Good News from Unexpected, October 2011
A small glimpse of autumn has arrived, at least for the moment, giving us a taste of things to come. Like most of the east coast, we are suffering from too much and too frequent precipitation, but these days are finally crisp, clear and sometimes chilly. I have lit several small, cozy fires in the evening to ward off the chill, only to throw the windows wide in the morning to let in the warm, fresh air.
Volunteer Xenia Christine at the
wheel of our new John Deere.
We had a great surprise in September; Jon, a friend from northern New Jersey, heard our plea for a riding mower and donated to us with a brand new John Deere, complete with plow! It was delivered right to our door through a network of angels, and its maiden voyage was into Bluebird Field last week with our newest volunteer, Xenia Christine, at the wheel. While she was mowing, I finished off the last of the trail clearing from Station 9 to Station 10 with my trusty weed whacker.
Bill & Thea
Thanks also to Dennis, Jan, Al, Moe, Frank and Manny for helping with general trail work and preparation for the new deer fence installation. We received a grant to install a the fence around a controversial field where hunters bait deer right next to the Refuge. Hopefully, the fence will prevent the deer from leaving our land to visit the dangerous and deadly treats next door. It will certainly impede anyone from coming into the Refuge with less than moral intentions. Bill and Thea came down in August, and we spent two days installing new handrails across the Dike Boardwalk. The concrete boards need some serious attention, but due to the extremely high water level this year, all we could handle were the handrails. Even so, the Dike crossing is now much more safe and so much more stable. And we had a ball doing it; wow, did we get dirty!
As is our routine, Karen came down during the hot, humid buggy days of summer to help me put up the firewood. Nels chipped in as well, and although we literally finished off the poor old wood splitter, we took care 95% of the logs lying about before it went. The wood was all stacked in the barn for winter, even as the old General sputtered its last wheezing gasp. That log splitter was donated to the Refuge 11 years ago, and produced countless cords of firewood over the last decade; I would say we got our “money’s worth” out of it.
I must admit, the trails look absolutely beautiful, trimmed to perfection and ready for fall visitors, photographers, autumn worshippers and patrollers. We are patrolling for bow-hunting season right now, and will continue to patrol until the end of January. Six-day shotgun season runs from Monday, December 5th until Saturday, December 10th. I hope you can join us for some food, fun and friends at some point during that window of opportunity.
There are a few more anniversary remembrances in this issue, and as you read them, you’ll see that some supporters have been with us since the very beginning. Thanks to all of you who have contributed your memories, and thanks to you for renewing your membership. And a special thanks to those of you who could give that little extra. It has been difficult for non-profits these past few years, and any donation is so very appreciated and so very dear. I have said it before, and I will say it again: We could not continue without your support.
I had an interesting encounter on the trails this summer. When trail clearing, sometimes my tool is a push mower, depending upon conditions. I gas up and push, pull or hoist it over the grassy and wooded path until I run out of gas. Then, depending on how I feel, I either fill up the tank and do it again, or I cover the lawn mower with a tarp and call it a day. As I work my way through the ten mile spider web of trails, I eventually come back to my starting point, and then we are all set for fall hiking.
On this particular day, I felt energized as I left the cooling, empty mower and retraced my steps to the gas can and big blue tarp where I began. Thankful for the quiet after the roar of the little engine, I daydreamed as I walked back through the sun dappled forest. It was about one o’clock on an August afternoon, and the day was very pleasantly warm.
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I came across her suddenly, and, as always when I stumble across a snake unexpectedly, I jumped, my heart skipping a beat. She was long and young and sleek. Lean and stretched out her full four feet, she was black on top and milky white on her belly. She tasted the air with her tongue. She looked like she hadn’t eaten for awhile, and I could see the hard definition of all her sinewy muscles. She was magnificent.
She looked nothing like the snake who used to live under my cabin. That girl came out every spring, lost, looking for a way back into the great outdoors. I would find her wrapped around the toilet pedestal or wound around the ironing board that hangs on the back of the bedroom door, going up, up, up. She was an old soul, with battle scars and a milky blue-white cataract in her left eye. When I found her, I would gently grasp her behind her head with one hand and with the other unwind her from whatever object she possessed. She would reluctantly let go, hastily rearranging herself around my forearms. Outside, I would place her in a sunny spot out of the way. She would always wait until I was gone before making her next move. One day we played out this scene when I had company and created quite a ruckus. Apparently, not everyone appreciates snakes in the house.
The young snake before me flicked her tongue in and out and drew back as I came in for a closer look. Then she quickly folded herself into several “;S” shapes, with her head hanging in the center. This arrangement made her resemble a hooded cobra, poised to strike. I wondered, as she postured and threatened like her deadly cousin, how far she could launch if necessary; A foot? Three feet? I realized that I was causing her undo stress in defending her territory from me.
I suddenly felt guilty about this confrontation. How much energy does a snake need to hold a third of its body in a vertical position? Probably more than this lean lady had to squander. I picked myself up off the trail and backed away in the direction I had been going — back to work. Watching her over my shoulder, she stayed put, upright, waiting for me to go away — just like my old cabin snake — unwilling to reveal her intentions to me.
I collected the tarp and gas can and started walking back to the mower, the dirty can bumping my leg, the noisy plastic tarp snagging on the bushes and greenbrier. I looked for her on my way back, but she was gone. I wasn’t even sure exactly where on the path we had met.
Wild Waters
by Patti Smith
Saturday, September 3, 2011, Brattleboro Reformer
Vermonters seldom witness Nature’s majestic disdain for the ambitions of her creatures. It is not to be wondered at that so many of us were unprepared for the heavenly deliverance of a southern sea; Irene was, after all, a tropical storm.
The beaver dam during Hurricane Irene
Nature may not consider the fate of her creatures, but as I watched the water from my window, I certainly did. I was especially curious about my beaver colony. Would their dams withstand the high water? Would their lodges flood? As the water reached its highest level in this little watershed, I set out into the rain to find out.
Where the beavers modest stream once flowed five feet below a skidder bridge, it now roared over the top, a seething torrent 50 feet wide. How would the aquatic insects, salamanders, and fish fare in this overwhelming deluge?
Their nurturing, buoyant medium had been transformed into a smashing, grinding, driving flood, their sheltering rocks plucked and tumbled by water rendered powerful by sheer volume.
The beaver dam after Hurricane Irene
As I worked my way upstream, water flowed in sheets through the woods, and I forded knee-deep streams where I had never seen streams before. I reached my destination, the new pond the beavers had constructed during the summer. In this wider part of the valley, Irene’s tide slowed and spread out into the forest. I waded to an island hummock that once abutted the beavers’ dam. The dams were gone. I thought I could make out the top of their lodge, but I knew my chance of seeing any beavers was slim in this chaos of rush and rumble and the veil of still falling rain.
Later that afternoon the sun came out. Charles the woodchuck emerged from beneath his rock and grazed. A chipmunk, also dry, sat up on another rock. Crickets and grasshoppers creaked out their same songs. From their vantage, and mine, the world seemed unchanged. For those whose lives were connected more directly to the water, however, I would need to take another look.
Once the water returned to the sea, I explored the brook again. At the skidder bridge I found the course of the stream had changed. A bar of mid-size stones now blocked the former course of the brook, and sent it to the east a bit. A vernal pool on the far shore, home to spotted salamander larvae, was now buried beneath a pile of cobbles, the bed of a stream that lived for just a few hours.
The root mat of the streamside vegetation had been peeled and rolled back, revealing the tunnels of shrews and voles in the naked mud of the bank. How many residents of the riparian zone made it safely to high ground? Dead Duck Dam, one of the older and taller dams on the brook, had a great hole ripped through it.
Water had risen here in a great standing wave as it coursed through that gap at the peak of the flood. A set of beaver tracks led from sorry remains of the pond up to a fresh scent mound on the bank. Upstream, at the pond where the beavers overwintered, the water level had dropped a foot, but the dam held. The lodge also appeared to be intact. At the far side of the pond a beaver was busy with dam repairs. When she noticed me, Willow, the colony matriarch, swam over and climbed up the muddy bank for a snack.
After a short visit, I continued my survey. At their new pond, the dams were indeed gone completely. The entrance to their lodge was now above water and a hole had been ripped in the side.
Although I worried about the beavers, I was optimistic that they survived if they managed to keep away from the debris-laden current. They had so many bank lodges; surely one or two remained above water. Even without shelter, the beavers would have been fine waiting out the flood. As for the destruction of their dams, each autumn, these beavers typically construct a brand new pond, lodge and larder. They would have plenty of time to rebuild.
Between these two sites is a third pond. Half grown in with emergent grasses and sedges, it is a bright green place with a big piece of sky above and a view of the mountain on the far side.
Here I found three more beavers. When I sat down on the bank, two of them swam over eagerly, the two young beavers. I handed out apples and they settled down, making their proprietary squeaky whines. I then directed my attention to the third beaver, the one that approached uncertainly, the one with the very small tail, a new baby beaver! She swam up and prodded her siblings. They squeaked at her. She paddled over to the dam, ducked her head under the water, and came up with a pile of mud on her nose. She poked it onto the dam with all of the gravity and industry of her clan.
The only beaver missing was Bunchberry, the patriarch. For the past month he had been recovering from a wound inflicted in a territorial dispute. He could well be off surveying the damage or scouting for new dam sites. Still, even a beaver might have been seriously injured in that epic high water.
Night settled upon the pond with an intense blackness, and the universe sparkled above. I turned off my light and settled back to enjoy the perspective gained by a tour of deep space.
In an infinity of blazing stars and black holes the events of this little planet seem safe and predictable, even with the odd tropical storm. I returned to earth when I heard the hum of a rodent greeting. When I turned my flashlight on, I found a large damp beaver sitting beside me, hoping I’d brought him some rodent nuggets. Bunchberry had weathered the hurricane, too.
Patti Smith is a naturalist at the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center. The View From Heifer Hill, a feature on the nature of our region, appears in this space the first Saturday of each month. Patti welcomes your feedback at grayfox@vtrocket.com.
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