Buzzard Swamp Beavers

I tried to walk at Buzzard Swamp near Marienville today but was stopped by a tree that had been felled by beavers across the access road. They have a dam some two hundred yards further along in a clearing, but it is too large a tree for beavers to drag so far. Perhaps they will gnaw individual branches off, or alternatively, maybe they had intended it for an abandoned dam they had started just off the left side of the road. Even beavers can change their minds I suppose. Beavers are a common animal in the Allegheny forest, with ponds coming and going as the rodents die or are trapped for their fur.

Drought Revisited

I returned to the Seneca reservation today where the pond that had dried up during last year's drought was fully replenished by this year's abundant rains. What was once a large pond decades ago is mostly filled in by grass and sediment, and I do not know if there is a feeder stream that would allow the pond to repopulate-at least not in a single year. I did not see any fish near the shoreline, although there may have been some in the deeper water. The late season asters and goldenrod were the predominant flowers, with a few bumblebees and yellow jackets still feeding on them. Along the trail were a red newt and a dead mole and some macintosh? apples. When I researched why an otherwise healthy looking mole would be dead on a gravel path, a likely answer focused on it being forced from its tunnels by rains where it then became vulnerable to predation. A fox or cat or owl would have dropped it after a single bite because apparently moles taste terrible. Another possibility is that, because of its high metabolism and need to frequently eat, when it came out of its tunnels it was unable to reenter for some reason and starved to death. Red newts in autumn travel the forest eating insects and spiders. This red eft stage lasts up to seven years after which they enter an adult aquatic phase and change to a darker color.

Ukraine

After over four years of war the family that Beth and I have been supporting with money and hope since December, 2023 have finally managed to find refuge in Denmark. The Danes have been and will be welcoming of refugees from dangerous areas in Ukraine- like Kyiv where this family is from- until next year. So they fortunately managed to beat that deadline and are in disbelief that they will be able to sleep in peace for the first time since their house was destroyed during the initial 2022 attacks. In the United States the president has falsely degraded immigrants and closed the border to even desparate people like this family. Instead he is threatening Denmark. We are materially the wealthiest nation in the history of the planet but have slipped into moral decay under this administration, which now questions fair elections, prosecutes free speech, praises dictators and ignores rules of law to enrichen themselves. In 2026 the sex abusers of children have the power to pardon themselves, and if that does not disgust people enough to vote them out, you get what you deserve. That is not my America and they do not represent me. So Mr.Trump dangles the scam promise of $5,000 to buy their votes, and many will acquiese because 3rd world antics have so diminished our reputation for freedom and justice that we may never recover.

Kenny's Music

These were Kennys latest gigs, an outdoor bluegrass session with some musicians he threw together a couple of weeks prior to rehearse material, and a gig in Jamestown with his rock band "Royal Tea Service". Bluegrass is not his primary interest, but all of these musicians are longtime players who can chameleon themselves as needed to serve the venue. The bluegrass bass player, Addison, is a decades longtime friend and accompanist who now teaches at the local music conservatory, and the fiddle player, Rachael, is a local musician who performs with whomever requests her skills. The rock band is comprised of old and new friends, so through many musical styles he has been true to his inborn talent. Often Kenny performs solo,performing original material by incorporating a loop track to which he adds live harmonies and guitar or trumpet...Outside of music,he and his girlfriend Maddie have moved into his deceased fathers house, and he also cooks for a local restaurant for steady money. Anyone familar with music and artists in general knows that it is extremely difficult in this society to earn a living...>"On average, online music streaming platforms pay rights holders between $0.001 and $0.015 per stream... platforms do not pay a fixed, flat rate per play. Instead, they pool their monthly revenue and distribute it based on "streamshare"—the artist's percentage of total plays on the platform. Furthermore, the gross payout goes to the rights holders (labels, distributors, publishers) first, who then take their cut before paying the artist"<

Reality

Just thought I'd post these bed head photos I woke up with this morning. Despite the sometimes serious tone of my blogs, I do laugh at myself, as does Beth. Much of our relationship is laughter, which helps us to defuse the state of the world around us.

More Summer Flowers

....These flowers were alongside a short dead end road near the lake, in the woods but with enough sunlight to give them time and room to grow. The false purple thistle had four bees on it at once, which meant that it was one of the most nutrient rich blossoms there, but I also was surprised to see how popular the more abundant cow parsnip was. Both honey and bumblebees rushed over it in an agitated manner as they collected pollen to their pollen sacks. The commom mullein did not have bees on the flowers although the blossoms were jut emerging, and there was also some red bee balm, fleabane,goldenrod and black eyed susans. It was apparent that that small patch of roadside had been well utilized within the dense forest... While some of the lakeshore too has flowers, much of the surrounding land is wetlands, so the bees take advantage where they can.

July Woods

I started what would have been a 4 mile loop hike in the forest today, circling along a route that I have not travelled in 8 years. My memory of the path, which began on an oil lease road before diverging onto lesser used jeep and ATV trails,was accurate, but time had overgrown one section so much that I doubted my progress. So I retraced my steps and took another path that I hoped would intersect with the original route on top of a ridge. Unfortunately, that trail ended at an old pumpjack-as many paths in the Allegheny forest do. Because it is unwise to bushwack in these woods due to the many old oil and logging roads where it is easy to become lost,I backtracked the full distance to the car. It is possible to approach the loop from the opposite direction, so I will do that someday to complete the circle...Despite not having finished my original intention, a walk is never a failure regardless of it's direction. Along the way I was distracted by a green crab spider that had caught a...parasitic wasp? on some flowers. I had made a conscious effort to look closely at the blossoms rather than simply glancing as people often do, and so this prey and predator drama was unfolding as unceasingly as on any African plain. Thoreau had once written, "Thus each wind is self registering", one interpretation being that we have to look to see. Elsewhere,the bumblebees were pollinating the obscure flowers mid-woods,even when single blossoms were separated by 15 yards or more. They are an adaptable species that seem to be attracted to nearly every flower-much more generalist feeders than honeybees. The prominent woods butterflies now are Tiger Swallowtails and Fritillaries, and even on a mountaintop one sees dragonflies and frogs in the puddles.