The Great Lady Bug Suicide Pact

Several lady bugs getting ready to "drink the kool aid".

Up close and personal.

Our house has a lady bug infestation. That's not necessarily a bad thing; I mean, lady bugs are beneficial predators of destructive aphids and they're pretty cute. They don't eat wood like termites either. So all in all we are very accepting of lady bugs except....except when they go through mass die-offs in the house. Apparently lady bugs can over winter in the walls of a house and we are beginning to think that we have the equivalent of a massive lady bug city in the walls of our house. That would be O.K. if these over-wintering lady bugs woke up in late March and headed to the garden. Unfortunately, many of them seem to have seasonal clocks that are out of adjustment and so dozens of them show up in the living room everyday wondering if Winter is over. Unfortunately Winter is not over, and so after hanging around on the windows, the table, the floor, my computer and who knows what else, these unfortunate early adventurers die, littering the living room floor. We hold a brief memorial service and then vacuum them up. Zazou our Golden Retriever likes to eat a few every now and then as well. So there you have it, another reason to hope for an early return to Spring up here in the North Country. To stop the lady bugs from taking over the house!

Spring Comes Early to Vermont!

World class icycles

Our locally grown glacier slowly curls off of the roof.

That Spring will come early is at least our fervent hope, disappointed so far. As a matter of fact we had the coldest temperature of the year two nights ago, -14 F, and we have gotten a fresh 20 inches of snow in the last 6 days. This has been the snowiest year in recorded history here in Vermont. That includes a record breaking 48" in February. In fact it hasn't snowed this much here since the pliocene era approximately 1.5 millions years ago. Here at our place we've gotten a total of about 10 feet during December, January and February. The snow pack is now a solid 4 feet. In other news, the suicide rate is sky-rocketing across northern New England, and most migratory birds have canceled plans to leave the South before Spring 2009.

Where's global warming when you need it?

The Heartbreak of the World Class Athlete

Broken bindings - Broken dreams

World class mountaineer in this case. As you can see from the photo above, my trusty Tubbs snowshoes gave up the ghost during this morning's walk. I guess that means they're not that trusty after all. But trusty or not, I am now forced to give up my preparation for an ascent of Mt. Everest during the 2008 calendar year. And I was just getting ready to head to Colorado for some real altitude work. I've canceled those plans since altitude conditioning can be rather expensive. It's too late however for me to cancel the desert training portion of my preparation which is scheduled to start on 15 March in Burkina-Faso, Africa. I'm not sure why there even is a desert training module for the ascent of Everest, but my sponsor (Northrop-Grumman) insists on it and they are paying the bills after all. After locking myself in my bedroom and crying for several hours, I pulled myself together, went downtown and ordered a new set of snowshoes. As some of you may remember, Tubbs used to be made in Vermont. No longer. Tubbs shoes are made in China now like almost everything else on the planet. Fortunately, a company named TSL took over the Tubbs factory and TSL is making great snowshoes just an hour north of us in Burlington. I ordered a set of their snowshoes and they'll be here next week. I'll keep everyone advised of my Everest training schedule for 2009.

Wood

The Trees

The Forest

The House nestled in the Forest

Wood from the forest waiting to burn

Wood burning.

Working in my wood-shop the other day it occurred to me how central wood is to our lives here in North-Central Vermont. My house is built of wood and surrounded by woods. Those woods shelter and provide habitat for the animals that are of such abiding interest to me. Working with wood is my hobby. And if that weren't enough, we use wood for about half of our heat. Many of the people in this area make their livings from wood. There's are numerous loggers, saw mill operators, and furniture manufacturers all right here in our small town. But in the midst of all this practicality, we shouldn't forget the most important role of wood in our lives which is adding beauty. That's why we live here. The beauty of the forests and the mountains. We are not the hollow men; we are the woodsmen.

A New Convert

Our son Neil showed up yesterday for a brief weekend visit and immediately took to our Northwoods Winter lifestyle. We dressed him up in a modern version of the "voyageur" fashion so popular among French trappers in the 18th century and, voila, a new north country woodsman. Unfortunately he fagged out after a relatively short walk in snowshoes, and he appears to think it's rather cold here. The amount of snow came as a shock as well. We're bundling him back to Seattle on Monday before the next snow storm which is expected for Tuesday and Wednesday.

"Deja vu all over again..."

Grand Canyon of the Dog River which runs through our property.

Tired of the seeming never ending stream of postcard perfect snow covered Vermont landscapes on this blog? Yeah, well, welcome to my world. Except you can flit to another website as you yawn at the now boring perfect whiteness of it all. No such luck for me. I get to shovel the deck again after our 8 inch snow a couple of days ago. You can't help but thinking "Gee, we've had a lot of snow" when the guy with the big 4x4 pickup gets stuck trying to plow your driveway. And reading this you might be tempted to say, "Yes, that's a lot of snow!" But then you are forced to reconsider what a lot of snow is. Turns out it's a lot of snow when the second guy with the big 4x4 pickup comes to get the first guy out and gets stuck too. Of course, while you're down on your freezing hands and knees helping dig them out, you have lots of time to think about your choice in retirement locales. What the hell was it that we didn't like about New Mexico anyway?

p.s. Have you heard the joke about how much it snows in Vermont? No? Well, I'm sorry but you won't hear it from me because IT'S NOT FUNNY!

A Hard Year for the Deer

Apple tree bark stripped by the deer.

The early and continuing snows are making for a brutal year for the deer and other wildlife. The bears and the chipmunks are right to hibernate because "nature's bounty" this Winter has become "nature's cruel paucity". I guess the deer have it the worst. They are too heavy to walk on the surface of the snow and so they expend a great deal of energy struggling through the 4 foot depths we have on the ground right now. And of course there's the little matter of nothing to eat. I actually took this picture of our bark scoured apple tree a few weeks ago. Who know what the deer are eating now if they were reduced to eating bark weeks ago? On a brighter note, I saw Rocky the Flying Squirrel last night on one of our bird feeders. And we thought Barry the Barred Owl had eaten him!