Nelson County Rocks

 

August 7th Postscript: I (and many around here) have subsequently learned that what hit us so hard on the night of June 29th is called a derecho.  The link is to Wikipedia’s entry, which explains that a derecho, in contrast to a tornado, is a straight-line windstorm generally accompanied by severe thunderstorms.  The pictures below of John and family also help in conveying the scale of the fallen tree rootballs:

 

Well, we moved here in 2009 just in time for the biggest pre-Christmas snowstorm since 1936; then in 2011 we had the biggest earthquake in Virginia since 1897, then a month ago we had a freak hailstorm that did a bunch of damage, and then this past week we experienced what locals describe as the worst storm since Hurricane Camille in 1969 and the worst wind storm in living memory.  I was helping out at the annual Ruritan Carnival, where the sudden and unexpected hurricane-force winds led to some scary moments as the Carnival operators struggled to get people down from the high rides and where well over a hundred people poured into the Ruritan clubhouse for safety.  With reports of impassable roads most everywhere, many people stayed until 1:00 am, when most left, leaving behind several who slept there that night.  At home Monika saved our umbrella on the back deck and then headed down to the basement, where we slept the next few nights.  Electric power, water, phone, and internet remained out until the middle of the following week.

The next morning we surveyed the damage.  Our house was completely spared, but large limbs were down in the backyard, from the Norway Maples on the side, and the oak tree in front.  Worst hit was our several-acre forest, particularly the section that abuts the pastures on the north side: about twenty large trees were blown down, either completely uprooted or broken off from their trunks.  My woodland trail system was pretty much obliterated, but our vegetable and flower gardens took only a minor hit.  Our chickens were safe.  Dan’s treehouse was completely destroyed.  The pictures above and linked below fail to give a full sense of the devastation, which is hard to capture on camera.

As typical of our rural area, neighbors were out helping neighbors from the start.  Our neighbors next door helped us survey the damage, and we helped another neighbor repair his cattle fences.  He and his mother in turn offered to let us bring food from our freezer to theirs, which they had running on a generator.  Later, when that generator failed, we got a friend to bring a temporary generator over to pump water for their thirsty cattle; he also fixed their generator which in turn fixed our frozen food problem.   And so on….

I broke down and invested in a chainsaw, but we’ll be relying on other friends to do the heavy tree felling and pruning.  It’s strange to walk in our woods and look up at the sky instead of the tree canopy, but it will be interesting to watch the forest regenerate itself.  Cleanup is slowed down by daytime temperatures of 100+ degrees, but life goes on…

click here for more pictures

Well, just two days after my recent post about how well our vegetable garden was going, we were hit by a series of storms with high winds, torrential rain, and marble-sized hailstones.  The Norway Maples on the side of the house lost a number of large branches, and the vegetable garden was pounded.  The pea plants were torn off the trellis into a tangled heap, potato plants were leveled and some broken up, and squash, tomato, and cucumber plants broken into parts. Everything lost at least leaves and limbs.  Fortunately, most will probably survive, even if flowering and fruiting are delayed.  But one thing is clear: it’s not a picture-perfect garden any more!  Today was almost surreally nice, as in the views below from the back of our property.

 

A new waterfall for me, that is.  By now I’ve hiked a good proportion of the trails around here, but the Mau Har Trail in the Three Ridges Wilderness Area was a new one for me.  Departing from the AT about two miles in, it leads one up and down until it reaches a series of Waterfalls on Campbell Creek, on the western side of Three Ridges Mountain, one of the two highest in the region.  At about 6 1/2 miles round trip, it’s a nice short day hike.  The mountain laurel and rhododendron were past their prime at the lower elevations, but there was a nice array of wildflowers to enjoy along the way.

some more pictures here

 

  

I had to climb up on our roof the other day to clean out the gutters, and took these pictures from the rooftop.

After three and one-half weeks without a drop of rain from late March to mid-April, spring rains finally came, much to everyone’s relief.  (While not all Nelson County folks are directly engaged in agriculture, all understand the importance of rain.)  The following weekend we had a delightful visit from my cousin Fred Brack, whom I hadn’t seen in 30 or so years, his wife Kathy, and Kathy’s seeing-eye dog, Wilda.  Our next get-together will happen sooner.  Below: Fred, Kathy and Wilda at Crabtree Falls, and with Monika at a local winery.

  

Due to the mild winter and warm spring, flowers continue to bloom several weeks earlier than normal.  Especially striking this spring have been the roses Monika planted two years ago in front and back of our house, and the three different clematis which were already in the front when we bought the place.  Monika’s inspiration also led us to reconfigure the pond area in the back with two little “zen” rock gardens.

  

Despite the dry spell which slowed things down for a while, we’re reaping the benefits of early spring plantings: lettuce, chard, spinach and turnips are ready to eat, and snap peas are now a good three feet up their trellis and blooming.  And we have plenty of basil, chives, cilantro, parsley, rosemary, and thyme.  Potato plants are ready for hilling.  I put out a dozen varieties of heirloom tomatoes, which I’d started under grow lights in March, in the last week of April.  Still planting various types of beans, squash and, for the first time: peanuts! (a mild addiction of mine)

   

click here for more flower and veggie garden pictures

Our various projects have kept us pretty busy around our home, but I did bike the rails-to-trails route along the Piney and Tye Rivers, which has recently been extended, making for a 14 mile round trip.  A lovely path, with lots of spring wildflowers in bloom.

  

  

 

 

It’s impressive and heartening how many Nelson County residents have vegetable gardens, although it is striking to me how few plant spring vegetables.  Apart from summer tomatoes, snap and snow peas are probably my favorite veggie to grow and eat; I planted several trellis’ worth in the first week of March, and we should be munching on them by mid-May.  Lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, and turnips, also planted from seed, are all coming along, as well as cilantro, parsley, collards, and kohlrabi, which I started under grow lights in February and transplanted into the garden a week ago.  The biggest job was planting 20 pounds of seed potatoes (we just ate our last potato from last year’s harvest this past week).  This year’s varieties are: Satina, Carola, Yukon Gold, and Kennebec.

After our mild winter, we’ve had an unusually warm early spring.  Daffodils started blooming in the first week in February, and many trees and shrubs have begun flowering several weeks earlier than normal.  This is always a beautiful time of year, with our forsythia, weeping cherry, crabapple, serviceberries, and dogwoods bursting with color.  And our apple trees (a retirement gift from my department at Rutgers) have apple blossoms for the first time.

Our chickens continue to keep us well-stocked with eggs, and three frogs have taken up residence in our little backyard pond.  Five-lined skinks are all around, and bluebirds and chickadees appear to be setting up shop in our bird houses.  Our local pileated woodpeckers continue to make periodic appearances. Monika and I have been undertaking several major projects in the back, most notably so far a rock and pebble path out to the kennel and chicken coop.

Long-time friends from Vermont, Jan and Harris, visited us in the third week of March, followed by a delightful family gathering with Eleanor, Justin, Katherine, Nic, and Alison.  With beautiful weather almost every day, our early spring has been lovely, although most everyone around here is concerned about the relative lack of rainfall.

See more pictures here

 

We’ve had a generally mild and snowless winter–until mid-afternoon yesterday.  This was our hens’ first experience of snow, and they didn’t take to it.  They promptly headed not just into their run, but most of them continued right on into the henhouse.  In mid-morning when we open up the outer door to the run, the hens generally come charging out: today one black australorp gingerly took a few steps out, looked back at all the others who were hesitating, and ran back in herself. (Cold by itself they have no problem with.  But chickens are…chicken.)

In any case, Monika and I enjoyed the snowy afternoon and evening by our wood stove, and then the beautiful vistas in the sun this morning, here and down by the Tye River.    By afternoon, the four inches of snow were rapidly melting away.  And the hens were pecking away at the remaining small clumps of snow.

click here for more pictures of our 24 hour winter

click image to enlarge

Today began with this beautiful view out our living room window, as the full moon was going down and the early sun rays beginning to reach the trees.  And it’s turned into another gorgeous day, still without snow this season.  While pruning our butterfly bushes in the back, I looked over to our chicken run and saw one of our Wyandottes lying on the ground, looking dead, which she proved to be when Monika and I examined her.  It appears that she died from a problem with an ill-formed egg in her cloaca canal.  This was our first loss since the death of one Black Austalorp in (mail) transit from the hatchery.  We buried her with sadness in our back yard, at least knowing that she had a good life here.

 
Above: the 2007 expedition team en route to Lake of Clouds Hut

In June 2007, an annoying accident prevented me from being part of a family hike I’d planned on the Appalachian Trail in the White Mountains, New Hampshire, staying at Appalachian Mountain Club huts along the way.  This year Nic and Tim have sweetly taken it upon themselves to organize a repeat of the hike this summer.  It’s planned for this coming July and I’m very much looking forward to it!  [Note: pictures from the 2007 expedition can be seen in three pages at our family website, and there’s also a YouTube video of the second day based on pictures taken by Nic, Alison, Cally, Sylvia, Justin, and my brother-in-law Lee, who fortunately was available to take my place.]

So barring another stupid accident, it’s up to me (now as a retired old geezer) to keep up with Nic and Alison and Tim and Megan this July!  Accordingly, I officially began today my “training” for the hike this summer with a six-mile saunter up our local Crabtree Falls and beyond to Crabtree Meadow and back.  Although there were touches of ice here and there, the temperatures were in the fifties and rain earlier in the week meant lots of water in the falls.  And the lack of foliage meant that the falls were visible through the trees at all times.   Above the falls, the trail runs along the floodplain of Crabtree Creek, which below the falls feeds into the South Fork of the Tye River.  There is a nice mountain laurel forest and pleasant campsites along the way.  An auspicious beginning for my training regime!  A few pictures of today’s hike below.

We were spared the recent nasty nor’easter that blanketed much of the northeast with snow and (thanks to our country’s antiquated infrastructure) knocked out power for almost three million people.  But a light snow did fall on the Blue Ridge around us, even though we’ve yet to get any where we live.  We’ve had a few light frosts, but no real killing frost yet.  We’re still getting collards, kale, chard, turnips, parsnips, kohlrabi and hardy herbs from our vegetable garden, with rutabega (a new crop for us) coming along.  When our pepper plants died back, our chickens were happy to gobble up the several dozen large but immature peppers still on them.