Doom for Buckthorn.

8-12-12 VERMONT: It continues to be hot and rainy with another 0.95 inches of rain in several different showers. I cleared the narrow slot between the pasture split-rail fence and the stone wall that borders the yard near the road.

Several small trees, buckthorn, had grown there up to seven feet or so tall. Buckthorn is an non-native invasive, that looks like a cross between and a cherry and an apple tree. I will spray the stumps with RoundUp to prevent re-growth. I also pulled out berry briers and grape vines—it was a mess. Now I have another bunch of stuff to chip.

Has anybody noticed that the days are shorter? On August 21 the sun will be half-way back to the Equator.

New blooms: globe thistle.


Globe Thistle, just looks prickly.

Mr. Toad, pull up a chair, if you're into yellow.

Indian pipe, Monotropa uniflora, is a flowering plant, angiosperm, but without chlorophyll so it isn't green, doesn't need sun and grows in dark spots. It gets its energy, saprophytically or parasitically, from a fungus that, in turn, lives on tree roots, which brings us back around to the sun as the ultimate source of energy. Now wouldn't they make a nice corsage for the prom?

Rainy Day.

8-10-12 VERMONT: There was a T-storm last night while we were out to dinner with Andy, Kate and Sarah at Tip Top Cafe in WRJ, they treated, thanks, guys. This morning the invisible dog fence was a no show and probably got zapped in the storm. That storm delivered 0.4 inches of precip, along with the electricity.

Chippers, the tree clean-up folks, were here this morning and turned that fallen piece of sugar maple into chips, now in a pile under the barn run-in where it covers mud. Chippers also did some work on pines at the corner of the yard, road and pasture. More rain started as they finished and continued most of the day, sometimes quite hard and heavy, but with only distant thunder.

Bill Butler, the electrician, was here this afternoon to add to more outlets to the generator circuit.


Who's this one? Apparently it's a Clouded Sulfur.

Here are the Canada Geese from Grafton Pond-not exactly aloof.

Horse and friend, I'm not sure which one is the whisperer.

Loons on Grafton Pond.

8-8-12 VERMONT: We spent a couple hours canoeing on Grafton Pond, in Grafton, NH. It’s a beautiful lake, in spite of the name, with mostly preserved, pristine shoreline and dotted with pine-covered, granite islets. It’s in the shadow of Mt. Cardigan. There were a couple dozen folks there, scattered on the islands, in kayaks and canoes. We saw nothing with a motor. The water is clear to 15 or 20 feet. There are lots of coves, some marshy, to explore. You need to be on the lookout for shallow rocks and stumps.

It is a breeding site for loons, we saw them and heard the call, definitely a looney tune. A pair of half-grown immatures were following mom around while dad was off fishing. The loons often swim with most of the body under water unlike ducks. They dive for fish, stay under a long time and surface far from where they dove down. It’s hard to say for sure, but I think we saw six or eight different birds. At the boat launch there was a family of Canada geese looking for a handout.


Common Loon, summer plumage, the red eye probably helps with under-water vision.

Grafton Pond from the boat launch.

Moma and babies, when they're little, they ride on her back. They swim deep in the water.

Thanks for the back view.

Piney islet.

Living in the Air.

8-7-12 VERMONT: The last two days have been pleasant, low humidity, in the seventies after the last T-storm that dumped 0.85 inches of rain on us. That last storm also left a lot of road sand in the culvert, and I shoveled it out yesterday.

I spent some time today sitting on the deck railing watching the hummers come and go, mostly working the bee balm and the feeders. There were as many as three at a time, and they would rather chase each other away than share the many flowers. They only occasionally sit on a branch for a few seconds but mostly fly, dart, hover and move in any direction. I took dozens of pix and video to get a few decent images.

New blooms: blue lobelia.


Female Hummingbird working on bee balm, check those wings.

Same lady from the side, the green color makes it easy to pass as a leaf.

Male hummer has a darker head and red bib. It's not very prominent in this guy, probably he's not fully mature. These are all Ruby-Throated Hummingbirds, our only native in Vermont.

Female dancing in air.

Sugar Holes.

8-5-12 VERMONT: It was another action-packed weekend. Judy threw another dinner party—Alison, Dan, Lily, Bruce, Donna, Phyllis, Arnie, Lou and Ned were joined by Lisa and Zoe. The day was hot and muggy, again, but the evening was nice enough for everyone to be outside for the whole party.

All the overnight guest left this morning for points south. A huge branch fell off one of the roadside sugar maples this morning while the sky was clear and there was only a light breeze. It fell into the pasture without breaking the fence, as yet.

Today was another hot one, but tonight’s T-storms are supposed to bring in a cold front—we hope.

New blooms: star clematis.


Monarch?? Wrong-It's a Viceroy.

Viola. The radiating, dark lines guide the pollinator like the lights along a runway. The pollinator gets the nectar in the center hole while those pom-poms dust him with pollen. The rest of the petals are to attract from a distance.

Lobelia. Same deal. Radiating petals draw the pollinator while that sconce over the hole lays on the pollen.

Something Blue.

8-3-12 VERMONT: It’s hot, muggy, hazy again today. I was at Brown’s Nursery early and got a blueberry bush, Vaccinium corymbosum ‘Duke’, for the spot where the rose bush died and four chrysanthemum, two Dendranthema zawadskii ‘Mary Stoker’ and two ‘Overture’ to go in the bed in back of the old mudroom where I pulled out Mohican viburnum volunteers. I put the viburnums on the south end of the yard where there are other viburnums and burning bushes. I acidified the blueberry and alkalised the chrysanthemums. That was more than enough to do on a day like this.

The pond syphon is draining at a rate of 90 gal/hr, so it'll take a month or so to dump 80-100,000 gals, my estimate of the volume of the bottom two feet of the pond.

New blooms: pink coreopsis.

The water lilies have been blooming all summer.

Pond Experiment.

8-2-12 VERMONT: There’ve been a couple more brief showers and distant lightening. Today was hot with high humidity. I did another bunch of pruning, mostly around the house and cleaned up the bed where the rose bush was for new planting tomorrow. What I plant will depend on what looks good at the nursery.

The pond has not cleared with the treatments that have been done, in fact, it is a bit more murky than it was. So, yesterday I wired a hose to an anchor and dropped them in the middle of the pond with a float and rope attached to the anchor for later retrieval. The hose, three hoses actually, filled with water and were lead over the dam to the runoff brook. They are now syphoning water out of the pond, pond bottom water, the low oxygen saturation and high particle water.

Compared to the surface water, the bottom water is darker and murkier. It will be replaced by clear spring water and rain water. Usually the water added by rain just displaces other surface water. The nasty stuff on the bottom just sits there. There is seasonal turnover of the pond water when the bottom water is warmer than the surface water. This happens when the weather cools the surface in the fall and when the ice melts in the spring. The pond looks clearer at those times. Tomorrow I’ll figure out the rate of flow.

Everything is still blooming early. Wild asters are already opening, and the perennial chrysanthemums are out. The white phlox we have, an old cultivar, usually blooms in September, but is starting now.

New blooms: chrysanthemum, asters, white phlox.


Helenium, also known as sneezeweed for its late blooming season coinciding with ragweed.

Giant Swallowtail butterfly. The wing-span is at least three inches.

Chrysanthemum, out before its time.