More from Powdermill

The Powdermill Creek area has a lot more snow now than when I took these photos on Saturday morning. Still, the snow I saw then was the first snow I've seen this season that was more than just a few flakes. Powdermill Creek runs right outside the door of the cabin where I stayed over the weekend. The screened-in summer porch would be a great place to sit and watch the water flow by. In 20 degree weather, I didn’t spend any time sitting on the porch, but I did wander around the stream for a little bit.

The creek was running full and burbled loudly, so that the only bird song I heard was the scolding from a single chickadee and the sound of a singing cardinal somewhere in the distance. Deer hunters were out and about, too, which could have contributed to quieting the forest animals.

Several huge hemlocks shaded the cabin and the creek, a welcome sight. Hemlock is Pennsylvania’s state tree, and we are losing many of them to a fungus. I hope they don’t go the way of the American chestnut tree. I have 200 year old trees around my own cabin, and these hemlocks were larger than those, so I would not be surprised if these turned out to be 300 year old trees. For the moment, these looked healthy, and I hope they remain as strong and beautiful as they are today.

Powdermill Avian Research Center

 I am just back from a weekend trip to Powdermill Avian Research Center, which is a part of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. The research center and nature center is located near the town of Rector, PA.  I was attending the annual board meeting of the Hawk Migration Association of North America and was fortunate enough to be one of six people who stayed in this sweet little cabin, which is owned by the research center.

The cabin is located along Powdermill Creek and to reach the cabin we first had to get a key to the gate.  Then we drove back an unplowed, very narrow and steep dirt road for about a mile to reach the cabin. As you can see from the first photo, when we arrived there wasn't all that much snow, but snow continued to fall (and mostly melt) on Saturday.  Sunday morning, the area was supposed to get 8 or more inches of snow, so we ended up leaving early, which was a shame, as I would have enjoyed some hiking and more birdwatching than I was able to do.

The inside of the cabin was very sweet, too, making me a tad jealous, and except for the lack of any cell phone service, let alone high-speed internet, I was ready to move right in. 

The screened in summer porch was pretty nice, but we didn't get to enjoy that, as the temperature hovered around 20-25 degrees the entire time we were there.

The upstairs was a loft with several beds.  Downstairs were two bedrooms with two beds each.  We  were very comfortable, even though we didn't get to spend all that much time inside the cabin.  The storage in the kitchen was impressive, and I was more than a bit jealous of all that space, not to mention the way the storage was constructed so that everything was built in, and what looked like a lovely wooden wall was actually entire wall of storage with various doors and drawer and a pantry. 

So now I am back home, faced with a very dirty cabin of my own.  Oh, did I mention it?  That's the other great thing about this cabin--I didn't have to clean it.  Tomorrow, I'll post some photos I took outside the cabin.  It was pretty sweet outside, too!