May 14th, 2008
What nice weather we have been having here at the camps. For the most part it has been warm during the day and nice and cool in the evening. Only a few day of wood stove weather lately! The down side of the warm weather is I do not like to build a fire in the wood stove to cook on! Can you imagine back when folks had to do all of their cooking on a wood stove, no matter how hot it was. Baking pies requires a hot fire and for a fairly long time. (Not that I have ever baked a pie)
The frogs have been croaking and peeping for a while now. The ice of course is out of the pond and the fish are biting. Guests have reported pretty good fishing and others that have fished the pond have been catching fish as well.
Jed has managed to land some nice fish so far this season. Me on the other hand, I have managed to land just one, but I sure lost a nice one. I know, the one that got away is always the biggest! My line broke and Jed just laughed at me, in a nice sort of way.
The loons are here, the geese are here, all of the other birds that hang around the yard seem to be back, and even a few extras! The swallows started to build a nest in one of the bird houses and after working a few days a squirrel moved in! I promptly moved it out and cleaned out the house so that the swallows can rebuild. They eat a ton of bugs and the squirrels only eat my fabric screens!
This weekend we noticed that a Pileated woodpecker has moved into the yard to nest. We leave what dead stubs standing that we can, rather than take them down. This attracts a variety of wildlife that come to feed on insects and also to build a new home in. Our lawn is of the variety of "if it is green, let it grow". We do not use any chemicals on it and again, many birds and other animals enjoy getting their meals from it.
It seems to work for us, and the animals as well. I have created a couple of brush piles for other forms of wildlife to live in. I am not sure just who is living in them as they are not right in the yard and I am not always there to see who has taken up residence.
It is great to just sit and watch all of the feathered creatures, the furred creatures, and the fish in the pond. (Jed loves watching and catching the crawfish in the pond as well)
The water going through Ripogenus Dam and McKay station has dropped from the above 16,000 to a mere 2339 cfs now. It sure makes a difference in what the gorge and the rest of the river looks like! The dry weather has helped as well in keeping the flows down a bit.
Soon the "fiddleheads" will be appearing for a spring treat. I do not get a chance to go out to gather them much now, but I may take a few minutes to stop and pick some if I can locate a patch nearby. The fern is mighty fine eating, but you have to cook them just right or they are soft and mushy. (This happens to me when I am cooking them and forget I have stuff on the stove) I like them a bit crunchy with butter and vinegar, I do not even bother with the salt and pepper anymore)
The smelts have been running in the West Branch of the Penobscot River. These tasty fish are a pain to clean, but well worth the effort. I like mine deep fried after being dipped in a corn meal, flour, salt and pepper mixture. I sometimes make a tartar sauce to dip them in, but other times just eat them the way they come out of the pan.
There was still some snow on the mountain the last time I was out by. It has all disappeared around here. I cannot think of even one patch left around the camps. These 70 degree days makes short work of it.
Some of the early trees are starting to get their leaves. For the most part it will still be a week or so before many of the others start to show much green. I guess that spring did come, even after all of the snow that we had this past winter! (Funny thing, that always seems to happen)
Below are some pictures of the Pileated Woodpecker looking at their new home! GT
May 4th, 2008
A bit of "cloudy and rain" today here at the pond. Most of the snow has melted and the runoff is slowing down. We have had some wash outs on the road in, but it is still passable without any problems. I will get at those repairs after getting the cabins ready to go.
Right now there is as much water coming out of Ripogenus Dam as I have seen in a long, long time. Yesterday there were 3 deep gates, 2 crest gates and the sluice gates open. That makes for a lot of water going through the dam! Today there are 16654 cubic feet per second going out of the dam. If you multiply that by 60 seconds in a minute, you get 999,240 cubic feet per minute. Then you multiply that by 60 minutes in an hour and you get 59,954,400 cfs per hour. That means that there are 1,438,905,600 cfs per day going over the dam. (Kind of sounds like the federal budget doesn't it?)
The next question is, how many gallons of water is that? Well there are 7.48 gallons of water in a cubic foot, so every second this means that there are 124,572 gallons of water going out. This comes out to a mere 7,474,315 gallons per minute and 448,458,912 gallons per hour. For each day that come out to "error" on my calculator! By doing it the "old fashion" way, with paper and pencil, I came out with a total for each and every day of 10,763,013,888 gallons per day. (That is assuming that I remembered how do to some math) Did I hear recently that there was a water shortage? Hey, we are sending it all down stream for folks to use as they see fit.
Now take into consideration that down to Weldon Dam in Mattawamkeag they are at 33686 cfs. That is more than twice as much water as there is here. This must translate into flooding down river for sure. I am glad that I live ABOVE most of the dams here in Maine!
With major floods all over the state of Maine, especially up in Aroostook county, I just count my blessings and will deal with the minor washouts on the road in.
We are going to have a few rainy days this week, but with most of the snow melted it should not get much worse. All we can do is cross our fingers for all of the folks down river. Of course without the dams controlling the runoff things would be much worse for them.
I have to wonder how much electricity that water might have generated for us if there had been a way to harness it?
Here are a few pictures of what the water looks like up here.
GT
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