New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Of lilacs, tree frogs and summer at last.

Friday 05/27/2011

Gee, things sure were put on hold the last two weeks. Though I planted potatoes, peas and such around the 12th of May nothing sprouted above the dirt until this week. Flowers blooming for two weeks now hardly changing. My lilacs barely fully bloomed last week and just this morning I noticed numbers going by. I have lots of lilacs here at home. A whole row along the stone wall in front of my house and clusters along my deck and scattered around the yard. Yes this is a lilac place.

Last weekend I went to Lyme NH to the New England Outdoor Writers Spring Safari. There were about 30 of us writers and guests. What surprised me the most was how far ahead in season Lyme is. A good week or more with the corn in the fields up six inches and lilacs going by. Now Lyme by my odometer was a good 100 miles northwest of here. I guess they simply had more sun than us. In fact I had my furnace turned on until mid week this week. And by yesterday I was wishing I had the air conditioner in. Today is hot and muggy and it looks like the same for the holiday weekend.

The gray tree frogs have been calling this week and have moved from the oaks across the road to the maples and cherries down back on their way to the meadow. How I enjoy tracking them as they sweep by through the trees each year. In fact one was somewhere on my deck this week as well. And for a bizarre tree frog I had one a month ago that sounded like it was in the wall in my upstairs bathroom. First just a brief chirp and like so often very hard to locate. But I'm pretty sure it was in the plumbing system vent pipe. I wonder if it wintered there. Any ways I had this weird sound in my plumbing for close to a month. I'm sure it climbed out.

How the fields have grown green and the trees finally leaved out to full glory. Even leaf out was late this year. What a difference compared to last year when the trees leafed out two weeks early. My rain gauge has been kept busy these last several weeks as well. Three inches of rain one day then a few days later another inch. But it has come gradually so the Suncook River never really flooded this spring compared to recent years.

Summer is at hand and today's hot muggy weather sure hints at a long hot summer. I sure hope so