Dirt farmin' stone garden.

Here are some pictures of what will eventually become our garden, I hope. Not going to plant anything for a while yet because we can get frost as late as Memorial Day. I'll probably get things going before that though, since I'll be going from seeds. Speaking of that, we've got way more seeds than we've got room for. We'll see how it grows...




A few of the larger stones I dug up. I guess they'll be good for a border or something.


After hoeing.




The tulips we planted last fall. Should be blooming pretty soon, probably just in time for me to be gone for work again. I ought to weed them, but I'm not worried about it...


Gettin' there...

And here's some random plants from around the yard:


Japanese Knotweed (Polygonum cuspidatum) coming up beneath the remains of last year's growth. Aka "Mexican Bamboo". Once this stuff gets a couple feet tall, you can harvest it and it's supposed to taste like rhubarb. It is an invasive species that likes to grow along stream banks. I won't feel bad if it's delicious and I gobble it all up.


Dandelion. Going to have to try making some dandelion green salad one of these days...


Great Burdock (Arctium minus) seeds, the inspiration for velcro (TM).


Young burdock. Lots of this stuff around. It has deep roots, so it's really hard to get rid of if you don't want it around.

Bike stuff.

Some good, some bad. First, the bad stuff:
I signed up to do the "Gravel Grinder" today, and yesterday I was prepping my bikes and tuning them up. While cleaning up the Willits (my mountain bike), I chipped some paint off the seatstays. There had been a little paint blister or two for a long time, but I never paid much attention to them. Somehow, and this is quite a mystery, I have several holes rusted through my both of the seatstays. I'm not talking about cosmetic little exterior rust spots, these are actual holes. Hard to describe in words, so here are some pictures:


Underside of seatstays (bike is upside down) showing location of rust holes.


A closer look...


Knife blade inserted into the biggest hole.

How the heck does that happen?! I've seen steel frames rust out before, but they were OLD and had been stored outside. And, they rusted out at the bottom brackets. This just makes no sense to me at all. I guess I'm going to keep riding it until it actually breaks (it won't break catastrophically, I've broken several frames before) or until I can afford a new frame (not anytime soon!). Pretty bummed about all that.

Back to the Gravel Grinder. The weather was crappy all weekend (mid 30's and raining), but somehow it managed to hold off for the 2+ hours I was out on the 30 mile loop. The loop is mostly dirt roads, and there were a TON of steep hills. It was supposed to be a casual, social sort of ride, but there were of course some racer-geek types up front. They didn't sprint off the start line, but they did take off pretty quick. Surprisingly, they never got all that far ahead of me. Of the 150 or so people that started, I think there were only about a dozen people back in the parking lot when I made it back. It's quite possible that those guys are super fast and were taking it easy though. On the other hand, I wasn't riding all-out (except on the climbs, when I had no choice!) either. After the first 8 miles or so, I was riding almost entirely on my own, and after about 12 miles, I only saw one other guy a ways ahead of me, who I eventually passed (I wish it was because I was faster, but he made a wrong turn and waited to ask me directions). I was expecting to be a lot slower than I was, and I think I heard some surprised comments when my huge carcass rolled up not long after the fast guys. Anywho, the 'cross bike ran flawlessly. The only thing I wanted was an easier granny gear. Granny gear on this bike is a 34x25, which sounds like enough, but man, I could barely turn the pedals on a couple of the hills. I actually walked a short section of one of them, and the guy next to me still riding was actually going slower! Some steep stuff.
Chrissy met me at the aid station, which was super nice of her. I know that watching a bunch of bike geeks whiz by can't be much fun, so I really appreciated it. They actually had bananas, PBR's, and whiskey at the aid station, but I didn't partake. Chrissy took a couple photos, so here they are:


Fresh snow on the Worcester Range. This view is along one of the few flat sections (before a big descent!) where the aid station was.


10 miles in and still smiling!


Off I go. I've never seen a picture of myself riding a bike from a distance. I'm huge! That's a 62cm cross bike and it looks like it has BMX wheels or something. Good times. If there were any prizes at this ride, I think I would have gotten "fastest fat guy".

Last but not least, here's a pesky red squirrel that keeps getting into one of our bird feeders. I don't know how many times I watched him fall off of it before he figured it out, but he's got it down now. So I took down the bird feeder. Sucka!

Enjoy it while you can you little varmint.

First turtle of the year!

I took the canoe to work today (on the roof of my car, not paddled it to work) so I could go down to the Wrightsville Reservoir outside Montpelier. There was still ice over most of it about a week ago, but it was all clear today. The weather was nice, so a coworker, Jess, and I took off early and went down for a ride. Jess was my partner in crime for all of the Australia work (3 months of it) and most of the work in California (couple months total also). Anywho, it wasn't the turtle-fest I was hoping for, but we did spot a painted turtle basking on an old bridge abutment. It splashed in long before we went past the first time, while going upwind. On the way back, we drifted quietly up to it. It still plopped into the water, but it stayed just below the surface and Jess got it with the net. Took a couple photos and put it right back.


Painted turtle (Chrysemys picta). There are 4 distinct subspecies of painted turtles. In this area there is the potential for two, the Midland (C. picta marginata) and Eastern (C. picta picta). If I go by the Peterson's guide Teal let me borrow, I'd guess this is a Midland based on the range. However, Vermont is right on the edge of where Eastern and Midland subspecies ranges overlap, so it's likely got characteristics of both, which what I think I've got. Eastern's are supposed to have the large scutes in relatively straight rows, and on Midland's they're supposed to alternate. The scutes on this aren't in straight lines, but they don't really alternate either. The midland is supposed to have some dark splotches on the plastron (bottom shell), but as you'll see in the next picture, it has none whatsoever. Anywho, doesn't really matter much, it's a painted turtle one way or another...


No marks on the plastron...




Those big claws give this away as a male.


That's Jess in the background. You can also see the old bridge abutment he was basking on to the right.

Pretty little guy no matter what. Hope to see lots more.

The Reservoir... again.

I went down to the reservoir again Sunday evening for a quick little paddle. The wind was pretty gusty, so I stuck close to the shoreline and followed the Waterbury River upstream a little ways. Haven't managed to spot any turtles yet (never saw any here last year either), but I did see my favorite bird, the Great Blue Heron. No pictures of the actual bird, but here are some pictures of his gigantic footprints.




My hand for scale.

Also came across a bunch of duck tracks. There have been some ducks around, but I don't know what they are. I think I've seen a few mallards from a distance, but I'm not sure about the others. They have a dark head like mallards, but the rest of them is kind of white. I guess I need to get a bird guide...





This place is also home to many beavers. There are several really big lodges. Here is one of them:


How many beavers typically live in a lodge this size?

Last but not least, the boat that got me there. Bit of a handful to paddle solo, but a heck of a lot more comfortable and easier to paddle than the whitewater boat.

Some random thoughts from today's commute.

I commuted to work by bike for the first time this year (50-mile round trip). A bit nippy on the way in this morning, and a killer headwind on the way back. Felt good to ride the bike into work, but the way home is always a suffer-fest. Here are some of the things that went through my mind:

1) No matter how inspiring Fabian Cancellera's win at Paris-Roubaix was yesterday, I am not and never will be that good.
2) I have a sticker on my front fender that Teal sent me. I usually notice it when I'm suffering; head down, tongue a-waggin'. It reads, "Question Internal Combustion". At those times, internal combustion seems like a pretty good idea.
3) The song "O, Death" by Ralph Stanley kept going through my head. "Oooooooh, Death. Woooooooooooooah, Death. Won't you spare me over for another year?" Subliminal message?
4) The Bicycle version of my route in Google maps says it should take me 2 hours, 37 minutes. The way in took 1 hour, 20 minutes. So at least I'm twice as fast as Google thinks I ought to be! The way back (much more uphill) is always a bit slower...
5) I think I might actually like headwinds less than hills.
6) It's nice that people in Vermont don't swerve at you or throw trash.
7) Bikes are awesome, even if they make me suffer a bit.

Carrion Beetles

Meet Oiceoptoma noveboracense, the Margined Carrion Beetle. They're kind of like vultures of the insect world.
They do nasty work, but they are another of the countless organisms that do the essential work breaking down the dead and ultimately recycling them. A few weeks ago, I came across a dead mink on my way up to the pond. Not sure what killed it, since it was pretty much entirely intact. I suppose an owl is the likely culprit, but it's strange that it was left behind. Hoping to maybe get an interesting skull out of it, I left it there to let the bugs and other critters do their thing. After a week or so, something else came along and took a chunk of it away (including the skull) and the carcass was crawling with bugs. Braving the smell, I stooped down for a closer look. Here's how it looked in the field:



I didn't have the desire (or the stomach) to get more of a closer look than that, but there were probably a dozen of these beetles throughout the carcass.
My field guide tells me that the adults feed on maggots, while the larvae feed on carrion "jerky", sinew, and skin. A related type of beetle (of the Genus Nicrophorus) prefers to "bury the bodies of small vertebrates, removing fur or feathers and fashioning the corpse into a meatball". Reading that got me in the mood for some spaghetti!

I brought one of these delightful insects home to take a picture in a more controlled (and less smelly) environment. So, here's a closer view:


I hope the next time you have spaghetti and meatballs, you'll think of this little (17mm) beetle.


Mmmmmmmeatballs!

Spotted Salamanders

I went out last night during a thunderstorm and managed to catch 9 spotted salamanders. After photographing them and measuring their length, I let them go. Tempting to keep on as a pet, but since they spend almost their entire lives underground, there wouldn't be much to see.
The biggest one was 8.25" long, which is well above average.
Here are a few photos:


All 9 of them.


The biggest one.


The prettiest one.


Shortly after capture.












Playing out in the rain in the middle of the night...

Camping on Waterbury Reservoir

Geez, I've gotten so caught up with all the flora and fauna in the back yard that I forgot to mention that Chrissy and I went on our first canoe AND first camping trip of the year! We went down to the Cotton Brook put-in at the Waterbury Reservoir (just down the road from us). We didn't see a single person the whole evening, night or morning until about 11am. It was great to be out on the water, great to get out of the house, and great to be enjoying some sunshine (got up to 80+ degrees!).
While setting up the tent, I discovered I forgot tent pegs (what an amateur I'm becoming), but I was able to remedy that by driving some sticks into the ground with a rock. Problem solved. After a dinner of mac & cheese and a couple beers, we hit the sack (our awesome Big Agnes double bag) and got some rest. I woke up to birds chirping around 8am and Chrissy awoke shortly afterwards. We packed up camp and got out on the water before 10:00. After paddling around a bit, we headed back to the put-in to pick up two of Chrissy's friends and their two dogs. With 4 people and 2 dogs, we had a good load in the boat, but she handled it without a hitch. We then paddled back to our campsite, had a picnic, and played some cards.
Turned out to be an awesome weekend! Here are some photos:


Sunshine, canoe, cold beer, pretty lady... life is good.


In need of some sunshine.


Ashore at the camping spot.


No tent stakes? No problem.


Home away from home.


Nice and spacious.




Too bad there weren't enough for dinner.


Surprisingly, there was enough dry wood for a fire. Thumbs up!


Blueberries for dessert!


Calm water the next morning.


Lycopodium obscurum.


A full boat.


A sleepy puppy.




Ella, the amazing wiener-dog.


Bella, 5 months old.


Ella showing off.


The whole crew.