In New Hampshire a class six designation means a road isn’t maintained by either the state or the town, so it could be rough going. I don’t know if this road actually has that designation but I do know that it can be impassable in winter, so whether or not you will make it over its entire length is anyone’s guess.
Since we have had very little snow this winter I doubted there would be much snow on it and I was right. There was a dusting but nothing that needed plowing.
If anything would give a driver trouble on this day it was ice; the road was like a skating rink so I walked on the edges, which is where I would have walked anyway. It’s hard to see anything interesting from the middle of a road.
The road was also heavily rutted. I’ve driven over it in spring and between the ruts and the washboards, sometimes you feel like the teeth will rattle right out of your head.
It’s common in this area to see huge boulders right on the very edge of the road. That’s because in the 1700s when many of these roads were laid out stones this big were impossible to move and it was too much work to drill and blast them, so the road was simply built around them. And there they still sit to this day. This one was easily as big as a delivery truck.
I loved the beautifully bright green brocade moss (Hypnum imponens) that grew on a log. This pretty moss gets its common name from the way it looks like it has been embroidered on whatever it grows on. I’ve searched high and low for it so I could include it in my moss posts, but I never could find any. Now all I need to do is remember where it is.
There was a lot of logging going on out here last summer. It looks like they left a lot of the deciduous trees and took mostly evergreens, probably hemlock and pine.
The logging was being done on a tree farm, which in New Hampshire means a privately owned forest managed to produce timber with, according to the New Hampshire Tree Farm Program, “the added benefits of improved wildlife habitat, water quality, recreation, and scenic values.”
A small stream had formed a pool and it was covered over by what I call puddle ice. It’s that brittle white ice full of oxygen bubbles that makes tinkling sounds when you break it. Seeing it always takes me back to my boyhood when I would ride my bike through puddles covered by it in spring. I’ve thought of it as a sign of spring ever since, even though I see it in fall and winter too.
The little stream also had some beautiful ice formations in it as well.
If you know where to look you can find a winding trail through the woods that leads to a beaver pond.
It’s a large pond, several acres in size.
This shows what happens when a forest is flooded by beavers; what trees they don’t cut down drown and die. Areas like this often become rookeries for great blue herons because they’re full of frogs and small fish. I’ve seen herons here before but I haven’t seen a nest yet.
There are several beaver lodges here and the open water near this one suggests beaver activity. They work hard to keep channels open in winter. This lodge doesn’t look like most I’ve seen. It looks as if it has had a lot of mud added to the outside, which is something I haven’t seen.
This is more what I think of when I imagine a beaver lodge. They usually look like a pile of sticks, but the one in the previous photo looks more like a pile of dirt.
I think this one might have been abandoned. It had a light coating of snow on it and from what I’ve seen beaver lodges aren’t snow covered for very long unless we’ve had heavy snows. Heavy snow helps insulate the lodge and sunshine helps warm it. The temperature at water level in a beaver lodge is usually about 32 degrees F. but it might fluctuate a bit due to outside temperature and body heat generated by the beavers themselves. They have to leave the lodge to eat but they lose body heat quickly in the cold water, so they aren’t very active in winter if it is very cold. So far this winter they’ve had it easy but that’s about to change, with wind chills of -14 degrees F. expected on Monday.
I thought these were rabbit tracks but I think the smaller front feet should be directly in front of the larger rear feet, not off to the side like what is seen here. Maybe it was a turning rabbit.
I can’t even guess what made these swishy tracks. I’ve looked at examples of both animal and bird tracks and nothing comes close to matching. And it’s too cold for reptiles, so I’ve struck out.
Someone lost their hat and a kind soul picked it up and put it on a mossy rock. You meet very few unkind people in the woods, I’ve found.
The reminders of the terrible winds we had last summer are all around me each time I go into the woods, in the form of tangled blowdowns like these. In fact I saw several just like it in these woods. I think thousands of trees must have fallen in this area but I also think that the trees that were already weekend by disease were the ones that fell. You can see bracket fungi all over the largest of these and that’s a good sign of a sick tree.
I’ve spoken about how water resistant oak leaves are on this blog for years, but now I can show it. Oak leaves can take a year or more to decompose because they are leathery and contain a lot of woody substances like lignin and cellulose, and I’ve always believed that it is also because they don’t absorb water as readily as leaves from other trees. This photo shows how water will puddle on an oak leaf.
There are roads known by everyone and there are roads known by no one. Choose the second, the mysterious one where many glories are hidden. ~Mehmet Murat Ildan
Thanks for stopping in.
I hope that stuff about the privately managed forests having improved wildlife habitat and water quality is really true. I have no knowledge that it isn’t, but it’s hard not to be skeptical.
I don’t know about water quality but I do know that deer and other animals love to eat the new shoots that come from the stumps, so it does provide browse for a few years. In any event it’s privately owned so nobody can say much.
I’m guessing crow or raven for those swishy tracks. With the marks made from their claws. Perhaps extended because it was icy? Birds in the Corvidae family (crows, ravens, jays) have big attitudes and totally “strut”.
You are right about the tracks on the left being a rabbit or snowshoe hare, but the ones on the right, I think, are going the opposite direction and are perhaps a red fox. Or someone looking for dinner. Hard to say from one picture, but they seem bigger and there are also just two tracks above them indicating a “walker”.
Rabbits can make all sorts of crazy tracks. They can move fast or slow, contort their bodies in odd ways, spread their toes unbelievably, and leave great gaps between their front feet touching down and their back feet touching down. However. They generally are easy to ID if you follow the trail because the “crazy” tracks don’t last long. By following the trail you should quickly find the classic rabbit tracks like on the left.
As always, love your posts and learn so much. I so appreciate all your hard work! Stay warm!!
Thank you Cindy. You could be right about the tracks. We do have lots of rabbits here. I didn’t follow them because they went where the ice was thin.
We have lots of crows too and those tracks reminded me of feathers hitting the snow.
It was 39 degrees today. After 13 below yesterday morning it was nice!
Along with borders so big that they built roads around them rather that try to move them, I can see another difference between New Hampshire and Michigan, you have sunny days in the winter!
I think that the tracks you weren’t able to ID are turkey tracks, but I’m not 100% sure, but I’ve seen similar tracks left by turkeys.
My favorite images were the ones of the ice, maybe because I’ve tried to shoot ice photos lately with little success, you really need sunshine or the ice looks simply gray in a photo.
Thanks Jerry! We’ve had sunny weekends quite often thankfully but I think our turn has come. We had snow Sunday followed by blow zero temps all day yesterday. It seems like winter has finally come, not that I was in any hurry.
Thanks for the track ID. I thought it was a bird but I couldn’t find any foot prints.
I agree. Ice on a cloudy day isn’t the same. Sunshine makes a big difference!
Dirt road adventures are some of the best adventures to be had. Thanks for taking us along! 🙂
You’re welcome, I agree!
Looks like the venture down the icy road was well worth the effort. And those are some intriguing footprints, aren’t they?
Thanks for the post, Allen….
Thank you Scott. Yes, they were!
“The little stream also had some beautiful ice formations in it as well.” Thanks for sharing this. Great capture too.
Thank you Ben, I’m glad you enjoyed it.
Nice to see the beaver activity. There isn’t as much of that around here as there used to be. I plan a short hike tomorrow into a place where there has usually been beaver activity, just to see if they are still there or how they are faring.
Thanks Montucky! I hope you find the beavers. Over the last couple weeks I’ve seen both a baby muskrat and an adult porcupine eating grass that looked dead to me. I wouldn’t think there would be much nutritional value in dead grass.
That road looked very slippery indeed. I would have been worried if I had heard a car coming along it while I was walking.
There were plenty of trees to jump behind to avoid a skidding car, but I didn’t see a single one.
Another fun walk, especially to the beaver pond. About how far did you walk down that road, I’m just curious. You always keep things interesting! Thanks.
Thanks Chris! I parked and walked and then parked and walked again but if I had walked from where I parked to the beaver pond I’d guess it would have been 4-5 miles round trip. Not a huge distance but that road is hilly.
A beautiful walk, and I love those mosses in winter! I haven’t seen a beaver lodge in a long while, although we do have them out here. We do get nutria coming through from time to time, as the winters are milder here than back east up in your area. People sometimes mistake nutria for juvenile beaver. They don’t have the big broad tails though, and the bright orange incisors are pretty wild-looking.
https://www.portlandoregon.gov/bes/article/348260
Thank you Lavinia. I’ve never seen a nutria that I know of, but I do see beavers and muskrats rarely. They’re shy critters!
Very good you took this walk because we all know what’s coming on Monday. 😉 Wonderful illustration of the oak leaf and water.
Thank you Laurie. They’ve tamped down the amounts for this area, but not by much. They say we’ll still see over a foot.
Same here. As always, it is the freezing rain I am worried about.
Yes, they’ve moved the rain / snow line now so it looks like we might see sleet and freezing rain along with the snow. I’d rather have all snow!
Oh, me, too! And back in the day, that’s what we had.
I remember!
It’s funny, every time I drive past that big boulder from the lake end, it looks like the profile of a gorilla to me. And this past spring was the first time I had ever hiked down to that beaver pond, it’s beautiful area, and the trail beyond is nice, but a bit steep in places.
Thank you David. I’ll have to look a little closer at that boulder!
I’ve been out there a lot but have never hiked around the beaver pond. I’d like to see it someday. Thanks for the warning about the steepness!
Those swishy tracks may have been left by a bird using its wings to cross a stretch of deeper snow. As for oak leaves – we have heaps of them from our red oak (quercus rubra) very slowly decomposing for years. Hedgehogs love it for their hibernation.
Thank you Zyriacus. I thought it might have been a bird wing in the snow too but I couldn’t see any footprints and the snow was only 2-3 inches deep.
I’d bet that you do have a lot of oak leaves! Interesting about the hedgehog. I’d guess we must have many animals doing the same thing here.
I live a half mile in on a dead end Class six, the only dwelling on top of a hill, completely embraced by conservation] lands. Trails issue from my doorway, and all my “neighbors” are four footed. Its paradise save for the weighty expense of plowing and maintenance, which the town mandates in case of emergency. I see many ” hidden glories” every day, every season. Thank you for your ramble along another Class six.
You’re welcome. That sounds like a dream place to live Lynne, but as I get older it’s all the shoveling that takes some of the shine off winter. If I could find someone else to do that part I would happily live in your circumstances.
Thanks for all those pictures of beaver lodges, interesting to me.
You’re welcome Susan. I haven’t heard anything lately about the reintroduction of beavers to the U.K., so I assume you don’t see them or what they build very often.
You are correct.