminations will not be about life around my mountain cabin. Instead, it will be a bit about life off Roundtop and down amongst the town folks.

Last weekend was the annual Farmer’s Fair in my hometown of Dillsburg. It was the 96th such fair, and I’ve been around well over half of them. In fact, I am a Farmer’s Fair baby, which is held the third weekend of every October. The year I was born, officials were forced to stop the Saturday night parade to let my parents out of the house they were then living in with my grandparents so mom could go to the hospital to have me. I was born the next morning. I’ve been to a lot of Farmer’s Fairs. It’s a rare year when I haven’t gone.

This year I wasn’t able to stay for the Saturday evening festivities, but I wouldn’t miss the farmer’s market, the exhibits in the hall, the craft fair, the food or the antique car and tractor shows. Did I mention the food? Although I’m not a fan of fried Oreos or fried dill pickles, I can eat the heck out of peanut butter fudge, homemade beef jerky, fresh-roasted cashews and the other street fair goodies that tempt me.

This year the antique vehicles were especially numerous and beautiful. My first two photos today are of Dillsburg’s original 1919 fire truck, still with its original owners and with its original paint, which must be quite a rarity. The local volunteer fire company says the truck was still used into the 1940’s, though my dad, who was in his day a regular volunteer, swears the thing was rolled out as late as the early 1960’s for really big fires. When I was a kid the old fire truck had its own special garage where the volunteers lovingly attended it. It still does. Now, it’s only rolled out for really important things like big parades.

The next photos are two old trucks, both beautifully restored. One is a general purpose farm truck (I think), and the other is a truck for delivering produce for household delivery and street sales. It’s an old local truck, too, from nearby Gettysburg, though, not Dillsburg.

This year the weather for Farmer’s Fair was outstanding, which is something of a surprise given how wet and rainy the weather in 2011 has been. One year not long ago the festivities were actually cancelled because the rain was so severe. I can remember years when snow dusted the parade, and years when people sweltered and prayed that sundown would cool things off so they could stand to wear their parade costumes. Late October weather here is notoriously variable. This year it varied right into gorgeous sunshine.

A fall first

2011-10-17T11:56:00.000-04:00

For the first time in five months, I saw a sunset from the cabin last night. The woods around the cabin are so dense I can't see very far during the leafy season. A strong breeze over the weekend dropped many of the leaves, though I'd guess that still more than half remain. Or course, it was the colored leaves that fell, so this morning the forest looks a bit greener than these photos show.

I took these photos on Saturday morning, before the wind really kicked up, though already more than a few of the leaves had dropped. Surrounded by forest, when the leaves drop, it's as though it's raining leaves, and it's loud. What would be a soft crackle when just a few trees are involved is magnified hundreds of times over, and in the strongest breezes I'd have to shoult to make myself heard to someone standing next to me.

The leaf drop will probably lessen the impact of this year's peak day of color, but I'm happy enough to be able to see beyond my deck again that I can't say that I mind. There's still plenty of leaves left. Not enough have fallen yet for me to be able to see the few lights from houses that sit along the road at the base of Nell's Hill. That won't happen until the very end of the season. But I can see the top and left side of this mountain again, so my evening sunsets are back.

Nell's Hill - week 2

My second view today is another view of Nell's Hill, taken exactly one week after the view I posted last week (and re-posted here below today). The change in the amount of color is quite noticeable, especially at the base of the little mountain where the temperature is cooler. This next weekend will likely be the peak for the color change on the mountain--assuming more leaves aren't lost in wind or the heavy rain that is (also again!) predicted for Wednesday of this week. I'll guess I'll just have to wait until this upcoming weekend to see how that goes.

Gloomy days

2011-10-14T11:00:00.000-04:00

Gloomy weather continues today. It’s been so foggy this week that I have no idea how the color change on Nell’s Hill to the west is doing. As the weather will clear overnight, my first glimpse of it will be tomorrow morning. Whether or not the color change has progressed much in the week since I've seen the mountain, the view will be a surprise.

Elsewhere around the mountain, the color continues to be variable. In some places the colors are well along, though muted by the ever-present fog. Then just a few feet further along the trees may all still be green, and just a few feet further on, the leaves may all be on the ground.

Thunderstorms rumbled around all last evening, close enough to rattle Dog, who has been scared of them since he was caught outside in a doozy of one 4-5 years ago. The poor weather has kept us all inside this week—downpours and thunderstorms don’t make for many forays into the woods.

I, for one, am feeling the lack, especially the lack of seeing birds, who are no doubt hunkered down somewhere as safe and dry just as I am. Mid-October is normally a very good time for birding, so it’s especially frustrating not to be out there looking for the variety this time of year usually harbors.

A bit of color change

2011-10-13T11:46:00.000-04:00

Leaves are already starting to fall, littering the woods and my driveway. Last night’s rain proved heavy enough to knock down many of the leaves that had already dried and turned color, though the driveway is not yet completely covered. By the time the last of them fall, the leaves will be at least ankle deep. As yet, spots of driveway and forest floor are still visible, so what I see today is only the beginning of that yearly ritual.

It is normal for some leaves to fall before others, though I always find this a bit disconcerting. For some reason I’m afraid that means there won’t be much to the blaze of fall colors, that little will be left to see. I probably know this isn’t true, but the fear is there anyway. I keep expecting that all the leaves will be at their peak on the same day and that none of them will fall before that day. This never happens; it’s only in some perfect vision of fall that would be the case.

Today’s photo was taken last evening in the valley off the mountain. I tried to get one of the road up to my cabin this morning—the colors have really come along in the past few days—but the dense fog and rain so washed out the shades that I will wait for better light. I just hope the leaves don’t fall before I can get that photo!

Odds and ends

2011-10-11T13:59:00.000-04:00

View from backyard of Hoffman farm, Saturday, October 8, 2011

I am wearing sandals today, probably for the last time this year. This is a kind of personal tradition of mine. I wear sandals one last time on the last warm day of the year. This year I miscalculated. I should have worn them yesterday. The weather forecast for today was warm enough a day ahead of rain that is to be followed by cooler weather that it should have worked. Instead, the weather is overcast and already damp.

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I think I’ve heard coyotes howling twice in the past 24 hours, once yesterday in the early morning and again last evening. If so, this would be a first for Roundtop. I’ve heard coyotes before, out west and in Pennsylvania’s mountains further to the east, but never at Roundtop. The howling was quite distant but didn’t sound dog-like to me. I know the barks of all the surrounding dogs, too, and this didn’t sound like any of them. Several canines were howling together, and unless someone over on the next mountain came home with several new dogs recently, no one has enough to sound like a howling pack.

Perhaps 5 years ago I saw a single coyote several times during the summer at Roundtop. I never heard that one howl, no doubt because it was a singleton without a pack. He had no one to howl with or to.

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Yesterday on my travels I noticed how variable the color change is right now around the mountain. Some views look nearly at the peak of color, others spots just a few feet away have barely started.

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I continue to see lots of white-tailed deer on the move at all hours of the day and night. Yesterday I saw 10 in about four different spots. Oddly, I’ve yet to see any buck in this last week. I suspect they are still in bachelor groups and if I could find a group of those, I’d see half a dozen buck at once. Instead, I’m seeing doe with spring fawns, now spot-less as their grow their winter coats.

2011-10-10T13:37:00.000-04:00

Nell's Hill

I’ve always liked seeing how things change over time. Partly, I think that’s because how I remember something is not as precise as I’d like it to be. Certainly, my memory is no where near as precise as a photo. How long has that tree had a broken branch? Did it just happen or am I only noticing it now? Was that coltsfoot flower there last week, or did I just miss it? And so on.

So today I am posting a photo that I took on Sunday morning of Nell’s Hill, the little mountain to the west of my cabin. Over the next 2-3 weeks the trees will change color and by 4-5 weeks from today the trees will be bare. I’ve decided to post a photo of this view several times over the next weeks so I can compare this view with those taken later in the fall. Partly, I just want to get a sense of how quickly (or not) the season progresses as well as how much leaf change occurs in the span of several days.

Weather permitting, which it won’t this week, I’d like to take the same photo every 3-4 days. This week that would mean I’d take a new photo on Wednesday or Thursday, but it’s supposed to rain on both those days, so realistically my next photo will likely be taken on Friday or Saturday. At this point in the season, that’s probably okay since this week isn’t hitting at a critical point in the color change.

As you can see, the weather was gorgeous on Sunday morning, with not a cloud in the sky, though a bit of early-morning haze was evident. A few trees are changing color, though not so many just yet. There’s a pretty yellow or orange tree down on the left side of the old ski slope. A few reddish shades are visible. Over on the mountain, it’s not much different. An area in the middle of the hill has several trees, likely of the same species, that have some color. And here and there amidst the green are individual trees showing some yellow or orange. Basically, not much is going on with the color change just yet. But as with all things, that will soon change.

Facing south

2011-10-07T15:24:00.000-04:00

How long had it been since I’d seen the stars? I can’t remember exactly. I know I didn’t see them the entire month of September, but it could have been longer than that. August’s hazy skies often obscure all but the brighter stars, even on cloudless nights. Six weeks without a clear night to view the stars is my best guess.

So that amount of time without a clear view of a sight I’d previously taken for granted no doubt accounts for my gasp when I saw the perfectly clear night sky spread out in front of me during an early morning walk with Dog. Certainly, in the time since I’d last seen the stars, they had circled around and now presented me with a different view.

Now, Ursa Major stands on his tail. Canis Major loyally treads behind Orion, who still stabs at Taurus the Bull. The Seven Sisters peer down, shyly some would say, from above. It is a gorgeous sight, made more so by the absence.

The reappearance of a starry night sky is not the only “new” thing I’ve been seeing either. Suddenly, deer are everywhere. No doubt the fall rut is beginning. Yesterday morning I saw 10 of them, including two small but newly spot-less fawns, still running with mom. The deer are all over the place, even in daylight. It’s that time of year when I have to drive cautiously at night, as they jump out in front of a car without a thought for the potential danger. Only their eye-shine by the side of the road warns me.

Some summer avian residents remain, though many are gone. Up through the weekend, I still saw chimney swifts, though the swallows and kingbirds, pewees and wood thrush are long gone. Catbirds are still here, and robins. The last are in flocks, now, so I believe they aren’t the local residents, but those that summered further north, now grouped together as they move south again.

I’ve seen several large flocks, more than 100 each, of Canada Geese. These are likely migrants. The local residents typically don’t fly either as high or in as large a group. A peek at the local radar shows large numbers of birds moving through the region overnight. Sometimes I hear their chip notes, or their honks. In years past, on a moon-filled night, sometimes I even catch a glimpse of them.

Make no mistake, all migration lanes to the south are now open. Birds are pouring out of the northern woods and taking to the skies, heading to warmer climes. I will remain here and hope to welcome them back this spring and for many more to come.

Waves of color

2011-10-05T13:43:00.000-04:00

Red Maple

Pennsylvania has a lot of different species of trees. I’ve heard numbers ranging from 108-134 different species, plus another 40 or so introduced species. That is one reason why the autumn leaf colors last so long here. More northern areas tend to have fewer species, and while their color change is very dramatic, the time to see that color is usually very short. Each tree species has its own time for the color change; some change early, others late. For me, that’s both good news and bad news.

The good news is that I get to see the gorgeous for colors for a long time. I will have color on the trees from now through early November. The bad news is that the forest here is rarely, if ever, all gorgeous at the same time. Often, there’s color mixed in with greenery, except at the end of the season when color is mixed in with bare branches.

The first wave of color change is going on now. Normally, the first wave is a yellow shade, except for aptly named red maple, which joins in too. Hickory and sassafras are in this first group.

Next is the orange wave. In this area that means the white oaks, and since there’s a lot of those here on Roundtop, that is a particularly pretty time of the fall. That probably won’t happen here for another two weeks or so.

When I’m lucky, the orange second wave and the final wave of red can come pretty close together. The last of the maples and the red oak are in this last group. This group changes the last week of October and into the early days of November.

Since nothing in nature is ever an absolute, these are general principles only. Certain species, like sugar maples, can show different colors on the same tree at the same time. Other species can show different colors from year to year, depending on soil and weather.

This year I’m hopeful the floods of September will yield an extra bounty of brilliant colors during October. I plan to take as many photos as possible.

Sassafras and beech

Perhaps the end really is coming--of the rain and gloom, that is

2011-10-04T11:09:00.000-04:00

Farm in Barrens Valley

This time the forecasters are promising that the month-long spate of rain, gloom and more rain is coming to an end. Sun, they say, that mysterious and unseen yellow orb, is about to return to central Pennsylvania. I can only hope they are right for once.

In the meantime, I am having another gray, showery day, though at least it is without fog. I’ve learned over the past month to find pleasure in small improvements in the lousy weather. I’ve agreed to find intermittent showers with a high cloud ceiling a major improvement over hard rain and the claustrophobic fog.

But tomorrow sun is promised, and I’ve already gotten my sunglasses ready. Perhaps I’ll even need snow goggles as I doubt my eyes will be able to cope with bright sunlight. I’m looking forward to photos with blue sky in the background. Perhaps I’m being too hasty. I’d better not count my chickens before they are hatched, as the old saying goes. Let’s just say that I am cautiously hopeful and leave it at that. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with a few more gloomy photos.

Cabin Hollow Rd with gloom and puddles

2011-10-03T09:50:00.000-04:00

Making apple cider

On a cold and blustery Sunday morning I went to the nearby Apple Harvest Festival, where I annually spend too much money and eat too much. This year was no exception.

Let’s start with the weather. Before the rain, fog and gloom of September, it was summer here. The fog has disappeared, if not the rain and gloom. Now somehow, between the clouds, the temperatures and the wind, I find suddenly find myself in November. At least that’s how it feels.

The festival runs for two weekends. Next week is the second weekend. Crowds were light this weekend, at least on Sunday morning, which suited me and my dislike of trying to look over people, bumping into people, etc. I’m sure the organizers and the vendors weren’t thrilled. Likely, people are hoping for better weather this upcoming week. Vendors who were selling sweatshirts, hats and even gloves were doing a good business.

The festival is a great place to pick up a few gifts for Christmas, as the craft vendors are outstanding. I came home with a handmade basket, a couple of kugels (handblown glass balls sometimes called “witch balls”), a braided rug and a nice print of a pair of Carolina wrens and one of an old local barn.

After I couldn’t carry anything more, I decided it was time to start eating. This requires a trip around the entire fair as I can only eat so much, and I don’t want to eat one thing only to find something even better a few stands away that I simply can’t find room in my stomach for. This year I settled on a huge pulled pork barbecue and some apple crisp. I also came home with a loaf of homemade apple crumb bread.

I could have spent more money and would have liked to try the apple sausages or the pit beef and the interesting kinds of soda made by a local brewer. Perhaps I’ll just have to go back again this weekend.

Improvement

2011-09-30T10:13:00.000-04:00

Sunrise with Canada geese

This morning the weather is somewhat improved. The fog has lifted, so even though the sky is still overcast, at least I can see much further than the 20-40 feet that was my daily distance over the past weeks. This morning, the Canada geese came out, so instead of just honks in the fog, they were visible as they paraded through the parking lot at Roundtop this morning.

I saw deer this morning, too, eyes reflecting in my headlamp as I walked Dog and Baby Dog. The deer are nearly tame, not deigning to run even when I speak to try and calm the canines. Three of them even ran towards us for a bit, crossing in front of us to gallop down the macadam access road, hooves noisily telling me where they were even after I couldn’t see them any longer. That really set the dogs off. Galloping deer brings out the wolf in these allegedly long-domesticated beasts faster than I can say “no!”

Later, one of them stood just above my driveway and watched me drive out, never bothering to move away into the safety of the brush. I suspect that hunting season will put some wariness back into them, at least those that survive. The ones that hang around my cabin may be the smarter ones. If they don’t wander far they will be safe from bow and rifle hunters alike.

For now, I am happy with a day of no-rain, and the promise of no-rain on Sunday. I am ignoring the forecast for Saturday, hoping it will be wrong. The weekend promises to be chilly, and rain or shine I will have to bring in the outdoor plants that have happily grown outdoors all summer. I will likely need to have a fire in the fireplace this weekend, too. The seasonal change is well along, now, and I can only hope that the glorious, crisp days of fall (and no rain) will arrive with the new month.

Another day, another 2 inches of rain

2011-09-29T11:41:00.000-04:00

The daily 2 inches of rain this area is getting is now beyond old. It borders on torture.

Yesterday afternoon it rained harder than I've ever seen it rain in my entire life. That lasted for about 20 minutes and in that time an inch fell. Then an hour later, it rained just as hard for another 15 minutes and dropped another inch of rain. I ended up pumping the flash flood out of my basement. Again.

Baby Dog, who hates water, was appalled when I took her outside yesterday evening. Water ran down my drive, and it was impossible for her to keep her toes dry. She isn't coping well.

Rain washed out my lane, rushing down the mountain, carving deep ruts down the middle. Even with 4-wheel drive it's a bumpy ride. After the rain abated, I went out with my heavy rake and tried to even it out a bit. That didn't work as well as I'd hoped because the stone and dirt road is mostly too hard to even out with just a rake. But the water managed to cut a path a foot deep even so.

Fog pervades the mountain and off the mountain, too. In those rare moments when I can see the forest with any clarity, I am noticing the beginnings of the fall leaf change. In my first photo, if that was all there was to the story, you'd probably think this gorgeous orange shade covered the mountain. The reality today is more like the second photo. It's a gorgeous orange tree in the middle of a still mostly green forest.

The weather was supposed to improve (or at least not rain) tomorrow, but "tomorrow" is turning into something that never arrives, and the end to the torture is pushed back for yet another day. Or two. Whatever happened to gorgeous fall weather? It sure didn't exist at all in September, which now stands as the rainiest month ever for this year.

Merlin!

2011-09-26T16:54:00.003-04:00

Fall is definitely here on Roundtop Mountain, though the temperatures are still swinging back and forth between summer and fall. Rain still falls every other day or so, and though the temperature is lower, it's every bit as humid and muggy as midsummer.

This region has now already broken the yearly record for rainfall. Records have been kept here since around 1888, and the record was last set in 1972, thanks mostly to Hurricane Agnes. Since 2011 has more than three months until it's over, this is likely to be a record that stands for a long time. And more rain is in the forecast. Everyone I've talked to is sick of rain. Sunlight has been in very short supply.

Another sign of the new season is that I'm seeing fall migrants on the mountain. Today's photo is a merlin, a perched merlin, which is even more uncommon. It's a bad photo, I know, but it's the only photo of a merlin in the wild I've ever been able to get. I see this medium-sized falcon fairly regularly on a hawkwatch, but even there they can be hard to see. By the time one person shouts, "Merlin!" the bird is already someplace else. Small, dark and fast as a bat out of hell is a good description.

I saw this bird as I was leaving the mountain on Saturday morning (without my camera). I immediately turned around, raced back up the hill and grabbed the camera, not really expecting the bird to still be there. It was, obviously, but the bird was also now surrounded by three crows, come to mob the raptor, a favorite game. The local crows are usually left to mob red-tailed hawks or maybe a great horned owl. Mobbing a merlin must have been a thrill for them. The light was poor, but at least I got a quick shot.

Long tale on a gray morning

2011-09-21T21:05:00.002-04:00

This morning the fog was so dense that even with my headlamp, I stumbled several times on my early morning walk with Dog. I couldn’t even see my own feet at times, and Dog was just a large brown blur at my side.

On such a morning, I didn’t really expect to see anything interesting. After all, I need to see in order to find something interesting. Even the birds were quiet this morning, though the 50 or so Canada geese that live on the new pond are always fussing about something, no matter what the hour. Because I couldn’t judge my footing, the slightest variation in the dirt road’s surface was enough to put me off balance. Sometimes the road was an inch higher than my foot expected, sometimes lower. So Dog and I moved onto a paved access road where the surface was less variable.

That’s where I saw the tracks, just a series of wet splotches on the pavement. The animal had been standing in the pond, then walked onto the macadam, leaving the wet splotches behind. So, I didn’t have a footprint to investigate, just the splotches. That I saw the splotches at all told me that our walking around the pond had likely startled the animal. Even on a gray morning, wet splotches on pavement dry pretty quickly.

At first I thought the print must have been made by a deer, as I’ve seen them many times standing in the pond to drink. But then I saw more of the track pattern, the distance between the splotches and saw how they were lined up. I realized then these were made by a red fox.

Fox walk so that their hind foot strikes in the same spot just vacated by their front foot. This kind of pattern is pretty typical of most canines and is evident when the animal is walking or trotting, though not when they run. Dog and I followed this fox trail as it exited the pond, wandered down along the edge of the road and then headed back into the grass besides the pond again, only to soon return to the road, trot down it further, turn around once and then leave the road for good. What made the animal do that?

Thinking about the route Dog and I were taking on our morning walk gave me the answer. We’d walked along one side of the pond and then, instead of continuing around it, I headed towards the lodge, where the nighttime lights offered more visibility than my headlamp. We hadn’t gotten very far when the automatic lights turned off for morning, leaving me more in the dark than when I was out in the open. So Dog and I turned around and headed back along the pond.

My guess is that we startled the fox as we walked along the pond, but when we headed towards the lodge, the thirsty fox returned to the pond for another drink, only to be thwarted when Dog and I changed our route back towards the pond. It stopped once to see where we were or notice that we were heading back in its direction once again, and then headed off into the woods, for good this time.

I guess the moral of this little tale is that even on a very foggy morning, where I can’t see much of anything, there’s still something interesting to see and think about.

No particular topic

2011-09-20T15:10:00.004-04:00

A pretty farm just down from Rountop Mtn.

A gray mist descended on the mountain this morning, so my photos today are from the day before, when the sky was overcast but not yet raining. My mother, and grandmother, too, as I recall, called these days with layers of thick, gray clouds an “October sky.” Today is not yet October, but that month is getting close. The days are already starting to vacillate between warm and cool. It’s too early in the season for the temperature to stay cool, though that won’t be long away either. On Sunday I actually lit my fireplace for a few hours, more to chase out the damp than for the heat it provided.

As part of my preparations for cooler weather, I have set up my fall birdfeeders again. The feeding stations aren’t completed yet. I will tweak my placement and set up for at least another month before calling it done. Although I’d like to have feeders up year round, the seed molds faster than the birds eat it in summer. And the opossums are often pretty tough on them, too.

So far, neither the squirrels nor the raccoons have discovered the feeders. That won’t last, either. I’ve given up buying the “nice” birdfeeders. I’ve yet to have one last longer than a year. I did get one of those squirrel proof metal feeders a year or so ago. A raccoon simply up-dumped the entire thing. Squirrel-proof, it might have been, but it wasn’t raccoon-proof.

So far I’ve only had the usual suspects testing the seed. White-breasted nuthatch, a Carolina chickadee and assorted titmice have all visited. The local birds eventually get quite tame. Earlier today I had the patio door open so I can hear my visitors when they arrive. They always announce themselves. Though I sit just 7-8 feet away from the feeders, as long as I don’t move quickly, my presence doesn’t bother them much. I guess the idea of free food is greater than their natural caution. Of course, I just like to think they are willing to share their company with me. I know I sure enjoy theirs.

Cottages surround a muddy Silver Lake, near Lewisberry

Hawkwatching - Waggoner's Gap

2011-09-18T19:29:00.000-04:00

I've spent the past few days hawkwatching, my favorite fall activity. It's something of an obsession, really, and has been for more than 20 years. Most people view hawkwatching and hawkwatchers as some other breed of human, one possibly that's not quite human. When I'm on a hawkwatch with other hawkwatchers, I'm with a group of people who seem perfectly normal (and treat me the same way). Sometimes, when I'm surrounded by suburban denizens, I feel as though I'm from another planet. That never happens when I'm on a hawkwatch.

View to the north from Waggoner's Gap

This week I've spent my hawkwatching at Waggoner;s Gap, not far from Carlisle, Pennsylvania.  The weather cooperated, producing a lovely partly cloudy or overcast sky that made finding hawks much easier than trying to find them in the "blue sky of death" that seems to occur all too frequently. The hawks cooperated, too. Over the past two days I saw nearly 6000 Broad-winged Hawks, including more than 300 in the sky at one time.

Broadwings are one of the few species of North American hawks that fly in flocks, or as hawkwatchers call them "kettles." The birds gravitate towards thermals, columns of warm air. In those columns the birds circle and rise every higher. When they reach the top of the thermal, they "stream" out in a single file. Then they glide, gradually losing altitude until they search for another thermal to take them higher again.  They travel down to Central America, and gliding conserves energy, making that long trip easier.

During this week, the broadwings are the stars, but they aren't the only hawk in the air. I saw 15-17 Bald Eagles, plenty of Sharp-shinned Hawks, a few Cooper's Hawks, American Kestrels and a few Northern Harriers.

When the hawks aren't flying, those of us sitting on a hawkwatch usually talk about hawks, watch other species of birds or just take in the beautiful scenery. Usually I do all three, though not at the same time. One of my retirement goals is to spend an entire season on a hawkwatch, from the first day of the season to the last. As it is, I probably won't get back until October, when the numbers of hawks are fewer but a wider variety of species is common. And then there's always November, when Golden Eagles and Rough-legged Hawks fly. The entire fall lies ahead of me, with as much hawkwatching as I can fit in.

Full moon with spruce

2011-09-14T14:57:00.000-04:00

The forest is starting to dry off, at least around the edges, so I was able to explore a bit yesterday. Mushrooms, to no one’s surprise, I’m sure, are popping up everywhere. So far, I haven’t seen any that are unusual or gorgeous. I’ve just seen lots of the standard varieties.

Since it’s been nearly a full week since I was last able to wander around the woods, I saw more leaves turning color than I expected. The driveways and roads were littered with leaves torn off by Hurricane Irene for a few days, but now that they have disappeared I really can’t see that the canopy looks thinner than it did before.

Fall bird migration is already well underway. Raptor counts are picking up with several sites already counting more than 1000 hawks in a day. Counters are also reporting large numbers and variety of songbirds. The summer residents are heading south and will soon be gone.

I am looking forward to the change of seasons. I actually have more sunlight in the winter than in summer, and this year the leaf canopy has been particularly thick and the sunlight lacking. With the drop in leaves will come a view of the sky and the mountains to the west, both of which have been invisible to me for the past few months. Even though the birds are leaving, the open sky and the mountain will give me something beautiful to look at. I'm ready for that.

Finally, sun!

2011-09-12T16:24:00.000-04:00

I can't even begin to tell you how glad I was to see the sun when it finally appeared late on Saturday afternoon. Even after the rains from the hurricane abated, the weather didn't clear. The fog was as thick as a blanket. The humidity was just as bad, and the sky was completely overcast. Even my mold had mold. I was starting to think nothing was ever going to dry out. Today, the rivers, especially the Susquehanna, are still running high but are receding, and life is returning to more normal with every foot the river drops.

That first glimpse of sun, just at sunset, was greeted with a mental cheer and a sign of relief from me. The drying out process after the one-two punch of Hurricanes Irene and Lee (and perhaps even Katia should get a mention) still has a ways to go. At least the process has begun and no hurricanes are in the forecast.

Now I am wondering, what will all this rain mean for the fall color change, which is now only about 4 weeks away? Will it make it later? Prettier? Longer? I will have to wait and see. I expect it will have some impact, but just what that might be is still unknown.

In any event, it's not raining today. No rain is in the forecast, and as soon as the forest dries out just a bit more, I'll be down on a trail, looking to see whatever I can see.

Flood now reaching historical proportions

2011-09-08T16:52:00.000-04:00

Beaver Creek

I didn't post any photos from day 2 of the flood. I couldn't get off the mountain. As soon as I drove down the hill, on every road available, one creek or another flooded out the roads. I was high, if not always dry, though a little water in the basement is far better than what I could see earlier today down off the mountain.

The first and second views are of Beaver Creek. I couldn't get the entire creek, which is normally about 6-7 feet wide, in a single photo.

Beaver Creek

My third photo is of Pinchot Lake. The canoes are usually well above the shoreline and not anywhere near where you'd expect them to be covered by water. The flood in this area is now reaching historical proportions. Worse than this was Hurricane Agnes in 1972. I was home from college at the time and remember that we had 18 inches of rain in 3 days. This event is about 14 inches in the same amount of time.

The Governor's Mansion in Harrisburg has already been evacuated. During Agnes, the governor had to be taken from the mansion in a boat. This time, the governor's people called in half a dozen moving vans to move everything off the lower level, and the National Guard is sandbagging the place, hoping to keep the water out, but no one knows if that will work or not.

Several bridges across the Susquehanna are already closed. Several people have died. The Senators baseball stadium is under water. The sewage and water treatments plants are beginning to fail. Thousands have been evacuated already. The river is expected to crest just a foot or two below the Agnes level.

From my perspective, this flood is in some ways worse than I remember Agnes, in that the smaller creeks seem more affected than I remember them back in the day when the population was fewer and development much less. But I'm doing fine and am in far better shape than many people today.

Pinchot Lake

What's next? Locusts?

2011-09-07T11:07:00.000-04:00

So let me run down the list. So far this year I've had tornado, hurricane, blizzard (a small one), ice storm and this week we're adding flood to the list. This flood is more than just the run of the mll spring melt flooding. Hurricane Lee is falling apart and moving north, bringing days of rain to my area.

These photos were taken on the evening of day one of the flood. I'm in the middle of day 2 and am already pumping water out of my basement. Later today, I'll try and get a few more photos, though even that isn't easy since most of the time the rain is a downpour. I've been taking photos from my car, with a window run down but I can only do that on the leeward side of the rain.

The rain is supposed to stop sometime on Thursday, and then this area will see river flooding on Friday and perhaps Saturday too. Gee, I'm really ready for some nice, pleasant weather for a change. Now that would be novel.

2011-09-04T16:58:00.000-04:00

Someone, I forget who, called this kind of day "air you can wear." It's so soupy that this morning when I walked down to the pond I couldn't see it. I could hear a large flock of Canada geese on the pond, but I couldn't see a single one of them. At the day progressed, the haze lifted a little bit, though I still feel that I'm walking through a steam bath.

Tiny spiderweb

Later in the afternoon I did a little hawkwatching up on the mountain. It's still too early for many raptors to move, and with the very minimal breeze coming from the south instead of the north, the conditions were not near to anything resembling ideal. But, I have to hawkwatch when I have the day off. I can't, unfortunately, do my hawkwatching whenever the weather is ideal and still keep my day job.

So I was happy to see anything at all. I saw two ospreys, including one pipping and making quite a fuss over something. A Cooper's Hawk soared and flapped over the hill, a Red-tailed Hawk joined in. Several Black Vultures streamed back and forth over the mountain and a handful of Turkey Vultures, too. Nothing too exciting, though I am always glad to find an hour or two where I can sit and stare and the sky and see a few things.

Old stones, new orchard

2011-09-02T11:20:00.000-04:00

The old stone fence circles the new orchard, one young enough that it won’t produce fruit this season. When I call the fence old, I mean it is likely 200-250 years old, which is just about as old as things get in this part of Pennsylvania. This state is notorious for its rocks—ask any Appalachian Trail hiker about rocks and they will immediately grimace when they mention Pennsylvania. The reason we have so many stone fences is that our earliest farmers had to get those rocks out of their newly cleared fields before they could plant a crop. Those rocks became the stone fences.

Today, the stone fences are disappearing, giving way to houses or wooden fences. In my area, which is both hilly and rocky, the stone fences are still hanging on, and are often still used as fences. Unlike in New England, where the poet Robert Frost famously wrote about a stone fence as a property line (Mending Wall, where he wrote, “good fences make good neighbors”), here they more typically simply mark the edges of a field.

Sometimes, when I walk through the woods, I come across the remains of an old stone fence from some long-abandoned farm. Homesteads far up on the mountains frequently didn't survive very long. The soil isn't as good, the conditions are too severe for a good crop. Trees around those old fences are frequently huge, which makes me think the forgotten farmer never fully cleared the land before quitting it.

The hills around my mountain are perfect for growing fruit. Apples are the main crop, though peaches and pears do well too. The first apples, the tart ones used in cooking, are already being harvested, sitting in big bins or on trucks in front of the farmers’ barns, ready to go to market. These are the Jonathans, the McIntoshes, the Rome Beauty. The sweet eating apples of fall will follow soon, though never soon enough for me.

Today the weather is so gloomy, I am again reminded that the day is not far off when I will have to take all the week’s photos for Roundtop Ruminations during the weekends. As it was, I was forced to take a photo out of the forest and partway down the mountain where the fields and orchards are open to the sky, but that gave me a reason to take a closer look at the old fence, once again.

Re-powered

2011-09-01T12:20:00.000-04:00

After Irene - road is littered with debris but no downed trees

Ah, to be back in the 21st Century again. My power is restored, though I can’t say my life is back to normal just yet.

During the power outage I gathered up many of the items I use regularly and put them in plain sight on my kitchen table so I could find them easily. Battery-powered lanterns don’t give off nearly as much light as the electric lights. So now I am faced with putting everything away again.

I lost many of the items in my refrigerator, though I saved the condiments in an ice chest and took the frozen items to sister’s house. Tonight, I’ll likely head down there again to retrieve them. The restocking of the other items will have to wait until I shop for groceries this weekend.

Our modern houses simply aren’t geared for long periods without electricity. Back before electricity, people used cook stoves fueled with wood. They used iceboxes for chilling items. They had outhouses. They had hand pumps on their wells. My well pump needs electricity. Naturally, I store water for me and the animals, but when power is out for more than a few days, I start to run low. If I didn’t work away from the cabin during the day (where naturally they had power), I could have pulled water from the nearby ponds, built a fire or run a camp stove and then boiled it to make sure it was safe. Try doing that during a work day.

I’d love to go solar, but for me to do that, I’d have to cut down a lot of trees so the cabin could get enough sunlight for it. I’m just not willing to do that, though if I experience many more windstorms such as came with Hurricane Irene, that option might begin to look more attractive.

One thing I noticed is that with so many people, literally for miles around the mountain, out of power the night skies were gorgeous. Here on Roundtop, I have a far better view of the night sky than virtually everyone else and even I noticed more stars. I hadn’t realized just how much light pollution from nearby developments and villages impacts my own view of the sky up here where there are few lights.

So now my life here on the mountain is returning to normal again. This morning the dogs startled two deer that were inexplicably right next to the cabin, scattering them up the hill, crashing through the underbrush. Some things never change, whether there’s electricity or no.

Power-less

2011-08-29T13:47:00.000-04:00

Roundtop Ruminations will likely be offline for a few days. I'm out of power thanks to Hurricane Irene, and the power company reports it will likely be days before it is restored. Please check back the end of the week, and I'll try to write an update (or perhaps I'll be lucky and will have power again by then!)

Fortunately, I didn't have any damage at the cabin. I'm just time-traveling back to the 19th Century this week.

Cheers from Carolyn H., Dog, Baby Dog and the chickens

2011-08-26T14:26:00.000-04:00

“Calm before a storm” is a cliché, but it’s also often a true one. Whether it’s the day before a big snowstorm or the hours before a bad thunderstorm or the day before Hurricane Irene arrives, the calm has arrived in my area. For Roundtop Mtn., the forecast about what to expect from this storm has changed about three times a day since Tuesday.

I don’t know what will actually happen here, though some rain and a breezy or even gusty Sunday is likely. If the storm isn’t too bad here, I will likely go looking for “hurricane birds.” When a hurricane rides up the coast the way Irene is doing right now, it’s pretty common for birds who normally are never far from the ocean to come inland to shelter from the storm. For some reason, Caspian terns seem to be the species I see most commonly during these episodes, though I never know what else can or will turn up. Since I don’t often get to go to the ocean, having a few of the ocean or coastal birds come to me is a treat.

For now, the storm isn’t close enough to see even the highest or thinnest cirrus clouds. The morning was as clear as you could want, if a tad misty down along the creek. Tonight I will do what I always do before the calm turns into the storm. I’ll check the cabin an extra time, make sure I have a few extra supplies and then settle down to wait out the storm, just like those hurricane birds.

First picture of east coast earthquake devastation!

2011-08-25T09:10:00.001-04:00

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

Earthquake wrap-up

2011-08-24T16:05:00.000-04:00

Calm morning

Yesterday’s earthquake was a surprise but once everyone figured out it wasn’t caused by something terrible at nearby Three Mile Island, people around here settled down and got back to business as usual.

When I came back to my desk after the earthquake I looked at the USGS earthquake site to see how big the quake was and where it was centered. When I saw a quake down in Virginia, for a few moments I thought my quake hadn’t shown up yet. I simply couldn’t believe that a quake centered 200 miles away could be felt so strongly here. I thought the center was going to be somewhere very nearby.

At the cabin, nothing appeared damaged or fallen. I found a few cockeyed pictures on the walls, but they might have been like that before the quake. I tend not to notice things of a household nature all that much. Dog was about half wound up but he’d been flirting with bad behavior for a day or more, so that might not have been from the earthquake either.

The earthquake made for a good topic of conversation but fortunately this area didn’t sustain any damage or injury. The last time this area had such a strong earthquake was back in 1944. For my 85-year old father, this was his first experience of one, since he was over in the European Theater in 1944.

I did notice yesterday that deer were out in the fields in the middle of the day in more than a few places. I have no idea if the earthquake had anything to do with that, either, though it is unusual to see them then instead of around dusk or dawn.

All in all we did fine. I just hope we don’t have any more.

Earthquake!

2011-08-23T16:00:00.000-04:00

A 5.9 earthquake was centered in someplace no one has every heard of in Virginia and even 200 miles away I felt it. And now, reports are coming in from as far away as Canada and Florida that they felt it too.

Gee, I've had a tornado this spring, an earthquake this summer, and I hope I don't get to add hurricane to the list before the week is out (Irene). Eighteen inches of rain in 3 days from Hurricane Agnes back in 1972 was mroe than bad enough!

At work in Harrisburg the building swayed, and if I'd heard a noise, I would have assumed something had hit the building. or was bouncing like a trampoline up on the roof. So I went outside to check and I saw light poles dancing around. That's when I knew for sure it was an earthquake.

Apparently not at all what it seems to be(e)

2011-08-23T12:22:00.000-04:00

If people watched me doing what I do, they’d probably think I was crazy. This morning I spent some time watching what I first thought was bumblebee digging around in a purple thistle. How many people do that? I was initially interested for at least a couple of reasons.

This particular insect was working very hard to get as deep into the thistle as it could. Sometimes it was so deep into the flower that it was essentially invisible. And the bee, or perhaps “bee,” looked a bit odd to me. It was smaller than the average bumblebee. The markings on the back looked different. So I started to investigate bee species, trying to find out what kind it might be.

As a result of that investigation, I think this might not be a bee at all but a bee mimic. The fly species Eristalis anthophorina and Eristalis flavipes are both bee mimics and the photos I found of them are the closest matches I’ve found to this creature. There are many species of these bee mimics, also called flower flies. Here’s a link to some information about these flies, which are seen at least as far south as western West Virginia but apparently are more common in Canada and the more northern states. However, information about them is spotty at best, at least online.

Nature does this to me a lot. I started out this morning just looking for something to photograph. With the mornings growing darker each day, the areas I can explore before I head to work are shrinking with each lessening minute of daylight. Those areas are now so familiar to me that it’s hard for me to see them with a new eye or to photograph something there that you readers haven’t see before. But then a purple thistle caught my eye and what seemed like an ordinary bumblebee gathering pollen suddenly turned into something entirely new. How can anyone grow tired or bored when something so simple as a bee on a thistle turns into something entirely different and new?

Clear

2011-08-22T16:01:00.000-04:00

I keep telling myself that it’s too early for fall weather, to not expect the lovely, low humidity and pleasant temperatures to last. It’s more than early enough in the year to experience another round of hot, humid and generally unpleasant weather.

In more than a few past years, on those rare occasions when August weather is nice, September weather is not. I’d rather have a great September than a pleasant August, so I am suspicious of what to expect in another few weeks. Or perhaps I am just naturally wary of unexpectedly good things. Be that as it may, today my suspicions are starting to cave in.

Fall migration is underway, with Broad-winged Hawks and good numbers of Bald Eagles on the wing. Goldfinches are more common than robins this week. Mushrooms and fungus are appearing. A few leaves and bushes are yellowing and don’t appear to be suffering from either disease or damage. This morning I had to wear a sweatshirt over my t-shirt. It feels like fall in so many ways that I am almost shocked when I look at the calendar and read it is only August 22. I should still be stuck in the middle of a heat wave, melting in the high humidity and complaining about the thick haze of summer.

Golden

2011-08-19T13:13:00.000-04:00

Bolete

I found myself this Friday morning with a few extra minutes to wander around the mountain. The morning was clear and fine, if trending towards hotter again. Weather needs to be pretty bad for me to avoid wandering because of it, and this morning was pretty far along the good side of that scale.

When I wander in an area I know well, I have to pay close attention or my familiarity can keep me from seeing details that are different. I am usually aware this can happen, which helps. With only a few extra minutes in my morning, I didn’t have time to go down into the mountain valley below me or even traipse along one of the woods trails. I had only enough time to wander the edges of the forest, a spot I see about three times a day—leaving and returning to the mountain and walking the dogs in the now nearly dark mornings. So this little patch is about as familiar to me as my own living room, which is why I really wasn’t expecting to find anything I hadn’t seen before. But I did.

This morning I found several lovely yellow mushrooms. I believe the one here is a bolete of some variety, possibly an edible variety, though I have no intention of testing that. I was just drawn to the lovely yellow gills on the underside of the mushroom, and the lovely yellow light of morning on it.

Afterwards I noticed the morning light on the goldenrod weed. Goldenrod gets a bad rap as the plant that many think causes hay fever. Ragweed, which isn’t nearly as pretty, is the allergy culprit, not goldenrod. When you see the one, it’s hard to imagine how the two could ever be confused.

Tall goldenrod

Goldenrod is mostly considered a weed in North America, probably because it’s not usually planted by humans and grows profusely anywhere it wants to. In some places and among some gardeners that bad rap is beginning to change. In Europe, goldenrod is a frequent garden plant, but here not many gardeners favor it, though some inroads are being made. The goldenrod family has many species, at least 50 in North America. The one I’ve pictured today is the one most common to my area, the tall goldenrod.

And lastly, the golden light of a late summer’s morning, long shadows over grass, to go with the golden mushroom and goldenrod. During late summer, a bright golden shade of sunlight rules the mornings. In July the light is a more lemon-yellow. By November, the light will have a reddish or bronze cast to it. But in August the light and at least a few of the plants are simply golden.

Still evening

2011-08-18T12:00:00.000-04:00

If anything is as still as a summer evening, I can’t think what it might be. Spring weather is so variable that a still evening is rare. Fall evenings are gorgeous though often come with a northwest breeze or the slow but continuous dropping of a leaf or two or twelve. Winter evenings are dark so quickly that who really knows?

A still summer evening can last for hours, the light changing minutely, minute by minute. It’s easy to lose an entire evening just sitting and watching the evening change. Nothing much seems to happen but it’s a joy to sit and watch the day end and the night deepen. Some days I wish I could just sit and watch the day end every evening. I can feel my pulse slow and muscles relax. Even the sounds of the forest slow and become fewer. The nighttime sound of cicadas eventually take over, beginning before the last of the day’s sounds have ended, overlapping for a few brief moments.

I always listen for the first call of one of the local owls. Sometimes the call is from a great horned owl, sometimes from the screech owl. I almost never hear both calls on the same evening. The great horned owl is almost always distant. The screech owl can be either close or further up the mountain. Even when that call sounds as though it is right next to me, I’ve never been able to locate the bird in the thick forest, and it never stays nearby for long.

I’ve heard people say that the sound of a train in the distance gives them a sense of all being right with the world. I can understand their thinking, but for me it’s the first evening call of an owl. Last night it was the screech owl, this time not close but far up on the mountain, the sound carrying a long ways down the hill to my cabin and me.

2011-08-17T11:59:00.000-04:00

Morning moon

I’m already noticing that the morning light in the forest is no longer always good enough for a photograph. Even on a perfectly clear morning like this one, the sun’s light only lit the upper reaches of the canopy, while the ground was still dark.

I watched the light travel slowly down the length of a tall oak tree for a while, hoping it would reach the bottom of the tree before I had to leave, but it didn’t. Out in the open the light is still good enough for a photo, but even here the morning is dark enough to show the moon in the western sky.

So I will soon have to re-plan my daily photographs and switch from a morning photo to one taken in the evening. When that happens, even the possibility that my photo might match with my writing topic for the day dims even further. Usually when I take a photo for Roundtop Ruminations, I think that photo will also provide the topic for the day. But often when I sit down to write my post, I’ve thought of something else, so the two don’t match all very frequently anyway. Since I can’t match the two when the photo is taken barely an hour two before I sit down to write, you can imagine how infrequently the two will match once a full 12 hours has passed between taking a photo and uploading a blog post. Consider yourselves warned.

The vanishing act

2011-08-16T11:19:00.000-04:00

Black angus cattle at sunset

Barn swallows are gathering on the wires along the old snowmaking pond. Soon they will be gone, headed south for another season. One morning they will be there, lined up like clothespins on a line, but when I return to the cabin in the evening they will be gone, all at once.

Not many species of birds migrate in this all or nothing pattern. Most have a window of migration peculiar to that species. Some of the windows are early in the season, others as late as the first snow. A flurry of activity usually accompanies the first decent frost, as though they need that reminder to get themselves airborne. Some of the migration windows are pretty tight, lasting for just a week or so; others stretch out over the entire fall.

Swallows all leave here on the same day, though I often see the more northerly birds still heading south when I am sitting on a hawkwatch in early September. The day the barn swallows leave Roundtop varies by just a day or so each year. Likely weather plays a part. Most commonly they will be gone on the 26th or 27th of August.

At this point, just under two weeks before they head south, they start to gather on the wires in the evenings, a few or several more each night until the day comes when they all vanish. Other summer species are still on the mountain and will be for a while yet. I still hear the pewee’s haunting echo in the early morning or after sunset.

Migrating shorebirds will sometimes stop to spend an hour or a night on the mountain. I never see many of them, and none ever stay very long. This area has plenty of other spots more suited to shorebirds—the Susquehanna River, the bigger lake at Pinchot, to name just two. I’ve often wondered why even the few I do see stop here when those other, better sites should be visible to an airborne bird that chooses instead to land at a small pond atop a mountain. Are they so exhausted from a long day’s flight that they can’t fly for another 5-10 minutes? They rarely appear that way. Maybe they think the ponds will prove a bonanza for a single, hungry shorebird. Their stopping here is a mystery all their own, a secret I can never penetrate.

Perhaps that’s part of why I enjoy migration so much. It’s a visible rendering of one of the world’s best mysteries. Each year, scientists uncover a bit more of the mystery, though that doesn’t diminish it. If anything, the explanations make the mystery all the deeper and that much sweeter. One of nature’s most awe-inspiring events happens right over our heads, twice each year.

Wandering

2011-08-11T14:42:00.000-04:00

Green heron at sunset

Last evening I set off into the woods an hour or so before sunset. The shadows were already long and inviting. The sky was a deep, clear blue with no humidity to shorten the distance or obscure the view.

I followed no path and had only a vague notion of where I was going. What I really wanted to do was walk where I hadn’t walked recently, where ticks, high grass and higher temperatures had defeated my ambition for a while. It’s one thing to wear long pants to avoid ticks when the temperature is cool, but doing so when it’s 95 is more than I am willing to do. Now that the season is heading towards fall and the grasses are drying up, ticks are already fewer in number, and now I am willing.

So I wandered through the long grasses between the forest and a pond, scaring up frogs and scattering dragonflies of various sizes and shapes. A green heron squawked and flew into a tree on the edge of the woods. A belted kingfisher rattled, flying low over the pond, slaloming its way between a flock of Canada geese and a lone mallard in eclipse plumage.

The shadows lengthened and still I walked, up into a pine forest that whispered on the northwest breeze, past the scolding crows. I walked past the tornado-damaged trees and the drooping brown-eyed susans. I hopped over a tiny, no-name stream, running full again after a rainy week. I heard the patter of a groundhog’s feet as it galloped across a ski slope to get away from me. I saw the doe and fawns grazing up on the hill, raising their heads and twitching their tails as I passed.

I saw the sun fall low against the distant hill and the first stars of evening join the nearly full moon in the sky above before I found my way back. It was only the darkness that brought me back to the cabin. If not for that, I might still be walking.

Can I call this fall yet?

2011-08-10T14:55:00.000-04:00

Beaver Creek

The soupy weather of midsummer is in the process of disappearing today. The humidity is falling down to normal levels and will even be low tomorrow. Nighttime temperatures will be below 60 for the first time since June, and the breeze is from the northwest. It’s too early to call this the start of fall, but I’m certainly tempted to do that anyway.

Summer is certainly on the downside of the season, and the signs are looking good for cooler and less humid weather ahead. As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a moment too soon. This is all a long way of saying that today’s photo may be the last day of “soup” in my photos for some time. I hope so. I hadn’t quite planned on living in a rain forest or a jungle when I moved to Roundtop Mtn. I had in mind crisp breezes, cool summer nights, solitude and the constant sounds of the surrounding forest. I was half right.

And lest you think the second week of August is too soon to be thinking about fall, which officially doesn’t start for another six weeks, let me report that the first of the fall hawkwatches have opened for the season, the chimney swifts are already migrating and the barn swallows are thinking about it. Shorebirds are migrating, too. Just because the sun hasn’t reached the fall equinox yet doesn’t mean the season isn’t on its way.

In fact this might be a very pretty fall locally, given the amount of moisture that fell in the spring and has fallen in the past two weeks or so. That would be a nice switch from the past few years, too, when the fall colors have been spotty at best or drab at worst. We’ll have to see what the next few months bring, but so far, the signs are positive. For today, that's good enough for me!

Sunday morning

2011-08-08T15:37:00.000-04:00

Beaver Creek trail

On Saturday night, my area was “treated” to a downpour. I got off lucky here on Roundtop, getting just over 1.5 inches of rain in 30 minutes. Only a few miles away, more than 3 inches fell, and several miles further away, flooding resulted from the nearly 6 inches of rain that fell in an hour. That’s why I say I was lucky. I didn’t get that.

When Sunday morning arrived, the entire area was fogged in, and the humidity was oppressive to the extreme. My forest was simply dripping, but I still felt the need to go for a walk, so I headed the few miles down the mountain to Gifford Pinchot SP. The trails there tend to be wider than the ones at Roundtop, so I figured I wouldn’t get so wet. And, truth be told, I was looking to walk someplace that I don’t see every day, just for a slight change.

The forest at Pinchot isn’t really very different than the one up on Roundtop. Certainly, the tree species are much the same. The trees where I walked on Sunday tend to be a bit smaller than those at home. The underbrush tends to be not quite as thick. The result of being surrounded by smaller trees and less underbrush is that I can see further into Pinchot’s forest than I can at home right now, a small but welcome change that makes photography a bit easier and more interesting, at least to me.

The haze from the humidity was so thick that breathing took an extra effort, and I felt as though I was breathing something thick and solid enough to eat. Who needs to eat when you can breathe in humidity and get your calories that way? Truly, I have had soup that was less substantial than Sunday morning’s air.

I was the first person to walk the trail on Sunday. I brushed aside many cobwebs, all outlined in dew and raindrops. The mud was empty of human tracks, and I saw few signs of animals in the squishy mud yet either. The creek ran muddy, not surprisingly. The forest had the look of midsummer, still very green but with few flowers or brightly-colored fungus to add different shades or contrast to the woods.

My walk was largely a silent one, except for the sound of water dripping from the leaves and the shrill cry of a distant blue jay.

Shorter days

2011-08-05T14:35:00.000-04:00

The cool morning and leftover humidity from last evening’s showers made for a foggy morning here. At Roundtop, the fog was so thick that photography was not an option by the time I headed off the mountain. When I reached the neighboring orchard, the fog was already starting to lift.

It was another weather-caused headlamp trip on my morning dog walk, but within another day or two, the headlamp will be needed whatever the weather turns out to be. Sunrise changes by just a minute each morning, but since I get up at the same time each day, that little minute or so becomes very noticeable in just a very few number of days.

At this point in the year, I’m losing two minutes of daylight a day. Sunrise is one minute later each day and sunset one minute earlier. That adds up quickly in a week. When the days were longer my rooster would wake me up in the mornings, but now I think turning my bedroom light on wakes him up. For the past week he has started crowing within a minute of that light going on. Tomorrow, I’m going to try and fool him. I won’t turn the light on and see how long it takes him to catch on!

It's headlamp time, again!

2011-08-04T16:01:00.000-04:00

Today I was forced into it. I had to wear my headlamp to start off my morning walk with dogs. Of course, the sky was overcast and foggy, and sprinkles of rain had fallen just an hour or so before, but still. The shortening hours of daylight are the one thing about cooler weather that I don’t look forward to. Two things I had missed about the longer hours of daylight greeted me this dark and gloomy morning—I heard both the great horned owl and the screech owl call this morning.

And if you needed more signs of the diminishing summer (if not yet the advancing fall), here are a few more. I saw a large flock of grackles and blackbirds, several hundred easily. They gather together, or “stage,” before heading south. It’s early for them to start that, I think, but by late September or early October, the size of the flocks can swell into the tens of thousands, making a huge amount of noise and mess before leaving for Maryland. Poor Maryland. The birds often winter there, never traveling a mile further south than they have to. I’m just glad they don’t stay in Pennsylvania. A few weeks of those flocks is bad enough.

I also saw a small, yellowing tree. It’s far too early for the yellowing to be caused by autumn, so it’s likely a weaker tree hurt by the heat and the lack of rain that plagued July. Still, a yellowing tree looks like autumn, whatever the actual cause of the change in leaf color.

Oh, and the first hawkwatch has opened for the season. Fall is beckoning.

2011-08-03T14:31:00.000-04:00

The look of the forest around me is already starting to turn towards late summer. The early flowers have gone to seed. The tadpoles have turned into frogs. The color of the leaves has deepened from the bright green of spring to an emerald green. The days are noticeably shorter, and the angle of the sun is different.

Little signs of the season’s change are evident if you look for them. I look for them. I am always surprised at how quickly the changes are noticeable. The year has only four official seasons, though most people are aware enough of the natural world to notice that each of the 12 months has a rhythm that is particular to it alone. And even within those 12 months, the year marches on and changes are evident.

This time of year I can usually notice changes weekly, though overlap, for lack of a better word, exists. A week of extra hot weather or a few days of rain can make the routine of one week disappear (or advance!) more than will happen if that week’s weather is “normal.” Before August is over, the leaves will change again, turning from emerald green to a kind of dull, dusty green. Once that happens, fall and the brilliant color changes of fall won't be far away.

2011-08-02T07:03:00.000-04:00

Tiger Swallowtails

July is over, thank you. July, with its 100+ degree temperatures and lousy birding, I won’t miss you a bit. August on the other hand has potential. August is the month when shorebird migration goes into full swing. And yes, August can be hot and dry, too, but the year’s highest temperatures here are recorded in July. Goodbye July. Good riddance.

So ignoring the fact that yesterday was still July, I decided to start my seasonal shorebirding early and made a trip to Susquehanna River to see what could be seen. Now, obviously, inland Pennsylvania is never going to be a shorebirding hotspot, but that’s never stopped me from looking. And yesterday, I did manage to find a small flock of 8 semipalmated sandpipers, a great egret and a couple of great blue herons. So I came home happy with the addition to my year list. And I also saw a female osprey carrying a good-sized fish down the river and a common yellowthroated warbler with a juvenile, a good sign of local breeding.

Back up on the mountain, I have no signs of migration to report—just the ever-growing size of this year’s white-tailed fawns and a blue jay with a penchant for the red-tailed hawk call. Unlike most blue jays, whose mimicry is usually off just enough to quickly realize that the call is coming from an imposter, this one has the call down perfectly. Of course, the bird usually ruins the impression by giving its own alarm call right after the perfect red-tailed hawk call. Still, this bird has the red-tailed hawk call right, if not the good sense to move before scolding with its own.

My photos today are of tiger swallowtails, a butterfly that was very common last year but almost nonexistent this year. So I was happy to find several over at Brunner Island.

2011-07-29T14:15:00.000-04:00

This morning, after a brief but heavy rain shower, the dogs and I were walking down the lane towards the bottom of the mountain and what do we see? A deer, a doe to be specific, standing in the middle of the lane. She looks at us. We look at her. She twitches her tail, which turns out to be too much for the dogs. Dog stands up on his hind legs, as tall as me, balancing against the leash I’m holding. Doe twitches her tail more. Baby Dog starts to bark.

That does it. Doe takes off into the woods and while I’m trying to settle the dogs, another doe crosses the lane behind the first, followed by three (count-‘em) three fawns of the exact same size on her heels, followed by two more doe and another fawn and I think another doe and maybe even another fawn. I have a whole herd of mamas and young ‘uns in front of me and two crazed dogs by my side. I can tell it’s going to be another one of those days.

So my daily morning doe is actually multiple does, though it’s odd this is the first time I’ve seen them all together, not to mention what appears to be triplet fawns. It’s not uncommon for one or two of the does to wander through my back woods in an evening, setting Baby Dog to barking. She’s convinced the deer are attacking the cabin and are Dangerous Creatures. I’ve tried, unsuccessfully, to disabuse her of that notion. I’ve come to the conclusion that Baby Dog thinks everything is a Dangerous Creature. I think I'm ready for a weekend!