September 2006
Sept 19th, 2006
A trip to town was in order yesterday. Jed and I needed food once again, so off we went. On our return trip we saw a large bird take flight from the side of the road. Jed wanted to know if it was a Turkey Vulture, which in fact it was. He said that it was the 3rd one he has seen this summer up here. I can remember that not too many years ago you never saw them up in this area.
Further up the Golden Road we saw another Turkey. This time it was just a plain Turkey, with the vulture part left off. I have been getting more and more reports of folks seeing turkeys up in this area. They are becoming quite common along the Golden Road and even up on the Telos road.
This has to be the most successful re-stocking program of wildlife ever attempted by the State of Maine. I am sure that the huge beechnut crop this year will help the numbers grow even more in this area. I do not know how they will make it through a bad winter, if ever we have one of those again. (which I am sure will happen soon enough)
There have been many reports of deer sightings this year. We have seen quite a few ourselves and a good number of those sighted have been bucks. I have seen several real nice ones along with quite a few smaller bucks. I reckon that they will be in the beechnuts as well as the bear and turkeys. Even the grouse and squirrels make their meals from this food source when there is a good crop of them.
When I was just a wee lad, (yes, I was a wee lad, years ago) I used to go out and pick up beechnuts off the forest floor. I would then cut them out of their 3 sided shell with a sharp knife. My mother would then bake chocolate chip cookies with a cup full of these small delicious treats baked inside.
It would take hours to find enough to make a full cup of shelled nuts. Many of them would have been already eaten by a bug of some sort. The first time I did not notice that some of them had a small hole in the shell that indicated it was going to be empty and a waste of my time picking and cleaning them. It only took me one trip to figure out that if it had a hole in it to leave it on the ground. I often wondered how the animals knew that it was empty and to not bother wasting their time on eating something that was empty.
I figured, when I was younger, that it might be easier to be a deer or bear that did not have to take them out of the shell before making a meal out of them.
Each day that passes now changes the color of the leaves even more. It is amazing how much it can change in just a few short days. The fallen leaves along the road coming into camp make for a very pretty drive. The days that are misty make the colors even more vivid, although it is nice when the sun is shining on them as well.
Yesterday it was 79 degrees and quite humid for this time of year. Today it is overcast and much cooler. This time of year things bounce back and forth with temperature on a rapid basis, one day hot and the next day cool. This morning the temp is hovering at an acceptable 57 degrees.
GT
Sept 12th, 2006
Gee, I wonder what all of the bright colors that are starting to appear where there was once green leaves means! I bet it has something to do with this white crunchy stuff that is cold to the touch that keeps appearing the past few mornings. Yep, we have been having a frost for the past few mornings. The leaves are starting to display mother natures last attempt to cheer us up before that drab gray, brown and a dull shade of green that we get before the snow arrives and changes things once again to the sparkling white of snow. I know that we will have some very warm weather again before the cool weather sets in for the season, but it sure gets one's blood stirring when the first cool snap hits.
These frosty mornings bring back memories of past seasons of heading out to hunt partridge. Of course there is a half a month left to go before that happens, but a cold night with a hard frost and a bright sunny morning are the right triggers for hunters in this area. I much prefer partridge to eat rather than the ruffed grouse. You see, a partridge is a ruffed grouse that does not have pellets in it. That wing shooting is fun and tests one's skills, but the flying rocket, that a grouse is, makes it hard to bring one down without having those pesky pellets in the eating part!
I have to cover the flowers and garden every night that it looks like we will have a frost. Jed just picked the first ripe tomato out of the garden, so I need another few weeks of warm weather to harvest a good crop of them. (I am ripening a few in a brown paper bag in the pantry just to be on the safe side)
In years past I have gotten so focused on getting ready for hunting season that I ended up missing some of the best fishing of the year. It has just been the past few years that I have actually taken the time to make a few trips out to go catch some of the fish that are so cooperative in the fall! The trout in the pond have started to bite with the cooler weather here and the later in the season it gets, the more fun it is. They have started to color up to the bright fall colors and it is a joy to catch and admire them. I suppose that if you like to eat fish they would even be good eating this time of year. (Remember, I am the guy whose favorite fresh water fish is the lowly white perch)
Jed and I went out exploring some of the nearby attractions. We checked where new roads lead to and how the cutting is coming along in those areas. We were checking on operations on Katahdin Forest Management/Katahdin Timberlands, upon which we are located. The lands that surround us are under a conservation easement with The Nature Conservancy. This allows cutting of timber, but no new development. We get the benefit of keeping a healthy forest and at the same time having land that will remain undeveloped. The cutting that has taken place up on the ridge behind the camps this summer looks real good in my opinion. When you are out on the pond paddling around in a canoe or kayak, you cannot even tell that the whole area that you are looking at has been harvested. I had not been out on the pond to see what it looked like until the other day and I was mildly surprised at how it looked. My hat is off to these folks for doing such a good job with the lands in this area.
The loons are getting excited out on the pond tonight. I sure will miss listening to them when they leave for the winter. It is just such a tranquil sound to hear them out here on the pond. I always look forward to them returning in the spring. But hey, they will stick around for another month or so yet.
GT
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