Category: Nature

Most of us are familiar with the old weather proverb saying ‘March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb’. It’s one of those adages of uncertain lineage we like to trot out more as a way to comment about the weather rather than from any real belief in its accuracy. Certainly this March has started out living up to the saying. The past few days have yo-yoed from a balmy fifty degrees down into the single digits with a ferocious wind adding to the chill. Since technically it’s still winter, this shouldn’t be all that surprising but after being teased by pseudo-spring like conditions, it does come as a shock.

Still, the days are getting noticeably longer. The snow pack in the back yard which shortly after Valentine’s Day was over two feet deep has now shriveled down to a meager few inches. Bird activity has picked up with crows calling incessantly back and forth and tufted titmice whistling as they begin preparing to establish nesting territories. Chickadees along with nuthatches can be heard twittering as they climb up and down tree branches searching for hibernating insects. There is also that activity most often associated with New England, maple sugaring.

Maple syrup has a long history in New England, with the heaviest production coming from Vermont. Native Americans originally tapped the maple as it provided a source of energy and trace minerals in the late winter when other sources of food were in short supply. The sweet flavor helped add to the appeal of harvesting it. Traditional stories suggest that they were just as vulnerable to the temptation of overdoing it as we are today, as one of the Abenaki legends of Gluskabe relates.

Early European settlers quickly adopted the practice of tapping maple trees, gradually refining the technique of boiling down the tree sap to produce syrup. Cane sugar replaced maple sugar as the main sweetener around the time of the Civil War, but that didn’t stop efforts to boost maple syrup production and improve marketing. The technology has remained basically the same since then with minor tweaks and improvements. A farmer of the late 1800’s would have no difficulty recognizing many of the tapping techniques still in use today.

The production of maple syrup, however, has gotten dicier in recent years due to global warming. Maple trees need a combination of mild days in the upper thirties and low forties followed by cold nights below freezing to promote a good flow of sap for producers to tap. Too warm and the sap shoots to the top of the tree instead of rising slowly and dripping gradually into the sap buckets. This leads to poor quality maple syrup. Producers are struggling to adapt to the new normal, which given the current wild gyrations of the climate, is nearly impossible to determine. Given the recent struggles of maple sugarers, it’s fair to ask if there are other trees that could be tapped in a similar fashion. Well, it turns out there are.

The birch tree is often mentioned as an alternative to sugar maples. The flavor (which I haven’t tried) is different from maple syrup. Birch syrup contains only 1 to 2 percent sugar as compared to 8 percent for maple. It has been described as spicy-sweet by some and other as caramel-like with a fruity undertone. Because of its lower sugar content, it takes more birch sap to boil down to syrup, usually about a hundred gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup as opposed to 40 gallons of maple sap to make a gallon of syrup. So don’t expect to see mass quantities of this on the grocery shelf anytime soon. You can purchase birch syrup online, though it can be a bit pricey.

Another tree to look at is the sycamore. It can be tapped much the same way as the birch and maple. The flavor is described as honey like early in the season and developing a butterscotch flavor later on. I haven’t found any online sources to purchase this product if you are curious about it. Unfortunately New Hampshire (the southern part of it) is just at the edge of the northern range for sycamores, so I don’t anticipate this becoming a replacement for our beloved sugar maples any time soon.

Other trees that have potential for tapping are walnuts, ironwood, box elder (actually a member of the maple family) and hickory. If you have any of these types of trees on your property, feel free to experiment. Just be aware that each will likely have its own unique flavor which may or may not appeal to you. Also, and this is extremely important, be certain you are correctly identifying the tree in question. While I am not aware of any tree sap that is out and out poisonous, that doesn’t mean there isn’t one and it’s best to avoid unwelcome surprises. So educate yourself on what type of trees you have in your area. Once you’ve accomplished that, there are plenty of books and online sources detailing the process of tapping which can be quite laborious but ultimately rewarding.

Happy sugaring!

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A little postscript:
I am pleased to announce that I have sold one of my short stories, A Change In The Wind, to Into The Ruins, a quarterly magazine published by Joel Caris. Thank you, Mr Caris!

Up in the small patch of woods in back of my house is a large granite boulder that has been there for as long as I can recall.

It’s roughly a little under five feet tall by five to seven feet in width depending on where you measure it. As children, my siblings and I dubbed it ‘Big Rock’ and needless to say it was quite the kid magnet. We routinely played around and on top of it without anybody scolding us about how ‘dangerous’ it was. I don’t recall that any of us or the neighborhood kids who joined in, ever suffered any serious injury, unless you count the occasional skinned knee.

Noting other smaller rocks in the vicinity, we proceeded to name them Little Rock, Baby Rock, etc, but none of them had the charisma of Big Rock itself. Unfortunately I never asked my parents who built their house on the property if Big Rock was there to begin with or if it was dug up during construction. Given its size, resembling a beached whale, I suspect it was there all along while the forest grew up around it.

New England is filled with an abundance of rocks, stones and boulders of varying size and heft, causing annoyance to any one attempting to clear the land, creating challenges for hikers and food for thought to geologists. Large boulders like Big Rock are often referred to as glacial erratics , stones moved from their point of origin by glaciers. Depending on how the ice flowed, they may have traveled a great distance or only a short jaunt from the ledge they were torn off. Madison Boulder, one of the largest erratics located here in New Hampshire, is thought to have originated from the Whitten or White ledges located 12 and 4 miles respectively to the northwest. At 83 by 23 feet in size, it is thought to weigh in at 5000 tons so it gives an idea of the power of the ice sheets that came grinding down across our state during the Laurentide.

Countless other erratics can be found throughout the state, some with odd ball histories such as Boise Rock. This large boulder earned its name during the 1800’s after Thomas Boise, a teamster, was trying to make his way through Franconia Notch when he was caught in a fierce blizzard. According to local folklore, in order to avoid freezing to death he unsentimentally killed and skinned the horse he had been riding and used its hide to protect himself while hiding under the rock now bearing his name. His ploy paid off and searchers found him alive when hunting for him the next day.

Glaciers have left their mark everywhere here in New Hampshire. Crawford Notch shows the classic U-shape characteristic of valleys ground down by ice rather than eroded by a river. Glacial striations are visible in many places where ledge was exposed to the relentless scrapping of the Laurentide Ice sheet.

Other features such as moraines, kettles, potholes and cirques can be found scattered throughout the White Mountains. A good example of a natural pothole is the Basin, located in Franconia Notch. Rushing mountains waters that originate from Profile Lake and form the beginnings of the Pemigewasset River, wash out pebbles and sand which over the millennia have scoured an area of the local granite forming a beautiful natural basin 30 feet in diameter and 15 feet deep. Its polished appearance looks like the product of some sculptor but in reality it is Mother Nature’s work. Mount Washington’s Tuckerman Ravine, a popular magnet for adventurous skiers is a classic example of an old glacier cirque. Its classic bowl shape is the result of a local alpine glacier which formed during The Pleistocene age.

But above all else it is the glacial erratics strewn everywhere that are the main characteristic of New Hampshire and other New England states, adding expense to construction projects when they have to be moved, or aggravating farmers trying to plow their fields. But while we may curse their ubiquity, that hasn’t stopped us from making use of them, either as objects of interest for tourists or just as building materials to make a familiar sight in our state.

While weather reports are focused on the latest hurricane churning around off the US coast and where it may be headed next, it’s worth taking a look at an earlier storm that hit New England back in September of 1938. Back in those days, hurricanes were not named but the intensity of the storm and its devastating effect on an area not accustomed to hurricanes earned it such nick-names as The Great New England Hurricane or the Long Island Express.

The storm formed as most hurricanes do off the coast of Africa and made its way across the Atlantic, tracked by ships since at this time there were no weather satellites or radar to monitor it. It strengthened to a category five though by the time it reached the Virginia coast it had weakened to a category 3. Most forecasters predicted it would curve out to sea though a lone researcher forecasted it would stay on a northerly course.

Regrettably he was overruled by more senior meteorologists and as a result no warning went out to the East Coast. Squeezed between two weather systems, the storm shot like a bullet northwards, reaching nearly 70 miles per hour on its forward motion, the highest forward velocity ever recorded in the annals of hurricanes. Since this kept it from losing its strength when it passed over the cooler waters around New England, it hit as a category 3 when it made landfall on Long Island.

With no warning and no time to prepare, locals were caught by surprise and the effects were devastating. Photos can only capture a fraction of the destruction that occurred and left such a long lasting impression on New Englanders.

One of these New Englanders was my mother. She was living in Concord New Hampshire with her family at the time and had just turned eighteen the month before. To her, the high winds were what frightened her the most. Afterwards she described visiting the park and seeing the huge pine trees there with their tops snapped off and scattered on the ground. She told me that she and one of her brothers made their way from one side of the park to the other by walking on top of the fallen trunks, jumping about from one tree to the next, not daring to get down on the ground as the trees had been so big that she didn’t think they would be able to climb back up onto them. Since my mother was about five feet tall, that gives you an idea of how big the trees had been before they were toppled. She found it heartbreaking to see so many beautiful old trees destroyed.

The fear caused by the storm stayed with her for many years afterward. I can recall as a child seeing her anxiety whenever weather reports indicated a hurricane might be coming up the coast. She got a map from the National Hurricane Center which allowed her to closely track the course of any storm that formed in the Atlantic. She bought hurricane lamps and candles as a precaution against long power outages and fretted about the trees growing up around our house.

One of her cousins lived with her retired husband George in Sarasota Florida. George had been a weatherman and whenever a storm drew near to the coast of the eastern US, my mother would call them up wanting to speak with George. Apparently she considered him a far better authority on what to expect than the weatherman on TV. George would reassure her about the storm’s track and occasionally take the opportunity to complain about the new-fangled custom of giving names to tropical storms as well as hurricanes, which he thought was a waste of names.

With the sophisticated weather satellites and Doppler radar to track weather movements, we are far better off than in my mother’s youth in detecting the approach of threatening weather, though when it actually strikes, we are still just as helpless. At least we can flee or take shelter, or stock up on goods in case of shortages, knowing what’s on the way.

What’s more open to question is whether any of this hi-tech can be maintained as resources in the future become more constrained due to economic contraction and equipment harder to replace as a result. A significant Carrington Event would fry satellites and knock out power systems here on earth, leaving us blind to developing weather systems which could threaten us. Replacing all this expensive gear is apt to be difficult. We may have to get used to relying more on the reports from ships for sea storms and ham radio operators for information about approaching storms and their severity than on the high maintenance high tech we have become so accustomed to over the past few decades. This is certainly going to be a tough pill to swallow for many who are enamored of the concept of eternal progress. But it’s just simply doesn’t make sense to pour money into extravagant systems that break down if you look at them cross-eyed, when less complex, more maintainable methods will do.

As the post-oil world bears down on us, it’s worth our time to sit down and decide what’s sustainable and what isn’t. When we finally learn to make do with less, we may be surprised to find that it is not the same as doing without.

Many years ago, I witnessed an unusual incident while in my front yard. It was during the summer and I happened to hear a raven croaking. Looking up, I saw two ravens flying directly to one of the tall white pine trees surrounding the house. They were being pursued by several crows, who were vocalizing anxiously. The ravens flew into the treetop with the crows right behind. The branches hid what was going on but I could hear a terrible struggle break out with the sound of wings flapping, the ravens croaking and the crows beginning to shriek at the top of their voices. I thought possibly a nest was under attack. The screaming of the crows attracted every crow within hearing distance and it wasn’t long before I had fifty or more crows circling around all cawing hysterically. Finally the ravens departed, flying back the way they had come. The crows continued circling and screaming for nearly three quarters of an hour afterwards before they finally began settling down.

I inspected the base of the tree to see if anything had fallen but there was nothing to indicate if nestlings had been killed or even if there was a nest at all. All in all, the incident was quite mystifying. The most likely explanation was that the ravens were destroying a crow’s nest. But the motivation behind it was unknown. It’s not a good idea to attribute human purposes to something that isn’t human as this can cause us to misinterpret what we are seeing. Still, it was hard not suspecting some sort of pay-back was involved.

Crows and ravens are noted for their exceptional intelligence, problem solving abilities, and surprisingly complex social behavior. So the question arises, are they capable of vengeance as we understand it?

Revenge, at least in human terms, is usually defined as a form of primitive justice, an effort to right a perceived wrong by the person taking revenge. This usually occurs when ordinary justice is seen as having failed the injured party and they take it upon themselves to get satisfaction. It requires a sense of self (seeing oneself has having been offended) as well as the ability to plan and carry out the act of revenge (restoring a sense of balance).

Can animals plan ahead? Studies of chimpanzees seem to suggest that the capability to visualize a future event and make plans based on that visualization is shared with our closest relative. But what about birds? Studies of scrub jays as well as other birds seem to indicate that they are capable of planning as well. Tests involved determining the bird’s ability to abstract a general rule when solving a certain task and then transfer that learned rule to new tasks. When faced with a novel situation, the birds could adapt previous experience to apply to the new problem. Corvids seem especially good at this as opposed to such birds as pigeons who tend to be rote learners.

But do crows and ravens have a sense of justice as humans do? To perceive injustice and attempt to right it is something we humans are hardwired for as the desire to take revenge appears universal among humans no matter what culture or time they belong to. Even small children will complain when they experience what they regard as injustice (“It’s not fair!). I can still recall an incident that occurred when I was perhaps four or five years old. I was following my mother through a field and we stepped over a large rock. She crossed over without incident, but when I stepped over the rock, an irate wasp appeared and stung me on the knee. My main reaction was not anguish over the pain of the sting but bewilderment over the perceived injustice of having been stung while my mother had crossed the rock unscathed. Why couldn’t I have crossed the rock without incident? Though it’s been well over half a century since that happened, my outrage over the unfairness of it is still very vivid to me.

We humans are complex creatures with equally complex societies. Our sense of justice is likely an outgrowth of our social structures, a way to ensure that interpersonal conflicts do not escalate out of control and disrupt the group. Without a way to ‘balance the scales’, what often occurs is a chaotic endless cycle of revenge and pay-back (much like we see in the Middle East). Crows and ravens have much simpler social lives, crows living in extended family groups while ravens are less gregarious, living as pairs raising their young. But the need to maintain order between and within groups is still there though likely in a more rudimentary form.

So was what I saw all those years ago an example of corvid revenge? Or something else entirely? Our inability to answer this question reveals how much we still need to overcome our arrogant assumption that only we humans are capable of thinking and planning and all the other wonderful things we blithely believe only we can do. That we are not particularly special in that regard can be humbling but it can also open our eyes to what we have in common with our fellow earthlings.

“People must have renounced, it seems to me, all natural intelligence to dare to advance that animals are but animated machines.... It appears to me, besides, that such people can never have observed with attention the character of animals, not to have distinguished among them the different voices of need, of suffering, of joy, of pain, of love, of anger, and of all their affections. It would be very strange that they should express so well what they could not feel.”

Voltaire

On May 3rd 2003, a major tourist attraction in northern New Hampshire known as the Old Man of the Mountain finally crumbled away in a landslide. This was not really an unexpected event as everyone knew that eventually the rocky ledges which created the profile would give way.

Old Man Before	Old Man After

The Old Man was a natural formation produced by several granite ledges that lined up to create the famous craggy profile only when viewed from the side. If you had looked at it directly ‘face on’, you would have only seen an odd jumble of rock ledges. However because the Old Man was composed of granite which contained feldspar, it was particularly vulnerable to weathering. Numerous efforts were made over the years to shore up the ledges of the profile, but the end was never really in doubt. Gravity finally overcame human ingenuity and the ‘face’ collapsed.

The outpouring of anguish, especially from local tourism boosters, may have puzzled out-of-staters. The fact is New Hampshire is a small state lacking the outstanding vistas that many western states can boast of, such as the Grand Canyon in Arizona, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming or the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii. The Old Man was the only spectacular attraction that drew large numbers of summer tourists into the area. With him gone, the feeling was that the tourists would vanish as well.

Well, actually they didn’t. They’re still coming. Even without the Old Man, there are many places in New Hampshire attractive to tourists. In the winter, there is downhill skiing, snow-boarding, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and snow shoeing. In the summer, there are lakes for boating or swimming, rivers to canoe on, camp grounds, hiking trails and dozens of small scale attractions that are family-friendly and just plain interesting to visit. One of these is the Flume.

Located at the southern end of Franconia Notch, the Flume is a narrow gorge about 800 feet in length and varies between 12 and 20 feet in width. While Native Americans were likely quite familiar with it, it was not ‘officially’ discovered until about 1808 by a remarkably spry 93 year old lady by the name of Jess Guernsey who was looking for a good place to fish (anglers take note: your hobby is conducive to longevity!) . Millions of years ago a huge blob of molten magma pushed up under the overlying rock though never breaking the surface. As it cooled slowly, vertical fractures formed into which basalt oozed and also cooled. Over the eons, weathering eventually exposed the granite and since the basalt dikes more easily eroded, this created the narrow gorge that is the Flume.

Like all natural formations, the Flume is constantly morphing under the influence of rain, frost and snow. When Jess first came across it, a huge boulder could be found wedged in the narrow gorge.

In June of 1883, a heavy rainstorm triggered a landslide which swept away the boulder and deepened the gorge, creating Avalanche Falls. While the boulder itself was never found again, the damage left by its passage has since healed over, leaving a beautiful series of small waterfalls, an excellent subject for videos and photographs.

Another point of interest is the Sentinel Pine Bridge, a pedestrian bridge constructed in 1939. The bridge is so named because originally a huge pine by that name, 90 feet tall and five feet in diameter, once grew in the area. The Great Hurricane of 1938 uprooted this venerable plant so the tree was cut up and used as the base for the foot bridge bearing its name. The trunk of the old pine is still visible if you walk across the bridge and up the trail a short distance and look back.

The Flume Gorge is open during the late spring and summer into October. A series of walkways allow visitors to stroll through the gorge itself as well as the surrounding woodlands. There are a few caveats; mainly it requires you be a reasonably good walker as the full loop through the area is about two miles, which can be hard on the elderly and the handicapped. Also pets are discouraged. The entry fee of $16 for adults and $13 for children over 6, may discourage those of limited funds, but the walk is well worth the effort and money.

It is possible to access the Flume during the winter though the wooden walkways going through the gorge are removed when the weather chills, so you are better off not trying it alone. However a view of the Flume during winter is truly spectacular and hardy souls not afraid to brave the cold and ice will appreciate its beauty.

In recent years movements have cropped up in reaction to the corporate effort to control every aspect of our lives. Slow Food arose in reaction to the industrialization of food production and its accompanying loss of quality. Slow Democracy is an effort to help citizens regain control of politics especially on the local level. Now we see efforts to create Slow Tourism. While this may be a bit of overkill, the idea of simplifying travel, reducing its expense, distance traveled, avoiding canned tours, is beginning to grow in popularity.

A visit to the Flume fits in very well with this. Take a stroll through this small but scenic gorge. Take an opportunity to see nature close up, instead of flashing by while you are driving down the freeway. If you’re ambitious enough, visit it in both summer and winter, and get a real feel for the ever changing face of the world you are a part of.