What up, SPRING?!

Back in early March, I met a woman who recently moved from New Jersey to Vermont. We talked about what a long, hard winter it had been, and how much we were looking forward to spring. When I mentioned that this would be my first spring in New Hampshire, she said, “spring just explodes here…you’ll be amazed how quickly it comes on”. And I was…

I looked out my kitchen window a week ago and thought, oh, looks like some buds on that tree are starting to open. One week later….EVERYTHING was awash with color. My lawn is almost fluorescent green with new grass growth, bees visit the wildflowers that have suddenly popped up from every corner, and there are bright, young leaves on every tree.

Check out these spring beauties:

Siberian Squill

Red Trillium, AKA Stinking Benjamin

Ostrich fern

My favorite…bleeding hearts…right in my backyard!

Blood root

Trout lily (closed for the evening)

Backyard, April 29, 2011

Same spot in backyard, May 10, 2011

Things I never needed to worry about (Part II)

You brought your kid? Way to pull at my heartstrings.

April is here. Time to start worrying about bears.

This is the time of year when bears leave their dens, sometimes with cubs in tow, excrete their fecal plugs (so true, so gross), and start to chow down. Bears lose 23-30% of their body mass during hibernation, so they emerge huuuuuungry!  I’m super crabby when I go just a few hours without some eats, so I totally understand why bears can be aggressive in the springtime.

Wait, let me clarify. Bears are usually pretty shy. However, when they become accustomed to getting food from the human environment (garbage cans, BBQ grills, bird feeders), their fear of humans, and their shyness, is reduced.  As we develop closer to the places where they live, they are more likely to seek out our leftovers. Why should they have to chase down a squirrel or wait for those berries to ripen when they can help themselves to the banquet you’ve left out for them (Discarded Chinese take out? Don’t mind if I do!)? Sadly,  bears that become too comfortable in the human environment are often destroyed.

Bears have been known to come into Hanover when attracted by human goodies. And dear god, I’m terrified to face one! According to this story, they could even walk in through your backdoor and steal your stuffed animals:

http://www.aolnews.com/2010/07/29/bear-invades-house-steals-teddy-bear/

So, although it saddens me to do so, I’m taking down our bird feeder this week. I’m such a sucker for those sweet little chickadees who visit occasionally. I was even hoping to attract some food for the owls (predatory birds definitely suffered this year – http://vtnature.blogspot.com/2011/02/barred-owls-round-two.html). However, its not worth putting our big, furry omnivorous friends at risk of becoming a “nuisance”.

 

Things I never needed to worry about (Part 1)

Home ownership in New England comes with unexpected concerns and responsibilities.

Example Number One: Trespassers

There is a condo development behind out house. The street entrance to this development is a block down the street from us, perpendicular to our street. Our street has a sidewalk that runs in front of our house, and down to this street entrance. In the other direction, the sidewalk goes all the way to downtown.  What does a condo dweller do when he or she is in a hurry to get downtown on foot? Climbs over the fence dividing the condo property from our lot, traverses the rickety bridge crossing the stream in our backyard, trudges across our lawn to get to the sidewalk and (hopefully) makes it downtown in time to make it to….what?  Assuming these are Dartmouth students, it’s probably a lecture section they’ve been skipping all month long.

Yeah, I sound like a grumpy old man (“Stay off my property, you young whipper-snappers!”), but consider this:  I grew up in a cooperative apartment development off a busy street and, with the exception of a single year of college, never lived in a single family home. Where I grew up, we had grass to roll around in, and trees to swing from (until the old man in the next building yelled at us to get off them, screaming, “I planted those trees!”).  However, we had no exclusive rights to do what we wanted on any patch of ground in the neighborhood, and limited use of the shared “open space” around where we lived.

Ok, I did live in a house once before….the attic of the stately, but somewhat dilapidated, 109 Chestnut St in Binghamton, NY. This house features such luxuries as a “servants quarters”, front and back porches, 7 spacious (though not evenly heated) bedrooms, and a busted up, garbage filled, in-ground pool in the backyard. And I took pride in maintaining that house! Did I love living there with some of my dearest friends? You bet I did! Did we try to solve our bat problem in the most humane way possible? Sure. Was I upset to hear that someone girl was peeing in our driveway while we were home? Yes- Granted, it was 11:00 on a Saturday night, we were having a party (along with everyone else on our block) and we only made one bathroom available to our guests. Did it make me mad when the douchebags next door smashed jars of spaghetti sauce on our porch? Absolutely (that’s wasting foooood!). Did we keep the place is good, working order? Uhhh…. Anyways, it felt like “home” for one short year, but the pride I took in taking care for this house was limited because we were in college, we were renters, and a bunch of redneck baseball players were going to move in there after us.

Why am I so hung up on the issue of trespassers? If you haven’t figured it out yet, this is my first opportunity to take pride in a home I co-own (my name is on a deed, yo!) along with its property.  I want to enjoy my privacy, take care of my land a certain way (or just dig a hole for the eff of it), and no, I don’t want to share it with pedestrians for several reasons:

A) I DON’T KNOW YOU. You want to walk on my lawn? Why don’t you just ask me? If you did that, and baked me a big plate of cookies, I would definitely say OK. But wouldn’t it be awkward if I was chilling on my porch one day, unbeknownst to you as you strolled across the lawn in front of me, perhaps picking a wedgey while I was watching?  I think so. Introduce yourself to me and I won’t make fun of you if that ever happens….ok, yes I will.

B) I’m psyched to use a large portion of our property to grow a fantastic garden this spring. I don’t want someone coming along and sampling my tomatoes (unless I leave a basket of said fruit to share), compacting my soil or stepping on my spring ephemerals. Nor do I want that fence in the backyard to continue being crushed under trespassers’ weight, allowing deer to get in and eat my veggies.

C) I don’t want that rickety bridge to collapse under the feet of a stranger (or under me, but I won’t sue myself). Your broken bones affect my resale value!

D) I don’t know…what other reasons do I need? I’m living the American dream or whatever. Don’t ruin it for me, jerks.

Love,

Your Neighbor 🙂

Got my chair set up for spying on trespassers! Look out!

Energy efficiency acheived by Predator vision

I need to sweep.

We’ve been complaining since the winter began about how much colder it was in the downstairs of our home compared to upstairs. Duh, warm air rises. But there was a significant tempterature difference that made hanging out in the living room less appealing unless you had a blanket handy.

Fortunately, I attended a “winter weatherization” workshop late last fall and my brain has been in home improvement mode ever since. During this workshop, run by Sustainable Energy Resource Group, I learned the ways in which homes waste energy, and the quick to not-so-quick fixes for increased energy efficiency.

I first took action against heat loss around the house by replacing the crusty, loose duct tape around our heating duct insulation with heat-proof foil tape. Little did I know that duct tape is not for use on heating ducts. Even our local handy man didn’t know this… Anyways, by sealing up this insulation, it reduced the amount of hot air escaping from the ducts into our basement and instead allowed the hot air to travel to the rest of the house.

Second, I placed insulation plates around all our outlets and most of our light switches. Cold air from behind the sheetrock can stream in through these spaces, as well as through the spaces in the ceiling for recess lighting. This is not guaranteed to be effective on outlets that are not flush with the wall…which is a problem in our crooked house…but it should make a small difference.

In addition, to reduce electricity usage, I unplugged things that weren’t used on a daily basis, such as the stereo, TV, lamps in a room where we don’t hang out, the printer, etc. Even when these electronics are “off”, they are still drawing power from the outlet to which they are plugged in. According to Repowerathome.com, 10% of the average household electricity bills goes towards this “Vampire power”.

These were all small gestures. They may have cut down a bit on the energy bills, but they were not affecting that temperature problem that I mentioned earlier…so we brought in the big guns….er…big camera…big infrared camera…. We had a home energy audit this week by Prudent Living. As far as home inspections go, this was the coolest. And not just because the infrared camera showed all the places where our house was drafty…. It was like seeing through the Predator’s eyes for a few hours!

The guys from Prudent living installed a “blower door” in the side door of our house, and it helped to show where cold air was infiltrating the house from outside. For example, it became clear that the living room was so cold because air coming in from between the first floor and the basement (the foundation or box sill) was coming into the living room from under the baseboard along the wall (as show in the infrared picture). We have a few options to prevent this continued infiltration. For the time being, we can put silicone along the bottom of the baseboard to stop the draft. Eventually, we are going to have someone come in to seal up the whole foundation sill with foam sealant.

Although it was slightly depressing to have someone confirm how drafty your house is, we learned about some great, and relatively inexpensive, options on how to reduce drafts, and increase our energy efficiency. Take that, winter!

Measuring time in snowflakes

 

When we ask someone how long they’ve lived in this area, most people respond by saying “oh, this is my Xth winter here”. We didn’t really understand why people would measure their tenure here in winters until winter was in full swing. Winter is no fun if all you get to do is shovel out your car after every snowstorm and crush against others on sidewalks narrowed by snow piles. I feel bad for those I left behind in NY who only get to deal with the negative effects of 12 inches of fresh, fluffy snow. People here eat, sleep and breath winter activities. That’s because there are so many ways to embrace snow and cold temperatures.

Alcott shows us a spot where a bobcat might prefer to curl up on a cold day

The group on the trail

For example, yesterday I attended a snowshoe hike lead by a naturalist volunteer from the Hanover Conservation Council. During a three hour hike through a local preserve, the naturalist, Alcott Smith, taught us about how different animals find food and shelter, and adapt metabolically to snow and cold. It was an informative hike, and it also got me outside and enjoying the bright blue sky on a day that didn’t even get up to 20 degrees.

During the week, we were able to fit in a cross country ski, or sledding, after Greg got home from work. We know a few trails pretty well, so one night we ever did a snow shoe hike after dark. We donned our head lamps and set out on some trails behind a nearby condo development. There was nothing to worry about…Civilization was close by, but it was quiet and peaceful as could be in the woods.

trying something fancy, and it landed me on my butt

 

 

 

 

 

Greg in the beam of my head lamp

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When there’s so much fun to be had, people get a little addicted to the snow…not being able to get in some good skiing every weekend (and maybe during the week too) leads to major disappointment. This month, Yankee magazine even wrote a piece about the Dartmouth Winter Carnival, not so much describing the tradition, but lamenting the poor conditions at last year’s carnival (e.g. bare ground, dirty ice, melting snow). Reduced or infrequent snowfall is a problem the region will have to deal with more and more with climate change. Will it inspire us to endure the ice and thin cover you’d expect in lower quality ski resorts? Or will we work hard to change our habits, reduce our energy use and conserve?  And how many winters would it take us to actually make a difference?  I’ll start counting now…

Snow on things

This morning, the area was covered in a fine dusting of snow. When the sun started coming out of the clouds, everything sparkled!

Burn, baby, buuuurn!

Let school spirit ignite something in you…and in a three-story tower of wood… to create a raging bonfire! That’s what happens at Dartmouth College’s homecoming. It is both amazing and terrifying. And the whole community is invited!

Before the match meets the gasoline

The flames climb several stories high and the blaze burns until the whole tower collapses in a heap (unfortunately, we had turned our backs to head towards town for some dinner when this happened). Embers twinkle, floating into the night sky (and sometimes landing on your sweater).  The flames are so huge at some points that you need to step back because the heat it is so intense. And the whole time the flames are climbing, churning, swirling, the freshman class is running laps around the blaze, sweating their freshman fifteen off.

Good times. I just have to ignore that tiny voice inside me that says, “What’s the carbon footprint of this event?!”.

And now my eyebrows are singed

Run little freshman, run!

Did I die? Am I in hell?

In my neighborhood

In Hanover I can take a healthy walk to hiking paths, cross country ski trails, a pond for swimming…all from my front door step. Two Sundays ago, Greg and I walked up the street to an extension of the Appalachian Trail. It was tucked between two houses in a nearby neighborhood. Here’s a bit of what it looks like:

Velvet rocks

I see London...

Creature feature

We knew when we bought our home that the basement would be nearly unusable. With a stone foundation, low ceilings, a year’s worth of cob webs and signs of water entry, we figured all our stuff would have to be stored above ground, and we’d just have to be vigilant about making sure a dehumidifier was running 24/7 to prevent rot, mold, etc.

Several hurricanes and nor’easters later, we find that our basement is a bit more permeable than we expected, and not just to water. Our most unusual uninvited guest (albeit the only one we don’t want to kill), appears to be a three-lined salamander (Eurycea guttolineata). It was discovered when Greg was vacuuming up some water that came in from a recent, and very heavy, rainstorm. He noticed something was running away from the nozzle of the shop vac. When I attempted to capture our new squatter (poking it towards a small, plastic, leaf-litter-filled take-out container with the petiole of a leaf) the salamander ran under the cement of a vertical support beam.

I guess it’s a nice place for it to hang out for now; wet, cool, protected. But according to Savannah River Ecological Laboratory, if it is in fact a three-lined salamander, it’s breeding time for this guy (or girl). I don’t want it to miss this important opportunity (i.e. die in our gross basement), so I put together a little bait to try to coax the salamander out of its hiding place. It includes the aforementioned take-out container, within which I’ve place a juicy little slug. I’m hoping that when the salamander comes out to find some food, it will make itself comfortable in my little slug cafe (see image)…then I can scoop it up and bring it outside to meet its potential mates.  Now I wait… to be continued!

ps- I welcome any suggestions about other methods of baiting salamanders

 

Can you find the slug in this picture?

 

Pumpkin flood

Just wanted to share a funny story:

About two weeks ago, we received almost two full days of heavy rain. A local pumpkin patch in VT experienced the loss of thousands of pumpkins as they were wash into and down the Connecticut River.

Pictures can be seen here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-olson/sets/72157625081277520/with/5044834059/