Killin' Bees

Bee'maggedon has come and it is now time for the overlords to play their hand. While we were patient beekeepers for the last month our hive has not done well. Short of flying off, they've done about as bad as a hive can do.

When we checked in on them Sunday, all we found was 'drone comb'. Pictured here it's basically a messy laying pattern, which means our queen, didn't get mated and is only laying sterile/male/drone eggs. Drones take longer to grow, supply a perfect breeding ground for mites, and do nothing but hang around the hive and eat (and breed if there is a queen in need of services). All similarities to human males aside, it's not the makings for a productive hive.  In fact once they hatch and the nurse bees dies, the hive will die.

So we're going to do a little killing in preparation for a new queen.  S.D. ordered one yesterday and by the time she gets here we hope to have all those drones, and drone cells out of there.

Bringing Home the Pollen

All the bee people are telling us "The Nectar Flow is On".  Not exactly sure what that means but the pollen is certainly coming into the hive.  It only took a few minutes to snap this photo of two workers with loaded pollen sacks. A few days ago they were bringing in mostly green pollen but now its mostly yellow. The green was definitely from the maple trees. Not too sure about the yellow.

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Also, this is the 'beauty shot' of the hive location at the North end of the garden. You'd think with a set up like this, they'd be the happiest of bees.

Remedial reading. What's up with the hive?

It’s been 10 days since our last hive opening and time to take another look. During Bee School we'd attended a hive opening and watched a professional look at the individual frames and tell us how the hive was faring. It was like he was reading a book. For instance one of the frames had these giant cells hanging off the bottom. That meant the hive was raising drones, as he looked around the rest of the frames he was able to read other clues that explained why.

Now it was our turn to try and read hive. And it was going to be a remedial reading at best.

We already knew the workers had been busy. We'd seen some of them returning with full pollen sacks(yes I crouched at the side of the hive entrance waiting for that brief moment when they land but before they scuttle onto the hive. Just to catch a glimpse of tiny little insect legs bulging with brightly colored pollen, mostly green). Pollen gather can be read to mean that the bees are probably feeding eggs and pupae. But the real proof would come with the hive inspection.

For this, the second hive inspection, we understood that we were to try and find the queen (again), see if she was laying eggs, spot some cells with eggs, developing larvae and capped cells (to show that she’d been laying for at least 10 days) and check that the workers were attending to their various jobs. Ideally the queen lays her eggs in consecutive cells in the lower parts of the frames forming a neat half-circle pattern, and the workers would have drawn out more comb, been feeding the eggs and creating royal jelly for them to float in.

Those round semi-circles are the larvae. Not sure if the filled
cells are pollen, capped brood, or honey.

So what did we see? In the outer 3 or 4 frames, we saw bees. Still lots of bees. No more than last time, but really not many less either. We saw lots of eggs covered in royal jelly. We saw some round larvae and maybe some capped brood? We can’t say any of this was in too organized of a pattern. I think we even saw some pollen stores. Not enough to warrant all their gathering activity, but some. Aside from the fact that the eggs, pupae, etc were roughly grouped together, and there wasn’t any discernible overall pattern, it all looked okay, at least to us.

Then we got to the inner frame. Still lots of bees, but we also saw would looked like a cells with multiple eggs and one cell, wider and more drawn out than the others. A Supercedure Cell. Multiple eggs in cells is a sign that the workers have started laying eggs. Workers can only lay sterile eggs that result in drones, and they only do that on very rare occasions when they aren’t happy with their queen. A supercedure cell means the hive has decided to raise her replacement.

The Supercedure cell.
To the left are the cells with multiple eggs

Being new to hive reading, we weren’t sure how to interpret all this. After closing everything back up S.D. called our beekeeping mentor. A quick conversation confirmed our reading. The queen had been released on schedule and she had started laying eggs. The hive was doing a good job caring for and raising their new bees and they had also, for some reason, decided they needed a new queen. Due to the presence of newly laid eggs in the outer frames, it appeared that she was still in the hive (although we again failed to find her) but for some reason our bees felt she needed to go.

 It’s going to be another two weeks before we can peek inside the hive. During that time, if we read the situation right, our bees will continue feeding and caring for all the eggs, and brood. Some of the new bees will have emerged and started their lives as good worker bees. The bees will also continue building out that supercedure cell and raising the queen. Depending on when they started, we could even have a new queen by then.


--- Sorry about the long time between entries, it’s been a busy time of year. More entries on our trip to Death Valley are also in the works. Please feel free to leave comments, I do read them, even if I get too far behind.

Where's Waldo

For the first hive inspection you're supposed to make sure the queen has been released, and hopefully find her happily being attended by the bees. Oh, and you only want to have the hive open for a very short time. Figuring that it would be easy to check and remove the queen cage, but harder to spot the queen I was assigned the duty of hive photographer. S.D. pulled the frames, I clicked the pictures.

The opening went well. S.D. quickly found the empty queen cage, and pulled the frames so I could shot them.The bees were very calm. They really didn't pay us much attention at all, and continued drawing out comb while we were looking. At least 5 of the frames had some wax on them. All five had lots of very busy bees. Everything looked good and we had the hive closed back up in less than five minutes.

Then it was time to review the footage and find the queen. According to the books and the pros, she'll stand out because she is slightly longer than the worker bees with her abdomen extending beyond her wing tips, and she'll be surrounded by a group of attendant bees. And that's it. She doesn't even the have decency to wear a red and white hat. We've spent a good while pouring over the photos. We've seen lots of comb being drawn. Some of the cells look really deep. I think I've seen a few eggs. S.D. thinks I'm crazy. Neither of us, however, thinks we've found the queen. She could be anywhere, she could even be  underneath that mass of insect bodies.

This is the queen cage still attached.

The white stuff, in the hexagon pattern - that's wax they've added.

If you can find her - let us know!

Now we'll wait another two week before going back in to see if there are brood cells. (Baby bees).

The Bee Whisperer

 Hive body and package

Finally, after eight weeks of Bee School, and much anticipation, the Bees are here! We picked them up at 4:00, drove them home and 'installed the package' into the hive body. Yup - not only do we have bees, but we can now talk the talk.

A 'bee package' is a small box of plywood and screening that contains 3 pounds, approx. 3000, bees and an even  smaller box containing the queen. The queen box has a candy plug in one end.  The idea being that she and the worker bees will take 2 or 3 days to eat through the candy and release the queen.  During that time they'll all get to know each other better, or at least well enough that the worker bees don't kill the queen.

Prior to the package arrival we'd spent a few nights and a day or two building and painting the hive, which consists of two hive bodies', a honey super (these are the boxes that contain 'frames' with 'foundation'), a screened base board, a slated spacer above that, a inner and outer cover. That was fun, a lot like I'd imagine shop class would have been in high school.

Once you have the hive box finished, painted and filled with foundation frames, it's ready for the package. First you place the queen-in-a-box in the hive body, and then dump the rest of the package in with her. The bees were buzzing. Literally, the sound was a loud, awesome buzz and while I was apprehensive about opening the package, S.D. just popped the top, turned the box over,  dumped, and then banged them out of the box. Most went into the hive but that still left a hundred or so buzzing around, crawling and  pooping on S.D. Bee poop is  one thing you never really think about, but they do poop, a lot, especially after being on a box for a day or two. They even pooped on the camera while I was filming the event. And they pooped all over S.D. But, angry and disoriented as they were, they didn't sting him. After a little while, they all actually went into the hive just as he told them to. Then S.D. closed it up and that was that.

The package is installed. Now we wait to see if they like their queen, and their new home.

A Tale of Two Towns

Beatty, NV

After three nights in Beatty, Nevada we moved to Lone Pine, California. Both towns are one stoplight towns literally, each town had one stoplight. And there the similarities end.

Beatty is an experience. Yup that about sums it up. Beatty boasts two brothels. Bikinis is in a red -painted concrete block building before the stoplight. Angels, "right at the stop light, it's on the left ", is in a double-wide. Beatty is a town where a drunk outlaw cowboy re -enactor openly panhandles "private ambushes” at the local restaurant and the wait to be seated at Denny’s is 45 minutes. It's a town where the knife fight at the saloon isn't considered bad since it was between a father and a son and, "no blood was drawn." Oh and among the litter scattered about the town streets are hundreds of shot gun shells. It's an experience that I’ve had once and figure that is enough.

Lone Pine, CA

On the other hand, a mere 90 miles to the west just across the state line into California is Lone Pine, a town I very much enjoyed. Aside from hosting the trailhead to Mt Whitney, Lone Pine is a great little desert town. Just past the stoplight on the right is a backcountry outfitter. Just before the stoplight are two great restaurants where you can eat good local food without getting hit up by the locals. Not a Denny’s nor a single fast food restaurant in sight.The Park Service, aside from having great information on the local hikes also runs one of the best outdoor adventure bookstores I've ever browsed. We spent two great nights there, and I’m hoping to get back sometime soon.

Day 3, pt 2: We came to the desert and hiked in the snow

The Charcoal Kilns

If you ever go to Death Valley there is one area, an area off the beaten path, that you really need to visit, and a trail you need to hike.

Driving east and up the road toward the trail head we began to suspect we were entering a new area when we started seeing largish green things on the hillsides. We weren't sure; it had been a while since we'd seen things like this but as best we could recollect those things looked like trees. As the road continued climbing the green hints became bigger and soon enough we were driving through a pine forest. An especially lovely pine forest with the dark green needles accented with a thick frosting of snow. It was beautiful and totally unexpected especially considering the dry desolation we'd driven through all morning.

The trailhead for Wild Rose Peak, was also the parking lot for the Charcoal Kilns. Precisely built stone kilns that had, thankfully, only been used for only three years, but that look sculptural especially today. The stone work standing out, dark, black rock accented by snow.

The trail itself left the road to the left of the kilns, rose steeply, and then curved to the left and west rounding along the slope of Wild Rose Peak for about half a mile before cutting more determinedly upward through the center of the valley. After another mile and a half the trail topped out at the saddle. From a sheltered nook at 7000 ft. we brushed the snow off a log and sat down for a little snack, looking east over Badwater Basin the lowest point in the continental U.S., the place we'd been the day before yesterday in our shorts and tee shirts.

View looking West from the Saddle before Wind Rose Peak

But there were other unexpected, maybe even inexplicable aspects of the hike that made it so wonderful. I'm not sure if it was the sight of snow covered cactus, the sound of the wind in the themselves pines themselves, lower to the ground and broader than New England pines but I loved that hike and that place.

Writing this now I realize why I loved that desert forest, is the same reason I love and crave the desert. It's the openness. The wideness of the place. The way everything is not jumbled together like it is in more verdant climates but each item stands apart, distinct, and I can take it in one sense at a time and I am not bombarded with impressions. Don't get me wrong, I also love the immersion of being deep in a New England Forest, and walking among the Redwoods altered my perspective on just how tiny people really are, but being on the desert and the desert forest opens one out. The 'body ' expands and dissolves more into the air around it, for some reason no longer needing to hold so tight to its boundaries?

The Beauty of the Dunes

Earlier today, on our way to the mines we had walked out on the sand dunes. It had been a short visit but standing there in the sand, feeling nothing but space around me as the sun warmed my frozen New England soul the melting process had begun. Walking among the snowy but open desert forest of Wind Rose Peak all the remaining frozen bits disappeared.

Day 3, pt 1: We came to the desert and hiked in the snow

The plan for the third day was to explore the west side of the mountain range, driving through Emigrant canyon and then heading further west to Lone Pine, California. More mining, more vertigo, and another awesome hike.

Road to Skidoo

The folks who named this area Death Valley were the same folks for whom Emigrant Canyon Road was named. The same uninformed, feckless group of forty-niners who having arrived in Salt Lake City in early spring decided against Donner Pass and for the southern route. Half way along they then decided to take a right through an unexplored area. Ending up with their wagon wheels bogged down in sand without water in the middle of a desert, in July.

The road we drove down was pretty desolate in March, I can only imagine what it would be like in July. Still I strongly object to the fact that their bad judgment resulted in this beautiful area ending up with a bad name, both literally and figuratively.

One of many mine shaft openings

There is also some additional irony in the forty-niner story. They were trying to get to California for the gold. Fifty years after they passed through the canyon, gold was discovered less than 15 miles east of where they camped. We decided that the gold-mining ghost town of Skidoo would be our first exploration of the day. It being my turn to drive, we were slowly but happily bouncing down the dirt road and looking at all the mine holes when we turned a corner and the side of the road disappeared. I was driving along a cliff. Not only that, but the narrow winding, shoulderless road also now had a number of sharp blind curves. This was not to be my favorite drive and as soon as possible S.D. took over.

From in the inside out. It's cool in here.

Skidoo may have been a mining town at one point, it may once also have been a ghost town but now it was just a flat place on a mountainside littered with old mining holes, rusty tin cans and bed springs. On the crawl back down the road we stopped at a more recent mining shaft. A ladder descended too far down to see and the NPS had installed a locked metal net so visitors couldn't climb down. Still it was interesting. In an area so bleak and blistering hot for most of the year, spending the day down a dark hole might actually not have been the worst idea.

But now it was almost noon and we'd had enough of mining. We needed to get hiking and we needed it to be somewhere other than the desolate high desert plain that surrounded us. S.D. consulted the map and suggested Wild Rose Peak. I checked the trail description and agreed. By now that had become our pattern for most exploration decisions. He'd see it on the map I'd look it up in the book we'd discuss it and decide. This decision turned out to be the best of the day, one of the many high points of the trip.

Day 2: Uber Crater, Uber Weather and a Couple of Canyons

Day two in Death Valley and we headed north for the Ubehebe Crater. The weather forecast was for cloudy skies with a thirty percent chance of rain. Back home, New England was enjoying its sixth consecutive weekend snow storm. In comparison our weather was a welcome improvement.

Ubehebe Crater, black bands near the top. One for each explosion.

The Ubehebe Crater, actually craters, as there are about five of them, are a relatively recent geological happening in the Valley. Only three thousand years ago some rising magma bubbled up into and underground reservoir. The resulting explosion blew ash all over a six mile radius, and left a series of giant holes in the ground. It was fun to figure out which craters blew first. Each crater had a different number of black bands around its rim. The one that blew first, having the most.

At about eight am we were standing on the rim of the largest looking one mile down into geological history. Hmmm did I say standing on the rim? Well that may be a bit of an exaggeration. SD was standing on the rim, I was about five feet back sneaking glances into the crater and then quickly steadying myself by looking at the gently slopping land on the other side. My fear of heights was kicking in pretty strong.

The guidebook estimated the walk around the rim to be between one and two miles depending on how many of the smaller craters you included. The weather was still cloudy but calm and relatively pleasant sixty degrees so we set off.

Titus Canyon

The thing about walking around the rim of a magma crater when you have serious vertigo is that sooner or later the rim narrows below your comfort level to places where there is only a foot or two of walkable ground between you and the sudden death of a mile long fall. That moment happened exactly half way around the crater. Being goal-obsessive in addition the height-averse I struggled with the decision of whether to turn around or continue on. S.D. came to the rescue however and offered to scout the trail ahead of me. I've found that walking behind him, focusing on his shoes rather than the drop beside them can get me through some of the trickier places including the six inch wide trail ahead. After about 100 yards the trail widened, returning to leveler ground.

Continuing on, views of the crater and the surrounding valley were spectacular as was the scene above and to the south where it was abviously raining pretty hard. The cloud cover was dark and thick and while it had seemed stationary for most of our hike it suddenly seemed to be racing north. Right to where we were. Just as we were passing the far northern rim the front hit us with thirty to fourth knot winds. Almost knocked me off my feet before I had the chance to lean into it. We scuttled back to the car and got in just when the rain smacked into the windshield.

The Mosaic Rock

The remainder of the day was spent hiking in the calm of deep canyon washes of Titus and Mosiac Canyons. Both canyons were interesting but each in its own way. Titus Canyon was notable for its scale. The walls tower above you, sometime blocking out the sky, and the Canyon extends all the way through the Grapevine Mountains. The hike up Mosiac Canyon was short but colorful. The Canyon was named for a rock formation known as the "Mosaic Breccia." Breccia is the Italian word meaning "fragments". The resulting rock is a beautiful.

It was now late, and it had been a full day. We headed back to our hotel in Beatty after our second day in the Valley.

Day 1: Fish, History and Hiking

Fish in Death Valley? Pupfish no less. The very idea of pupfish is so adorable you wonder why they don't have their own YouTube channel. These little fish live only in the salty creeks and ponds of Death Valley, and they were something we really weren't expecting.

Salt Creek: Home of the Pupfish

Like a lot of National Parks, Death Valley has a number of roadside easy -to-access-point -of-interest stops with interpretive displays and very little walking. Our plan was to check all of those out, the pupfish at Salt Creek being the first stop, get the lay of the land, its history, geography and geology. We also wanted to get in our first good hike, hopefully about mid-day at the Golden Hills.

After the Pupfish, which we never saw but it was a nice hike around a running creek that was quite salty, (SD tasted the water and declared it more salty than seawater) we headed south to the Harmony Borax Mine Historical Site. You can't visit the area without talking about mining. Old mine shafts, abandoned mining towns, assorted historical sites, and even a few working mines cover the area. Even before entering the Park we'd stopped at Rhyolite, an abandoned mining town outside Beatty, Nevada. Walls stood alone in fields, rusted cans piled up along the side of old roads, cave openings high in the hills were all the remained of old mine shafts. The graveyard, still accepting occupants, was particularly cool. Of all the abandoned mining towns we'd see in the next few days it was the only graveyard.

Borax mining, on the other hand, didn’t require mine shafts. Miners scrapped the borax off the flats, refined it and shipped it out in huge wagons pulled by twenty mules. The Harmony Borax Mine Historical Site had two of the wagons and a water tank and they really were impressively large.

A mile south of the Borax mine site was the Furnace Creek Interpretive Center. It was our first encounter with the bus tourist. A bus-full of people who are driven from stop to stop, descend on a site, and then as if by magic disappear back into the bus and leave. But the Center was also loaded with great displays and we spent about an hour learning history and geology.

After a full morning of touring and studying we were ready for some hiking but when we arrived at the parking lot for the Golden Hills it was packed and there wasn’t a space available. According to the guide book it was a spectacular but narrow trail.

Craving a bit of desert solitude we drove on, turning left onto a side road about two miles south. That road went east for about a mile then abruptly stopped. Other than a no camping sign there were no signs but a faint path left the road, curved to the east south east and into a canyon wash. I’d read that like Utah, most of the Death Valley trails were walks up canyons and that really you could just pick any canyon and walk up it. With a dedicated parking lot I figured this was as good a canyon as any.... after the hike I suspect it was better than most.

It's hard to see, but the rocks further down are green and red.

The wash, or the sand and gravel that wash out of the canyon opening was about half a mile long. After that the canyon walls narrowed quickly. We twisted up and south and south east under smooth walls of white, red and sometimes green rock. Looking at the topographic map it looked like our canyon was running into the Artist Hills, an area renowned for its colorful layered rocks. The further in we hiked the more colorful the rocks became and the closer we through we were to topping out at a pass. Two times we explored side canyons hoping to reach an overlook. But it’s funny in these canyons, you are hiking up but at the same time you are hiking in. They rarely top out. Like the little side canyons most end at a high canyon wall or a "fall", a large rock fall inside the canyon that blocks any further progress. We hiked in for an hour and a half, and although the temptation to go around one more corner was strong, we eventually turned around.

It had been a great first day, from pupfish to historical sites to a great hike, the desert was starting to work its magic.

Mid-winter hiker's dream

Three days ago, the last day of our escape from the gray days of New England, we stood on Dante's Peak. Below, and to the west, our past adventures spread out on the landscape. In the previous days we'd been from Badwater Basin, the lowest point in the US, to the flanks of the highest, Mt Whitney. From 80 degrees on the Mesquite Dunes to hiking in six inches of snow and 30 degrees on the Wildrose Peak. One day we were being blown over by thirty knot winds on the edge of the Ubehebe crater, the next listening to absolute silence in the depths of an unnamed Canyon. On Friday we left a backwater Nevada town for an L.A. backcountry outpost. Two days later we hiked up to a rare desert waterfall.

Needless to say it was an awesome time and a lot happened. It's going to take a few posts and I hope I can cover it all.

But first a little geology lesson.   You can't really understand Death Valley until you know the geography and how it was formed by geological forces over the eons.  Death Valley is not just one valley it's a couple of valleys and about five mountain ranges built over millions of years. The National Park Service has a great diagram that illustrates the process. The faults pulled apart lifting the mountain ranges, some as high as 11,000 ft.

Mt Whitney, just 50 miles outside the park towers over the Sierra on the West at 14,505 ft and is the tallest mountain the the contiguous US. And while this is all desert, what little rain there is all stays in the valleys and evaporates. What very little plant life there is, is not enough to create top soil and all those millions of years to rock building, lifting and eroding is all just out there. Visible to the naked eye. I imagine it's a geologists dream. I'd had my doubts about the place being a hikers dream but S.D. was right after all.

Death Valley Preparation

During The Month, S.D. promised to take me on a trip anywhere I wanted to go. It being December and the start of winter I dreamed of somewhere sunny, with warm days and cool nights.

And Viola! Next week we're going to Death Valley.  Now I haven't missed all my friends vacation stories and facebook posts from Disney Land, Caribbean Cruises, and all the usual winter-time-get-away hot spots. And don't get me wrong, they all seem very nice.  I just wanted to go somewhere a bit different, and some where with lots of hiking and exploring options. Death Valley fits that bill.

After three straight weekends of snow storms, followed by 6 straight days of rain, I'm more than convinced this was the right decision, and the right time. The 2013 outdoor adventure season will officially begin for me next week

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That said, in February I began compiling and working through the reading list:

Salt to Summit: A Vagabond Journey from Death Valley to Mount Whitney
This hiker's journey through the desert is the perfect intro to the area. The author talks a bit about the geography, the plants, animals, weather and history.

Land of Little Rain
Published in the early 20th century this little volume is more of a stream-of-consciousness telling of Mary Austin's interests and feelings about the area, its peoples and her times.

Hiking Death Valley: A Guide to Its Natural Wonders and Mining Past
This one I've only peeked through as I'm saving it for the plane and for while we there. It provides technical descriptions of the various regions and hikes in the area along with notes on what to look for. These range from rock formations to old mining tools, and it we're lucky, wildflowers.

However, as long as it's sunny with temps between 50 - 70, and as long as I've got S.D. with me, I'll consider myself very lucky. Actually - all I'll really need is S.D.

A Warm Bee is Better Than a Wet Bee

Bees don't like bananas, getting wet, perfume, and stressed out people. They do like early mornings, warm days and living in hives of 60,000. If all goes well we'll have one of those in our backyard by June.

This is SD's adventure more than mine. As long as I've known him he's been wanting a hive. So when the Essex County Bee Association advertised their Bee School he signed us up.  For the next eight Tuesdays we'll be learning the art and skill of the beekeeper, and once the class is done we'll be installing our own "package", watching the bees "drawing out" the comb, and harvesting over 8 gallons of honey.

Prior to our first class last night I didn't know much about bees.  I'd gotten pretty good at spotting bee hives, and using honey in just about everything, but that's about it. I've read A Country Year: Living the Questions, and while it's a good overview I'm no where near ready to put on a bee suit and open a hive. But after our first class, I'm beginning to think this may be doable.

The Biggest Adventure

Snow storm - the day after

A few weeks ago while in the center of a crowded library a colleague asked me how my mom was.  With about 10 college students less than 5 feet away, I really didn't want to say and mumbled something I hoped would change the subject. But she persisted. Insisting while it was admirable that I was caring for my mother while she was ill, I really needed to talk about it. I needed to tell her how my mother was. Exasperated, I replied, "Well, she's still dead."

And unbelievably, she still is. This December, in what I've come to refer to as "The Month" my mom actually died. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer on Thanksgiving Day. A week later they told her she had 3-4 weeks to live. On December 29 she passed. From the time of her diagnosis, until the end, I was with her. And it is a bittersweet month I will always treasure.  If Adventure is, as I have come to define it, the time when you live close to the bare essentials of life. The starkest, realest adventure is that of the life and death kind and Mom was, it turns out, a great adventurer.

She never really understood my adventures. The extended backpacking and biking trips totally mystified her. Even the short day hikes, bikes, and paddles were puzzling. But when it came time for this last adventure she was amazing.  It was raw, a month outside of 'regular life'.  A month when just the essentials were important. When all people talked about was what we really meant when we said such and such, or why we did something years ago. A month when we looked through photo albums and learned things about each other and others in the family we didn't know. A month when often, we were just together, silently.  A month when a veritable army of kind strangers came out of no where to provide the exact help we needed, even before we knew we needed it. And a month when old friends were there too, with loving words and arms to hold us. A month where I realized that much of mom's life was lived close to the essentials of life, and that was the reason she did not understand my need to seek out adventure.  A month, that for a brief time, mom and I were adventurers together.



And as the weeks pass, my rude and exasperated reply to that insistent colleague rings even more true.  I still expect it to be my mom when the phone rings between 6:00-7:00pm. I still remind myself to call her when there's a new episode of the "Big Bang Theory". I still check the garden so I can tell her when the first signs of spring appear. And then I remember, yup, she's still dead. Sometimes it takes a whole minute before that reality hits me upside the head. I want to tell her that the crocus's are up way too early, that Punxatawny Phil saw his shadow, or that my hair is finally starting to straighten  but then I remember, I won't be telling her, she's "still dead", but somehow, our Adventure continues.

Sliding

Here, by popular demand is the sliding video:

And here from 2011, is the big sliding video:

Owl's Head: Stay and Play, Evacuate, or Rapid Evac.?

View from the slide

Owl’s Head is the most remote of the New Hampshire 4000fters. Even taking the shortest route it's an 18 mile hike and that includes a two mile bushwhack. (more on that later)

The most discussed aspect of Owl’s Head, aside from its remoteness, is the lack of a marked summit trail, the "path " to the top being a 1500 foot vertical climb primarily up a narrow rock slide. On the scary-rock-slide scale where the North Tripyramid Slide is a 10, the Owl's Head slide probably rates a 6. Of course having it covered in ice raises the rating a point but with our trusted microspikes firmly fastened on we ascended through the rubble and ice, enjoying some great views of a snow-covered Franconia Ridge and reaching the peak around 1:30.

Since the summit is forested there's not much to see, we were back on the slide in no time. It was as I was slowly negotiating a tricky patch of ice that I heard something behind me and turned to see SD somersault down a small gully to my left. After the first flip his descent slowed but then he flipped again before wedging himself between two scrubby little life-saving trees before the gully dropped another 10 feet onto solid rock.

Taking in his crumbled form, his "oh shit ", the blood spots on the snow above him and the blood running down the side of his head, my first thought was how lucky it was that we took the wilderness first aid course last weekend. My second was a refrain from the class, "a head injury is never an option to stay and play, it is always an evacuation. The only question is it merely an evacuation, or is it a rapid evacuation."

Then I moved over to his side and almost punctured him with my microspices. We both quickly did the initial assessment and determined that nothing was broken. Thankfully he'd been carrying the backpack which probably protected his back during the fall. The next big issue was his location. Were he to loose consciousness, and with the blood still dripping down his head that was a possibility, there was no way I could stop his further fall down the slide. It was only then when we were carefully swunging his legs down to the ice that I noticed his shattered hiking pole. The shaft was broken off right where the pole entered the handle, making it completely useless. (Also making it's structural failure the possible cause of the fall). So now we had a guy with a head wound, on the side of rock slide, on a mountain 9 miles from the nearest road, and only 1 hiking pole.

View from the summit

Once we had SD onto a relatively flat area I took a longer look at his head. On the top right was one gash maybe an inch long from which most of the blood was dripping. After cleaning it out with some snow I was thankful to see it didn't look deep and the blood was already starting to slow. Bad news was a large bump was also already starting to grow. On the front left of his head there was also a spot, the size of a quarter, that was skinned bare. It wasn't bleeding but it too was starting to swell. I made little ice packs out of snow and held them to his head for a little while all the while remembering how our first aid instructors had warned us against snow burn but also how they'd insisted that with any head injury you must keep the swelling down. And right now on the side of a mountain my biggest concentric was keeping the swelling down so I could get SD safely down to the base of the slide.

I was also trying hard to remember at just what point a head wound went from a regular evacuation to rapid evacuation, along with wondering how, if we did need to do a rapid evacuation, I could get help. We had  been passed by another hiker who was still on the mountain, so I knew that we had one option for getting help if we needed it. But that was our only option, you can forget calling 911 or the ranger station. There's no reception in this valley.

 At this point SD said he felt fine, and while his pupils looked good, the bumps were still swelling. I gave him one of my poles and we continued slowly down the slide stopping every five minutes or so to put a little snow on the cuts hoping to stop the swelling. It took about half an hour to reach the base and I took a little sigh of relief. At least now if he became dizzy we were somewhere safe. He was also looking and acting fine even getting back to his annoying self by pretending to have a heart attack. I strongly disallowed any further pretend illnesses!

With the first stage of the evacuation over, Evacuation Stage Two, was now underway. We were 8 miles from help and SD still had two growing egg shaped bumps on his newly bald head. We opened the Toblerone bar, cleaned out some more blood, spread antibacterial gel on the wounds, had some more chocolate and decided we'd take it slow but start heading back. If all went well it wouldn't get dark until we were at our planned tent site, about three miles back down the trail, close to the river and at the intersection of the trail and the bushwhack.

 Broken pole

A little down the trail we were passed by the trailrunner who'd passed us earlier on his way up the mountain. The first time we saw him he had only paused long enough to say hi. This time he stopped and chatted, asking us about our hike and our plans, all the while looking us over pretty closely. I'm not sure if he spotted the blood on SD's jacket, or hat, or if he'd spotted the blood back on the slide but he didn't leave us until he was sure we were okay. I was sad to see him go. He was our last known chance to get help. In retrospect I probably should have sent out word with him that if we weren't out by mid day tomorrow that someone should come in. But SD was looking fine, making great time, and I was sure we'd be back in cell phone range when we got to the proposed tent site.

We weren't. We made the tent site in time, but there was no phone reception. Still we had accomplished Evacuation Stage Two and SD's condition was improving. By the time dinner was finished, the swelling was actually going down and while his head was sore he didn't have a headache. All that remained was to spend the night (waking every two hours to check his condition) and walk out the remaining 5 miles in the morning.

We arrived at the car by 10:00am the next day having safely evacuated with a head injury. Looking back I guess we did okay. We certainly were lucky that it wasn't worse. We were also lucky to have just completed the wilderness first aid course. While the injury wasn't too serious we both knew what to look for and how to handle it. And I didn't have to freak out - too much. 

Hurricane - Halloween Puns

Since the weather reporters won't resist making horrible Halloween hurricane puns, I have to choice but to record them. (Please feel free to send along - and site, all you find):

Hurricane Sandy, winter storm hybrid, dubbed a "Frankenstorm" by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Meteorologists expect a natural horror show of high wind, heavy rain, extreme tides and maybe snow  - Huffington Post

"Mother Nature is not saying, `Trick or treat.' It's just going to give tricks."- Jeff Masters, meteorology director of the forecasting service Weather Underground

Hurricane Sandy could be a Halloween nightmare for USA- abc news. 

-----

10/29/12

I stand corrected - there will be no puns

Partly to underline the seriousness of the situation, The Weather Channel has refrained from using the "Frankenstorm" nickname coined by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last week when the storm was a model on its computer forecasts.

"Being cute about this storm is not the right idea," Norcross said.

Read more: http://india.nydailynews.com/newsarticle/82249956320da323611910db313c938a/tone-turns-ominous-at-the-weather-channel#ixzz2AgahWoWk

Thoughts on being in the 53%

Glad to support this too!!!

This week there have been lots of stories about the 47%. Most of them are hard working people just trying to get by and/or get a leg up, many of them veterans or the elderly who have already made great contributions to this country. Many others who might be down now but will eventually pull through. Thinking over those stories it occurred to me that not only am I in the 53%, but that I’m proud, even happy to take my turn and contribute my share for the 47%.

I am by no means rich. I’m 51 and have no retirement plan, but I’ve started building it. I am living comfortably. Like everyone I don’t like paying 28% of my income in taxes. But now I understand just how much other good people depend on that money, just how much our country depends on everyone paying their fair share. I may disagree with some of the ways the money’s being spent (and I do), and the fact that the 1% isn’t paying their fair share, but I’m honored to be able to take my turn and help others.

 I haven’t always been in the 53%. For the ten years I was a single mother working two jobs,I did not pay taxes. Of course I paid payroll tax, and social security and medicare, but I didn’t make enough to pay income taxes. I also did not take any ‘government assistance’ but I relied heavily on the government supported infrastructure for transportation, security, education, etc. I owe a lot to the system. Its four years overdue but never too late, thank you America, glad I can now be of assistance.

Bike, paddle, hike - reverse

Last monday was a perfect Summer II kind of day - 70 and sunny. Perfect for hiking, biking or kayaking. It was hard to pick one, so we decided to do them all. A sort of make-your-own-triathlon!

 First we biked 15 miles. Stashed our bikes, switched shorts and shoes and launched the kayak. We chose the tandem and now I know why people have such a hard time paddling those. At the very least they do mot give you the light and free feeling of a single kayak. Rather than paddling a little slipper its like paddling a bathtub. One of those old porcelain claw foot tubs. Anyway I digress.

We paddled over to Choate Island, hauled the tub up on the beach and set off down the trail. Choate Island lies just inside Crane Beach. And while I've paddled around it about 27 times I'd yet to hike it.

 The trail runs south along the shore and then begins to ascend to peak first passing the 1790's barn, the cottage and then the Choate house. The Choate house was built in the 1700's and peering through the windows you can easily see that not much about the house has changed.

Continuing up the path, its no longer the house that catches your attention, it's the view. To the south, Cape Ann stretches out to the bluff that is Halibut Point and to the East lies the Atlantic Ocean. It being a windy day, we could also see a large line of breakers just off the beach. Inside the Basin, on the clam flats were a number of clammers. Just a little further up the hill we came to the peak, the burial ground of Cornelius and Mine Crane, the folks who owned then donated the island and hundreds of the surrounding acres to The Trustees of the Reservations keeping them free of development and open to the public forever. The view from the yard was to the North and spectacular. New Hampshire 's Isle of Shoals lay just off to the Northeast. Further North was the outline of Maine 's coastal mountains and you could see all the coast from there back to the beach where our kayak lay.

Reversing the day was no less beautiful although the kayak leg against the tide and a 14 knot wind was a bit more challenging and wet as I discovered yet another unlikable aspect of the double. It can take in a fair amount of waves coming over the bow. On the ride home we stopped and blazed through a turkey wrap from the Essex Village market. The bike, kayak, hike, reverse Triathlon took 5.5 hours. 5.5 hours of fun.

Bed, Bath: Before and After: a Photo Essay

From this:


To this (for 3 weeks):



To this:



From this (aka The Wolf Den):


To this:

Year of the Tomato - Day 48

Last night I dreamed that all the tomato gardeners on the North Shore gathered together with all their varieties of tomatoes for a giant tomato tasting. Thousands of tomatoes were lined up on wood plank tables. The knuckled heirlooms in one area followed by the perfect curves of big boys, better boys and romas and then multi-colored jumbles of cherry tomatoes. Around them walked hundreds of tomato gardeners, eating, tasting and talking tomatoes. I tried to stop tasting those tomatoes but there was always one more I had to try.

 I woke up from the dream in a cold sweat and went to get a drink of water...only to find a new bowl of tomatoes on the kitchen table. SD had picked them after I'd gone to sleep. The garden has done very well, too well in fact and we've been working hard to over share our extras. We've basically become tomato pushers, arriving early at work with a bag of tomatoes, trying to entice others to try our tomatoes, trying to get they to them before another tomato garden beats us to the mark. Sometimes however it's been a case of tomato pusher to tomato pusher - and quite honestly, in the midst of all this I've also become a tomato taster. Who knew there were so many kinds, and in a year where we've already been eating a tomato a day* since July 23rd, who knew that we could still enjoy so many more!

 *Hands down favorite tomato 'recipes' - tomato sandwich, seconded by grilled cheese and tomato, followed by homemade pizza marinara, tomato and mozzarella salad, and gazpacho.

Summers I, and II

Summer, for the non school-affiliated breaks into two parts. Summer I, consisting of the warmest days, is also the most populated. Summer II, begins the week the kids go back to school. Sure the morning commute is slogged by buses and the college kids once again block the isles of the green line with their North Face packs, but the rest of the world is sunny, warm, and blissfully quiet.

Summer I, what with all the hiking, hiking, whale watching, kayaking and visiting has been close to perfect. Oh, and also the gardening. (Anyone want tomatoes, zucchini, or Chili peppers?) Too perfect for much writing, but here's a brief summary:

Florida

We visited relatives in Florida, cruising down the ICW, and driving up A1A for a great meal at Boston's, a favorite hangouts from my old Delray Beach years. Also got to enjoy one of my favorite Florida pastimes, sitting on a sheltered patio during a deluge, drinking, with good company. And a new but related pastime, dinning out during a deluge. The staff at the Salty Dog were fantastic and accommodating enough to move us under the porch just as the skies opened up.

Kayaking

This year's kayaking has been mainly in the Essex River Basin where I'm guiding for ERBA, mostly on Saturdays. The folks have been great and the water warm. I've probably done more swimming this year than in the past five combined.

Biking

We did the Bon Ton Roulet again this year and all I can say is that on July 26 I rode 70 miles into a 30 knot headwind in 94 degree heat. And, from all the other wonderful days of riding that year, i was ready to get back in the saddle the next day. WOOT!

Whale Watching

Still amazed that less than ten miles from the suburb I live in there are hundreds of whales just hanging out munching on plankton.

Hiking

Last weekend we returned to the 4000fters, completing Wildcats D and A on a perfect day and a perfect hike through fields of wildflowers and Monarch butterflies. These were our 45th and 46th. Only two more to go!


The Girls

A and A were with us for many of the summers events which puts a multiplier effect on the happiness level.

And now its time for Summer II!

Vacation, in a Glass, on A Bike

30 years I worked on a vineyard on the shores of Seneca Lake. It was brutally hot in summer and oppressively gray in winter. The grapes were mostly catawbas, a local red wine grape. While we also tried growing some french hybrids there really was no where to sell them. What grapes we did grow we trucked over to Taylor on Keuka Lake, just like most of the other grape growers in the Finger Lakes.

The predominate culture was pretty traditional. Traditional agriculture, in middle-class America. Only in Ithaca, 60 miles to the East on Cayuga Lake, was there any hint of another way, of anything organic, or any type of appreciation for local food, or quality wines. The Moosewood Restaurant was there, but they had yet to become famous, had yet to publish even their first cookbook.

During the Seneca Lake days, I also don't remember seeing a single bike. Considering the hills, I think if I had seen someone ride by, I might have thought them crazy.

Today, however, S.D. and I are heading back to the Finger Lakes for 6 days and 500 miles of bike riding. The Bon Ton Roulet is an annual
ride around the lakes, through the farm lands, small towns and vineyards. According to Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes , the presence of bike riders isn't the only change in the Finger Lakes.  Apparently the agricultural scene, and especially the wineries have improved greatly in the last 30 years. In the oblivion of youth, the only time I'd attending a wine tasting was on the hot summer days, and only as a prelude to a swim in the freezing waters of Lake Seneca. Now apparently, there are a number of highly regarding wineries producing excellent Rieslings, Pinot Noirs, Gewürztraminers and others. Many of which we'll be riding (perhaps stopping?) by.

The Tour de France ends tomorrow beginning with the traditional 40 km ride where the preemptive yellow jersey winner (Bradley Wiggins) will ride and drink champagne. Next week, I'm going to do a whole new tour impression. Riding through the Finger Lakes, I'll stop at few wineries, appreciate the work and change that has come to area and raise a glass in celebration.

When in Rome. SD and I go Mountain Biking

On the last day of our hiking vacation, SD and decided to try something different.

Summer in Park City, is mostly known for mountain biking and beer drinking. SD and I had already enjoyed a number of fine Utah microbrews but we had not gone mountain biking. In fact, I'd only gone twice before in my life (the second time ripping my hamstring) and SD had never gone. And so, being in Park City, we signed up for a two hour mountain bike lesson/ride with a guide from White Pine Touring.

The Guide was great. Very patient in explaining the differences between road and mountain biking. She didn't laugh too hard when she caught me drafting her on a single track. And she took us on a great spin through Cemetery Hill. At the beginning of the tour, she also spent time showing us how to turn and descend. Which is surprisingly different from turning and descending on a road bike. I did okay. S.D., who approached the lesson a bit more ambitiously than I,  took two 'diggers'. But he got up from both and seemed to enjoy the rest of the ride. It was only as we were driving to Salt Lake City that he began to wince in pain. On the plane he was grimly silent. It was only after returning home that he informed me that he thought he'd cracked a rib.

Good thing we went mountain biking on the last day!