A few visitors

Gray squirrels must be a bit smarter than I’ve given them credit for in the past. I have one that comes to the patio door, stands up on its hind legs, places its front feet on the glass and peers inside the cabin. It gives every indication that it’s begging or looking for food. I’ve seen it pull this trick twice now, both times when the bird feeders (should I call them squirrel feeders?) were empty.

It drives the dogs crazy, of course. The cats aren’t much better, though at least they don’t bark, which is something of an improvement. So far, I haven’t been able to get a photo of the entire procedure, though if the dogs didn’t scare the squirrel with their hysteria, that might be possible. I’ll keep trying.

So far, I have plenty of goldfinch coming to my niger seed feeder, but I haven’t found anything more exotic than that. I’m hoping for siskins but haven’t found any local birders who’ve had them this season. I’ll keep looking.

This morning I awoke to snow flurries, at first wafting out of the sky like feathers.  In a few minutes, the flurries intensified a bit, hiding the top of the western mountain with that distinctive veil of gray.  You can almost see that in today's photo, just to the right of the mountain's peak.  The air feels raw,too, though at least the wind is calm. 

Chickadees and titmice attack the feeders with gusto, perhaps the snow making them a bit edgy or at least even more eager for breakfast.  The dogs are full of themselves.  Gone is the laziness of summer's heat.  They are eager to run, to play, to get in trouble, if they can find it.

I hear the geese fussing over at the big pond.  I can't see them, but I know what they are doing by the sounds they make.  They are chasing each other; perhaps a stranger is trying to join the flock and they are chasing him out.  Perhaps it's just high spirits.  I think the weather has them feeling frisky, too.

This is the look of late fall here on the mountain.  Winter is not yet here, but I can feel it nearby, knocking on the door.

November clouds and sunrise

Good Thanksgiving morning!

My photo on this holiday morning was not taken this morning. It's still too dark on this rainy, drizzly, sleety, snowy morning to take one.  My Thanksgiving dinner won't happen until later today, but the deer have already gotten a salt lick, the birds are feeding happily as I type, and the squirrels have gotten corn, though they seem to prefer the suet that I'd put out for the feeder birds.  The fireplace is warming the cabin, and for a few hours, I don't need to do anything but drink a cup of coffee and enjoy the morning.  My wish for you today is to find a few quiet hours before the get-togethers and the dinner and the family time to enjoy the natural world around your door.



Feeding like there's no tomorrow

That dreaded phrase, a “wintry mix,” is now part of the local forecast for Thanksgiving. It’s the “mix” part of that phrase that’s the really, ugly part. Mix usually means sleet and rain, sometimes ice. It’s never a pretty picture, that’s for sure.

The sky over the cabin has only a few clouds this morning, but the birds are already acting as though something is going to happen. Even my chickens are behaving as though they haven’t eaten in a week, judging by the way they rushed me when I was brought their food out this morning. The wild birds that come to my feeders are probably the regulars who appear every day, so they really don’t have much of an excuse either, given how quickly my feeders empty each day. But excuse or not, this morning the birds are feeding as though there will be no food tomorrow, and we all know that won’t be the case.

I enjoy winter quite a bit, but to me that assumes winter brings snow. November and early December are more likely to produce a “wintry mix,” and that I can do without.

At the cabin, I thought I was pretty well prepared for winter—until the door knob fell off yesterday morning. So that’s one more things that needs taken care of. Ah, the joys of cabin ownership. It’s always something.

Here in the U.S. tomorrow is Thanksgiving, or “Turkey Day” as it is euphemistically described. Everyone always eats too much on Thanksgiving. That’s a requirement of the holiday, and I won’t be an exception to the rule. The birds around my cabin, both the tame ones and the wild ones, will have plenty to fill their tummies, too.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November foray

Now that the leaves have dropped, the brown shades of winter dominate the forest, even if the temperatures of winter have yet to arrive. This time of year can be challenging to photograph because the landscape is something of a monochrome. October brings such a riot of color that the sudden change to brown can be something of a shock.

This weekend the quiet that has pervaded November 2010 continued, so I was eager to get outside. Temperatures this November are about typical, but unlike many Novembers that produce a variety of precipitation, this one hasn’t done much of that so far. In other words, this has been an excellent November to be out and about and not huddled around a fire.

The sameness of the color of my local landscape drives me to look for things that are not brown, and that search usually finds me looking at fungus and moss. This weekend I found lichen and fungus and moss in abundance, so for the moment I happily have something to photograph.

The moss I found looked like a tiny little field of ferns, nature’s own miniature landscape.

The fungus covered the west side of this tree with ribbons of tiny, white polka dots of fungus.

Lichen is a favorite of mine. It is sensitive to air pollution of nearly any kind, so when I see a nice healthy patch of it on a rock or a tree trunk, I know I’m in a healthy forest.

So the leaves have fallen, the forest has turned brown, and the deer are taking on their duller winter coats. Can snow be far behind? Probably not.

The quiet of the season

Quiet is good, I tell myself, hoping to believe it sooner or later. The wind has died down, which is a good thing. I was tired of finding limbs in the driveway that were too large to drive over. More than a few of them seriously tempted me. I sort of wanted to see what would happen if I did drive over them or at least tried to. But then I grew rational again, thought of the possible car repair costs and did the smart thing by exiting the car and dragging the limb or branch or half a tree out of the way.

Quiet is a good thing because it means the raccoons haven’t dragged the bird feeders deep into the woods for several days. One feeder I never have found. Another was tossed or dragged off the back deck. The glass is still missing out of the squirrel-proof feeder. It did keep squirrels out. I’ve never seen a raccoon-proof feeder for sale. I think people know better than to advertize a feeder that way, because there would be no possibility of truth in such a statement.

The nights are quieter than I have been used to for a while. My windows are closed now. I had gotten used to the gentle sounds of the forest as my ever-present background music. But now those sounds are gone until the weather warms in the spring again.

For the moment, not much is going on around my cabin. Migration is quickly winding down and that means the birds that I see outside my door today are pretty much the only ones I will see until roughly the middle of March. Oh, I will likely find a few waterfowl, perhaps the odd wintering-over raptor, but I will have to travel to see them and there won’t be many.

Winter is a time of quiet, and the quiet is again settling over Roundtop Mountain. I enjoy the silence, though sometimes I also think I understand the urge towards hibernation. After the busyness of the fall season, the quiet and the silence of near-winter is making me feel a bit restless. Perhaps I should just hibernate through the quiet and awaken to spring’s bustle. Perhaps I’ll get over my restlessness and settle in to the quiet. Maybe that will be tomorrow. Or the next day.

The night visitor

Last night clouds moved across the sky, growing ever lower, and before morning drizzle began to fall. The spate of warm and lovely November weather is ended. When the storm clears, the weather will turn to late fall temperatures, and snow showers are even in the forecast for Thursday. Winter will soon be on its way.

When it’s cloudy at night and rain is due, the clouds actually make the forest lighter. The contrast between the gray clouds and the trees makes it easer to see further than does a clear, black sky against the dark trees.

After I turn the lights out at the cabin, the nighttime view from the window lets me see across the forest floor, until the slope of the mountain hides it. Last night, as I lay in bed, I saw the silhouette of an owl cross the view. It was a great horned owl, as nothing else is so large. It crossed my view heading diagonally across the window, heading towards the ground. No doubt a mouse, perhaps on its way to becoming dinner, attracted the night time predator.

I don’t often get to see the owls that live on Roundtop. I hear them frequently, often several times a week. The great horned is the most common, though I fairly often hear the eastern screech owl, too. Barred owls are rare up by the cabin, though are more common down in the swampy area at the base of the mountain. Anything else is very rare, possible only during migration. I’ve heard the saw whet owl a few times and heard rumors of long-eared owls, but have never seen one of those here.

Most often, when I do see an owl, it’s not long after dawn on a grey and rainy morning. I’ve always thought the owls simply hadn’t gone to roost yet because the morning was so dark. Seeing one of the silent predators of the night swoop across the forest in those few minutes when I lay waiting for sleep is the rarest of treats. I’m sure it happens much more often than I see it, perhaps many more times, but long after I have fallen asleep.

A walk in November

Sunday was such a nice November day that I was compelled to go for a hike—not that I need much in the way of compelling. But I usually end up starting my hike right out my own cabin door, and it is a bit unusual for me to actually get in the car and drive someplace to go hiking.

I didn’t go far, just the few miles down to Pinchot Lake to walk on a trail I hadn’t walked on in a while. The walk is an easy one, mostly flat with a few mild uphills. The trail was rocky in spots, though, and those rocks are now covered with ankle-deep leaves, so that made the walk a bit more demanding that it would otherwise have been.

I was simply looking to get out of the cabin and wander around the woods for a bit before I became mired in household chores, so that was good enough for me. This lovely spate of pleasant November weather is soon coming to an end, and I was determined to take advantage of it while I could.

I left early on Sunday morning and never saw another soul on my little trek. White-throated sparrows and Carolina chickadees scolded me throughout much of the walk. A time or two I heard a deer crashing through the woods to get away from me, though I never saw them.

Nothing recharges my batteries like a quiet morning walk in the woods. It doesn’t matter to me if I don’t see anything unusual. It doesn’t matter to me if the walk doesn’t take me to some exotic vista. I’ve never quite understood the folks who feel they have to see a waterfall or a great view on their hikes. It’s the time away from the everyday that’s important. It doesn’t even matter if I don’t go far. It’s only important that I go.

The pleasures of November

November is a bit of a guilty pleasure kind of month for me. It’s not the kind of month that provokes nods of approval when I tell people I like November. Most people prefer October and May, and while those can both be very nice months, I still prefer November.

I like days that start out chilly and progress to shirt sleeves. I like a fire in the evenings. I like the view once the leaves have fallen. In my case the views I like are both the distant one over to the western mountain and the nearer one that lets me see deeper into the forest than the nearest 15 feet. And if I had to choose between them, I prefer the one that lets me see across the forest floor for a few hundred feet or so.

In the mornings, the feeder birds are glad to see me when I put out the feeder that I bring in at dark to keep the raccoons out of them. The raccoon still cleans up any seed the birds kicked out of the feeders, so he’s not starving, just in case you wondered.

The chickadees and downy woodpeckers are especially glad to see me and are already tamer than is usual for this early in the feeding cycle. This morning, a downy started eating at the tube feeder that was within a foot of my left ear while I was still filling the platform feeders. I could hear it pulling seed out through the wire mesh. Perhaps emboldened by the female downy, the chickadees landed on the deck railing and then the feeding table as I was adding seed and this year’s new offering—freeze-dried mealworms.

Last week a I held a chickadee that knocked itself silly when it startled and flew against my living room window. I stood outside with that tiny ball of fluff in my hand, waiting for it to recover. The rest of the feeder birds apparently viewed this operation as proof that I was “safe” and were soon darting into and out of the feeders while I held the little chickadee. Soon the little one was better and popped off into a branch.

Since then, the feeder birds have pretty much ignored me when I’m outside. I love being surrounded by them when I am outside. The birds don’t come to the feeders much in the warm months; the forest produces all the natural food they need. It’s only when that food disappears that they return to my feeders, yet one more happy event of November and one more reason to enjoy this time of year.

The joys of fallen leaves

One of the good things about the open forest of November is all that I get to see the vegetation isn’t a solid wall of green. This morning it was two squirrels chasing each other around a tree and a pair of deer sneaking deeper into the woods as Dog and I passed.

In summer I hear what’s going on but am often left to imagine who is making the sound. I have gotten pretty good at guessing what noises go with what animal, but it’s still more fun to actually see them.

Of course, all those dry, downed leaves, as yet undampened by any rain since they fell, helps too. Not even the sneakiest raccoon or the most careful turkey can avoid the scraping and crunching noises the merest touch creates on those leaves. Any noise sets the dogs to barking, which prompts me to head towards a window to see what all the excitement is about. I’ve seen all kinds of things that I never would have seen if I hadn’t been alerted by the dogs or sometimes the cats. Fox tiptoeing through the back forest just past the deck, a person wandering over on a ski slope, the chickens out where they shouldn’t be—it doesn’t matter what, very little gets past the cabin without someone knowing about it.

November morning ramblings with geese

A few leaves are still hanging around the forest. Most of those are on the very tops of the trees. The under-canopy of the trees and the understory of the forest are largely bare of leaves or cover right now.

The sky is taking on that deeper blue shade of winter. I’ve never quite known if it’s the lessened humidity or the sun’s angle that creates the shade, but the summer sky is never this color. It’s only November that brings a blue as deep as a sapphire, even in the early mornings.

For the past few days I heard Canada geese almost every time I step outside. Some are migrants. Some are the locals feeling the pull of autumn even though they won’t head south. Something, probably something they don’t even understand, draws them into the air and sets them to that high, keening call even if they are just flying down the mountain or over to the next pond.

The evenings here at the cabin are chilly, and night’s dampness seeps through my clothes, no matter what I’m wearing. The days warm up nicely, though are often accompanied by a breeze that limits a true appreciation of the temperature. Still, this is the kind of weather that requires me to start the day wearing several layers of clothing that are usually shed by midday.

November is good weather for outside work. I can work hard without sweating off gallons of myself, and it’s not yet so cold that I have to work for an hour before I feel comfortably warm. There’s a lot good to be said for a month like that. November has its own kind of pleasures.

Winter is knocking on the door

My western view is still a work in progress, though already a bit more progress has been made. I took this photo on Saturday morning, and I know more leaves have come down since then. I might even have seen the season’s first snowflake last evening, though I wouldn’t swear to it. After dark I was walking Dog, wearing my headlamp to navigate the through the forest during the New Moon. And I thought I saw at least two snowflakes.

The nights are cold enough for snow, if not yet cold enough for snow to lay on the ground. Lake-effect snow did fall not all that far west of me, so it’s not out of the question for a few of those flakes to reach my wind-swept mountain top. The feeder birds have certainly feed as though they expect snow.

I’ve resorted to bringing my bird feeders inside overnight. I’m tired of feeding a 20+lb raccoon and having to wander through the forest looking for the birdfeeders he’s stolen from my deck. Not only must I remember to bring them in at night, but I have to remember to put them out in the morning—a task that’s easier to remember this morning because the forest is now light when I eat breakfast.

The feeders were busy with birds all weekend. I didn’t see anything unusual, though I was happy to see three goldfinch in the finch feeder. Often, that feeder seems lonely, and the niger seed not quick to get eaten. Some of the birds that are supposed to be eating the niger seed seem to prefer the other offerings instead. I don’t begrudge them whatever they choose to eat, but it’s made me consider taking that feeder down as a result. I guess I won’t do that now. Those goldfinch have convinced me that someone is using it.

Away from the feeders, I did see a few unusual birds, at least unusual for November. Yesterday, a nearly-adult bald eagle flew over Roundtop’s north parking lot, heading north. I guess that one’s not ready to migrate just yet. And I saw three robins cruising quickly through the trees, probably wondering where their next worms are going to come from.

It’s starting to feel almost wintry outside, that windy, chilly, raw feeling that says November to me. November to me means it’s time to make sure I’m ready for winter, and that raw wind from the northwest hurries me along. I hurry to stay warm and I hurry to finish up all the things that need done before winter. Time is short now. Winter is coming.

Later and later

The leaves are falling every day, a little or a lot. Today is a rainy day, to be followed by a breezy one, so I expect not many leaves will be left by the end of tomorrow. This is something I look forward to every year because it means I can see the sky again. It means I have a view again. It means I can see through the woods again when I sit on my back deck.

I have been in my cabin for nearly 20 years now, and each year the leaf fall is a day or two later than the previous year. For a good many years, I could count on the leaves being down before Halloween. Sometime around the 26th or 27th or 28th they were down. Then the leaf fall became Halloween itself. Now, the leaf fall is slipping past the first of November and will soon threaten not to finish until the second week of the month.

Climate change? Global warming? Call it what you will, but a change in the date of leaf fall by two weeks over 20 years is a lot, no matter how you name it. That’s two weeks less for the leaves to decay on the forest floor over the winter and likely two weeks less for winter weather, as well. What does that change do for the germination of this year’s nut crop? What does it mean to the water table if warmer weather lasts longer? Likely, thousands of things are affected by such a shift, most of which I suspect we don’t even know about.

Insects can forage later in the year. Warblers arrive in the spring after the point when insects they used to feed on have already dispersed. The trend doesn’t look to be one that shows any sign of slowing down. It’s as though our little blue marble in space is rolling down a hill and picking up speed with every revolution. Stopping or even slowing this freefall will be difficult to impossible, I expect.

I hope I’m wrong. I hope we can find fixes that don’t entail removing human life from the planet. I hope we are smart enough and care enough about our little blue marble that the best minds on it can find a solution to keep all life on it healthy. But every year the leaves drop a little later than the year or the two years before, and I wonder.

Changing seasons, changing thoughts

Fall’s colors are already past their peak. The color doesn’t last very long, certainly not long enough to enjoy it properly. Wind has brought many leaves down, perhaps half of them. That’s enough to open up the view around the cabin. Funny, how summer’s heat never seems to end but fall’s glory is over in an instant.

This morning I found ice in the chickens’ water. My bed was covered with cats all night. The dogs huddled together like puppies. There’s no denying the season is changing.

It seems odd to me, after six warm months, to find ice again. After all the years I have seen ice come and go, I would have guessed that the annual reappearance of ice would be so old hat as to hardly even be noticeable, let alone worth mentioning. But that’s not the case. Apparently the span of 180 days or so is enough for the commonplace to appear new again.

Each year brings new surprises and new reappearances. The passing of time lets me look and think about things with a fresh eye and a fresh mind. I don’t know what the right amount of time is for the eye and mind to see old things in a new light. The surprise of the ice is a good reminder for me to think about the things I believe to be true and see if any adjustments are needed. Maybe what I thought was true last year isn’t as true this year. I’m pretty sure one season isn’t long enough for this process to work. Two seasons or 180 days works, though there’s nothing magical, so far as I know, about the passage of that amount of time.

The impending arrival of winter, with its shorter days and long nights, is as good a time as any for me to kick those thoughts around a little.

Whoa, Nellie! I'm not ready for that

I can’t remember the last time my area had a freeze before a frost, but it looks as though that’s what will happen tonight. I guess that means I can add one more item to the list of unusual weather events for 2010. Tonight I’ll have to throw some more straw to the chickens and make sure their pen is readied for cooler weather.

Last evening I found a large flock of Canada geese lounging by and on the largest pond here at Roundtop. I suspect they are migrants, not locals. They were suspicious and flighty, which would be unusual for the local birds that suffered through weeks of adventure camp with more aplomb than I would have guessed. I still have two or three windows that are just barely cracked open at the cabin, and perhaps I’ll make an effort to get them closed tonight. I like to think that not much cold air enters or warm air escapes through them, though that’s probably not so. I just like to hear what’s going on outside, and once those windows are finally closed for the cold months, I can’t hear the woodland sounds or the birds twittering at my feeders.

I can’t pretend to be surprised. I’m within spitting distance of November, after all. Yet, somehow I always feel unprepared for these seasonal chores. Partly, I think it’s because summer feels like a long, extended stretch of unchanging weather to me. And then when fall arrives, it’s a new change every minute or so. It just takes me longer than that to get back in gear after idling for so long.

A good morning

Today was a good morning for sunrise photos.
Today was a good morning for a sunrise.
Today was a good morning.

Deer eyes greeted me this morning, shining in the gleam of my headlamp, one of the foxes, too. The crows watch them, pausing in the treetops for a few moments, just to make sure they aren’t up to anything tricky.

Even before sunrise, when the stars were already gone and the sky just pale, crows argued above the trees. Small flocks of unidentifiable little birds slipped overhead, followed by a flock of 19 robins. They are heading south, all of them, soon to be gone until another turning of the year. They hurry, as though there isn’t much time.

Migration was getting off to an early start this morning. I could feel it too, though how much more must those with wings sense the change in the air and feel that certain something in the wind that says, “head south” to them. I don’t feel the urge to head south, but I can tell when the day is right, when the wind is right. This morning, the wind is right.

I don’t mind that I stay behind, while they are urged to the south. The mountain becomes a different place when they are gone, so in a way I am in a different place, too, even though I haven’t left.

At the cabin, Pig the raccoon made another appearance last evening, precisely at 8:05 p.m., which was the same time he appeared the night before. Last night, I saw him in mid-leap, followed by a heavy plop when he leaped and failed to reach the hanging suet feeder. That’s what too much bird seed will do to a raccoon. Baby Dog was outraged (again!) and again I was on the telephone during Pig’s arrival. What must people think? That I’m attacked nightly by aliens? Or wolves? To hear Baby Dog, you’d think it must be something at least that dangerous.

Still quiet. Well, sort of

Roundtop is quiet for the moment. The only excitement was the appearance of the raccoon I have nicknamed Pig. Pig is a pig when it comes to finding bird seed and leftover cat food. But the real reason for the nickname is his enormous size. If this isn’t a 30 lb. raccoon, I’ve never seen one.

Last evening I was talking on the phone when a tiger-sized roar erupted from Baby Dog. That’s her raccoon voice. The sound of outrage is unmistakable. I don’t even have to go look. I know Pig is out there when I hear that sound. Baby Dog will keep up her outrage unless and until I go to the door and watch Pig scurry away. If I don’t go to the door, she will bark for hours.

As excitement goes, Pig is a pretty poor excuse, but as I said, it’s kind of quiet. The sky remains overcast and the clouds so low that it’s hard to tell when daylight actually does arrive. At least I haven’t had much from that big storm that’s swept across the country. A bit of rain, but no lightning or tornadoes and so far no wind either, though apparently I might still get some of that. In any event, the fall leaves survived for another morning, even if it’s still too gloomy to see them in their full glory. Sometimes I can see a hint of the glory, and that will have to do.

On a dark and dreary morning...

Today might be the last “good” day for autumn leaves here on Roundtop. Partly, it’s just time for the leaves to fall. Partly, it’s that weather system that’s due to arrive tonight. Put together wind and leaves ready to fall and that ends up with leaves fallen and on the ground. Or so I suspect will be how the morning greets me tomorrow.

So this morning, in the darkness of the pre-dawn hour, amid the gloom of a drizzle, I am out trying to get a few last leaf photos. The light wasn’t very good, but it won’t be very good all day, so I was stuck with what there was. That’s just the way it is.

The time change isn’t for another 12 days or so, and I will just have to put up with dark mornings until that happens. At this point, I pretty much wake up the chickens to feed them before I leave for work. They don’t mind being awakened, but they don’t see well in the darkness, and almost any motion scares them. Something like moving the feed dish or plunking down the water bottle, neither of which fazes them in the least in daylight, suddenly is a scary thing.

Worst of all about the morning darkness for me is that I don’t get to see the feeder birds that empty my bird feeders. It’s too dark now even for the crows, those early risers of the colder months. I’ve thought of putting in a birdcam but then I’d probably never get any work done. And there’s also the matter of reporting. Can I report a bird species I see only on my webcam? I suspect not, and that would make me crazy if the redpolls or the siskins or the crossbills showed up. Better I simply not know they were there.

Today's photo shows the lane up to my cabin.  It's prettier in sunlight.

Fall bonus

Sunday was a rare bonus. It’s not often that a day in late October is warm enough to sit comfortably outdoors and enjoy the pleasures of fall. Adding to that was this lovely warm day occurred not on a weekday or even on a busy Saturday, but on a Sunday, when people are more inclined to take the time to simply enjoy it. Everywhere I went I saw people outside walking, gathering with friends on their front porches or just sitting, still as a stone, faces upturned towards the sun.

I took full advantage of the day, too. Dog and Baby Dog both got long walks in the daylight, for once, not just in the pre-dawn darkness. We all enjoyed that change. This fall is not turning out to be a brilliant one for color, but that doesn’t mean what can be seen isn’t enjoyable. Fall is not just about leaves, but is also about the warm shades of fall sunlight, and that is as nice as ever.

Behind the cabin, I can now begin to see the outline of the mountains to my west. The outline has reached the point where it’s no longer more in my imagination than reality, either. The night sky is visible through the forest canopy enough so that I can even see a few stars—or will be able to once the moon wanes a bit.  The first white-throated sparrows visited my birdfeeder this weekend. They seemed confused by the feeder but attracted to it, watching the more skilled chickadees and titmice deftly comb the deck for seed.

My photo today was taken at Waggoner’s Gap hawkwatch, where I got to sit and watch the interplay of sky and clouds on the landscape below me, at least when I wasn’t seeing hawks. Fortunately for me, there were a lot of hawks to see. This week is the time that produces the best variety of raptor species at hawkwatches in the U.S. Golden eagles are beginning to fly. The uncommon northern goshawk is one species I get to see only once or twice a year—and happily for me I got to see it this past week. I’m still missing the rough-legged hawk, though I don’t get to see that rare migrant every year. It’s still too early in this season for that late-flying raptor. Perhaps I’ll get in one more visit before the season ends. Maybe I’ll see one then.

Fall colors? Not so much

I’ve pretty much come to accept that this year isn’t going to be a great one for fall colors here on Roundtop. Oh, I could still get some decent color or find some nice little copse where the colors are excellent. Overall, though, I’m not going to expect too much.

The color change is far enough along now that I see a lot of brown and withered leaves, even on large trees that appear to be healthy. The August drought was simply too much and the September rain too little, I guess.

At the cabin, I can begin to see the outline of the western mountain through the impenetrable canopy of green to my west. Last night after I turned the lights out, I was wondering if I’d left a light on upstairs—until I realized the light was from the just barely past first quarter moon streaming into the woods. That’s the first time since May that the canopy was thin enough to allow moonlight to reach the ground.

From my point of view those are both things to the good. The fall colors are a great extra, but they are only an extra. Fewer leaves and crisp temperatures are the real reasons I love the fall.

Note: I will be offline for a few days. Gone Hawkwatching again. I hope to have a few good stories from that excursion when I’m back online. 

Woodsy fantasies

My Sunday ramble produced so many photos that you may expect to see them throughout this week. When I reported yesterday that I stopped nearly every 3-4 feet to take a photo, I really wasn’t exaggerating very much.

Sunday was the kind of fall day that makes fall a season that’s really, really tough to beat. The day began with a nip in the crystal clear air and then warmed up through the day so that I ended my fall walk with my sweater pulled off and my sleeves rolled up above my elbows.

I would willingly have walked all day, but considering how often I stopped to take a photo, I doubt I would have covered more than 5 miles. As it was, a 2-mile walk took over an hour, and if I hadn’t been keeping half an eye on the sun as it started to dip behind the mountain, my walk likely would have taken longer.

Today, my moss photos will be featured. Green and soft, for me heaven might well be a bed that feels the way moss looks and smells, with that gentle “give” that’s never too harsh or too floppy. The idea of a moss bed is better than the reality. Moss is both damp and lumpy, though it’s hard to rid myself of the fantasy of a warm bed of moss on a nice, flat surface.

The fall colors right now are highly variable. Some trees are nicely yellowed; others are still green, and some are even bare of leaves. The variability is extending the time that I am seeing some color, but it is also diluting the overall effect. I must say, though, I’m enjoying the idea that the color change isn’t over in three days time, even if this isn’t turning out to be a brilliant year for fall color. For the last few years, the peak of the color change has been when I’m at work during the day and couldn’t enjoy it very much. This year it’s not as exciting, but at least I’m getting to see it. Some year, I’d like to have it both ways, but that’s even less likely than the fantasy of lying on a warm bed of moss on a nice, flat surface.

A Sunday afternoon ramble

The fall colors here on Roundtop Mtn. are still a work in progress, but fall weather the past few days is perfection itself. Knowing that this can’t last, I left my housework behind and headed down the mountain, to ramble along the stream that runs between Rountop and Nell’s Hill. I told myself that I needed the exercise, but since I found myself stopping to take a photo about every 3-4 feet, it’s questionable how much exercise was actually accomplished.

Originally, I simply wanted to take a photo of the mountain behind the cabin, but while I was up there, looking down to the base of Roundtop, it didn’t look very far away, so I headed down. Once there, I was just going to visit the pond that I can almost see from the top of the hill, but then I wanted to see how some of the ferns looked at this point in the fall, and before you know it, I was deep in the forest, enjoying the weather and sunlight and the quiet.

I followed the old woods road for much of my ramble. It makes for much easier walking than bushwhacking around the rocks and fallen trees that litter the forest floor. The old road cut created a bank on one side that is covered in ferns, mosses and forest plants of all kinds. I always see something different down here, and this ramble proved no exception.

The second photo today is of a withering ostrich fern, so named because the plumes resemble the ostrich feathers that used to adorn lady’s hats. The spores of next year’s growth are already visible on the underside. Before long, probably after the first frost of this season, the fronds will settle to the ground, where the spores will find a moist and fertile medium to begin their growth cycle next spring.

Along the old road, I see a flock of juncos. Saturday, for just a second, I saw the first to arrive at my feeders, but it was gone almost before I saw it. Today, the juncos are flighty, as though they aren’t yet sure if this is the spot where they will winter. I watch them flutter and stop, moving through the forest, then I move on, too.

Hoping this won't be the last...

As rain is falling now and wind is supposed to follow the rain, I’m not very optimistic about how many leaves and the quality of the fall colors that will be left afterwards. This fall’s display is also hampered by a large number of withered and brown leaves, mostly caused by the August drought, though insect damage might also be a culprit.

So last evening when the light was still nice and warm, I was out taking a few photos and hoping these won’t be my last really colorful leaf photos of the season.

At the cabin, all my houseplants that summered outside are now inside, and the cabin feels and looks smaller. A few windows are still cracked open, and they will likely remain that way until I get a frost. I might be forced to turn the heat on tonight. We’ll see about that one.

So I am nearly ready for chillier weather, if not yet ready for serious cold weather. Fortunately, I shouldn’t have to worry about that just yet.

Today fall is a freight train

All of a sudden, the fall color change picked up speed and is moving like a freight train. I can see the difference between morning and evening. Of course, temperatures in the lower 40’s overnight certainly help to move the process along.

The local animals are busier, too. Deer rut must have started because the roads after dark are not safe. And it’s not just the public roads; the deer are wandering through the parking lots at Roundtop, too. The raccoons are making a mockery of my “bird” feeder at the moment. It’s more like a raccoon feeder with an agility aspect in snaking out the goodies. Squirrels and chipmunks are so focused on grabbing acorns and nuts that they almost qualify as being underfoot. Everyone is about as busy as they can be. Including me.

Every fall it’s a race to get things done at the cabin. I always wait until the last minute, hoping for one more warm day, maybe another weekend. So when the weather turns, it always feel sudden to me—a day early or maybe a week. The decks need swept again. The outside furniture needs attention. The houseplants must come in. The chicken pen must be boarded up. The list is endless. The time in which to get it done isn’t. I try to do the most critical things first and then anything else I have time for.

Photos? Oh, yes, I’d better add that to my list. If I don’t the season will be over before I find the time.

Color progresses just a bit

Fall color is gaining a little bit each day here on Roundtop Mtn. I’m tempted to take a photo of this view every morning for the next couple of weeks just to see how much the color does change from day to day. The leaves still have quite a ways to go, but the change is underway.

I had a female purple finch at my feeder yesterday. I was sitting just a few feet away from her and didn’t dare move even to grab the camera. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever seen a purple finch before the first juncos arrived. I think I probably haven’t, but it may just be that I didn’t pay attention to when I first saw a purple finch.

I’m glad the finch I saw was the female. I think they are easier to differentiate from the ubiquitous house finch than are the males.

I should give up even attempting to take photos in the mornings now, but I can't seem to break the habit.

 Maybe next week.

Good times at Apple Harvest Festival

National Apple Harvest Festival

The past weekend I made my nearly annual visit to the National Apple Harvest Festival in Arentsville, Pennsylvania, which is just north of Gettysburg.  You should pronounce the first part of the town like the word “aren’t.” It’s one of the few big fairs that I like to attend regularly.

I love the fairgrounds, which look like something from the 1930’s. It’s nestled against the mountains. Nothing is paved. Mature pine trees are spread throughout the grounds. The food is outstanding. (Well, I guess that’s not unusual for a good fair.) I always look forward to this fair and this year’s version did not disappoint.

The festival is always held the first two weekends in October. I try to get there as soon as it opens on a Sunday. I never go on a Saturday. Those are always crazy-busy. Unfortunately, more and more people are learning that early on a Sunday morning is the least crowded time for this very busy fair, so even then is no longer very uncrowded.

The weather this past weekend was great, which no doubt added to the crowd but that’s how it goes. Did I mention the food? Apple this and apple that—from sausages to pancakes to funnel cakes and of course, all the more usual apple goodies. I need to start a diet ASAP.

Friday rambles

I’ve resisted turning on the heat in the cabin these past few days, even though the nights are down in the 40’s. When I turn the heat on, I prefer it to be when the weather will stay cold. So I’ve been wearing sweaters in the house and socks to bed. Today is warming up nicely towards 70 degrees and the weekend will be above 70. The cabin will be warmer and that moment when I have to turn the heat on is still a ways away.

The nights were cold enough this week that I’ve brought in most of my plants that summer outside. The cactus come in first, then the ferns. I still have a tree and a philodendron outside. They will return to their winter quarters sometime this weekend.

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When I’m busy, as I’ve been this past week, I don’t have nearly as much time to spend outside as I’d like. So I find time for little mini-visits around some of the natural areas around me. Sometimes, they are nothing more than a very slow drive along a Roundtop access road, looking for something interesting. Sometimes before work I park the car in the dirt parking lot and scan the sky with my binoculars for a few minutes. Sometimes I find a good rock or stump and sit for 3-5-10 minutes before work.

None of these aren’t substitutes for a good walk in the woods, but even a few quiet minutes in the forest betters my mood. And I very often get to see something that makes the little side trip worthwhile, whether it’s a bird or the deer or a fox or an interesting plant. A few minutes can make all the difference in my day.

Rain, rain gone away

Sunrise, October 7, 2010

The low, heavy clouds that brought several days of rain to Roundtop Mtn. lifted overnight. With the sunrise came with a perfectly clear sky and suddenly the morning is bright again. The weather didn’t clear early enough to produce any overnight songbird migration—that will come tonight. And with this next burst of activity, I would not be surprised to see the first juncos of the season arrive, too.

Whether the juncos arrive Friday morning or later, I am very glad to see the sun again. This past week was too gloomy for my tastes. The clearing weather has already brought out several of Roundtop’s forest dwellers. This morning Dog and I crossed paths with a fox, who turned tail and ran the instant it saw us. That was enough to make Dog want to give chase for a good 15 minutes after the fox was long gone. Baby Dog and I heard a deer snort and then saw several near a pond. She was eager to give chase and would have if she hadn’t been leashed. One of the skunks was around, too, and I am just as glad we didn’t see that one.

The leaves are beginning to turn color here, but are still too early in the process for me to say if the color will be good this year or not. At the moment, I’m leaning towards not and am hoping to be wrong. This evening I’ll be able to take a walk for the first time this week. I am hoping to have a better idea about that afterwards.

But do they taste as sweet?

Carolina rose hips

This past spring I located (and blogged about) the native Carolina rose and the invasive multiflora rose, both of which are found on Roundtop. The other evening I relocated both plants and have now found that even the rose hips of the two plants are different. So even now, in the fall, I can tell the difference between them.

The native Carolina rose has round and smaller rose hips. The multiflora rose has a larger and elliptical-shaped rose hip. There are other, more subtle differences, too. The blossom end of the Carolina rose is a bit larger than the tiny spot on the multiflora rose. On the multiflora rose, the flowers are all up and down the stem, and so are the rose hips. With the Carolina rose, the flowers are clumped together and naturally, so are the hips.

Rose hips are edible and birds love them, scattering the seeds in their poop. People make tea and jellies with them. I’m told that you should wait until after the first frost to gather them, as the frost sweetens them. Some rose species apparently have better-tasting rose hips than others. For tea, the recipe I’ve seen says to steep 4-8 hips in a cup of boiling water for 10-15 minutes. Some recipes suggest you prepare the rose hips before using them. Others say to use them whole. To prepare them, the directions are to trim the stem and blossom ends, slice the hip in half and remove the inners seeds, using scissors if the hips are too small for a knife.



Multiflora rose hips

If you dry the hips before you use them, you won’t need as many in your recipes. Drying is a simple matter of spreading them out somewhere and letting them dry to the point where the skin just begins to feel and look shriveled. Then, you split them and remove the seeds. Apparently, if the hips are too dry, you can’t remove the seeds and if they are not dry enough the inside pulp is sticky and will cling to the seeds. 

After the seeds are removed, let the hips dry completely or they won’t keep well. You can store them in sealed plastic bags for several months or freeze them so they last indefinitely.

I’ve never tried to eat or use rose hips before, but I think I’m going to this year. All rose hips are edible, the literature says, so I think it’s worth trying. I’ve read the hips are packed with vitamin C and once dried or frozen can be eaten like candy. And perhaps if I eat the multiflora rose hips, that will help keep them from spreading so fast. (I can only wish.)

Autumn's birds are arriving, summer's birds are going, going...

Dark, heavy, rain-laden clouds—a real sign of fall here—made evening photography no better than the morning yesterday. Last evening I heard the first truly migrant flock of Canada geese heading south. I never did see the birds, but that constant, overlapping honking, high above the clouds, isn’t a sound the locals make on their routine evening flights. No, this sound is the sound of fall, when the birds have flown for hours, honking as easily as they flap their wings. The honking is constant; I can hear it coming from the north, loudest when the birds are overhead and then diminishing into the south. When I think of fall, in my mind, that’s the sound that accompanies the visual image of golden tree-covered hills.

I’ve been seeing flocks of sparrows, too, flittering half a dozen at a time, never stopping long enough for me to identify them. Sometimes I think they are all chipping sparrows, but they can’t all be chipping sparrows, can they? The light is so dull and dark at the edges of the day and the birds are so flittery that I never get a good look at them. I simply see them, never pausing very long, little bundles of motion. I keep checking their tail feathers for signs of juncos. The light is just barely good enough to distinguish that white outer tail feather against the juncos’ slate gray, but so far I haven’t seen them either. Soon, though, perhaps this weekend, the first of them will arrive.

Red-breasted nuthatches are moving south this year after mostly staying up north last year. I’ve seen several already and heard more. They’ve come to my dad’s feeders, my own. I’ve heard them on Waggoner’s Gap hawkwatch and heard them in my own woods. This year's winter finch forecast also predicts purple finch will head south this year, but I haven’t seen any of those yet. Once, a few weeks ago, I thought I might have heard several of them, but I wasn’t sure enough to record them as such.

Other predictions from Ron Pittaway’s winter finch forecast, which is based on the supply (or not) of cone crops in Canada, are that the crossbills will likely stay up north. Common redpolls are predicted to head south, but pine siskins will likely stay up north. The Yukon apparently has a bumper crop of white spruce cone this year, which will keep the siskins, bohemian waxwings, pine grosbeaks and especially the white-winged crossbills happy in the north.

Oh, no! That time of year has arrived again!

Today’s photos are a bit “off topic” for Roundtop Ruminations. This was not deliberate. I was hoping to squeeze out another week of morning photographs on the mountain before the decreasing daylight forced me to switch to evening shots. However, a morning drizzle darkened the already dark morning and made any mountain photography impossible up at the cabin.

So today’s photos were taken off the mountain, along my morning commute. Once outside the cover of the forest and after I’d driven for 5-10 minutes, the morning was just barely light enough for a few photos. The photos were taken along the good part of my commute, before I reach the highway, which pretty much looks exactly like every other highway in the U.S.

Every year, I seem not to time the day when I have to switch from morning photos to evening photos very well. I prefer taking photos in the morning as those are much more likely to at least somewhat correspond with what I blog about for the day. Photos taken the evening before may have little or nothing to do with the day’s blog posts.

Even the evening photos are a short-term solution that only lasts a month or so. When I have to switch to taking a week’s worth of blog photos over the weekend, the odds that the photos will have anything to do with the written topic of the day are pretty low.

After the storm comes chores

The remnants of tropical storm Nicole pounded Roundtop Mtn. with several inches of rain yesterday. Fortunately, much of the worst of the storm missed the mountain. I did lose power for a while, but I lose power all the time here, so that’s not very unusual.

The rain fell so fast and hard for a while that it literally hurt to be outside in that downpour. The worst of the storm was over by late yesterday afternoon, though rain showers still fell on and off through the night. Pretty much all the rain I should have gotten throughout the summer fell yesterday.

This morning the sky was already beginning to clear, as you can see from today’s photo. The sky suddenly has that October look to it. At the cabin this morning, Dog surprised a small family of wandering raccoons, no doubt making their first appearance after holing up during the storm. We weren’t very close to them, but we were close enough for him to see them, which was more excitement than I needed at 5:45 in the morning.

With the clearing weather comes some very fall-like temperatures, which means one of my chores for this weekend will entail bringing in most of the houseplants that spent the summer outside. Another chore will be at least a start to clearing off the front and back decks, now littered with twigs and clumps of downed leaves that fell during the storm.

It’s not just birds and plants that are different during the seasons. My chores vary with the seasons, as well. And it’s time to get to work on at least some of my fall chores.