Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Smokestack Lightning

Tuesday night's passing thunderstorms came by particularly hard-hitting, with reports of hail and a possible tornado the next town over. For us it was quick approaching high winds; carrying torrential downpours mixed with incredible lightning, crashing all about.



We sat out on the (covered) porch, and watched the show...



The very close thunder shock waved the house, causing the baby to wail, the dog to hide under a blanket, and your humble blogger to grin and maneuver the camera from window to window, to try and catch 'The Big One'...



I didn't catch the one I hoped for, but at least learned some valuable lightning-picture taking lessons for next time...



Like all natural calamities, there's something very exciting about a good thunder/lightning storm; providing it can be watched safely...



I always wonder what our god fearing ancestors thought about storms like these as they huddled together, virtually exposed to the elements. No electrically lighted house behind them, no shingled roofs, no weather radar to give an idea how long it would last or which way it was going. They must have thought it exciting too, but exciting on an entirely different level.



The storm moved on as quickly as it came. The lightning began to cross the sky more than strike the ground, and soon the flashes dimmed to just the occasional burst of light in the low clouds, moving out.



It's the 21st century and the gods have spared us, once again...

Saturday, June 27, 2009

You Yellow Bellied Sap Sucker

I thought I knew where the entrance to Harvard Forest was, but was wrong. It was just where a far corner of the 3000 acre preserve was. What I always thought was the entrance was near a shallow murky pond just off route 122, across the street from the upper reaches of the Quabbin Reservoir in Petersham.

(It was here one Saturday afternoon a several years ago where in the middle of a torrential downpour with thunder booming all around, that I reeled in a massive pickerel after a long, epically soaking struggle; with my son witnessing wide-eyed from inside the car parked nearby...it was a big watery mess, and one of my more memorable hauls...)

But this was not the part of the Harvard Forest we were looking for this Saturday; we were looking for the part that contains the Fisher Museum, with it's forest dioramas. We should have looked up the address before we left. Instead, we ended up drifting through Petersham proper, unable to find it and unsure what to do with ourselves.



But as luck would have it, as we rolled along aimlessly, we happily encountered not one but two Trustees Of Reservations sites. Both were located almost side by side along East Street, not far from the center of town. Kelly's ankle is still a little sore, and she needed to feed the baby, so I left her to her work and plunged into the woods to scout out the Brooks Woodland Preserve on my own...



At the entrance some hikers had left their walking sticks for others to use; a class act. The hiking is easy, with a very moderate climb along a narrow single-track path through knee high ferns.



This section of forest struck me as particularly beautiful. Sometimes forests can look and feel ragged or old: unhealthy; silent and dark with dead and twisted trees, thorny brambles everywhere and large areas of muck. But sometimes forests just seem to brim with energy; lush and green, vibrant with life and bird calls; almost built for hiking. This is just such a forest.



It was a pleasure to track through, and it wasn't long before I encountered a couple of woodpeckers, male and female, dodging from tree to tree right above, making a ruckus.



They are the functionally but derisively named Yellow Bellied Sapsuckers. I stopped and watched them as they darted between four or five seemingly specific trees nearby.

It was most likely a mating pair; the male could be identified by the extra orange patch on the throat where the female had none.



Plus they would land on the same tree every few minutes before splitting up again.

They kept jumping between the same few trees nearby and calling loudly. But they never flew too far away before returning. They were definitely aware of the human with the clicking box pointed at them, but they wouldn't take off completely. After observing this behavior for a few minutes it dawned on me that maybe by darting back and forth they were trying to divert my attention, maybe from a nest in another tree nearby...



It had now been over a half hour since leaving the car and I had bothered the birds enough, so I left the woods to the woodpeckers and back tracked down the path. Reunited with the crew, we drove maybe a quarter mile or so up the road closer to the town center, and parked again near the Petersham fire and police departments...



...there nearly across the street was the entrance to the second Trustees' site: the North Common Meadow...



This preserve is a very easy, very family-friendly walk through mostly open meadows. For this one, Kelly and the freshly fed bloggerette were raring to go.



There is a nice little path mowed through the tall wildflower-peppered grasses to follow along, for minimal disturbance to the surrounding habitats.



We soon made our second encounter with a hummingbird moth in as many years, going from flower to flower just like a hummingbird would...



Also a damselfly, -not a dragonfly-, so known because of the way they fold their wings when they land and the way their eyes are spread apart...



And in the small frog pond nearby, hoping they'd both come closer, was this patient floater...



We looped around the path as it swung south and into a section of particularly high grasses.



Circling above and landing here and there in this section were some blackbird-looking type birds. But instead of the bright red shoulder patches we're used to seeing on the blackbirds, these had white streaks on their bodies, and big white patches on their heads.

Ignoring Kelly's impatient huffing, I held still for several minutes, and then slowly inched closer and closer to the area where a pair of the birds kept landing in between their constant short cirlings of the area. I thought I knew what they were, but if so had never seen them up close before. Getting home later and checking my bird book confirmed my guess:

Bobolinks. A fittingly odd name, for an odd looking bird...



They're part of the blackbird family, as can be told by their preference to perch on tall grasses.



The ladies look cool in their own right, with heavy black streaks on their head, back and wings.

I could sense Kelly's impatience growing...and while one-half of the sky was still nice and blue...



...the rain and thunderstorms that had been milling about on the other half seemed to have moved closer. It was time to get out of the meadow.



It was a great stroke of luck encountering another couple of Trustees' sites.

But Harvard forest, we'll have to try again...

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Social Networking

The little girl is oh-so-close to being able to hold her own head up steady, which means we're oh-so-close to being able to saddle up on the bikes again. Hopefully within a few weeks. Until then, we remain pedestrian people...



The rain having broken for the evening and Kelly's sprained ankle just about healed and in need of rehabilitation; we took our pedestrian skills to the street for an early-evening stroll around Northampton.



Coffees acquired, we looped around the back streets simply looking at simple stuff that caught our attention simply.









It was a short loop but just long enough to finish off the coffees as dark settled in and we made the return leg back up to Main Street...



We took a break and sat down on the steps in front of the Chocolate Emporium, to watch the world roll by as night fell.





Then, we were beset with a sudden act of high sociability. A jovial looking man appeared, walking over from the street, and engaged us in a very friendly conversation about the baby and the dog. Especially the dog. Apparently he and his wife had just recently gotten a Miniature Pinscher like ours, and he was curious about how life with Nemo was. We chatted and joked about it for a bit, and he said goodbye and returned to where he came from, which was a car that we just now noticed was stopped and idling in the street. Huh, now that's unusual, I thought; he actually pulled over in the street and jumped out just to talk to us about the dog...

He was a really nice person, and it was a nice little conversation. But it got me to wondering: how often does something like that happen? Where else do people leap out of cars to engage complete strangers in conversation on a city street?

It happens, sure. But it's rare. Northampton-rare, I'd say...

Then, even more unusual (I thought), after the man returned to the car, the driver's side door opened and out came his wife, who hurried over for a look at the pooch herself. Another nice conversation ensued. Nice people. Dog lovers. Northamptonites.

The whole episode and unexpected conversation left me smiling a little to myself, as we got up and wound out our loop back to the car.



I wonder if that kind of sociability is catchy...

Monday, June 22, 2009

Ashley, Actually

Happy summer to everyone, (also Happy Fathers day to all whom it applies, I'm particularly grateful). Summer has arrived, believe it or not. The non-stop rains (17 of the past 21 days) have most everybody shuttered indoors, perhaps humming that tune 'Don't fence me in'...



(I had to segue that pic into this post somehow...)

Even here at 'in the valley' headquarters we're not completely immune to the forces inclement. While we normally won't allow a little rain to keep us from exercising our right to exercise, we've unfortunately been struck with the extraordinary double-whammy of rain coupled with one of our members' recent handicap...Mama down!



Kelly has joined the narrow, chosen ranks of "People who have actually sprained their ankles while gardening"....

But alas, no need to grimace...



...I dug up some pics of a quick sunset walk we did recently, at Ashley Reservoir in Holyoke, to keep focused on the dry days ahead and to remind that all is not soaked...

The sun - remember the sun? - is especially gorgeous when it's low to the horizon, casting horizontally through the trees. And we got there just in time to see it light up the woods, seemingly from within...



As always, what makes Ashley so special is the way the paths run through the thick woods, and then suddenly give way to wide open water...





The bulk of the springtime wildflowers have already peaked, but tenaciously hold on to their colors as they succumb to time.



A quick salute to the the proud fathers of the Kingdom Animalia...



(Did I mention how grateful I was..?)



...And we finish the short loop, just as the last of the sun tucked itself away...



Ok, summer. Bring it...

Friday, June 19, 2009

A Sense Of The Whimsy

It was a brief break in the never-ending-rain, and I was driving through a soaked and sullen Easthampton, with my own soaked and sullen thoughts weighing somewhat towards the negative...



Then coming around a corner into town I saw an unexpected sight...



Huh.

Then, not far away, there was another; tucked away unassumingly on the sidewalk between utility poles and store entrances. Painted in ridiculous colors and designs. As if.



The Easthampton Bears have been all over the news and local blogosphere lately. It was my first encounter with them and at first they all seemed very out of place. Almost ridiculous. This is an old industrial town, full of crusty old industrial town people, mostly.

...who authorized this nonsense?



It's an adult town with adult business owners dealing with adult problems...



Bears? Harrumph. Who's got time for bears..?

But then up the road there was yet another one.



And nearby, there... another.



By the fifth bear or so, it began to sink in...



....yeah...bears. Random, painted bears. All over the place.



Why not? After all, do things have to be so serious all the time?



Ehhh, possibly. But still, surely there's room for a little imagination and a little art.

Things weren't always so sullen... the rain will end sooner or later.



Bears...what a ridiculous idea...