Got him!

Finally, the rain has stopped!  In the space of just 36 hours, I picked up somewhere between 10.55 and 11.74 inches (yes, you read that right) of rain.  That much rain is usually reserved for the remnants of hurricanes, not your average autumn low pressure system. Because the area had been so dry, my basement didn’t get wet until the rain total was somewhere near 10”, and then I only got about half an inch of water down there, which was easily pumped out.

The roads were bad on Friday, and the creeks were high enough to make me wonder if the bridges were safe to cross, but overall it could have been worse.  Still, I’m glad it wasn’t.

Grumpy, the giant snapping turtle I photo’d on Friday reappeared in the same spot on Saturday morning.  I don’t know if it commutes from one side of the road to the other, or if it still hadn’t found a way across the road in the first place.  If this keeps up, that turtle will soon get run over.  The spot where I find it is right along the edge of the road on a curve, and for cars coming in the opposite direction, they may well not see it in time to avoid it.  It does help that the road is one where it’s not uncommon for 20-30 minutes to pass between cars.

The deer that are feasting on various nuts around my cabin grow ever bolder. This young buck watched me for a good minute before moving out of my driveway.  The photo isn't great because at 6:45 a.m., it's still pretty dark--too dark for a clear photo.  I try not to look at the deer when I see them, as being stared at makes them nervous. It also helps if I don’t pay much attention to them. In this case I was feeding the chickens, except for the moments when I was snapping the shutter.  The deer always seem curious about what I am doing, but they don’t show much fear.

Now that the latest rainstorm is over and the clean-up I needed to do around the cabin because of it, my big ongoing work over the next few weeks will be brooming the leaves off my front and back decks.  The rain brought down so many leaves they were ankle-deep.  As many leaves are still on the trees, that scenario will repeat several times until all the leaves are off.  It’s work I don’t mind, as it keeps me outside and gives me a chance to surreptitiously watch the deer as they are watching me.

Coming out of the bubble

Yesterday’s storm brought down virtually all the leaves that had dried, withered or changed color, so the forest looks almost green again. That won’t last as now is the time when the fall color change really takes off. Many of the leaves that came down were off tulip poplar trees and smaller saplings of almost any species.

My forest is mostly white and red oaks, with hickory and beech thrown in for variety.  The oaks are usually the very last tree to change color, and sometimes I even have a three-phase color change, with those trees hanging onto their leaves past the first killing frost. This year I am assured of at least a two-phase color change. Some years everything works together, and all the leaves change color and drop at more or less the same time. That hasn’t happened in a while and won’t happen this year either.

For now, I’m just glad to have some of the leaves down so I can see the sky over my cabin again.  The thick forest canopy of summer helps to keep the air around the cabin cooler than when I’m out of the forest, but even knowing that, I weary of living inside the “green bubble” of summer.  But today, I can see the end of this year’s bubble, and I know I will soon have the expansive view of winter around me instead.

Early signs of fall

Tulip poplar leaf

On this early day of fall, the season already feels well-started.  Here on Roundtop, the deer are wearing their brown winter coats. The fawns have lost or are losing their spots.  The summer songbirds are gone, and the local residents are noisy again now that the breeding season is over. The mornings are crisp but the afternoons are warm enough to roll up my long sleeves as I putter around the cabin.

The forest's summer understory is withering and and disappearing onto the ground. it is not yet cold enough, not the days short enough, for the big trees of the forest to turn color, but the drying of leaves on the smaller trees continues.  At the moment, the trees most affect are the smaller tulip poplars, a softwood.  The big tulip poplars are as green as ever. August and September so far have been cooler than normal here and also drier, if not by an enormous amount.  I have occasionally before this year seen early yellowing on leaves.  Typically, that has occurred when August is both hot and dry, so I am surprised to see it happen during a cool and dry season. To my eye and memory, the level of this year's drying leaves is extreme.  At the moment, precipitation is not quite 4.5 inches below normal, a goodly, if not extreme amount.

I am thinking that the lessened amount of snowfall last winter and the drier than average spring did more damage to the smaller trees than could be made up by a rainy June. perhaps these smaller and less robust trees were made even less robust by the wet weather of 2012.  And while 2012 was only about 4 inches above normal in my area, 2011 was a record-setting wet year, nearly double the normal precipitation.  So now in a dry year, these trees aren't perhaps as hardy as they might have been if rainfall had been "normal" over their growing lives.

It is well known that a warm, dry summer followed by a rainy autumn produces the best fall colors. We've had the dry part, and the summer was warm, though not hot. Now, if only the rainy autumn would appear, perhaps this would be a good year for fall colors. That is something to look forward to and hope for.

One step

The yo-yo season of warm and cool temperatures is underway at Roundtop. A day of warm weather is followed by one or two of chilly temperatures. The warm and cool cycle can all occur on the same day, too, which makes figuring out what to wear even more difficult than usual. And I’m not just talking about first thing in the morning, either.

It can be comfortable in the morning and jacket-needing in the afternoon. It can be cool in the afternoon and warm and moist in the evening. If I’ve been inside for a few hours, I have to step outside to check the feel of the day to know if I’ll need a jacket or not. Looking outside or even looking at the thermometer doesn’t tell the whole story.

This time of year the only way to know is to experience the day and its vagaries of weather. In fact, much of living in the woods is like that. I lament the day when I have to close the windows until the spring, because it means I won’t be able to hear what’s going on outside anymore. Even now, when my windows are barely cracked, the sounds I can hear are much diminished. Often, it’s only when I do step outside that I can hear the geese fussing over on the big pond or the sound of someone’s tires on the dirt road at the bottom of my lane. When my windows are fully open I can feel I am in the forest when I am inside the cabin.

The rest of the year I’m only a step away from the forest, but the cabin is still a cabin and not part of the forest. Being inside the cabin feels different than being outside. Temperature, humidity, sound and smells are all different. One step, to the inside or the outside, makes a huge difference. In other words, even though I live in the forest, I need to get out into it to experience it. It’s just easier for me to do that than for most people. For me, the forest is only one step away.

Looking ahead

It’s not just me who is lamenting the fog that still grips Roundtop and much of the east coast. Yesterday, I was emailed a photo of a lonely hawkwatcher sitting all by himself up on his fog-shrouded perch at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. The only way that man would see any hawks (assuming one was desperate enough to be flying) was if one perched on his head. Another hawk counter from up in Connecticut told me he was holding a “fog watch” this year instead of a hawkwatch. It’s all funny, if not terribly amusing.

The forecast is still promising clearing up for a day or two before rain moves in again. That same forecast is promising some much cooler weather starting on Saturday. I’m already planning to bring the last of the summering houseplants back into the cabin, including my 10-ft tall ficus tree. The whole planned operation got me to thinking about dependent we are on weather forecasts in a way that was impossible just a generation ago.

Before WWII and the advent of radar, I would have little idea that the temperature would drop a good 20 degrees in another day or so. I might have been able to look at the sky and predict rain or another storm, but I never heard anyone report they could predict a 20 degree temperature drop. Back then I probably would have brought my houseplants inside based on a day of the calendar—perhaps Columbus Day. And if I’d relied on that day this year, I’d be at least two days too late for my houseplants. As it is I am scheduling my evening around bringing in the houseplants and getting them situated for the upcoming winter.

My now year-old kittens will have forgotten about the tree, or if they haven’t, they will remember just how much fun it was to climb up to the second floor of the cabin via the tree instead of the stairs. Of course, they are much larger now, fully grown, and the tree will not support three cats still operating on kitten brains. I am not looking forward to dealing with a tree toppled in my living room until they learn this lesson. But learn they must, and deal with it I must. I hope they learn quickly.

Plans

Pinchot Lake, September 12, 2012, 6:30 p.m.

Tonight a rare occurrence at Carolyn’s cabin: a evening free of other obligations and clear weather. So tonight I plan to do a little outside work, and though I don’t have to mow in my forest, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to do.

First off tonight, I will clear out the pipe that drains the basement during heavy rainstorms. This is a chore I have to do many times in the fall. This cleaning will take care of the accumulation of summer’s leaves and twigs that clog the “stream” that’s created by the draining basement. Then once the leaves begin to fall, I’ll need to do the job every week or two until all the leaves are finally down and not being blown around.

My chicken pens also need attention. Last night the first egg from my new chickens was produced, a lovely little brown thing about two inches long—about half the size of the eggs produced by the 3-year old chickens. So I need to make sure the nest boxes for the new girls are deep with new straw and that they are happy with the arrangements. The rest of them will begin to lay any day now, too. The first pullet eggs from a chicken are always small, but they reach normal size within a week or so.

I also need to put anti-skid tape on all my outside steps and around the front deck. This is a yearly job, as that tape works well but never lasts more than a year. Those wooden steps are slippery when wet or iced up or snowed under. And the tape doesn’t stick well below a certain temperature, so I have to remember to do this chore before it gets too cold.

If I have time I will take a look at chopping down some of the undergrowth behind the cabin. I worked on that in the early summer, before July’s heat made that job too much to any sane person. Fighting off the multiflora rose is a never-ending job. Sometimes I think I’m making progress, sometimes not.

And I need to redo my bird feeders in preparation for the heavy feeding season in fall and winter. My feeder arrangement is different every year, partly because I’m always trying new things, partly because my feeders never last more than one season. Raccoons, opossums and the weather all take a toll.

Naturally, I won’t get everything done tonight, but it will feel good just to have the time and nice weather to work on it all.