New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Yo yo weather, temperatures and water levels in the Suncook River

Thursday 12/04/2008

Yeeha we're into another crazy slide into winter. More weather extremes it seems. And the past couple of weeks have been all over the place. Make that the last three weeks.

First off less than three weeks ago on a on Saturday night November 15th it was in the mid 60's when I went to bed about 11:30 that night. Then by the next week end a cold front had swept down from Canada with bone chilling temps in the low teens. All the local farm ponds quickly froze over and even Deermeadow Pond in Epsom and Northwood Lake in Northwood was skimmed with ice by the start of the next week. It looked like winter had arrived. And the ground around my house was frozen.

But not so fast. Heavy rains on the 25th into the 26th thawed things right back out taking much of the ice and frozen ground with it. And the Suncook River quickly jumped to a very high flood stage once again. Not the 100 year floods of the past two years, but still higher, much higher, than I have usually seen floods the last 29 years I have lived here. The corn field and meadow below my house was once more turned into a flowing lake. I used to be that the corn field completely flooded maybe once every 5 to 10 years. Since the fall of 2005 it has flooded 5 times; Twice this year. This is even though the dam boards have been taken out down at the Buck Street Dam. By the way there is talk by DES of actually removing this dam.`

Last week My wife, mother and I flew down to my son's place on Thanksgiving Day afternoon. It was cheaper to fly than drive as our trip down on Southwest out of Manchester was a mere $40. And how quickly we arrived. Less than an hour in the air as a tail wind put us on the ground 20 minutes early.

We came back early Monday morning, missing the first real snow storm here that had the ground covered by Sunday afternoon. Most of it was gone by the time we got back to Epsom around 10 Monday morning.

Work and other commitments have kept me out of the woods save for a couple afternoon stands for an hour or two the last week or more. Plus the trip south. I'm anxious to get back out hunting since this is the last week of deer the hunting season. I'm not a bow hunter.

Still there is plenty of green grass left in many of the fields despite the hard freeze. Right around the house there are still a bunch of acorns on the ground, but back in the woods it seems that the wildlife has cleaned most of them up. How the woods are looking dull, brown and gray. For the most part the rain has quieted things down and hardly a leaf can be found on a tree now. Gone are the smells and sounds of the forest life except for the occasional murmur of wind through the leafless forest. Life it seems is on hold for now. Ready to be easily subdued by the grasp of old man winter.

How I relish the sounds of the chickadees as I fill my feeders. I was at a meeting yesterday where a fellow was telling me a bear took his bird feeder down in the town of Bow Monday night. So perhaps there are still some restless bears about. A good thought to dwell upon this cold nearly winters night.