Gnome Stairs Hike (or Guess Who Hiked With Us!)

Above: The parking area for the hike past Wheeler Pond.

On July 27 we took a hike around Wheeler Pond and the to the Gnome Stairs in Barton. In all these years I had not taken this hike and Wheeler Pond is one of the most photographed areas around here. Besides my hummingbird goal this summer, I had a goal of doing more of the hikes in the area that we have never done. Because of the renovations on the house, we didn't get much hiking done.

The first problem we had on the hike was me! I left the Canon camera at home! To teach myself a lesson, I would not request that we (John, me, Amy, Nate and Wingnut) drive home for it. Instead, I used the Olympus Tough 8000 camera that I also carry with me. The quality of the photos suffered because I had forgotten all I learned about using this camera last year.

Above: The log bridge at the beginning of the hike. The trail immediately branches off to the Moose Mountain Trail (left) and the Wheeler Pond Trail (right), which goes around the pond.

Above: The first thing that John's eyes spied were these feathers from a hapless partridge that had been eaten here. He also showed me how the moose in the area used the hiking trail for their own comfort — their tracks were everywhere on the trail, which made me a bit tense.

Above: John said this was some type of wild plum. It also grows across the road in the bog at home. We have not identified it yet.

Above: the beaver dam at the opposite end of Wheeler Pond. There is also a huge lodge here that can't be seen from this angle.

Above: Indian pipe (Monotropa uniflora)

Above and below: an unidentified mushroom.

Above and below: After hiking half way around Wheeler Pond, you then follow the Wheeler Brook  outlet to the Gnome Stairs. You can barely see water in the brook because there are so many boulders.

Above: more Indian Pipe and another unidentified (Amanita?) mushroom.

Above: Finally, the beauty of the Gnome Stairs. The area is called this because the water of Wheeler Brook cascades down small stair-like ledges, as if built by and for gnomes.

And look who was back with us! Wingnut! He has grown so much that he is now taller than me. Here he is, above, relaxing at the bottom of the Gnome Stairs.

Above and below: and one more unidentified mushroom! After taking months last autumn identifying forty species of mushrooms, we don't feel like identifying these three from this hike!

The Green Mountain Club (GMC) maintains a couple of camps on the side of Wheeler Pond. This is the woodshed above. Below is the privy.

Above: Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense)

Below: somebody left two sunfish hanging in a willow! Why?

It was a great hike! There is nothing I love better than hiking with my husband!

Almost nothing.

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The Hummingbirds

Archilochus colubris

This was to be the summer of my hummingbird photographs. I have windows in the Barton house that lend themselves to photographing birds. So I got more hummingbird feeders and put them on the bird tree and on the windows. I washed the windows, learned what settings I would need on the camera by taking some practice shots and waited for the hummers.

I got hundreds of photographs of the male hummingbird and they are all bad. On the first day of shooting, I found that there was an errant cat hair on the outside of the window that showed up on each photograph and could not be cropped out. I could have photoshopped it out but didn't.

After that problem was fixed, I got hundreds more photographs of the male. Backlit. I had to heavily edit the photographs just to see the bird and the photos were not good. I published the furry photo and the backlit photo anyhow because they documented my evolution in hummingbird photography. You can view them here and here.

I found that the female Ruby-throated hummingbird (the only species that appears in Vermont) is much more skittish than the male. If I made the slightest movement, such as sighing, she would see me through the window and dash off. So I had to sit, by the computer, with my camera ready to go, lens cap off. Even so, I was  only able to photograph the male while sitting in my chair close to the window, never the female.

Then one day, as I happened to be walking onto the sun porch with my camera in my hand, the female was at the feeder. I stopped, and from across the room with a 250mm lens, I photographed her. I got many lousy shots, but I also got these that I published on meeyauw's Photo A Day. I waited many days at the door to the sun porch for her to return, but she never appeared when I was waiting.

I saw hummers on the bird tree a few times, but I was never prepared to take their photograph. And on the occasions when I was prepared, they did not come. So I took my camera outside and waited for them at a suitable distance from the feeders. I missed many wonderful shots, including a fight between two male hummers. I had problems with lighting all the time. The feeders that attracted the most hummers (or the same two hummers that returned constantly) was on the south (sun porch) side of the house. The sun was always wrong for me there. But I did manage to get these photographs that you see here. I couldn't crop them any better than what you see.

I like these photographs because they show the details of the wings better than the beautiful hummingbird photographs that I took You can see the female hummer (these are all of the female, who does not have the red throat) back-winging in order to hover. The feathers are splayed at different distances and angles depending on how she wants to move. People are fascinated by hummingbirds because of their powerful flying ability. They also have a ferocious spirit which I find inspiring.

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King Fishers

Alcedo atthis

I love watching the king fishers fish in the bog. They always show up early in the morning between 6 and 7 AM. If not sitting on a stump in the bog, they might perch on the phone wires on the road. But the morning light always backlights them, so photographing them, for me, is difficult. Every year I get bad photographs of them. They look a bit goofy with their wild topknots of feathers. They talk a lot. They can hover and dive as quick as any bird around. Fun to watch, difficult to capture an image.

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The End of a Busy Day

After the tractor ride and after the chicken baths, Ironman thought he would crawl through the new culvert! I began hollering that he shouldn't do that. Who knew what animals might be calling that culvert their new home? But the other adults shushed me and in Ironman went! He wasn't in danger. The culvert itself is strong, and if there were any animals in there, they could leave by the other end. Trapping a wild animal in a spot where there is no escape is dangerous. This wasn't. Hearing my earlier hollering, Buddy came out of the woods where he was hunting to see what the ruckus was about.

Vacation Bible School day was over and we were exhausted!

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And Speaking of Tractor Chicken . . .

After the kids had their tractor ride (see the previous post below this one), I looked out over the newly graded leach field and saw , , , what was that?? A dead chicken??

Whew! It was just one of the girls taking a dust bath and ungrading the newly graded leach field!

Here are some of the best photos of her bath , , ,

Chickens don't roll completely over during their dust baths but they appear to do so.

The other hen appears to be kicking dirt at the first hen, but she is only beginning her bath by getting her "dust tub" prepared.

The hens were at the peak of their weight in July. Fat, happy and wild.

But that soon changed to simply fat and wild once John saw what they were doing to his day's work!

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A Scary Ride

After the great day at Vacation Bible School, Catgirl, Ironman and I returned home. John was grading the new leach field with the tractor. The kids love the tractor as much as Tractor Chicken does — not because of the grubs and worms that are uncovered but because they get to "drive" the tractor or, as on that hot July day, they get tractor rides. Catgirl loved this. Ironman? Not so much!

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Vacation Bible School Part 3: The Ducks

I'm glad that it is October for only one reason: Crystal Lake State Park is closed. The reason I'm glad about this is simply because I am confessing that we fed the ducks. The park rangers are gone now and won't harangue us! There were two duck families at the beach on the day that we went for Vacation Bible School. They were so engaging (even though the mother ducks tried to prevent their ducklings from mingling with people!) that we couldn’t resist feeding them. The mother ducks would also yap at each other and would nip another mom's duckling if it tried to join her brood or eat her duckling's food. These are my favorite duck photographs of the day.

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Vacation Bible School Part 2: The Seagulls

There are no photographs of children swimming and playing at Crystal Lake State Park. I was so busy photographing ducks and seagulls and talking to all of the other women there (after moving back to Barton and being recently married) that I'm afraid I neglected my duties of archiving the children's fun. The cookout was fantastic. The minister's husband and some others cooked the hot dogs and hamburgers, and they were perfect!

I tried to get seagulls soaring and diving about us. I got a couple of good shots and a couple of bad ones. The worst ones you will never see!

The photo above is not photographically good but it shows enough of how a seagull swoops and changes course in midair. Her legs are set out in front of her while her wings are forced back so that she can brake and change direction. I am fascinated with this photograph.

The photo above is my favorite of the bunch. The gull is actually above us but you can see Hardscrabble Mountain behind him on the right. Hardscrabble is at the far southern end of the lake in Sheffield. It is the site of the wind farm that has just begun construction after years of legal fights trying to prevent development of the ridge line.

I hope we return to the lake for Vacation Bible School next year. I need more seagull photography practice!

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July Vacation Bible School Part 1

Vacation Bible School was only one day, in July, this year. It worked out very well. I was given "the older kids" for instruction and crafts — the first through third grades! I haven't taught children that young for so long that it was a wonderful treat. The theme this year was Jonah and the Whale. It was a perfect theme for a hot day. We spent half of the day at Crystal Lake State Park in the water. In the photograph above the children are learning a song about Jonah. You can see the whale and Jonah's ship that M. made for us. D. is teaching them the song.

And here is Jonah, above! He told the children his story and they were enthralled with his ordeal. You can see how much fun the children had as they acted out Jonah's story — it was one of the highlights of the day! Everyone wanted to be Jonah so they could be spit out by the whale.

We had arts and crafts after that. We made beach bags, sea shell picture frames, octopus mobiles and lots of other fun things. We also had puzzles, word searches and readings of Jonah's story from the Bible. You can see Catgirl above as she designed her beach bag before we went to the beach. Below you can see her creation:

Meanwhile, in the preschool room, the littler kids were doing their crafts. Ironman is wearing the orange shirt:

Another mother, R., took the kids outside for some running around games, giving us older moms a break!

We closed the morning with more singing that we acted out. Below, D is teaching them a new song and it required feet stomping and clapping!

We were starving by lunch time, but we had to go to the park for our picnic at the lake. It was a wonderful morning and I hope to help out next year, too. I just hope it is cooler out!

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