OUR
COMMENTS - May, 2004
Spring Renewal
The last patches of snow in the woods disappeared just over two weeks ago as I write this column during the first week of May. The stream east of the cottage was also still frozen over, with water rushing under the ice bridge, until just a week ago. I awoke one morning last week and looked out the bedroom window towards the Androscoggin River and saw a beautiful, sunny spring day about to begin. When I stepped into the bathroom and looked north to the cliffs and summit of First Mountain, I realized that it was actually raining on that side of the cottage and the nearby woods were suffused with the soft filtered sunlight that you get only on those special mornings where you have sun and rain at the same time. The hardwood forest was also beginning to have the faint pink tinge that you see when the red maples first begin to bud in the spring. Contrasted with the brilliant white bark of the paper birch and the foliage of the pale green spruce, hemlock, and pine, the overall effect was not one of dazzling color as the fall provides, but of a very subtle hue and awakening of the forest with promise of spring anew.
The past winter set recent records for cold temperatures, but the early bounty of heavy snow at the beginning of December was followed with only insignificant accumulations for the rest of the season. The cold did make a difference and we were able to maintain much of the 60 inches of snow received in December's first two weekends, even though they were followed directly by rain storms. Snowshoeing was good through the beginning of March and we enjoyed some great spring skiing around First Mountain in the first week of March as this photo of Ginger and her skiing buddies demonstrates.
The deer were denning quite close to the cottage this winter and fed heavily among the nearby patch of virginia rose. During the last few winters, the rose hips there have persisted until winter's end. This year the deer burrowed into the early December snow and devoured most of the fruit before January. We still had an extensive network of deer trails throughout the deer yard on the front slope of First Mountain, but did not see significant sign of coyotes this winter and observed no deer kills.
We hiked into the southern end of the Mahoosuc Range via the Appalachian Trail/Centennial Trail on the last day of April. In spite of a high temperature of 89 degrees for the day, Willie was able to roll in a few isolated snow banks near Mt.Hayes at an elevation of 2,500'. The streams were also flowing with ice cold water, so at least Willie was able to cool down on our early season ten mile hike. Our thermometer had recorded a high of 91 degrees at the cottage just two weeks earlier, but the overall weather had been on the cool side for much of the spring.
We have begun work on a new trail to loop around the high wetland and will be installing a series of bog bridges to cross the section where the outlet brook exits. The trail around the top of the wetland was one of our original trails, but we may add a small bridge on the trail over the inlet stream at the head of the wetland. This loop will add a stacked loop just above "Harry's Trail" , which starts and ends on opposite sides of the cottage. We have also thinned the thick forest on the slope in front of the cottage and will be adding wildlife beneficial plants there from the New Hampshire State Nursery in the coming week. The thinning provides a filtered view of Mount Wahington and other Presidentials, but is still forested with a mixture of mature paper birch, beech, maple, and assorted softwoods.
Larry
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