nature

vacation : the return trip

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The sunrise on our last morning in Acadia.

Since we were already getting up insanely early for our thirteen-hour drive home from Maine, we thought we’d get up even earlier and watch the last sunrise from the top of Cadillac Mountain. However, it became apparent that we weren’t going to make it, due to my misunderestimation of both how long it takes us to get it together at 5am and how long it takes to get from where we were staying to the top of Cadillac Mountain. So, we pulled over at Canoe Point and watched the sun rise over Frenchman’s Bay instead. It was beautiful, and we consoled ourselves with the belief that we probably wouldn’t have gotten to see the blazing-ball-of-fire-over-the-ocean type of sunrise anyway, since there was a thick blanket of storm clouds obscuring the view. One more thing for us to do next time we’re up there.

Once we got on the road the trip went smoothly. Bangor’s morning rush hour was nothing like the rush hour of major cities, so the timing worked out perfectly all the way down the coast. The only excitement was car-related: we had the sidewall of our front tire develop a bubble, which made a huge amount of noise on the road and then burst in the parking lot of the gas station where we were seeking directions to an auto repair shop. Thankfully, there was a shop just up the road; once we drove the car there, they pronounced the other front tire ‘crap’ and proceeded to replace them both. We were so tired—and grateful that the tire hadn’t blown while we were driving up the mountains or just a few seconds earlier when my hands and face were in range—that we didn’t mind just hanging out reading in the waiting area. In the end, the delay was only an hour and we had beautiful traffic the rest of the way; apparently everyone in New York decided to actually stay at work until 5pm that day.

The only negative of the rest of the trip was the way we were chased down the coast by Kings of Leon. Yes, we could have put on CDs, but there are a decent number of radio stations in the stretch between NYC and DC that we were enjoying listening to. Except the Kings of Leon part, which was worse than usual because apparently they are on tour. So there was that. Having to constantly surf past bad music did spark several long conversations about alternative rock, grunge, and which bands that sing about heroin I like (Velvet Underground, Nirvana) and which I don’t (Alice in Chains). The upshot: I barely tolerate Pearl Jam out of respect for their timeliness, and all other bands that sound like them make me want to ralph exasperate me.

Now that we’re home I’m working on getting the photos off my camera so that I can retro-post about our experiences of getting up at 6am and hiking around for hours in a haze of stink and Deep Woods Off ™ before collapsing into bed and doing it all over again the next day. It was far more awesome than it sounds.

vacation : the return trip

don’t let some yahoo kill my wolves!

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Just exactly like last year, states have started allowing private citizens to kill public wolves in the Rockies. Why public? Because the federal government has spent 27 million dollars to reintroduce those wolves and obtain the stable 1600 animal population, that’s why. When we let yahoos real estate agents kill wolves, we give them an $18,000 gift of public funds, one they didn’t even have to buy a house or a car to get.

Of course I agree with the ecological and ethical arguments against killing these animals. Mostly, though, I just think it’s like cleaning up Lake Erie only to start allowing dumping a year later: stupid.

don’t let some yahoo kill my wolves!

weekend visit to Patuxent NWR

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It’s been a long time since I’ve hiked around Patuxent NWR, and I took advantage of yesterday’s beautiful clear afternoon to suggest a trip up there. The full Cash Lake trail was open, not yet closed for the season to protect the waterfowl that winter at the park. In addition to getting some fresh air after days of being stuck inside avoiding first humidity and then thunderstorms, we were also testing out my partner’s new hiking boots in advance of our trip up to Acadia National Park next month.

The hike itself was really more of a nature stroll than a hike that anyone who owns those pants that zip off into shorts would recognize as such. Patuxent is usually good for birds, but we saw hardly any: some goldfinches in by the Redington Lake bridge, a red-tailed hawk being chased by some crows above the beaver dam, some chickadees and nuthatches in the woods, a noisy red-bellied woodpecker, and a lone male kingfisher flying up the shore of Cash Lake. The highlight of the walk was definitely the amphibians: the previous two days of rain had created the ideal summer environment for frogs. We saw green frogs in the learning garden pond by the visitors’ center, a veritable mob of leopard frogs in a puddle at the base of the trail, and a lone cricket frog doing exactly what the guidebook said it would, which was attempting to evade us by a series of erratic hops. (I still caught it, but only to examine the teeniest frog I’d ever seen for identification purposes and then move it to the grass from the path of the trolley.) We also saw a skink, climbing a tree near where we’d stopped to locate the woodpecker; it was only the second time I’d seen one, so that was exciting.

In addition to frogs, the meadows were alive with butterflies. We saw Monarchs, Eastern and Black Swallowtails, Red-spotted Purples, a Great Spangled Fritillary, and a Common Buckeye. It’s possible that I also saw Spicebush and/or Pipevine Swallowtails, a Common Wood Nymph, and Least or Delaware Skippers (I didn’t have the book with me, so all identifications were from made at home from memory). We also saw a couple of something that looked like a cross between a cicada and a hummingbird, that we named Mini Mothra. There were dozens of dragonflies, including several distinct types I’d never seen before, but I didn’t have that book with me, either. All the dragonflies and frogs, in combination with a nice breeze off the lakes, meant that we weren’t bothered by mosquitoes at all.

weekend visit to Patuxent NWR

garden : yellow jacket ground nest

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As a general rule, I don’t like to spread poisons around. Not inside the house, not on the lawn, not to kill bugs, and not on any of the plants I’ve planted. There are, of course, exceptions. For the first couple of years we lived here, we sprayed poison in a perimeter around the foundation of the house to discourage the ants that had decided the interior was better than the exterior during the year in which the house stood empty. The past two springs we’ve sprayed the cherry trees with larvacide to prevent Eastern Tent Caterpillars from recurring to the extent they did the year I drowned 2000+ by hand (from which I still haven’t truly recovered). I spray the poison ivy with the strongest poisons I can find whenever it crops up, for what little good it does me. And, this year I spot-sprayed ‘insecticidal soap suitable for organic gardeners’ on the bee balm and hostas that were becoming totally covered in little midges and white flies and aphids and what have you. Most of the time, though, I rely on nature to balance itself out (although reading that tally does give the impression of quite a lot of poisoning).

When it comes to wasps, I generally try to keep an eye out for their nests and knock them off the porch ceiling with a broom handle before they get too large. This year, however, yellow jackets made a ground nest at the edge of the lawn. I discovered this in the same way that everyone discovers yellow jacket ground nests, by getting stung on the ankle while mowing the grass. Besides pissing me off and making my ankle swell up like a red-hot baseball for a couple of days, this was disturbing because it’s right in the clumps of weeds that I typically yank up by hand whenever I get the chance. After consulting with our town public works manager, I conceded that the best thing to do was mark the spot and have my partner spray a can of Raid ™ into the hole in the middle of the night. It took us some time to locate the opening; for a while I was thinking we would have to weed-whack the area and run, but some careful observation eventually revealed the spot from which they were coming and going.

Last night after dark we did the deed, nobody got stung, and this morning I didn’t see any wasps coming or going. I can’t say that I’m totally pleased to have emptied a can of toxic chemicals into the ground, but I’ll certainly feel better about the whole thing if it actually works.

garden : yellow jacket ground nest

garden : butterflies

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First of the Gay Butterflies Butterfly Weed assortment to bloom.

One of my goals in selecting plants to add to our garden is to attract more butterflies and predator insects. As with the desire to have more birds, it’s my hope that the mosquitoes can be kept to a minimum by natural predation. So far, we’ve seen some improvement over last year; it’s now possible to walk around in the yard and work in some areas without getting eaten alive. There are still a few problem areas, notably the puddle-ish area at the foot of the basement stairs (where we’re going to install a drain as part of the work on the basement) and the bumpy black plastic downspout extension on that same side of the addition. So, that corner of the yard is not so great. The rest is pretty good on a sunny day though, and even working outside at dusk I was able to make do with just the citronella bucket and not a DEET coating. Between our water management work, the birds, and the insects, we seem to be making progress.

In terms of butterflies, I’ve so far seen only the most common ones. They’ve appeared in greater numbers than I remember, Spring Azures and Cabbage Whites being the most frequent visitors. We had a larger black and blue butterfly hang around for a few days in the spring, however I wasn’t able to identify it. I’ve been using a poster that I picked up in Hilton Head, Butterflies of the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, as a way to narrow down my options and then Peterson’s Eastern Butterflies or an online guide to our county to confirm the identifications. In addition to the two common white butterflies, I’ve noted several Eastern Tailed-blues in the yard, and caught visits by a Clouded Sulphur and what I believe was a Hobomok Skipper.

During trips farther south, I’ve seen a few other species. During our bi-annual farm party we saw a large number of Cloudless Sulphurs grouped along a puddled lane. We also spotted a Tiger Swallowtail and a variety of small and medium orange-and-black butterflies that were just too fast for us to identify. Similarly, we spotted a large orange butterfly that looked like a Great Spangled Fritillary during an outside wedding last weekend, but had neither binoculars nor book at hand. I’ve seen orange butterflies in our yard, but haven’t been quick enough to get a good look at them. I’m hoping that once the flowers start coming into bloom I’ll start to be able to get a good look at them at rest.

garden : butterflies