New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

Out of the drought? Hints of fall at hand.

Friday 08/24/2012

wow have we did we have some rain last couple of weeks that sure put a dent in our drought. Going back two weeks now when I got home from Maine camp on a Friday evening I found a couple of inches of rain in my gauge. Then the next day another inch and a half followed by some local thunder showers that rained down another one and a half to two inches per storm. In ten days I had dumped ten inches of rain from my gauge.

And what life it has breathed into the land. The little brook down the road has sprung back to life with the sound of a trickle. The brown hay field across from my house is once again lush green. This really was the first substantial rain events since last winter.

I drove back up to Maine this week taking my Mom to the funeral of one of my aunt, aunt Charlotte. She was a spark of life full of smiles and humor. She will be greatly missed. A graveside service was followed by a family gathering at the Orff's Corner church. Four of my five remaining living aunts were there. Cousins by the dozen, many I have not seen in decades. Funny how you expect them too still be small and unchanged despite the years.

And how some trees have changed along the Maine Turnpike since my trip up two weeks ago. A few maples were very colored, especially along the wetlands. This despite a string of 80 degree days of late. No it is the sun that really rules our lives and theirs. We have lost nearly two hours of sun so far as we plunge into our winter nights. And finally this week nights are chilling. But no frost in the foreseeable future.

Good thing as my beans are slow to recover from the deer mowing just as they blossomed. I can already savor the taste of a nice bean fed deer come next winter. Oh yes I hunt right around my garden. My cukes have been blossoming and not setting. I have only made about a dozen quarts of dill pickles so far. The two new rows I planed late have yet to produce. That worries me.

Last weekend we joined my daughter, her husband and kids and closed to 30 others at Glen Ellis Campground for the weekend. A half dozen campers lay in a circle with a few tents scattered about. My wife pointed out it is our kids and their friends of the same age who were comfortably living in the campers. Three sets of parents, my generation, that spawned much of this crowd, were all in tents. We are the products of the Great Depression generation and have long made do with far less of the luxuries of life it seems.

We did take a morning hike into Diana's Bath in Bartlett. The short half mile hike was more like up a graveled road than a path. At trails end it was obvious why. By my count there were about 200 people there. And there was a constant flow of people down and up the trail gushing along the swollen woods path more like a flood than the waters pouring off the mountain. My granddaughter Katie was the first one into the ice cold water. My need to refresh from the hike was taken care of by just watching them dunk into the water to come out with arms wrapped about themselves.

Yes summer is zipping by with fall barreling down at us. As much as I love fall I'm not really ready to be looking back at summer. Looking into my rearview mirror I expect it to say "Fall is closer than what it may appear."