Category Archives: Nature

The Wild

Helene

I’d been meaning to write up something about hurricane/tropical storm Helene, but I gut busy with my own recovery process and wanted to be able to write the whole story. I’m not sure it’s all over, but, here goes.

In the week leading up to the storm here, it became increasingly likely that we would experience some sort of tropical system here. I don’t think many people, including myself, really grasped the magnitude of what was coming this way. A lot of that is history: we’ve had tropical storms come all the way up there (a couple hundred miles from the nearest coast), but it was always just some extra wind and rain. Rarely would a storm have tropical-storm force winds, and barely that.

Helene was different. It came ashore on the inside corner of Florida, and had a lot of momentum to carry it well inland. Still, though, as I looked at the advisories and forecasts early that Friday morning, 2024-09-27, I was still thinking this would just be more of what we’ve seen before.

Wow (Helene information courtesy of the National Hurricane Center).


I lost utility power at 06:27 EDT that morning as the storm approached with tropical-storm force, but Darn Near Hurricane-strength winds. Locally winds gusted to 70 mph, where it could be measured. As power lines fell, weather reporting stations fell off-line en masse. Knowing power was going to be out for “a while”, maybe even hours (?), I shut down all my IT gear and settled down to wait for daylight.
As the light came, I stuck my camera out during a bit of a lull in the heavy rain.

Once things settled down, I ventured out. WHEW that was close. This tree came down and just brushed the house, doing no damage (to the house):

As I looked around I thought it would be a good idea to let some people know I was still here, but while I had a cell signal, nothing was actually going anywhere. Well, can’t do what I can’t do. I took a cue from Nature: as soon as the storm abated, all the usual birds, squirrels, and others were right back to business in my back yard. I took that to mean I should do the same, get back to work and start doing stuff to recover.

I spent the better part of the day clearing that tree from the house, then headed out into the neighborhood. There was a lot of this sort of thing, mostly on the east side of the neighborhood. That’s the direction the winds were blowing from.

The lake level peaked the day after. There is a dock under all that water, which was close to six feet above normal.

By now it was clear that I was in a disaster area and I should try to find a new normal, at least for the foreseeable future. Fortunately my solar panels were undamaged and my inverters have a stand-alone function: I could flip a switch and activate outlets directly on the inverters to power whatever the available sunshine would power. That necessitated the use of some extension cords run in from the garage.

With my Internet router powered up, I found I had full network access. My local carrier, PRTC, was up and running without any apparent issues, so a big tip o’ the hat to them.

The magnitude of that accomplishment became even more clear as I fired up my laptop and tried to get into systems at work. The data center itself was unharmed and had full power, but communications were out all over the place. Private lines, MPLS, two independent ISPs, all were down at times. As some things came up, I was able to connect (via PRTC) to our New York location and route back south. Our network team moved mountains (and often deferred moving their own personal moutains) to work with what we had and provision a circuit with another ISP that was up in record time.

Meanwhile, I settled down to a pattern of tree clearing, checking in on work and anything I could help with there, and eating back-packing meals (my camping aspirations came in handy – I had no shortage of hot meals). Here’s a few of my favorite things:

As luck would have it, we’re only about 3 miles from the electrical substation, and most of those lines are out in the open with little to fall on them. The Sunday after the storm I went to bed shortly after dark (might as well) and was awakened by a “peep” that the CO2 detector makes when it powers up. After just over 2 and a half days we had power back here. I didn’t want to be too optimistic, but I got up and moved the refrigerator from the currently-inactive solar power feed to utility power.

That was a Big Moment in getting things back towards normal, but checking the Laurens Electric outage map still showed that most all of the county was still without power. It’s a bit ironic that usually our utility crews are going to Florida to help with storm recovery, but now we had crews coming from all over to help us here, including some from Florida as their recovery efforts wound down. It would be a full two weeks before all power was restored to the county. Again, a Big tip o’ the hat to our utility crews and the crews that came from all over to help us.

The day after the storm I called several tree people I knew and left messages. I’d been able to clear the tree in the back yard from the house, but another tree had developed an ominous tilt towards the house that it didn’t have before. Fortunately one of the tree guys was able to get here Tuesday and lay it down. That became another tree-clearing project for me. I didn’t want to tie him up any more than necessary to assure my safety, knowing that there were probably still trees on people’s houses.

Having no real reason to go anywhere (I had food, water, and communication), I didn’t venture out until a week after the storm. I didn’t want to risk getting in the way of recovery efforts. As I headed into town, there were areas where you could think nothing had happened, but then just down the road there’d be tree bits piled up on either side of the road. Or utility poles that were leaning over (and weren’t before). Utility crews were working in many places.

Most businesses were open, including the supermarket, although there were bare shelves here and there and they were unable to process credit cards. Fortunately the bank was open. Bar&chain oil was in short supply (and I was about out), but I was able to find some to feed my chain saw.

It was about a month after the storm when I had opportunity to visit the Laurens County Park where there’s a disc golf course through the woods that makes a nice walk (I’m not nearly proficient enough at disc golf to attempt that course). I believe this goal is a par 6, or was a par 6, it’s probably more than that now.

On black Friday I went in the opposite direction to most humans and spent the better part of the day in the woods at Croft State Park. There were a lot of areas like this:

An enormous amount of work had gone into getting trails cleared and re-opened, with still more to do, in addition to repairs to some of the facilities.

I implied that maybe we’re not done with this yet. North Carolina had things a lot worse than we did here and recovery efforts are still going on. There are places that simply don’t exist any more. And every once in a while I’ll look and think “that tree wasn’t leaning over before”, so there are still weakened trees that are at risk of falling. And one could fall on a power line, but I know what I’d do now.

All in all, we survived pretty well here. None of my neighbors, nor I, had any house damage from falling trees. A few had some basement flooding issues. One neighbor said they didn’t know where their boat was, but it’s not a big lake.

Along the way I made up a list of things to be Thankful for:


  1. That tree I had fall over did not hit the house; that could have been really bad.

  2. I had ample food and water on hand.

  3. With the above, I had no need to travel.

  4. My solar panels were undamaged and I could power things like laptops and the refrigerator off them.

  5. Being able to power the refrigerator meant I did not lose any food.

  6. The weather in the wake of the storm was really pleasant and benign, with lots of sun, light winds, and moderate temperatures.

  7. PRTC (Piedmont Rural Telephone Co-op) was there every time I powered up my router.

  8. Our utility power was restored after just 2 days and 14.5 hours.

  9. I was able to get the tree that was threatening the house taken down in just a few days.

  10. Once communications with the data center were restored, I could resume working from home.

  11. The tree that fell over was one I had my eye on, thinking that at some point I’d have to get someone to take it down. That would have cost a large some of money, probably 4 figures. Helene took care of that.

  12. Water and gas utilities were undisturbed.

  13. While a lot of trees fell over, many more were left standing, and forests are intact.

  14. I will miss my fallen trees, which provided a lot of shade around the house, but I found there were some tree-like plants growing up under the one I had cut down, and it’ll be a lot easier to grow vegetables on the back porch now with plenty of sun. There’s a tree that started itself in a pot on the back porch I can transplant to start taking the place of the fallen one.

  15. Everybody in my circle was safe.

Going forward, I still have a couple large chunks of that tree in the back yard. One I might use to make a place to sit and watch the bird feeders and weather station. Another one is kind of propped up on some limbs. I’m thinking I’ll leave that one where it fell (again, it’s in a good place to sit) and carve the storm name and date on it as sort of a monument. And I added chainsaw wood carving to my list of things I might do when I retire; I have a good bit of raw material laying around now.

I actually did take a shot at a little chainsaw carving. I figured my first attempt would be grotesque and hideous, even frightening, so I attempted to carve a bit of a Halloween decoration:

Boo.

Creature Feature 2024 #3

These pictures were taken back around the end of September, and I’d been meaning to post them, but I got a little busy with something called Helene. I’ll have more to say about Helene later, after the dust settles a bit more.

This Kildeer was operating along the top of the dam:

I can’t help but wonder if this is one of the Canada Geese that was rehab’d and released after encountering a industrial sludge pond. And, more kildeer:

I don’t see Crows along the lake so much as in the woods:

Turtles were out that day:

Spotted one of our Bald Eagles. In fact, he gave me a pretty good look as she flew by:

A Great Egret making a nice full-stall landing:

And, of course, the obligatory Great Blue Heron pictures. I saw several doing some airframe maintenance:


And the payoff for that maintenance:

Creature Feature 2024 #2

So, where have I been? It seems like I’ve been in catch-up mode all summer, and I’ve been doing some volunteer work at a nearby wildlife rehab, the PAWS Animal Wildlife Sanctuary. Really, it’s all volunteer work, as the organization is all-volunteer. Mostly it’s been maintenance work, like pressure washing and clearing vegetation from flight pens and such, but I did have one Suptertastical weekend releasing two owls and two hawks that had gotten all better. There’s some videos on their facebook page.

Anyway, on to the lake. First, let me get this UFO-quality photo out of the way. I was heading up a narrow inlet when a Bald Eagle came down the inlet and flew right past me. I had milliseconds to grab the camera and, well, this was the best I got:

I’d been fooled by these guys before, thinking I was looking at Egrets, but I believe these are Little Blue Herons. They’re all white when they’re young, like the one on the right, and the one on the left I’ll bet is starting to get his adult plumage.

I got some neat shots of this Great Egret (yes, this one really is an Egret). As you can see, there are trees dropping leaves already, probably due to the lack of rain we’ve had for most of August.

“Climb at Egret’s discretion.”


That’s a Killdeer in the background getting lunch. The foreground bird looks like a sandpiper, but I couldn’t really match him up to get a decent ID. Most possibilities have a line across the eye, but this one didn’t have any such marking. Maybe a Solitary Sandpiper?

Two female Mallards. “You watch that way, I’ll watch this way.”

And, of course, the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture:

Creature Feature 2024 #1

I’ve been busy lately, but that hasn’t stopped me from noticing the world around me and occasionally whipping out the camera. Here’s some random pictures from the last couple of months.

This little snake was patrolling around the house:

Deer end up on the side of the road with distressing regularity around here, but we do have efficient cleanup crews.

This patch of spring flowers attracted lots of butterflies:

Even this Green Anole was showing a fresh “coat” for spring:

The cicada rush is about over here now, but for a while we had a lot of these “cicada shell casings” hanging around:

Now this is a “bloomin’ onion”! There’s a bumble bee under that left-hand bloom having a ball (my front yard is more “meadow” than “lawn”, and I like it that way):

I’ve seen Tomato Hornworm caterpillars like this, but not one of these caterpillars. Those white things are the eggs of a parasitic wasp that is a friend to our tomato plants.

On the lake early one morning, I got way closer than usual to this Heron before I saw him. I wondered if he was ok, but I came back this way about half an hour later and he was gone, so maybe he was just waking up (the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture).

Kayaking kickoff 2024

It seems that ever since I got back from my epic road trip I’ve been in catch-up mode. So, I’m not really surprised that it took this long to get my kayaking season started.

I actually got out last weekend on a sunny, if slightly cool, bright puffy-cloud day. The lake level was about 40cm above normal, which I always like because that lets me get into more little feeder streams and backwaters. This included one that I never could get into before (that’s not the actual route, just a little place along the way through the woods):

which led to a really beautiful little pond.

Shroonchyaa!
I followed that up with a little dawn outing on Monday:

This morning was a very different day, again cool, but low overcast and breezy out of the northeast, enough to create some chop on the lake near the dam and Osprey nest. Prepare to land! Gear down!

The dreary-looking conditions seemed to have a lot of the wildlife laying low, but of course, the Geese are (almost) always here:

And ducks:

And, finally, the obligatory Great Blue Heron picture:

Powhatan, VA

On the flip side of my recent road trip I stopped on the way home to spend a day in the woods at Powhatan State Park in Virginia. As at Lake Anna, I opted to for a yurt, which again was completely as described on the park’s web site. More than a tent, less than a cabin, but pretty nice.

The park is bordered on roughly three sides by the James River.

which, yes, was visibly flowing, so the warning seems well-advised.

I like to get an early start. A lot happens in Nature at dawn, and I’m no exception.

Trails were well marked with signposts at intersections and blazes on trees.

I should have brought my Good Camera, as cellphones make lousy wildlife cameras, but you can see a couple birds in this tree.

That was on a trail that followed the border between an open area and the woods. At one point I was almost engulfed in a flock of small birds that bolted from the open field into the trees.

Some trails followed border areas like that, others went right into the woods. All were pretty easy hikes, although there were numerous wet/muddy areas from recent rains. That was actually kind of fun, with my waterproof shoes.

In another avian encounter later in the day, I was walking along a trail in the woods when a Blue Bird appeared on a tree branch bordering the trail. We watched each other as I approached, then he flew down the trail a few meters and waited for me to get close again. This repeated about four times until the trail went out of the woods. It was like he was leading me along, and probably was: leading me away from something like a nest area. I was happy to play along.

This area looked to have been intentionally burned, as the edges were very defined.

Plenty of flowers were up and taking advantage of the warm weather:


With a lot of flowers blooming, insects were also out and about:



There is a rather large snake in the grass. I saw him crossing the trail but she was into the brush before I could get the photo (did I mention that cellphones make lousy wildlife cameras?).

A raccoon had recently been here:

Another failed attempt at a crop circle, like I saw at Lake Anna? Come on aliens! Get your act together!

I knew I was running out of trails faster than I was running out of day, so I inquired at the park office if there were other trails that you had to ask about, maybe some trail maps they kept under the counter (wink, wink, nudge, nudge). They denied any such trails, but I did find an unmapped “Overlook” trail off the side of the campground, rather inconspicuously marked with a small signpost. It was just a short, <1km trail that lead to a couple of overlooks up above the river.

Once again, I was blessed with great weather. Actually, when I left home almost two weeks ago, after looking at forecasts and climatological data, I figured naw, I didn't need to bring shorts. As the forecast developed, it became clear that was a mistake, which I rectified with a brief stop at a big-box retailer along the way to the park.

Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/10959939750

Assabet River NWR, MA

That same road trip that took me to Lake Anna, VA also carried me to the vicinity of the Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge in Massachusetts. Of course, I can’t pass up an opportunity to wander in the woods.

As you might expect from the name, there are wetlands here, although the trails did not go all the way to the Assabet River itself.


A rather complicated passage to get out on the fishing pier.

The trails were pretty easy fare, and adequately marked. There weren’t any blazes, but most of the intersections had some sort of signage.

Maybe it’s just the way they do things in this part of the world, this is the only example of trail sigh graffiti I’ve seen in my travels. For the record, I did not see any nude trails, they all had decent coverings of leaves.

This area used to be part of the US Army’s Natick Labs before 2000, and there are numerous old bunkers around.


One thing that is different in this part of the world from my home range is that the towns are all shoved up against each other. There’s no leaving one town and going 15 miles to get to the next one. This marker along the trails is where three towns come together.

This is the smallest area I hiked on this trip, but any time in the woods is worth it. Again, the weather was perfect, starting off chilly but warming up nicely in full sun. A nit to pick: I didn’t find a printable trail map online. I always carry a paper map (or two), just in case all the technology falls apart.

I thought sure that I’d see some snow on the ground in Massachusetts this time of year, but that was a disappointment. Another sign of climate change.

Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/10918279753

Lake Anna, VA

On a recent road trip I made a stop at Lake Anna State Park in Virginia to get a break from the road and do a little hiking. I had to plan this well in advance, and not knowing what weather to expect, I booked a yurt, which was just as described on the park’s web site.

Which included a nice kitchen table:

The subject lake:

The trails were well marked with sign posts at intersections:

and blazes on the trees:

There were some muddy areas on the trails due to recent rains, but were still pretty easy fare.

A couple of historic sites of interest were along the way.

Trails included a number of stream crossings.

Most all had a bridge and a horse crossing. I usually took the horse crossing just to make it more interesting.

There were a couple of little picnic areas along the lake with a place to land a small boat. I ranted on this earlier, this is another example of human recklessness. Yes, those were beer cans.

A failed attempt at a crop circle? Those aliens are getting lax…

Parts of the Pigeon Run and Gold Hill trails ran along a power line right-of-way. And yes, there were some serious ups and downs along the way.

I was horribly disappointed at not finding a hill of gold after climbing that Gold Hill trail. Just a pile of gravel. Sigh.

Just a kind of interesting formation in a tree stump. The way the wood decomposed left a deep pattern embossed in the stump.

I might think this the work of beavers, but higher up than I’ve seen before.

All in all, a very nice walk in the woods before resuming my road trip the next day. Weather was perfect, with the previous day’s rain gone and a hike day that started cool and overcast, but became sunny later. The rain waited to return until after I had roosted for the night, so perfect timing.

Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/10889730943

On nice things

Let’s say your Father gave you a car. A really Nice, high-end car. Maybe a Bugatti, with leather interior, W16 engine that purrs like a kitten and delivers instant power. A RRRRRREEEAAAAllly sweet ride. Dad toses you the keys and says “it’s all yours!”.

Now, yeah, it’s your car, you can do what you want. But how do you think your Father is going to feel when he sees you scraping the paint off on guard rails, your rowdy friends on the hood holding on to the windshield wipers, the oil Way past time for a change, fast food bags and stale french fries all over the seats, engine miss-firing because of all the over-revving, the beer stains… Maybe you don’t care what Dad thinks, but, come on, couldn’t you do better? Wouldn’t that be respectful of your Father and what He gave you?

Suppose Dad didn’t just buy you the car, but made it Himself? Wouldn’t you feel just a bit bad about trashing it?

And God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” – Genesis 1:26 (KJ21).

That sounds like we were handed the keys to a world. A RRRRRREEEAAAAllly nice high-end world. A world lushly upholstered with life that all works together like a well-tuned W16. Shouldn’t we be taking care of it? Keeping it clean? Keeping it running smoothly, as it was designed to run?

I was just out picking up garbage along a little ~0.5km stretch of lake shore.

Come on, can’t we do better?`

Croft in 2024

For various reasons it’s been difficult to get out much lately, so today was a trip to the forest of Croft State Park, a favorite place for a walk in the woods. Both me and my avian side needed to get out.
[bird] That’s for sure.
[human] Ahem. Anyway, Morning in the forest is always a good time.

There’s a lot more water in and flowing out of Lake Craig than last time I was here. Then the lake level was down for maintenance, but recent rains have filled it back up.

Lots of water for the ducks to play in now.

This looked a bit precarious, but it was to the side of the trail, so no concern.
[bird] Unless you land on the wrong part of it. Hey, you should let me write this, I know way more about forests than you ever will!
[human] All right, my assertive avian half. Start peckin’ the keyboard!

[bird] You don’t survive in the wild without being assertive, even aggressive at times. So here’s a tree that died some time ago but has turned into a veritable high-rise condo (as you might call it) for all sorts of forest residents:

How here’s another example of human nonsense, running this “road” right through the middle of the forest.
[human] That road is the edge of the forest.
[bird] No it isn’t. Look! There’s forest on both sides of it! This .. thing .. is right in the middle of the forest.

Now there’s a flight hazard, that TV tower.

[human] Guess we go on foot here, eh?
[bird] The sign doesn’t say anything about wings.
[human] Well, aircraft are vehicles.
[bird] A bird on the wing is no more a “vehicle” than you’re a bus when you walk.

The human had trouble finding the trail in areas like this, but I knew where we were going.

Now you’d think with a name like “Rocky Ridge Trail”, the trail would be up there on the ridge. But, No. You’d also think there’d be more rocks around.

Now here’s a nice little spot, with the water keeping things just a bit warmer and greener. I’ll bet there’s some insects there that’ll make a good snack. Let me…
[human] uh, no…
[bird] Wuss. Alright, where’s those peanuts you said you brought?

Deer tracks mixed in with the horse tracks that the human found reassuring when the trail wasn’t so easy for him to follow.

Down to the Fairforest Creek and more greenery. Got any more of those peanuts?

Clearly all that rain had the water up over this bridge. At least this one didn’t get washed away like that other one a while back.

I didn’t want to leave, but the human said I ate almost all the food we brought, and didn’t seem interested in the stuff to eat all around us.
[human] Are you done?
[bird] I guess so.

Strava link: https://www.strava.com/activities/10697234481