A Little Snow

Snow is hard to come by this year. A little bit--less than an inch--fell on Friday, making that the biggest snowfall of the year so far. This lack of snow is a record lack and for me, not a welcome one. Baby Dog still found the start of the mini-snowfall a fun time. It's true that she isn't doing anything in this photo. That's because in the other photos I took she was always doing something that included running out of the photo frame.

Since the snow, our walks have been short and not very sweet. The temperature has plummeted, now hovering only a few degrees above zero in the mornings, and the cold comes complete with 15-25 mph winds. As a result, we aren't spending a lot of time outside. I like cold weather, but not the windy part.

Anticipation

Tonight, if I am lucky, I shoujld get the first accumulating snow of the season. In a normal year, I would yawn off the possibility of an inch or two of snow. But this is not a normal year, so I’m excited. I’ve even planned a vacation day so I can run the dogs in the snow, take photos of it and just generally enjoy it. Okay, so I do have vacation days that I have to use or lose and it is a Friday, but still, I’ve been looking for some reason to take a day off, and this will be it.

Last night the sky was already so overcast that the full moon was invisible, not even showing as a luminous bright spot behind the clouds. The night before, the nearly full moon was so bright that I cast a shadow as I walked in the darkened woods. Last night it smelled like snow, that crisp moist scent that's felt as much as sensed. I know snow is on the way.

This morning I filled the birdfeeders as full as I could make them, in anticipation that my feeder birds will also sense the oncoming storm and feed heavily ahead of it. I wish I could stay home from work today and watch them. But I can't. Even that will have to wait for tomorrow.

Overnight Dusting

Snow dusted the mountain yesterday evening. At first, I saw a gray cloud roll through the valley, and I briefly wondered if it was smoke or perhaps fog. The gray cloud rolled along the valley, through the forest, obscuring it tree by tree, slowly snaking around the trees like a cat rubbing at my ankles.

As it got closer, I realized it was snow, not fog or smoke. I watched as the little storm slowly approached, marching up the mountain, seeming to gobble up the trees one by one and hide them from my sight. When the snow arrived at the cabin, it was a dense little cloud of thick snow, momentarily creating a whiteout. For a few moments the snow was falling so thickly I couldn’t see anything but swirling snow.

The little storm disappeared almost as quickly as it arrived, continuing its march across the ski slopes and then down the other side of Roundtop. The photo today shows what it left behind.

Normally, to this point in the season, I could expect at least 30 inches of snow to have fallen already. This year, I haven’t had a full inch. My only measurable snow was .25 inches, and though snow has fallen on most evenings recently, it is never any more than what you see in the photo. Still, February, my snowiest month, lies ahead.

Icy Morning

Although it was a chilly 15°F at the cabin this morning, statistically, the day has now arrived when the winter temperature turns towards the warmth. December 20 (or was it 21?) marked the winter solstice, when daylight reached its shortest span and then began its run towards longer days. The earth, however, like a freight train that takes a long time to stop, continues to cool for some time past the shortest day.

Like the change to more light that begins in December, the change to more warmth is only a tiny change, a change of statistical averages. In this area, the average daytime high during midwinter is 37 degrees F. The average nighttime low is 23 degrees. Fifteen days in the middle of winter typically show the same results: average high of 37 and average low of 23. But today, the average daytime temperature vaults to 38 degrees (though the nights are still an average of 23 degrees). And so it begins again. Summer is on its way, if only just a little.

I took the photo this morning over at Roundtop’s new pond. With the warmth that I saw this past December, there’s not much ice to see, though it is finally forming. This pond never freezes very much, due as much to its spring-fed cold water as to the fact that Roundtop will pump from it to make snow.

Morning in the Forest

The sun's light is starting to return to my mornings. Now, it is not just the light from the approaching dawn that I can see when I leave the cabin in the morning, but the sun's light itself. As you can see from today's photo, I am not yet touched by the sun where I live, but I can see it on the next mountain. I can see it creep further down that mountain, morning after morning.

The change in light from Friday to Monday is always a bit of a surprise to me. I don't take a pre-dawn walk with the dogs on Saturday mornings, waiting until the sun is up and then taking them for a nice long walk. Sunday mornings I am at work at Ski Roundtop before sunrise. So it is Monday before I can see what changes just three days brings to the timing of the sunrise.

This morning, a cold and windy 10 degrees F., I heard a bluebird singing as I left the cabin. I was a bit surprised that it would be out and about so early on a morning this chilly. Bluebirds usually roost in dead or hollowed trees in winter, often in fairly large groups, huddled together agains the cold. Here, in this untrimmed, unmanaged, uncleared forest, they do well on their own, without the benefit of bluebird boxes that sustains them when people can't leave the forests alone.

I have never understood why some people apparently consider a forest something that must be pruned, cleared, trimmed, dead trees cut, etc. They seem to feel such a thing is unsightly and needs the hand of humans, sort of like a large garden. I much prefer the unfettered forest, operating on its own, without intervention by humans. I like to watch and learn from the forest's own rhythms. I like to see how everything has its own place, and its own culture, if you will. Nothing is unused in a forest. Nothing is excessive. Everything is useful to some species, whether it be a bird or insects or animals. In a forest, everything is already perfect.

Note: You may want to check out this week's "Good Planets" photo roundup at Laura's blog Somewhere in New Jersey (Saturday's post) . One of my photos is in it and many beautiful photos takes around the world this past week. Enjoy!

January Cabin Birds

It’s getting near the end of 2007’s first month, so that has prompted me to start looking at my January bird list. Overall, I’m just one species behind last year’s January of 26 species, but close enough that if weather cooperates this weekend, I might tie or with luck surpass the total of January 2006. So for those of you who aren’t up to math while reading a blog, I’m at 25 species at the cabin so far this year, and as usual I have some interesting sightings and omissions.

Here’s my list.
Turkey Vulture – when the weather was warm, these were in the air.
Canada Goose – the local suspects.
Mallard – the local pair.
Red-tailed Hawk – saw a local bird a few times.
Mourning Dove – there aren’t all that common here at the cabin, so they were probably visitors from down around Roundtop’s lodge.
Great-horned Owl – Heard only.
Red-bellied Woodpecker – A regular feeder bird.
Yellow-bellied Sapsucker – See blog entry of January 24.
Downy Woodpecker – Common at the feeders.
Hairy Woodpecker – Not as common as its smaller cousin but around.
Pileated Woodpecker – Seen flying through the woods.
Blue Jay – Common and they’re hard on the peanuts I put in the feeder.
American Crow – Not a feeder bird but they are everywhere else.
Carolina Chickadee – I have both Carolina and Black-capped chickadees, and hybrids of the two species as well. To be scientifically pure, I should just say I have birds of the chickadee species and let it go at that. But that’s not me.
Black-capped Chickadee – See above.
Tufted Titmouse – Lots
White-breasted Nuthatch – Lots.
Carolina Wren – Heard singing a few times earlier in the month.
Eastern Bluebird – My first bird of the new year, as I heard its song as soon as I stepped out of the door on January 1, but it wasn’t the first bird I saw.
Northern Mockingbird – Seen before the weather turned cold.
European Starling – Everywhere
White-throated Sparrow – Seen a few times this month but not as regularly as usual
Dark-eyed Junco – Here in good numbers and my photo for the day.
Northern Cardinal – Common
House Finch – Uncommon here at the cabin but common down at Roundtop.

The best bird of the month is the sapsucker, and this is one I didn’t have on last year’s January list. So, what am I missing? Last year I had American goldfinch (and I should have them on this year’s list too, so I hope to see them this weekend). I also had a song sparrow last year, and I haven’t had those yet. I’m also surprised that I didn’t have American robin during the warm half of January. I did have them through late December, but missed seeing them after the year turned.

Weather: It was 4F degrees at the cabin this morning, with a 15-20 mph breeze, making it feel well below zero. This is a chilly temperature, but January 23-25 is usually the coldest part of my winter, and I usually have at least a few nights drop below zero. There's no sign of that this year, and with each night that passes, that's less likely.

Snow-Dusted Morning

I had another dusting of snow overnight. This one was unexpected, though the sky was overcast all evening, and I didn’t know it had snowed until I opened the front door. Baby Dog exploded out the front door like she was shot from a cannon. She slipped on the powder, crashed into the deck chair and the cat feeder, recovered her footing and leaped off the deck, never looking back. Oh, the joys of youth.

Off I went, at a much slower pace, to retrieve the ricocheting dog who was now running from one end of the driveway to the other. Snow does that to her, for some reason. Eventually, she wore herself out, we set off for our much more sedate morning walk, though she never really calmed down completely. Snow makes her giddy, and since she’s just 1.5 years old, she’s already pretty giddy.

The wild critters aren’t made giddy by the snow, not at least as far as I can see. A bit of snow brings more birds to my feeders but that’s about the extent of it. The opossums and the raccoons are hibernating. The deer still come out at dusk to graze in the field that Roundtop uses for overflow parking. I saw nine of them the other night. Squirrels raid my bird feeders daily, plopping their fat selves in the middle of one and eating until they can’t eat anymore. I have very fat squirrels.

I haven’t seen turkeys or fox lately. This morning in the snow I saw a mouse trail crossing the lane and then crossing back again. It is, finally, starting to feel more like winter. The temperature is more winter-like, and the forest is starting to take on the feeling of winter’s sleepiness, where not much happens and even that slowly. I still have a vague sense that this year winter is more like a nap than a good night’s sleep, but at least winter is no longer an insomniac.

The photo today is taken down at Roundtop’s old snowmaking pond, just as the first rays of morning were breaking through the clouds.

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Okay, let's start off with the obvious. This is not the best picture you've ever see of a yellow-bellied sapsucker (juvenile).

But I will bet it's the best photo you've ever seen of a yellow-bellied sapsucker that was taken by a person sitting on her bed in the cabin, shooting through a semi-dirty picture window that was four feet away, into a spot in the forest about 20 feet further away. Then when I got the shot, I used the zoom to further blow the shot up so the bird is recognizable.

So what do you think now?

I thought so.

Considering how I got the shot, it's not bad at all.

I see yellow-bellied sapsuckers uncommonly in winter--this was my first of this season. I have sightings every 2-3 years, though about half of the sightings in those years are often pretty regular, sometimes daily, for weeks at a time. Virtually all of them of are juveniles who hang around long after the older birds have gone to warmer climes.

I have had juveniles before well into December. Typically, they disappear with the first big snow. This year, I have yet to have a big snow, so it really isn't a surprise to have one hanging around in late January. As I haven't seen this particular bird before, I'm going to guess that it has already come from someplace north of me and is now on its way south. Whether it will keep moving or hang around in this area until I get more snow is the open question on this bird.

Got Snow?

I do.

The official amount is reported as a "trace," but I have waay more than that, probably at least a quarter of an inch.

Did that sound sarcastic?

Sorry.

But the first semi-measurable snow of the season is at least two and a half freakin' months later than usual, and I'm not happy about it.

Of course, the snow this morning is so pretty that I'm finding it a difficult at the moment to work up much steam over that. Perhaps tomorrow.

The first picture is of the driveway on the way up to the cabin. I love how everything is kind of monochromatic.

The tree in the photo on the right is a white pine. Once I got off the mountain there wasn't much snow. I think the valley got mostly freezing rain. I didn't have that, but I must have had some time of wet snow for it to stick to each needle like glazing on a doughnut.

Of course, having the wind be dead still doesn't hurt either.

Sometime trees, often oaks, don't lose their leaves in autumn. That's what the tree on the left is. I've never been able to figure out why that is so, as a tree that doesn't lose its leaves one year might well lose them the next year. So what triggers the leaf drop/no leaf drop is a mystery to me. But when the leaves don't drop, and then it snows, this is the result.

Pretty nice morning, eh?

Stone Fences

I can't see a stone fence without thinking of Robert Frost's poem "Good Fences Make Good Neighbors." Perhaps it is because I live in an area with so many stone fences that this poem is often in my mind. Or perhaps the vice versa is true.

This stone fence is one of many I see when I come out of the woods and off the mountain and head towards the city for work. Some are in good repair, as this one is. Some are vine-covered, forgotten and nearly invisible.

It is not uncommon to walk anywhere in forest in this area and suddenly come upon one out in the woods. Perhaps a farm was once nearby, though that must have been long ago, if so, as the woods around these mystery stone fences are nearly always mature and well-established, not new growth.

A stone fence serves as the boundary line through the woods on my father's farm. That one is a bit unusual. Stone fences most often mark pastures or kept farm animals in or out of a place. But my father's woods has never been a pasture, as far as we know. The trees in his forest are large and mature, as they are on the other side of that stone fence. So that stone fence was apparently always just a boundary line through the woods (but would have been a lot of work to build just for that).

Here on the mountain, a trace of snow fell overnight, not enough to call a dusting, only enough to gather on my wiper blades and sit in a few nooks and crannies. I've tried to build my own stone fence along the driveway at the cabin, to little success. It takes a lot of rocks (which I have, though most are not easily pried from the ground) and a more effort than I expected. Once, I had a fair amount done only to have a snowplow knock down most of it when they tried to plow my driveway. But like Frost's poem, I always find myself starting again. Stone fences make good neighbors.

Old Barn

As you can tell, today's photo isn't from the mountain. It's a picture of the old barn on my family's farm. I like the way the vines are crawling all over it.

It is a bit lighter in the mornings, now, so for several days I have been taking a photo somewhere on the mountain before I left for work. But this morning was very overcast, and it was too dark for a photo. That's what I get for trying to push the morning light a little too far too soon!

I am hopeful that I might soon have some snow to brighten the brown woods, if only a little. It has now been below freezing for two days, a new record for this winter. Still, that's not long enough to give the woods a truly wintry feel. I'm starting to lose hope that winter will bother to make an appearance this year.

One Down

What a difference a day makes! This morning it was 14°F. at the cabin. Yesterday morning it was 43°. It feels quite a lot more like winter this morning, though somewhat to my surprise I can still sense differences between how the this morning feels with how a similar temperature would feel during a winter that is a long stretch of these temperatures. I am not as sure I can describe this difference in so many words. But naturally I will try.

As best as I can describe it, this morning’s cold doesn’t feel “deep” yet. Oh, the ground is hard again and the cold bites well enough, but in a long winter of cold temperatures, eventually coldness will seep into everything. There is no shelter from it, no covered up piece of outdoor furniture or forgotten rake that is left unpenetrated by the cold. Bird seed kept in a tin and then a plastic bucket and covered with a tarp is still cold through all those layers.

It is the same for the trees and the ground and the rocks of the forest. In a normal winter the cold gets into everything. This is a good thing as it kills much of that nasty bacteria that can cause disease. A good, solid deep cold helps keep the numbers of mosquitoes and other insects down in the summer. This is especially concerning here because of West Nile virus. Anything that can help reduce the spread or ferocity of that is a good thing.

It will take some time and many more days of cold like this, though I don’t know exactly how many, before the cold temperature can seep into all the nooks and crannies of the forest. I would expect that it will take weeks for the process to work fully. I just hope we get that much cold before spring. One day down and hopefully many more just like this to go.

Time Traveling

Living in this winter is a bit like time traveling. Although the date is January 16, the weather this morning is more like late October—certainly not like a January. Last night, after dark, the weather still felt like sometime in late September.

I sat outside on the front deck for a while, watching the fog finally lift after three days of gloom. I watched the distance that I could see grow by the moment. For most of the weekend, I couldn’t see across my driveway, let alone to the end of it. After dark the weather system that is supposed to bring January to the region started to move in. At first, before the wind picked up, it was still warm, though I could watch the fog already start to dissipate.

First, I could see to the end of the driveway, then I could see the surrounding trees. By the time the temperature started to drop and I was no longer comfortable sitting outside, I could see the next mountain over and the few lights from the houses that sit along the base of it.

This morning the temperature is dropping, and the big stormy clouds I usually see in October fill the sky. It is now light enough in the morning again to take a few photographs, though the light is still flat with the remnants of night. By noon it will be November. By dark I will be back in January.

Snow on the Mountain!

I took this photo of Roundtop this morning as I left for work. The mountain reopened for skiing last evening, and the parking lot was nearly as full as it would have been for a weekend day. Lots of people came out to ski last evening on some good snow.

It is starting to be lighter now when I leave for work in the mornings, which I always look forward to. I love colder weather but I don't enjoy spending all the daylight hours of a day at work and then only being at home during the dark (except for weekends). I start to feel a bit like a vampire until the light returns.

Last evening I took both Dog and Baby out to play in the snow. No, I don't have photos of that. I'm not coordinated enough to handle two large dogs and a camera at the same time. Perhaps I'll do some dog-snow photos this weekend, one dog at a time. Dog was not completely impressed with the patch of packed snow that I let him play in. He's a real powder hound, and the snow along the edge of the road was pretty well packed. Baby Dog just loves to slip and slide around. She runs in a circle until her feet slip out from under her, and she slides a good 10 feet before getting her feet back under her. She is easily amused.

I also took the second photo this morning--a little bit of alpenglow on the top of the mountains across the valley. The sun was only out momentarily before slipping behind cloud cover again, but it made for a nice start to the day.

And now, I didn't get to see Comet McNaughton last night--too many clouds.

Colder Weather, Colder Thoughts

Note: Go outside after sunset tonight and look into the west. Just above the horizon you should see Comet McNaughten!

Note2: After 1.5 days of snowmaking, Roundtop will open today again at 4 p.m.

Colder weather has returned to the mountain! It almost feels like winter again, though the temperature is still more in the mid-February range of winter temperatures than those of mid-January. Still, it’s quite an improvement.

The ground feels hard again, not muddy. Dog and I walked in the woods before dawn this morning, over to the new pond, which sat calm as glass, reflecting the stars of the night sky in its watery mirror.

I think trees, even leafless trees to some extent, must muffle the sounds of the non-forested world that surrounds the northwestern side of my little refuge. When I am out of the forest and in the open space created by the new pond, I hear more sounds from the nearest public road and the houses along it than I otherwise do. This morning, out at the pond’s edge, I heard a distant dog barking, to which Dog felt compelled to answer in kind. I heard a car door slam, heard a car out on the road. In a way, it’s a little startling, to be sitting at the edge of pond, surrounded by woods on all sides and suddenly hear sounds from beyond the forest’s edge.

These sounds encroach this deep into my world only in winter, when no leaves muffle their sound. I am not so naïve as to think that I or anyone can stop the towns from expanding anymore than I think I can stop people from cutting down the forests around me. Sometimes I wonder how much longer the forest here has left? Fifty years? 100? Less? I have no idea.

Sometimes I feel like one of the last dinosaurs, when the world around is already favoring those upstart mammals. I can still separate myself from much of the clatter and bustle, but it is still there, encroaching on the woods, encroaching on the silence, acre by acre, foot by foot.

Snowflakes!

It's gotten cold enough to snow a bit here. Finally! I went outside after dark last night and was greeted with the sensation of snow flurries on the face.

It has been 6 weeks since I last saw any snow, and the surprise and sensation of these was most welcome. I'd almost forgotten how beautiful they look and feel. Unfortunately, the flurries only lasted a few minutes so imagine my surprise when I got to work this morning and find a dusting on the rooftops here in the city. Just to the north and west of me, the schools are delayed for two hours to give the road crews time to salt the roads. That little storm must have just missed me, more's the pity (as my grandmother would have said).

Anything that isn't brown stands out in the brown forest that around me right now. On my unexpected Sunday walk (unexpected because I usually spend Sundays working at Roundtop), I found these fungus, commonly known as shelf or bench fungus. Fungus of all types are a lot more visible now, and most of them are pretty interesting to look at. Certainly there's many more different types than I remember seeing before. I kind of lose track of looking at fungus, though, when I'm busy looking at flowers and birds or animals. I'll have to remember not to do that anymore. They're interesting.

Speared Leaf

Notice how this leaf is speared onto this broken branch? When I was out walking in the woods on Sunday, I was trying to find something that wasn't brown to take a photo of. With no snow cover around, the winter forest is simply not as visually interesting as I'm used to. The woods are a near monochromatic shade of brown, surrounded by brown mud and browner leaves.

So I'm walking on a path and I notice this paler color on a tree perhaps 50 yards off the trail. I can't figure out what it is. At first I think it's a sign on the tree, but I can't figure out why a tree well off the trail would have a sign on it. And then I think it must be a fungus, which might be an interesting thing to photograph. But I'm too far away to see what it is, so naturally I have no choice but to head off the trail and into the muddy woods to try and figure out what it is.

I'm traipsing through thorns and brambles pulling at my pants and piercing the cloth (and my skin). I'm getting mud on my boots, slipping on wet rocks hidden by fallen leaves and trying not to fall and/or drop the camera.

And then I'm finally close enough to see what this paler object is, and it turns out to be a leaf speared in its falling by a broken tree branch. The resulting find was a bit anti-climatic, to say the least. However, perhaps there's a parallel here; I ended up speared with thorns myself on my way to find nothing more exciting than a leaf speared by a branch.

I think this shows nothing more but how desperate I am to see something that's not brown. Compared to all this brown, something gray looks interesting and was enough to entice me into a semi-treacherous mini-expedition just to see it. It's amazing the trouble that boredom can create, isn't it?

No Snow

This is how Roundtop looked yesterday. It's not a pretty picture at all. With a little luck, this photo should change in the next day or so, as it is supposed to get colder again, and the resort should be able to make more snow. Unfortunately, for cold weather enthusiasts like me, it's only supposed to stay cold for three days before warming up again.

I suppose if I could find any good news in the expected future warm-up, it's that it's not supposed to get nearly as warm as it was this past weekend, when it set a record (67 degrees F). Instead of 30 degrees above normal temperatures, it's only supposed to be 10 degrees above normal during the upcoming weekend warm-up.

It has been quite rainy here, limiting my wanderings. I don't like traipsing through mud, and every place I walk is ankle-deep in that right now. I had a respite from poor weather for a few hours on Saturday and took both Dog and Baby Dog for extended walks--or at least extended compared to earlier in the week. I haven't been able to get as deep into the woods as I prefer, but it was better than walking up and down the driveway.

Baby Dog needs some camping practice, and I did find a spot where I hope we can "practice camp" later in the spring. I haven't yet attempted taking both dogs camping at the same time, as I don't think I'm ready for the fracas I expect that will be. I keep hoping that Baby Dog will settle down with a little more practice so that her antsiness won't infect Dog. At first I hoped Dog would be a calming influence, but the reality was that her unease infected Dog, rather than his calm settling her. Such is life.

Spring is Not Here Yet (thank heaven!)

I've been asked a few times if I'm seeing any signs of spring around the cabin. The answer is no, not really. Certainly I've seen no new plant growth, unlike in Washington, D.C., where the cherry blossoms are apparently out, at least a few of them.

I have seen some grass that's has a suspicous green tinge to it. And I have moss in the middle of my driveway that's pretty green. But normally I can't see moss in January at all, since it's usually covered with snow, so I don't have anything to compare this with.

One thing I've seen that is unusual is that I saw a black vulture yesterday. Black vultures are the more southerly loving cousin of turkey vultures. Until 10-15 years ago, I'd never seen one at all in Pennsylvania. They are still less common here than the turkey vultures. I think they are prettier than the turkey vulture, and they are better flyers too. The first time I saw one in Pennsylvania was on a hawkwatch, with someone calling out "immature bald eagle." By the time I'd raised my binoculars, it was obvious the bird wasn't an eagle at all, but a black vulture. Still, the person who'd never seen a black vulture before can be forgiven mistaking it for a young eagle, as these birds don't have the telltale "v" shape to their wings or the rocking flight pattern that is typical of the turkey vulture.

Black vultures migrate in the fall, though apparently they don't go too far south when they do. It is fairly common to see one on a warm February day with a south wind. Typically, they disappear again as soon as the snow flies, not to return for good until mid-March or so. But a sighting in early January is a rarity. Of course, it was in the mid-'60's here yesterday, a new record, and that warm wind could easily have drawn a few northward for the day.

Today, the weather is not yet winterlike, but it is headed in that direction, though for how long is anyone's guess.

Watching Clouds

Sometimes I think a perfect way to spend a day would be to sit outside and just watch the clouds march across the sky. I would pick a day that would be the day before a rain or a front moves through, as watching clouds form ahead of a storm would give me something to look at.

I would look at birds, too, or anything else that I saw that looked interesting, but mostly I would just look at the sky. I imagine that to most people this sounds pretty boring, but I find clouds infinitely interesting. It would also be nice simply to have that much time to do something that proceeds so slowly.

Most days, I find that time speeds along at a pace that is close to frightening. I seem to spend a lot of time doing many things at once; sometimes a quick glance at something is all the time I have before plunging in and moving ahead. How much better might my decisions be if I could take some time to think before acting? Or if I could make a decision on more than just a first impression?

The only times when time moves slowly for me is when I’m doing something boring or when I’m not doing much of anything. So, I figure spending a day looking at clouds would be as good as way as any to make time feel slower. Imagine if you could spend multiple days in a row doing nothing but looking at clouds. A week might feel like a lifetime. I'd like that.

A Different Winter

I took this photo on January 1 as I was driving to sister’s house to celebrate the New Year. I had more than 1.5 inches of rain the night before, and all the creeks were high. It’s cleared now, and Roundtop made some snow last night, though the temperature only dipped to the upper 20’s. I still can’t get used to a winter where the daytime and nighttime temperatures are about 20 degrees above normal.

Dog and I walked over to the new pond this morning, under the light of the full moon. Although the eastern horizon was still dark, the moon was bright enough that I could pick my way through the woods and only trip once or twice. January’s moon is usually called Cold Moon—not exactly the case this year.

Some animals that usually hibernate, at least for a few weeks, are not hibernating. In the past two days I’ve seen two opossums killed on the road. Usually they disappear during the winter. So far, I haven’t seen any raccoons, live or dead, so I think they are hibernating despite the warm weather.

In some ways, it might be interesting to see the differences in bird, animal and plant life that will take place because of the warm winter—though I wish that this was something I wouldn’t have to see.

New Year's Day Birding

For the past I-can't-even-remember-how-many-years, I have spent at least part of my New Year's Day birding and starting my new year bird list. 2007 was, fortunately, no exception.

Part of the reason I enjoy New Year's Day birding so much is that I get to start a new list. For a few minutes at least, even the lowly starling is a "new" bird. After you've been a birder as long as I have, seeing new birds is a rare occurrence, especially when constant travel to new places isn't an option. So we birders find our own ways of making the old seem new, and one of my ways is starting a new birding list each year. A new year list also allows us to compare our lists from year to year and see the differences.

January birding, as a rule, isn't particularly exciting, but it does offer the chance to find all the resident birds in my area before migration starts. Migration seasons are always the best chance I have to see uncommon species. When I've already seen all the local birds, I can concentrate then in looking for the unusual.

So here's my list for 2007, so far, in order of appearance:
American Crow
Eastern bluebird--not always an easy one to find on January 1, but the warm weather here helped.
Black-capped Chickadee
Tufted Titmouse
Downy Woodpecker
Northern Cardinal
White-breasted Nuthatch
Mourning Dove
Turkey Vulture
Red-tailed Hawk
House Sparrow
Feral Chicken--I just wanted to see if you were still awake.

No, I didn't take this today. Or yesterday. But I did take this photo earlier this week. It shows every bit of snow I've gotten so far this season.

Not very impressive, is it?

Morning Light

Today’s photo is the early morning sunlight touching the tops of the trees with a warm glow, moments before the light spreads lower and wakens the earth. It’s the everyday version of alpenglow.

After the incredible sunset I saw the other day, I’ve been thinking about how I look at the woods around me and how that changes with the seasons. In earliest spring, I look for the first hint of spring growth, the first swelling of new buds, the first tinge of green. I'm focused on the smallest details. In autumn, I (like nearly everyone else) am more focused on the fall colors around me. In winter, I’m usually looking at how snow redecorates the landscape.

This year is different so far as I’ve had no more than a trace of snow. The leaves are down. Spring growth is months away. So I’ve turned my attention to the sky, to the sunrises and sunsets. And I’ve come to think that this redirection of my focus is yet another good comparison with how we go through our lives.

Sometimes our attention is caught by the minutiae of day-to-day errands and chores that are right in front of us. I constantly have to remind myself that there’s more to life than just the next errand. The chores never end, and if you plan to do them all before you have fun or go someplace interesting, you’ll never get out of the house.

Other times our focus is broader and we see more of what’s around us. These are days when I’m more balanced, when I can see the connections between tree species and the birds that depend on them for food and shelter, where I hear two distant great-horned owls and know that their courtship has begun again.

But sometimes we step back even further and look at an even bigger picture. Those are the days when I am captured by the beauty of a sunset and look beyond my woods and even beyond my own life. These days of an outward turning focus are important for us too. These are the times when we see if our own lives are going where we want them to, where we look beyond ourselves and into the paths of those around us, where we think about future lives and what will touch them.

In a way, the days of outward focus have similarities with the days when day to day trivia threatens to overtake us. I don’t think we should spend all our time either focused on minutiae or looking out so far ahead that we lose track of what’s around us. We aren’t meant to live with our eyes so much in the distance that we stumble over our own feet. And we aren’t meant to live without ever lifting our eyes either.

It’s the balanced days where we should spend most of our time and focus, though I think the only way to be truly balanced is to understand both the distance ahead and the tasks that threaten to ensnare. It’s only when we understand both edges of life that we appreciate where true balance lies.

Incredible Sunset!

Can you remember the last time you saw a sunset this amazing?

I didn't think so.

Don't feel bad.

I can't either.

Day after day, generally speaking, I find sunrises likely to be more amazing and interesting than sunsets. But then every now and again, the sunsets pull out all the stops and put on a show like I saw last night as I was driving up to the cabin.

And on those rare days when a sunset puts on its best show, I realize that a sunrise really can't hold a candle to the very best sunsets.

Unfortunately, sunsets don't do this very often. I personally think its the best sunset I've ever seen in my entire life. And I'm thrilled I had a camera with me when I saw it (thanks again, Stu!).

There's even the barest hint of a sun pillar.

How about another photo?

Thanks, I didn't think you'd mind.

This sunset went on and on. For minutes.

This wasn't one of those 30 second sunset wonders that's gone before you can get the camera out of the bag. That's gone before you can turn the camera on and point it towards the west.

This sunset turned the entire sky this incredible shade. And what is this shade, anyway? Dark salmon, hints of mauve? I can't figure it out.


Well, maybe I could if I showed another photo.

Nope, that still didn't help.

The color has changed again. In this photo you can just see a few lights from one of the bunny slopes on Roundtop.

Are you tired of looking at them yet.

I didn't think so.

Okay, just one more, but only if you're good.

I took I don't know how many photos of this sunset. Thank heaven for digital cameras or I would have run out of fil (or not had film in the camera or the photos wouldn't have looked like the sunset or...something!).

Anyway, all good things, even all great things have to come to an end eventually. And so it was with the world's best sunset ever.

I'm just glad I got to see it.

When the winter is warm, when the woods look a bit bleak.

When you least expect it, Nature puts on a show-stopper.

Thanks. I needed that.

The Back Woods

I just can’t get used to this non-winter weather, though I am starting to try. I am used to a short period after the leaves fall when both the weather and surroundings are a nondescript brown. But before too long, the after-leaf drop time turns to winter with snow, sleet and cold weather. In the past, I have probably ignored this in-between stretch of brown simply as something that doesn’t last very long and is a necessary prelude to the actual arrival of winter.

However, this year the in-between nondescript brown stretch has continued for 6 weeks. At first I simply ignored it, assuming it would soon go away. It hasn’t. Now, I feel that I should deal with it, explore it and try to find something nice to say about it. I’m not finding that last part very easy.

This long stretch of in-between weather has been mostly gray, rainy and/or muddy, and it just doesn’t feel right. The closest comparison I can make is that is similar to early April but without the promise of daily seeing new plant growth. I keep waiting for something to happen—waiting for it to get colder and turn into winter, waiting for it to get warmer and become April. I don’t usually have to wait this long for something to happen in the natural world.

So last night I was out and about simply trying to notice more about what was going on around me. And I still don’t think I’ve gotten a handle on it. In many ways, despite the temperature, it is still winter. Raccoons are mostly hibernating, not because it’s cold enough for that but because they’re supposed to be doing that now. The great-horned owls are calling, which they would do in any event. They start nesting in February, and this warmer weather, if it lasts, might actually be good for the survival of the nestlings. The winter feeders birds are here (if not vulturing over the birdfeeders as usual). For them finding natural food easily is probably beneficial to their survival. For me, well, it is still brown outside (but the heating cost is lower).

I wonder if the animals feel, in any way, as I do, that despite some benefits this weather simply isn’t right? So in the end, I am left with the notion that this long in-between period is simply odd. Around me, nature is trying go on with its business as usual, though not much about this is really usual.

Fight Global Warming...winter's short enough already!

It sure didn't feel or look like Christmas here. I took the photo at my parents' farm on Sunday. Check out that temperature! It was 54 degrees in the afternoon in a shaded area.

Ski Roundtop has been forced to close until it's cold enough to make more snow. I don't ever remember Roundtop being closed over the Christmas holiday before. It's their biggest week of the season--normally. This area had about an inch of rain on Friday, and that, combined with the warm temperatures, completely ruined what little snow they had left.

Unfortunately, the temperature doesn't look all that much better this week either. A few nights are supposed to be below freezing, but only just. Roundtop really needs for it to be beliow freezing all night long to make snow. When it only dips below freezing an hour before dawn, that doesn't leave them enough time to do much.

At the cabin, my feeders are full of birds, though I don't have any unusual or exotic species--just the usual suspects. I have chickadees, titmice, Carolina wren, cardinals, blue jays, red-bellied woodpeckers, and downy woodpeckers. Surprisingly to me, I haven't seen juncos at the feeder, though they are plentiful enough in the woods. I guess they're finding the food they need without using my feeder for support. I also haven't seen any other sparrows at the feeder--usually I have white-throated sparrows at the very least and often a few more species.

I still can't get over that so many people actually like this mild weather. My snowshoes are gathering dust, for heaven's sake!

The Fairy House Tree

Today should be the first day of the new year, not that January day. The shortest day and longest night of the year has ended, and so the return of the day’s light begins, at least theoretically. Here, this morning is gray and gloomy with no sign of sunshine. It is so overcast that I couldn’t tell you when sunrise occurred, just that it seemed pretty late before it was light enough to walk across the deck without stumbling in the dark.

The photo today is of what I call the fairy house tree. The open tree hole has sheltered chipmunks and squirrels in the past, but is now large enough to shelter opossums and raccoons. If it gets much larger before the tree falls, I’ll soon be able to crawl in there.

One of the reasons I took this photo this morning is because I’m afraid this tree will soon fall or be cut (it’s near the road). And I wanted to get a photo of it before it did. I'd love to be small enough to crawl inside and use it as my house, or at least a place to have a tea party or sleep overnight. Wouldn't that be great fun!

Bark? I'd Rather Howl!

I love the texture of bark on the trees around the cabin. This one is from a weathered oak tree that guards the entrance to my lane. It is weathered and rough to the touch, a true veteran of the forest, with the scars to prove it.

I’ve known for some time that my local weather is warmer than it has been before in my lifetime. I can see it in the dates of when the leaves drop and reappear in the spring. I can see it in the tree species—sassafras is lots more common, for one. I can see it in the bird species that live here. They are following the southern plants, trees and insects that move a bit further north each year.

As an example, I used to only see black-capped chickadees around my cabin. Perhaps once a year I would see a Carolina chickadee locally. Now, I live in the zone where black-cappeds and Carolinas are so interwoven that to be politically correct (and we all know how I am about that), I must call them chickadee sp. as the two “species” have hybridized so much that you can’t separate them. I also used to have house wrens; now I have Carolina wrens.

Even so, I was depressed to learn yesterday that the National Arbor Day Foundation has officially reclassified my area climate zone, and I am now in the same one as Virginia. They have a link (here) that shows the old zones and the new ones. And lest you think this change has occurred over decades, the “old” map was merely from 1990. (Thanks to the DC Birding blog for originally posting this link).

To me, the most striking thing between the old and new maps is the change that has occurred to Zone 5, a dark green band that used to stretch across southern third of Nebraska, southern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, most of Ohio, northern Pennsylvania and all but the very northern part of New England. In the new map, all of Nebraska and Iowa are now in Zone 5, and once you are east of Iowa, Zone 5 now has almost entirely disappeared.

My old zone, Zone 6, now covers almost all of Pennsylvania except for the area I’m in. Instead, I am now in Zone 7, sharing the same climate zone with Virginia and western North Carolina, for heaven’s sake!

Another big change is the virtual disappearance of the cold Zone 3 from all but a few areas in the extreme northern U.S. Before, this zone nearly covered each of the northern border states. Now, this zone only extends a few miles south of the Canadian border.

Who needs to wait for the holidays to be depressed?

Here's the same tree, standing back a bit so you can see more than just the bark. But as I said in the title to today's post. After reading about my own little climate change, I'd rather howl!!

An Almost Winter Morning

This morning is crisp, a welcome change from the warm, foggy mornings of just a day or so ago. It doesn’t quite feel like late December yet, but it’s closer. Roundtop made snow last night for the first time in two weeks. . I hear a Great-Horned Owl hooting almost every morning when I leave the cabin to take Dog on his morning walk. This morning Dog saw one of the snowmakers head up one of the slopes on a snow machine and was determined to chase it. I saw a pale Red-tailed Hawk fly out of the trees just around dawn and circle over the valley before disappearing.

The number of birds at my feeder is steadily increasing. They get bolder as it gets colder and more difficult for them to find natural food. This morning, both titmice and chickadees almost landed in the seed container as I carried it across the deck to the feeder. Several were within 12 inches of landing in it or on my hand before they “chickened” out. Their boldness is a sign they are hungry. When natural food is plentiful, they aren’t inclined to approach before I’ve dumped their seed and turned away. Later, during snowstorms or ice storms, they will often land on my hand or in the open seed dish as I carry it to their feeder.

I enjoy it when one of these tiny birds lights on my hand to grab a seed. They don’t usually stay long enough for me to examine them when they are so close. They usually just flash in, wings fluttering, grab a seed and bolt away. I can barely feel them when they do this. The titmice and chickadees don’t weigh anything. I might feel the curve of their feet around the edge of my hand, but if it weren’t for that, I’m not sure I would notice any sense of weight.

Over all, the woods are quiet right now. Deer hunting season is over, but the surviving deer haven’t yet visited the cabin. The raccoons and possums are hibernating. The squirrels are still around, regularly raiding the bird feeders. I haven’t seen a turkey since fall. Perhaps the quiet has something to do with it, but it is finally starting to feel like winter.

Old Rocks

I’ve always liked this rock on the edge of my property. Underneath it is just enough room for small critters to hide or take shelter. Roundtop is a very rocky hill, with lots of medium and small boulders both above and under the ground. Someone told me once that the mountains in this area were essentially created by “volcano spit.” The volcanoes disappeared eons ago but the hard volcanic rocks spit out by that long gone volcano remain as small mountains.

I perhaps think I know where the volcano in this area might have been. Roundtop is one of several small mountains that are separated from the nearby uplifted Appalachian range by a valley of about 10 miles. If you look at the three or four mountains directly around Roundtop on a topographic map, they form a somewhat circular or elliptical shape. In between them all is a smaller valley with a stream through it. I think the volcano could have been down in that long-filled valley. At least that’s my theory until someone tells me differently.

The weather is cooler this morning, closer to more normal December temperatures, though still several degrees above that. At least now it feels like a normal warm December day instead of late September.

Sunrise Again

The weather here remains atypically warm; perhaps that is somehow related to the spectacular sunrises that have graced the mornings here this weekend. I am finding that a winter, or at least a December, without snow makes photography more difficult than I expected.

Snow has a way of making everything look pretty. An old, broken plastic bucket suddenly looks like an artfully arranged stone in the landscape when it is covered with snow. When the same bucket is sitting the middle of the forest, surrounded by brown, fallen leaves and trees devoid of leaves, it looks like an eyesore. Even without the bucket, brown leaves on the forest floor and brown bark on trees presents fewer opportunities for photos than I’m used to. Somehow, I’m used to the forest looking prettier than it does at the moment.

And that got me to thinking about what we humans consider pretty. Why is it that snow and autumn’s colors are more pleasing to our eyes than a forest without leaves or snow cover? Why must something be pretty for us to consider it valuable or important? Why do we like the Grand Canyon better than bare trees? Why is a spring flower more important to us than a non-flowering vine?

In nature’s scheme of things, one part isn’t more important (hence “better” in human thinking) than the other. Each has a “job,” a reason for it to be the way it is. It’s only humans that prefer one over the other, that calls one pretty but not the other. That considers one important and the other more expendable or less important simply because it’s not pretty.

I wish we could get past this concept of equating prettiness with importance or value. I’m as guilty of it as everyone else, though I’ve always looked more like the non-flowering vine kind of human than the spectacular wildflower kind.
And so, though it is not quite the new year, or even winter solstice (the start of nature’s new year), I’m going to make a resolution to look at beauty in the landscape differently than I have in the past. I will look for and try to find the importance in everything I see. I know it is there.

Early Mountain Sunrise

I was ridiculously thrilled this morning to see a crow. I left for work a few minutes later than usual, just at sunrise. As a result, the early morning birdlife was already starting to move around. And that's when I saw the crow, a large and well-fed looking bird, pulling at something along the edge of the road. It startled and flew as soon as I neared. When I'm excited to see a crow, that's a sure sign I'm feeling very bird-deprived by the late sunrises and early sunsets.

The weather has warmed up this week, giving this area day after day of near-record warm temperatures. It's thoroughly unlike December and thoroughly unappreciated by me. Yesterday it was 58 degrees, for heaven's sake. I think it's fooling the birds, too. This morning I heard a cardinal singing. I've heard cardinals sing on warm days in February, but I'm pretty sure this is the first time I've heard one singing in December.

I've been going over my bird list from 2006. I tracked it a little differently this year than I usually do. As a result, I'm seeing my results in new ways. I'm noticing that it's not just the number of species that falls as the summer residents head for warmer climes. Even the numbers of resident or common species falls as the year progresses. For some reason I hadn't noticed that before.

Anyway, it will soon be time to start a new bird list for the new year, an event that I always look forward to. It's the time of year when even the common starling can be seen for the "first" time. I usually spend at least a few hours on New Years Day birding and trying to see as many "new" species as possible to start my new list. I keep hoping to make 40 species on the first day (not all at the cabin). I've never done it in this area yet, though I've come close. There's always one or two species that I should be able to find that I don't that keeps me from reaching this minor milestone. Perhaps 2007 will be the year. I can always hope.

The Night Window

I have a large window in my bedroom, and when I lay down at night, I can still see outside and into the woods. Falling asleep while looking into the woods is my way to end the day. The cares float away as I watch the quiet and stillness of the forest. Sometimes I will watch the light of a distant airplane as it plays hide and seek behind the trees. Once or twice I’ve seen an owl and once a flying squirrel, but usually there’s nothing to see but the trees and the sky.

Sometimes watching the trees in the darkness is the only time I have in a day to slow down and relax. I have watched the trees change over the years I’ve lived here. One near the cabin has grown noticeably taller and thicker, the scars left on its bark when a limb came off are much faded now and higher than they were when I moved here. Several other trees fell during ice storms or wind storms in years past. But the forest remains, silent and deep in winter, noisy with the rustle of leaves and insects in the summer.

Forests measure time differently than we humans, and watching a forest in an evening or over the years helps give me a sense of the timeless. This isn’t an “escape” from modern life, so much as it is a turning towards something larger than the clutter of my own daily life. Watching the woods reminds me of my own place in nature and helps me step away from the ideas that seem so important in the day. At night, in the forest, few of those cluttering thoughts and activities have much importance. The forest reminds me of that again and again, whenever I forget.

On clear nights, I can usually see a few stars, but the trees hide most of them. I focus instead on the sky. Is it cloudy or clear? Is it the dark of a moonless midnight or is the forest brightened by a full moon’s light? The night is the time when I can just observe and give my processing and judging mind a respite, a sanctuary from the day.

Usually one of the cats sits atop the bookcase and stares out into the woods, too. He or she will join me on the bed as soon they have decided there’s nothing more to look at for the night. That’s usually when I, too, will at last close my eyes and let the day end, leaving the forest to itself again.

Years Ago

Years ago, I rented a cabin in the woods with other regular hawk watchers just behind the curve of the mountain on the left, up the little draw behind it. We were all regulars to the Hawk Mountain lookout during migration season, but we all lived 1-2 hours away from the mountain. Driving home Saturday night only to return early on Sunday morning for another day of hawkwatching wasn’t a good use of our time or money. And driving any distance with tired eyes wasn’t very safe either.

None of us wanted to or were able to spend money on a motel, so we started camping out together in an Appalachian Trail shelter near the lookout. Staying overnight at the mountain allowed us to attend the Saturday evening lectures that often ran past 9 p.m. and we could make it up onto the lookout even earlier the next day. We soon became not just acquaintances but friends and started hosting pre-lecture potluck suppers and post-lecture get-togethers with other, non-camping mountain regulars at the shelter.

After a few seasons of camping at the shelter, which in the fall never seemed to be used by hikers, one of our group found a cabin for rent at the bottom of Hawk Mountain. With the rental cost split multiple ways, it was affordable and we took it. The cabin was a year-round rental along the Little Schyulkill River, so we named it the River House. We were soon staying there on weekends long after migration ended in the fall or spring. We stayed there in winter and summer, too, often having friends over for dinner or a glass of wine. I thought it was prettiest in winter. A couple of times several of us were snowed in there for a day or two. In the summer, the cabin was a cool respite from the season’s heat.

Eventually, after several years, the landlord decided to sell the property, and we were forced to vacate. Now I have my own cabin in the woods to live in year round, and not just on the weekend, but I will always have a fond spot for those years and those times spent at the River House.

Quick Trip to Hawk Mountain

I made an all too brief stop at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary on Saturday to attend a planning meeting for the upcoming HMANA conference next September. It was our first session, and Laurie Goodrich, the monitoring biologist at Hawk Mountain, has already put together the shell of the activities. The conference will bring together raptor biologists and enthusiasts from all over North America, and the planned events and sessions sound great. I'm going to be working mostly with publicity for the event and will probably work at the event itself as well.

I had hoped to be able to arrive early enough to at least go up to the South Lookout, which is near the road, for a few minutes. The view from up there is spectacular even when raptors aren't flying, but I soon realized that I didn't have enough time in the day for that. So my trip was limited to the meeting site at Hawk Mountain's still new Acopian Center down at the bottom of the mountain. The first photo shows the side of the building that faces the mountain and its observation deck. The Acopian Center is a residence and field station for visiting scientists. Hawk Mountain also holds events in the main space upstairs. Our meeting was held downstairs in a conference room/library.


I took the second photo in the conference room. It shows a photo of Maurice Broun, the first curator of the mountain, in the center. His wife Irma is on the right. The couple lived on the mountain starting in the late 30's, when hawk shooting, not hawk watching, was a major fall sport on the mountain. When the land was purchased by Rosalie Edge for raptor conservation, the couple moved onto the mountain to close the land to hunting and begin the process of education. They received death threats for prohibiting hawk shooting. But they persevered and the tide turned, and Hawk Mountain became the first sanctuary for birds of prey.

Ski Roundtop Opens!

Ski Roundtop opened for the season on Saturday morning. I took this photo literally seconds before they opened the gates. I hear it was a good opening day; the parking lot was certainly full when I saw it later in the day.

I wasn't home much this weekend. I had to go up to Hawk Mountain for a meeting to discuss a conference the Hawk Migration Association of North America is planning for September. I'll have a few photos of my trip up to Hawk Mountain in an upcoming blog entry.

Sunday I worked at Roundtop--another busy day. So I wasn't outside very much and unfortunately didn't have any time to enjoy the woods around me. I did get to see a few birds! (Daylight is a beautiful thing).

Life is like this sometimes. If I lived in Arizona with a spectacular view of the Grand Canyon in my front yard, I'm sure I would have times when I'd be too busy to notice it, at least occasionally. I take solace from the fact that my life is not always this busy, and that I'm lucky to live where I can easily enjoy the outdoors most of the time. Finding the time to enjoy my surroundings isn't always as easy as I think it should be. At least I have the woods right around me, so I can maximize whatever time I do have.

No Picture

It's Friday, and I don't have a new picture for the blog today. I will have to take a new batch of them this weekend. A blog without a photo is a bit like how I feel in the dark in the mornings and evenings at home. I start to feel a bit like a vampire or an owl. Unlike them, I long to see the sun and be out in it, if only briefly.

It was 15 degrees at the cabin this morning, with a cold northwest wind that made it seem even colder. I've started to keep the water faucets dripping in the cabin to prevent the pipes from freezing. I've had the pipes freeze up temporarily a few times since I've lived here. Fortunately, I caught the freeze-ups as soon as they happened, and a hair dryer has always been enough to open things up again. Once, I had the pipes freeze when the faucets were kept dripping--I guess I didn't have have them dripping enough.

Most of the time my pipes are fine. The trouble always comes when wind is added to the cold, and freezing pipes usually happen when the wind comes from the west-southwest. Since the winter wind is usually from the northwest, I don't have the problem very often. The pipes were fine during a -16F degree cold spell with calm winds, but froze another time when the temperature was in the teens, but the wind was from the west-southwest. So, now, just to be safe, once the temperature is in the teens, I usually let the water drip. The cats love that, anyway. They act as though I've created an amusement park just for them.

Clouds and Things

Did I see the aurora last night? No!

Was it cloudy? Yes!

It's a cosmic rule, I know it. Whenever, the chance to see aurora borealis this far south is high, the clouds move in. This is more of a rule than "red sky at morning, sailor's warning" and "dew on the grass, no rain will pass." This rule is up there with the sun rising in the east.

But enough about that.

How about that cone crop? I'm told the cone crop in Canada is equally lush, so don't expect to see many, if any winter finches down here this winter. Those little cuties will stay fat at home this winter.

I'm still getting used to the idea of taking photos only on the weekend and then portioning them out during the week. Darkness on both ends of my work day keeps me from taking photos either in the mornings or the evenings during the week now. I'm afraid that by the end of the week, the photos aren't very interesting, let alone current. Hopefully, I'll get better at that next week. It will likely be mid- to late-January before the light is strong enough for daily photos again. Such is life.

It's official now: Ski Roundtop opens for the season on Saturday morning!

Remains

Special late note: Be on the lookout for auroras tonight! Spaceweather.com is putting the odds of seeing auroras in the mid-latitudes at 40% tonight, which is about as high as it ever gets for those of us who live in the south.

I have several beautiful beech trees at the cabin in my front forest. I don't have a yard, so the forest grows right up to the front door. The trees are striking, at least in part because of their smooth, light gray bark in the forest of mostly dark-barked oak and hickory trees. These are the trees that people can't resist cutting their initials into, and in fact, the first owner of my cabin did that on one of them. The trees are also striking because their branches often curve and appear at unusual angles. This is also a difference from the straight-limbed oaks. People who have yards don't like them, as they perceive them as "dirty" trees that easily drop their branches and twigs. In a forest, that's not an issue, so I get to enjoy their beauty without worrying about the work of them (not that I would let that bother me anyway).

The photo today shows the nut casings from a beech tree. Unfortunately, I've never tasted the beech nut itself. Squirrels and other critters always get to them first, at least in part because they don't wait until the nuts are ready to drop before they eat them. Now that the leaves are down, I'm able to see the remains of nut casings all around me.

It is starting to feel more wintry here now, though the cold weather is still so new, after the warmth of this past November, that it somehow doesn't feel settled in yet. This morning's temperature showed 18 degrees, and the forecast is for light snow tomorrow. The raccoons have taken to hibernating. I know this as I was visited every night by 2-3 of them raiding the outside cats' food dish. The raccoons were dextrous enough to reach up inside the dish to clean out every single bit of cat food, and now those few bits that the cats can't reach remain until the next morning.

Colder weather is here!

Ah, now it's starting to feel as though winter will actually arrive sometime this year. It was 22 degrees F at the cabin this morning. The morning is crisp and clear, and it feels wonderful.

This little tufted titmouse is one of my regular feeder birds. They are tame enough that I can stand outside with the camera and take a photo or two. The chickadees also don't mind if I'm near the feeder when they are. But the red-bellied woodpecker is quite shy and darts away as soon as it hears the door. The white-breasted nuthatch seem bold enough too, but never manages to remain still enough for me to get a shot.

Snowmaking continued all night at Roundtop, and this morning one or two of the bunny slopes are starting to look ski-able. Give it another day or so, and I'm pretty sure they will open. People have often asked me if the sound of the snowmaking is annoying to me over at the cabin. No, it isn't. It sounds a bit like a constant wind blowing through the trees. I drove past a car wash yesterday with my car windows closed, and the sound of that in operation was similar to what I hear at the cabin. Even if I heard that sound during the summer when my windows are open, it wouldn't be annoying to my ears.

However, when I get very close to the snowmaking jets, it hurts the dogs' ears. Plus, the sound of them is loud enough that the dogs don't hear me if we walk on the access road in front of a slope where they're making snow. So I just don't walk in front of the slopes while snow is made. I can walk around the far side of the old pond, which is really less than 100 yards from the snowmaking, and that doesn't hurt the dogs' ears (and they can hear me as well as they ever do).

This morning Dog and I walked in the woods a bit. The deer hunters seem to have gone. The ground is now hard enough that I'm not squishing through mud. We went out to the new pond and watched the full moon set behind the mountain. We were walking before dawn, but the full moon lit our way well enough. I'm always surprised at how much difference there is in where the moon sets in winter and summer. Right now, the moon sets in the northwest. By summer, it will be setting in the southwest. Dog was unimpressed, interested only in the wonderful smells on the ground in front of him.

Snow on Roundtop

Snowmaking has started on Roundtop! This photo shows the scene that greeted me early Sunday morning. The snowmaking crew started making snow for the first time this season on Saturday night.

If the weather stays cold, Roundtop should be able to be open, with at least a few of the slopes, within a few days, almost certainly by this upcoming weekend.

Where I work, in Guest Services, the single most asked question is, "when are you going to open?" People are always surprised when we answer that we don't know, that our opening is dependent on Mother Nature. A surprising number of people seem to equate snowmaking with "fake" snow, as though it is something like plastic, perhaps. We get calls when it is 50 degrees (and higher) outside wanting to know if we're open for skiing. When we explain that it isn't cold enough yet, they say, "But I thought you made snow." Well, we do, but it's real snow and for that it has to be below freezing. In this area, winter is often a dry season. Plenty of years we have cold temperatures and no snow, so Roundtop makes their own.

The short version of how you make snow is this: 1) wait until it's below freezing, 2) shoot water into air with some pressure behind it, and 3) the water freezes and falls to the ground as snow. The colder it is, the more like snow it is. If it's warmer, it's a bit more like ice crystals than snow.

Let the winter begin!

The Apples That Remain

This morning it was 65°F when I got up, a new record for this date in my area. I suspect the final record will actually be a degree or so warmer. But by noon the storm that has pounded and pummeled the west and Midwest will arrive here, bringing some very nasty and much colder weather.

This morning as I left the mountain I passed the apple orchard that’s the first thing I see when I leave the cover of the forest. At first I thought a few leaves were still clinging to the trees, until I looked closer. I was surprised to see many unharvested apples instead and was struck by how the red/yellow apples were the same colors as the red/yellow leaves on the ground. If the predicted winds come through this afternoon, I suspect that by tomorrow, no apples will remain on these leafless trees.

During our walk this morning, Dog and I saw five deer (no buck) still bedded down from the night in a very narrow patch of woods between one of Roundtop’s bunny slopes and the lower part of the lane that eventually passes the cabin. They watched us pass and never moved. Dog never scented them. I wondered if they were occupying this unusual spot because they were hiding from hunters or were anticipating the bad weather and seeking shelter from it.

I left the dogs inside the cabin this morning, as the weather sounds as though it will be too severe for them to be outside. When I left without putting them on the deck, I was met with quizzical looks, as though they were trying to tell me I’d forgotten something.