Cruel to be Kind (2/4/2022)

Nick Lowe wrote the song with the same title of this post some time ago (1979) and somehow this week I was reminded of at least the title. Then came a poll from George Washington University that I saw on TV where one of the statistics was that Republicans’ (or conservatives) dearest value was freedom while for Democrats (or liberals) it was ethics (and civility). This hits home for me very hard after what transpired this past week, but let me explain.

First, let’s look at Lowe’s lyrics. It starts out with:

“Oh I can't take another heartache
Though you say you're my friend, I'm at my wit's end
You say your love is bonafide, but that don't coincide
With the things that you do
And when I ask you to be nice, you say

You've gotta be cruel to be kind, in the right measure
Cruel to be kind, it's a very good sign
Cruel to be kind, means that I love you, baby”

These first few words of this love song are enough but the words “cruel to be kind“ are repeated over and over. What happened this week? Monday morning when walking my dog Jasper in the woods behind our home, I discovered that someone with 4-wheelers or ATVs had gone into the woods, driven the trails and torn through the Grafton pond that I have been following for the past 20 years, and probably shown you photographs of here in my blog. These ponds are habitat to the endangered Mabee’s salamander, barking tree frog, Harper’s fimbristylis and pond spice. Angrier and angrier looking at all the destruction I walked home. I called the game inspector for the park. She came to inspect the area and she later told me that the vandals destroyed four ponds. By the way, the area is posted; it tells visitors that no motorized vehicles are allowed and that we all need to stay on the trails.

At least the tracks were still visible in the snow that had fallen on Friday night.  You can see how high the water sometime is in the pond by the yellow pollen line near Jasper's tail in the bottom picture.

The inspector tell me that the culprits also went onto Federal (National Park Land) and this has become a Federal, State and local issue. She asked me who I thought it was that did this. Kids three houses down from us have been terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs and dirt bikes for the past weeks, I tell her. We were walking the woods on Sunday morning at 11, the woods were pristine, and just before we got home we heard the ATVs start up and the kids were leaving home on them. Around 4 pm when we took the dogs around the block the kids were pressure washing the ATVs in their driveway, the ATVs were covered with mud. I also told the inspector that this could all be circumstantial. She told me that law enforcement would definitely be on their way to check things out and talk to them and their parents.

I put a note with photographs on our development’s Facebook website about what had occured. I called the culprits vandals and called it vandalism. I mentioned that law enforcement was looking into the matter. I wanted to make sure that folks understood that the national park and the city park could easily deny us access to the area. I purposely never mentioned kids or what I told the inspector. I intended my note to be cruel to be kind and let the guilty or at least their parent soul search about what had transpired. I was also afraid that this incident would ruin it for us all and that we would be denied access to the woods. It brought out a few comments that wondered if it were the kids that were terrorizing the neighborhood with their ATVs, but mostly remarks about how terrible it was. But then it started, civility went out the window. Parents started to defend kids:

• They needed to be able to go outdoors
• We have all these natural areas behind our development but we can’t enjoy them (by the way, I enjoy it every day)
• They had no place to play with their ATVs around here
• Who are we to tell them what they can do and cannot do
• This is public land and should be open for all to us they see fit

Some folks became amazingly defensive of their kids, while in my post I deliberate did not accuse anyone and did not even hint at the fact that these kids were suspects. They became uncivil, abusive and in fact fighting for their freedom. This became particularly apparent when I asked the simple question: “so teach them (kids) they can get away with breaking the law and destroying the environment?” Here I saw exactly what I learned just now the difference between Republicans (65% of the electorate in our development) and Democrats (the other 35%), abusive and very vocal about freedom versus ethical, environmental and empathetic, respectively. You also saw whose kids did it; that the parent’s know it, they came out in a hurry and that they were trying to shelter them from the authorities.

At this point, I needed to stop all comments to my post and the administrator of our Facebook page had to remind folks of the rules of civility. Here I was trying to be protective of the environment and of people’s enjoyment of it; however, my post ended up to be too “cruel to be kind” (to some). That is why that song popped up in my head. It seems that we are increasingly loosing civility in our society and more polarized; another example of schismogenesis at work!

Come on baby, light my fire (11/21/2018)

On January 8, 2015 Donald Trump, the man soon to be our president tweeted the following:

“Who is paying for that tedious Smokey Bear commercial that is on all the time - enough already!”

The latest count (Sunday, November 18) of the ”Camp fire” is 77 people dead and 993 missing. During a visit, the president seemed to have claimed that more raking would have helped, because that is what they do in a forest rich Finland. Moreover, the president did mention that he did not think it was climate change that caused it, but that he wanted great climate, which left many who attended the meeting baffled at what he meant. I wonder if he got a whiff of some nearby pot plantations going up in smoke.

Well, as we all can imagine, the internet has been having fun with all this, but on a serious side, this is a terrible situation. I am not writing this blog post to complain about or have fun with our president; well I admit, maybe a little.

Forest fires are a serious business; as we can see they can cause the loss of life and extensive property damage. I am in no way trying to downplay the severity of what happened with the title of my blog.  The pictures and the videos on YouTube are horrific.  The problem is that wildfire is a natural element of nature and actually a vital part of nature in many cases, depending of course on the ecosystem. Forest fires are needed to open up the system, the decrease the litter or dead materials that have accumulated on the soil surface.  Our problem is that fire suppression has caused the accumulation of too much fuel which results in these destructive fires.

The accumulating material also causes other problems.  It chokes out the seedlings and small plants trying to germinate, and areas that are burned show a tremendous greening up after a fire.  In addition, fire kills some of the smaller weedy species, sick and damaged trees; it opens up the canopy, allowing the sunlight to reach the floor of the forest giving the herbaceous plants an additional  chance to proliferate.

Some forest dwelling species are actually dependent on forest fires. My favorite example is the red cockaded woodpecker in the southeastern part of the U.S. This bird needs to nest in big old pine trees in a forest. However, these forest need to be open with often a grassy understory and no small trees. The way to maintain this was through fires. In the old days, this was not a problem, but with increased habitation, folks started controlling forest fires and oaks to the detriment of the woodpecker invaded the woods. Wildfires killed the oaks seedlings and the control of fire have a region-wide negative impact on the woodpecker population.

The woodpeckers were able to thrive in one particular area. That was on the life-firing ranges of military bases in the southeast. The life artillery often would set these areas ablaze with wildfires and this was just what the birds needed. While they were not bothered a lot by the artillery (except by a direct or a nearby hit), the resulting fires would keep the ecosystem open. Nowadays, managers use fire or control burns to manage remaining habitat of or restore habitat for the red cockaded woodpecker.

When we moved into our home some 18 years ago and walked in the woods behind our home, we noticed that the area had recently burned. There were black burn marks on the bases of the trees and actually, there were two areas that it obviously was replanted in the past 5 to 10 years, which I always assumed was the result of some kind of disturbance, which could have been a very intense crown fire.

Walking through the area with the burn marks now, I cannot find them anymore. The trees have grown and new bark has covered all the burn scars. It reminds me of some of the dendrochronology (tree aging) work I did in New Mexico in the late 1980. There, on 150 year-old or even older trees we could still see exactly what year there was a fire in these woods. In addition, we could see what direction the fire came from that year. It is pretty darn cool to be able to see that, but I digress. What it shows was that even in New Mexico where it is dry, the high elevation forests (at 7 to 9000 feet or so) did have a regular fire regime, as do most ecosystems in the U.S. Albeit, the fire frequency there was much longer.

Behind my home, like most in most of the ecosystems, fire suppression reigns supreme. What is happening is that there is a tremendous amount fuel building up in these areas. This include years of leaf litter, fallen branches, twigs and whole trees that were brought down by storms. The result is that herbs have a difficult time growing, seeds cannot germinate, and if a fire happens to get started, it may get so hot and high that it could get all the way into the canopy of the trees instead of being just a ground fire. Once it hits the tree canopy, the fire can spread fast and easily. It then can jump to roofs of homes and even create its own weather. Now it is difficult to contain. This is what we are seeing in California. 

This picture shows an area with some old fallen trees.  While a fire may burn some of this, these trees will most likely not create much of an issue during a wildfire.  They are wet and rotting.  They are likely to smolder; moreover, they are important habitat for the salamanders and other creatures living in the woods behind our home.

This area on the other hand has a lot of wood laying over each other like "pick up sticks."  This is already set up as a nice camp fire.  If we ever get a wildfire through here, I am afraid it is off to the races.  You can see the homes in the background.

 Sections of the woods behind our home have a huge accumulation of debris. We have had a number of hurricanes that threw trees, folks from our neighborhood have used it as dump for their yard waste, and we have had more than 25 years of accumulation of litter. I am not sure, but I estimate that the fire frequency of our woods is somewhere between 10 and 20 years, if not more frequent. Yes, our woods are very wet, so a fire would be spotty and a burn would look like the spots on a Dalmatian, or better the areas not burned would look like the black spots on a Dalmatian. However, that is ok, it contributes to the diversity of the woods behind our home. 

One thing is for sure, we need to stop being afraid of fire, because if we do, fuel will build up and we might end up with a catastrophic fire instead. While smoky is correct, control burns are good, and forest management is important. While control burns may not have prevented the “Camp fire”, together with well-funded forest management it might have been less severe and less catastrophic. The same could be the case behind our home. The woods are divided in two sections, and the part managed by Newport News is better managed and in better shape than the part managed by the National Park Service, which is underfunded. They simply do not have enough money to do forest management. 

People on Twitter were having fun with this picture after the president's visit to the disaster area in California over the weekend.  It is what has happened and what we are also seen in our National Park; a severe lack of funding.

Therefore, my call to action is to:

1. Insist on fully funding forest and wildland management, whether that is by way of the Forest Service, the BLM, the National Park Service, or even your local state or county land/park management agency, and
2. Make fire (read: control burns) your friend!

Meditation and frogs (9/16/2018)

Living next to a nature preserve, a natural area, woods, or whatever you want to call it, has its positive points and negatives. For one, we will never have any development behind our home. Secondly, I have a place to practice my forest bathing; if not just by standing in our yard and meditatively stare into the woods, I can just disappear into it. I also have a lot of material for my classes; especially the wetland class I teach. In addition, I take a lot of pictures in those woods and my Instagram page is replete with them. Finally, they are a rich source for some of my blog posts.

Here it sounds that I am using the woods for selfish reasons; but that is far from the truth. While I am still debating whether to allow advertising on my blog, for right now I don't make a penny by writing it. My objective was and still is educational and sharing some of my photographs, my thoughts, life experience, philosophy and love for the natural world. Isn’t that what the internet was intended to be, a free exchange of ideas? But then, who could not use some extra money.

But I digress. To me there is almost nothing better than to step out of our back door on a Saturday morning after my morning coffee and reading the newspaper, to walk to the edge of our very small plot of land and just stand there for maybe five minutes and take it all in; to absorb it all. I may even walk 30 or 50 steps into the woods to this small hill, most likely a remnant of a redoubt that was constructed by Washington’s troops during the Revolutionary War. It is at this point where everything I experienced the past week starts making sense. I look up at the top of the trees and watch the warblers hunting among the leaves in the top of the canopies. I listen to the calls of the blue jays which sometimes sound like a hawk; the calls from cat birds which, you guessed it, sounds like the meowing of a cat; the towhees that invite me to “drink your tea”; red-bellied woodpeckers; and chickadees.

“Oh”, you might say, “isn't that a selfish reason, dumping all the weeks thoughts, worries and troubles in the woods and on to those poor birds?” I promise you they can handle it. Nature is much more resilient than us human beings. They are not faced by me standing there and taking it all in. Actually, the chickadees sometimes get pretty annoyed with my presence and they are the first ones to let me know that, in particular when I bring my dog Jake with me to just take it all in. They’ll come to a branch close to us and sound their nasal alarm, as in “we see you; now go away.” Jake knows the weekend routine. He gets up and walks to the back door the second I am done reading the newspaper and get up; it is time “to walk the grounds” or “explore the out-back” as I call it.

This past Sunday the “out-back” was amazing. But I must take a step back. In a previous post, I mentioned that the weather Gods have it out for me. Well, they must have known that we were at a concert in Williamsburg on Saturday night and that I was driving back. The skies opened up on the way home. I could not see a thing while driving. The way I drove was from dashed line on the highway to dashed line, saying out loud: “there is the next line” and keeping those lines under my left tire. A neighbor with a rain gauge told me later that we got 5 inches of rain that evening. All that rain must have fallen in maybe an hour or so; our neighborhood was partially flooded. 

This is what the woods looked like in the morning.  Part of the yard were flooded.  In the far left you can see the bee-hive we have in our yard

We walk our dogs in the evening before going to bed. We could already hear what was going on. Frogs had come out of hibernation immediately! It was amazingly loud. Later, even with the windows closed you could hear them inside our home. The next morning, we saw why. Our back yard was still under water. The noise was amazing (I made a recording and will try to imbed it <here>). This was one of the few times that it was so loud in the 18 years we have lived in our home. The interesting part is that the next day it was quiet again behind our home. The frogs had either gone back to bed or done their thing and were exhausted after a night and morning of debauchery. They are so opportunistic.

Nature is wonderful, the wetlands or Grafton ponds behind our home are a unique ecosystem. This is why the area was designated as a nature preserve. It protects the endangered Mabee salamander and a sedge. Obviously, the frogs do not mind this arrangement. At night we have them on our windows and sliding door, waiting for unsuspecting insects to fly by, attracted to the bright interior.

But let me also come full circle and get back to the start of this post. As I mentioned there are positives and negatives of living next to these woods. The possible negatives of living where we live include deer, ticks and mosquitoes. At times we have enough of them, but for right now the positives still outweigh the negatives, especially those evenings and mornings when there is a cacophony of frogs, or when I can go and explore the out-back.

Seeing the forest from the trees (1/24/2018)

Such a great expression. I am afraid the title says it all, that what many people imagine when they think about a forest: a group of trees. They see trees and they think they see a forest; however, there is so much more to it. So what is a forest? In this and in some of the next posts I would like to visit the world of forests with you, mostly by way of my back yard but with excursions elsewhere. If you are a regular reader, you have been out there with me already; in my most recent post I mentioned a few of them, but a search of my labels for forest, trees, nature deficit disorder, forest bathing, Newport News Park, and alike should you get an idea of some of the things I have written about. At the end of this post I have a list of some of the most relevant blog post where I discuss the biology or management of the forests behind our home. For the rest, I will revisit them and some new subjects.

I took this photograph on December 15 in the woods behind our home and to me it symbolizes the title of this post "seeing the forest from the trees." There are a lot of trees out there.

It was fascinating to see that the word “forest” and the word “foreign” seem to have the same root, they come from the Latin word “foris” which seems to mean outside. Boy here we can dive head first into the politics of today here already but I will restrain myself. This evolved to “forestem silvam” or "outside wood" and to the French “forêt” translated as woods or forest. But as you see, it has to do something to do with wood (trees perhaps) and the outside. However, I do want to revisit the word foreign. I do think there has been this inherent fear of forests (hylophobia), or the dark forest especially at night or nyctohylophobia. We also have dendrophobia and xylophobia. Dendrophobia is the fear of trees and xylophobia is not the fear of xylophones but the fear of wood (wow doing research is fun).

Nyctohylophobia, it seems that according to a survey 18% of the U.S. population are afraid of dark wooded areas, while 41% would not want to spend time out alone at night in the woods. Not surprisingly women find the dark woods more scary than men (I got this information here). We all grew up with stories of big bad wolves living in the woods, and witches that imprisoned Hansel and Gretel. It is also where the criminal characters seem to hide. I learned this fascinating story how escaped slaves hid in the Great Dismal Swamp and created whole communities called maroons. They actually lived there relatively peaceful and sheltered away from the slave/bounty hunters until the end of slavery, no one dared to venture into the dark swampy woods.

I know the feeling, as a field biologist I felt apprehensive every time that I entered a stretch of forest for the very first time, never really sure what I would encounter. The slight feeling of fear would usually ebb away very quickly once I broke through the boundary of the woods and got into the interior and it was replaced with my curiosity and love for the area. In addition, we sometimes go night hiking in the woods behind our home (don’t tell the park rangers please). Yes, there is always this heightened alertness, a somewhat faster beating of the heart and that wonderment of wonder how many eyes are looking at us that we are not seeing. I particularly remember an early morning (5 am) hike, walks during snow storms, and a few hikes at night in the snow at full moon; they were exciting but scary to start with.

A photo I took during our evening "snow storm" hike in the woods behind our home. I used the head lamp to light-up the subject, although we hardly ever turn the lamp on. I really don't understand people who walk their dog at night with a flashlight, that would make me night blind and I just love to see the stars, clouds and even the deer trying to sneak away out of the yards.

I took this picture of our do Lucy during my 5 am hike through the woods. I used the head lamp again only to take this picture, going out is was dark, but it was so energizing. On the way back it was getting light.

The woods behind our home can be classified a number of ways: bottomland forest, coastal plain forest, mixed coniferous forest, you name it. Originally, they were not unlike some of the area of the Great Dismal Swamp. They were cleared in early colonial time to grow tobacco and then to fight all kinds of revolutionary and civil war battles. But does it all really matter? Parts are now a nature preserve and our yard runs into it. As I discussed in various posts the preserve was established for the Mabee salamanders which is an endangered species. These guys need ephemeral or vernal ponds and the woods behind our home are littered with them; we call them Grafton ponds.

Some of the common woody species we have back there include loblolly pine, Virginia pine, red maple, white oak, overcup oak, willow oak, black gum, tulip trees, tupelo, hickory, beech, sassafras, sourwood, holly, dogwoods, and blueberry. There are also a lot of ferns and a smattering of other plants. From the looks of it, these woods are approximately 50 to 100 years old. There are a few large trees around, a few oaks, tulip trees, and beech trees.

We have lived in our current home since 2000 and spent time in the woods ever since. It is a bit buggy out there in the summer months, and regretfully, we spend too little time back there in the period between mid-April and late September. Early spring there are too many ticks to be replaced by mosquitoes in the summer and early fall and supplemented by chiggers in August and September. Every year I promise myself to spray my legs, pants etc and ignore these critters and keep on enjoying the woods, but I just hate the smell of these sprays, and I hate having to leave the dogs at home; but they would be covered by ticks. I have gone out at times and I still love it, but if you have ever been bitten by chiggers, you know. We also bike through it so now and then in summer and that is a way to avoid them. Having said it, I do have a lot of experience with these and other forests in the area, having worked as a field biologist before my current job. I miss being out there, and that is why I spend a lot of my free time in the woods.

These are the most relevant blog posts about the woods behind our home that discuss something biological, ecological or management related:

Yorktown (11/8/2013) Bugs, Nature Deficit disorder, Walks with my dogs

Yorktown (12/15/2013) Shedding of branches, Trees

Yorktown (12/31/2013) Coyotes, Mabee salamanders

Yorktown (1/11/2014) Mabeee salamanders

Yorktown Battlefield (2/7/2014) Deer

Yorktown (2/16/2014) Birds

Yorktown (3/3/2014) Evolution, Mabee salamanders, Ephemeral ponds, Vernal pools

Yorktown Battlefield National Park (3/15/2014) Decay, Natural balance, Trees

Newport News Park (3/19/2014) Owls

Newport News Park (3/21/2014) Wetlands, Headwaters, Lowlands, Nature deficit disorder

Newport News Park (3/28/2014) Frogs, Mabee salamanders

Yorktown (4/19/2014) Pine pollen, Spring

Newport News Park (10/12/2014) Mushrooms, Mycorrhizae

Beautyberry (10/14/2014) Beautyberry

Newport News Park (10/19/2014) Moss, mushroom

Newport News Park (11/18/2014) Fall leaves, tree species deer

Yorktown (12/23/2014) Lichen

Newport News Park (1/4/2015) Deer, coyotes, wolves, biodiversity

Newport New Park (1/9/2015) Trees, salamanders, ephemeral ponds, Grafton ponds

Newport News Park (2/7/2015) Trees, beech, oak, forestry, salamander

Newport News Park (2/17/2015) Succession, birds, winter wren, winter, snow

Newport News Park (3/24/2015) Forest management, deer

Yorktown (11/11/2015) Fall, leaves, litter

A walk in the woods, the naturalists have it (Yorktown, 12/22/2016) Description of the woods behind my home

Dog-hairs in the woods (3/16/2017) Forest management, thinning, politics

No, it does not have to be perfect (10/13/2017) Photos, explanations

Too many hobbies?: Bonsai lessons in the woods (11/28/2017) Trees, roots, forest management, bonsai

Leaves, leaves everywhere (12/8/2017) Litter, fall, leaves

Forest bathing II (12/22/2017) Spider, trees, deer, birds, leaves, litter

Forest canopy (1/10/2018) Trees, forest management

Newport News Park (2/7/2015)T

This morning we again experienced that sometimes the road well traveled is not the most exciting road.  It is great to bushwhack through the woods and see where it leads.  We decided that the trails we always seem to walk was just not for us today.  The sky was blue, the air was crisp and we were not interested in finding the straightest line or the fastest ways between two points.  This was also evidenced by the mountain bike trail we crossed at times bushwhacking this morning.  Mountain bike trails seem to wind back and forth through the woods, not making much headway, but who cares.  It is the exercise that counts, or it is the trip that counts in my eyes, not the destination.

During our walk today we went through an area that was obviously cut over 20 or 30 years ago.  It is mostly covered with hardwood trees, and to our surprise there are some really large trees left.  Most of them are large beech trees.  The following is one between the "abandoned road" and the golf course.

But as I said we soon stepped off the "abandoned road"into the nature preserve, to just enjoy the trip, and nobody cared about the destination.  The dogs just love smelling everywhere and Jake, our pseudo lab loves deep pellets, which we now have coined doggy probiotics.  We just walked keeping the sun in mind, and figuring that if we kept the sun at a certain angle we would eventually make it to a trail that leads directly to our home.  We did not care if it was straight or what we would be running into.  Naturally it was one of the biggest beeches out back (I know of one or two more out there) that made us deviate from the course we had plotted in our mind, but that's the fun of it.

In the background you can see the general circumference of the other trees in the area.  It makes you really wonder why the foresters did not harvest these few beeches when they were at it.  Currently, with the advent of mechanical tools beech trees seem to be favorable trees throughout the world; they have very hard weed, and even here in the U.S. they seemed to be likes as lumber.  But I thank whoever for not harvesting these beauties.

The weeds behind our house have remarkably much relief, with some of the low areas occupied by the vernal pools that I write so much about (look in the labels for Grafton ponds, ephemeral ponds or maybe the Mabee salamander).  The last photo here shows a picture of Jake (one of our dogs) on a root crown of an oak near a pond.  I was impressed by the burl on the oak.  It seems that they are actually preferred by specialty wood workers and can fetch a lot of money,  

Amazing all the things you learn walking out back and when you are looking and enjoying yourself.  Sometimes not traveling the shortest distance between points give you the most bang for your buck anyway in enjoyment, relaxation and just fun.

Richmond (1/21/2015)

Sometimes the simplest pictures give you the most joy.  Moreover, some pictures just beg to be taken because of its composition and simplicity.

Let's talk about the joy first.  I think a lot of people can rejoice with me about the gas prices.  I need a full tank every 4 days or so.  This is because of the large commuting distance I have to work.  Today I paid $1.86 per gallon of gas, and last week I bought it for $1.66 at Costco.  That is half the price that I paid a half year ago.  Considering I have a 16 gallon tank, I am currently not spending (some call it saving) approximately $30 per week.  That really helps the family budget.  I think a lot of Americans are experiencing this joy, in particular those that have a small income.  Most have not seen a wage hike in years, and it looks like there is absolutely no willingness to give us one in the near future.  Our law makers only seem to look out for the big guys; the people that fund their re-election campaign.

Oh well, enough politicking.  People often ask me why I don't move closer to my work.  For one, if you have been reading my blog, you know what a great "back yard" I have.  Granted it is actually Newport News Park, but my back yard runs right into it (guess you can still see the old fence), but in reality I have a 8000+ acre back yard.  And I don't have to mow it!  On top of that, the section behind our home is a nature preserve for the Mabee salamander.  Nothing better in curing my nature deficit disorder.  Regular readers also know how much I love Yorktown, the river, the Chesapeake Bay and sailing. Finally, I am a nomad, as my blog's name mentions.  I travel a lot and I am in Richmond maybe two or three days per week on average.  So yes, I burn a lot of gas and I am happy with the low prices.

Secondly, the picture it self.  I find far too often we take pictures of family or beautiful vistas.  That is all good, but what about recording mundane life.  I know sociologists, historians and archaeologist love discovering shopping lists that are more than 100 years old.  Even better are receipts that are that old or older.  Those types of documents are invaluable in developing a mental picture how people lived in those days.  I understand dairies in which people recorded the price of something they bought are invaluable.  I wonder when these types of people look back to our times what they'll see: screen captures of amazon.com pages?  So yes, I do think it is important that we have some photographic record of what life was all about, even a picture of pumping gas.  I do think it is important to document some of the mundane elements in addition to all the pictures of vistas and of people playing and having fun.

To me this picture has some classic composition elements in it.  I love the repetition in it: the vertical posts, the curved metal styles and even the pumps.  Moreover, the base of the columns, the pumps, styles and the trash can are in a diagonal.  Somewhat classic elements.  By no means is this a high quality photograph, but is has some of the elements of composition in it.

On an end note, yes gas is cheap, and I realize not all people are happy.  If you are an oil worker, a land owner who relies on any royalty payments, or you depend on business from these people, I'm sorry that your income is now even lower.  But I assure you this shall pass and prices will go up again.

Newport New Park (1/9/2015)

Yes another picture of the park.  This is one I have been itching to take after I saw it during my walk one day, but did not have my camera with me.  It shows what I would call heartwood.  Heartwood is typically formed in the center of the trunk of a hardwood tree and it the hard stuff you want to make flooring and furniture from.  Obviously this photo shows the old trunk of a tree that was cut.  The soft wood (aka sapwood) near the bark is completely gone (evidenced by the mossy ring), while the heartwood is still there.  It's great evidence of the hardness of this heartwood and its relative resistance to rot.  It really is what keeps the trees up.  Such a neat example.

The tree which was most likely an oak, was growing next to the pond I took the next picture of.  This pond seems to be used for research purpose, since it has white PVC pipes in it, which are probably used to study the water level in the pond.  I tried to hide the pipes when I took this picture.  

The water in the pond is currently about 3 feet deep, and by early spring it will hopefully be 5 to 6 feet deep; and then by summer it will be dry.  The reason for this fluctuation is not the runoff.  The level of the water in these ponds indicate how high the groundwater is.  As I mentioned in previous posts, this is so important for the amphibian in our woods.  A pond that is dry in the summer cannot have any fish, and so there are no fish in these ponds to eat the tadpoles of the frogs and salamanders that live in our area.  Our ponds are the breeding ground of the endangered Mabee salamander.  These gusy will come out on warm days in late February to breed and lay their eggs.  Probably the neatest thing is to hear their mating calls in late February.  The woods in the back really come alive around that time.

You can see the setting sun shining through the trees.  It has been cold these past few days, and the pond is currently frozen.  No problem, it looks like they'll be ready for the salamanders and frogs come late February, early March.

Water or Winter Challenge (8/13/2014)

Any regular reader of my blog knows that it somewhat serves as a diary of what I do in life.  However regular readers also know that, so now and then, I participate in a challenge, in particular one from a photo blog I particularly like.  I really do not know what got in her head wanting you to post something that relates to water or the season of winter.  I have plenty of each in my arsenal, but what the heck, to celebrate this mild summer I decided to combine the two.

This picture was taken on January 22^nd of this year, less than 1500 feet behind our home.  It is one of the largest ephemeral ponds (aka Grafton ponds) in the woods behind our home.  In the fall, winter and spring the ponds are typically wet; while in the summer they are dry.  In the summer the area behind our home is teaming with mosquitoes, ticks and chiggers, and to tell you the truth we haven’t gone back there since early May, and I really miss walking there with the dogs.  I guess it is time to spray myself with some poison and venture out.  I kind of feel what’s called “nature deficit disorder” lately.

These ponds are wonderful for amphibians such as frogs and salamanders.  Since the ponds dry up in the summer, they cannot support a fish population which would eat all the tadpoles, and yes the only things we see at times are a few wood ducks and an occasional heron.  So, yes they are great for these critters.  I know I have mentioned that before; but because of this, our ponds are the home of the endangered Mabee salamander. 

A few years ago I walked over to this pond every Sunday at 3 pm for two years in a row (rain or shine), to take a photograph from the same spot.  It is amazing to see all the changes that occur from week to week.  In particular the Sunday after hurricane Isabel hit our area.  No trees down, but the week before there was no water in the pond, and the Sunday after Isabel the water was easily 4 feet deep.  My wife and I are still toying with the idea of producing a picture book about the ponds behind our home.

As you can see, I miss the ponds and I think it is time to brave all the insects and go out back!

 

 

Rainy day in Yorktown (5/16/2014)

It has been a rainy morning today.  A great day to telework and fade to the background.  Today I am working on the inspector classes for erosion and sediment control, which is very appropriate seeing the amount of rain we had this morning.  As a side project I am doing a little literature research on one of my hobbies: trying to understand why some people are so anti science.  Naturally, things that come up are the anti vaccine people, people who do not believe in (human) evolution and the climate change deniers.  As an educator I find this fascinating, and I am really struggling with how we can convince these types of people. I guess all the science we bring forward is flawed in their eyes and they simply glaze over and shut themselves down.  This feeling was even  amplified after watching some of the debate for the Idaho governor's race.  However, I do think this research is even relevant to me in the job I do now.  As one of the quotes I read says: "the biggest threat to humanity is our stupidity."

Oh well, stepped out into the back yard after the rains stopped.  This picture is of our heron statue in the back yard.  As you can see there is a lot of standing water in the ephemeral ponds behind our home.  It's a source of mosquitoes, wonderful frog and salamander calls, and a great place to recharge and experience the power of nature.  

Rain (3/29/2014)

It was a wet weekend here in eastern Virginia.  The ponds are full again, and with the rising temperatures, the frogs are out calling for mates.  When I teach my classes I always remind people that nature is about a few things.

First of course is sex, or shall we call it procreation.  That is why all those frogs and salamanders are calling.  It is why the birds sing and the plants flower.  They want to procreate and continue their species as is or maybe as they slowly evolve.

Nature it is also very parsimonious.  This is one of my favorite words, it means stingy/cheap.  Being somewhat older now, I finally understand why my two best classes in college were biology and economics, and I understand why I specialized during my Ph.D. studies in physiological ecology.  It all is a game of supply and demand; putting in as little investment as possible to get the biggest return.  Nature does not waste. 

I think here is where we humans diverge from nature, we waste a lot, and we have sex purely for pleasure (in addition to procreation).  I often wonder if this will be our eventual downfall.  While sex without procreation is fine, there are still groups of people that have more than 2 children (note that you only need two children to replace father and mother on this world when they die).  Having more than two would almost be irresponsible; but of course there are groups that only have one child or none.  Our waste is something else.  We are accumulating it everywhere; we are drowning in our waste (including greenhouse gasses).  I worked with pigs that were kept in a big run, and they did their thing in one corner and kept the rest pretty clean.  I hear that horses do the same thing.  We humans are trashing our planet; which is unsustainable.

Anyway, of my soap box, this picture was taken on a wet Saturday morning.  What struck us was how dark the bark is and how strongly the moss stood out that lives on the bark of the trees.  An amazing contrast, worth taking a picture of. 

Newport News Park (3/28/2014)

Read an article on Vivian Maier the other day.  She was a neat lady and an amazing photographer who was never discovered until her death.  She was the queen of the selfies, and I was inspired by her story to take this selfie. 

 

Walking in the woods behind my home you run into all these ephemeral ponds.  As I mentioned before in these pages these ponds are used by frogs and salamanders.  Right now there is a cacophony of frog and salamander calls in the ponds behind my home.  It was amazingly loud last year with all the rains. 

If you look closely at the stick in the left of this picture you see what looks like bubbles.  These bubbles are frog eggs waiting to hatch  and to produce more frogs.

Yorktown (3/3/2014)

Although it never gets old to me, I hope it does not get old for whom ever is looking at these pictures (but I have yet to get any comments on my pictures, so maybe no one is looking), I have been showing this pond before.  Well maybe the winter is getting old, it has been an amazing winter.

Coming home from 10 days on the road we got a forced day off, because it snowed throughout Virginia that Monday morning.  Taking advantage of it we went for a walk out back.  It was snowing and dark and somewhat spooky.  Then to think, that the day before you could hear the salamanders in the pond.  Since these are ephemeral ponds and dry during the summer, it is to the salamander's evolutionary advantage to try to breed during this season, but yes it seems counter intuitive.  This pond is 5 to 6 feet deep in the middle and it dries up completely during the summer.  If it had a permanent pool, you can expect fish to live in it and these fish would eat the baby salamanders, making breeding impossible in ponds with a fish population.  In 2003 we saw the pond go from completely dry to overflowing overnight during hurricane Isabel.  Most species would breed when it is a little warmer.  I think bald eagles are also about to breed, and it is interesting how some of these species can do this in the cold; but then it is to their evolutionary advantage.  Nature is neat, and as I say, nature (and evolution) is very parsimonious, and evolution has figured it out.

Yorktown (1/11/2014)

We encountered this interesting phenomenon in the woods behind our home.  During the “polar vortex” outbreak these ponds froze over, and then on Saturday we had temperatures in the 60s with high humidity.  The ice had melted but the water was obviously so cold that the warm humid air started to condense into a fine mist/fog over the ponds, kind of like lake effect snow/rain on a very small scale.  Really neat, and this one is only less than 5 minutes walk from our home.

These (Grafton) ponds are so unique and fun to observe.  The one you see here is probably close to 5 foot deep in the middle.  It is dry in the summer and full most winters.  I have a set of weekly photographs of this pond that I took over a period on 2 years.  As I mentioned in a previous post it is the home of endangered species (Mabee Salamander) and soon they will start breeding in this and other ponds behind our home (mid to end of February).

 

Yorktown (12/31/2013)

Walking through the woods behind our home on New Year’s Eve, our beagle got spooked by something in the woods.  This is an area where she often gets spooked and we speculate that there are coyotes in that area (http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/habitat_partners/infosheets/coyote.pdf).  We have seen two coyotes once while sipping our morning coffee in our gazebo.  Our beagle is always suspicious of any movement or sound in the woods.  Here she is staring across one of the ephemeral ponds also known as Grafton ponds.  The ponds are wet in winter and dry in summer.  This means they cannot contain fish and are great for amphibian species including the Mabee’s salamander (http://www.virginiaherpetologicalsociety.com/amphibians/salamanders/mabees-salamander/mabee's_salamander.htm) which is a state endangered species in our area.  Soon in February they start breeding and there will be a cacophony out there.  These woods were logged in the late 1990’s just before we moved into our home.  It has been fun watching grow up from a plantation where we could literally look over the top of the trees to what it is now.