New Hampshire Nature Notes
by Eric Orff

The heat is on.

Friday 07/19/2013

The heat is on and the lack of rain this past week had me worrying a bit about my garden. But the fact is with week of cloudy days during the last half of June into July my tomatoes seemed to be barely growing and not much for fruit showing. So despite my sweaty brow we need the sun and heat to move things along. Things are still green everywhere. Really green despite the heat and brief dry spell. In fact there is nary a brown lawn to be seen in my travels.

What I'm not see though is good numbers in the turkey broods I have seen or that have been reported to me. Seems like 3 or 4 polts in a clutch when there should be 8 or 10. So the rainy spring took their toll on the turkeys and no doubt grouse and other birds. Kind of hard to keep the brood warm and dry and feed at the same time.

I doubt the rain has impacted much else though. The late frost did hit my fruit trees again. Nary a pear to be seen on either of my two trees for the second year in a row. A very warm day or two in early spring brings the trees to life then a had frost has been killing the blossoms. Not that we had an early spring this year. But some freak temperature extreme has killed off the blossoms again. Although I am see some apples and cherries on trees. Hopefully we will have some fruit for the bears and other wildlife. Last year was a bust for fruit statewide. As a result we had a record bear kill of 808 bears.

The Suncook River has dropped back down a bit but is still running high for this time of year and even the small brook are flowing well. So I'm thinking we have plenty of water in the ground this year. No doubt good for crops and fruit trees if we can keep the sun shinning.