Tag: Nature

Bunchberry or, if you prefer, creeping dogwood, I still love seeing it

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

We’ve become fond of this groundcover along many of our trails, with its white blossoms in the spring and red berries well into summer. Here the foliage is fringed with red, set here against moss and a touch of snow in a stretch of what may be a peat bog.

Quoddy Head State Park, Maine

For the record, Cornus canadensis is also known as Canadian dwarf cornel, quatre-temps, even crackerberry,

Wonder how it would work in our home garden.

Bays within bays, all adding into one

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

For someone raised like me far from the ocean, trying to pin down places along the coastline can be confounding.

Eastport, for instance, lies within famed Fundy Bay yet also has Cobscook Bay lapping its west banks and Passamaquoddy Bay on its east.

What gives?

Well, let’s say the bays are like Matreshka Dolls, one fitting inside another one that fits within yet another one and so on.

Cobscook Bay, for instance, includes the smaller East, South, Sipp, Dennys, and Whiting bays.

Looking into Cobscook Bay to the west of Eastport.
Or to the east, toward the Bay of Fundy.

I guess it’s like a New Yorker saying she’s from Flatbush, meaning a part of Brooklyn within New York City, which does – contrary to the knowledge of many Manhattanites – sprawl far beyond their little island.

So Eastport can justly claim to be the City in the Bay. Or several.

 

Moose on the loose

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

This was going to be about squirrels, my nemesis in Dover, but now I’m thinking of Bullwinkle and his kin.

After all, I am living on Moose Island, not that I’ve seen any in town yet. But then I’m not seeing many squirrels here, either. Instead, it’s mostly deer.

Now, for the star of today’s show.

  1. Moose are the biggest member of the deer family and, unlike the others, prefer to be solitary rather than in herds.
  2. A bull can weigh in at up to 1,500 pounds, while a cow can be up to 1,000 pounds.
  3. Their broad, “open-hand” shaped antlers (not horns) can stretch up to six feet end to end.
  4. Calves stay with their mothers for a year or more but are weaned at five months.
  5. Their mothers are quite protective and have been known to kill bears with their kicks.
  6. They’re adept swimmers and can trot at up to 35 miles an hour, despite their slow-moving, sedentary, and dumb image.
  7. They’re a road hazard. They’re drawn to the pavement for the salt that’s been spread to melt snow and ice. And then they think they can outdo a car or truck, not that they don’t do some serious damage.
  8. A bull can eat up to 71 pounds of food a day – half of it aquatic plants needed to balance the bark in their diet.
  9. The fall mating season includes energetic fights between bulls over a desired cow.
  10. Their hide is often covered with a blanket of thousands of parasitic winter ticks, which stay attached for up to six months, sapping a moose of energy, blood, and hair. They’re the leading cause of death in moose less than a year old and diminish adult cow reproduction.