wanderings & wonderings

My apologies for not keeping up with the blog.  It’s not that it hasn’t been on my mind, it’s just that I’ve been extremely busy … here’s a short list of some of the things I’ve been doing, and places I’ve been, in the past couple of months.

Rickett’s Glen State Park – A most memorable day with a most memorable person; my second time at the park, walking the Falls Trail seemed to go quickly.  Admittedly, I was a bit distracted, but I’m not sure I want to go into the details here.

The Elk Creek Cafe – Oh, yes.  Another reason I haven’t posted since July is that my whole regular schedule of life kind of got disrupted right around the beginning of August.  I moved off of 322 Business (aka, North Atherton Street in State College) and into the relatively quiet Linden Hall, PA (save for the jackhammering and bulldozing for the new bridge about 50 meters from the new place).  There was, however, a week of being a hobo, between places – couchsurfing and the like, you know.  Good friends made it relatively painless.  The week finished with a trip to the Elk Creek Cafe in Milheim, PA, a cozy little bar/coffeebar that brews their own tasty beers.  I went home with a growler of “Copper” at the suggestion of an employee (and friend) who has tragically found himself the victim of a brain aneurysm within the last month.  My heart and hope go out to him and his family and friends.

On Wednesday, August 25, double-duty in west-central PA: Chimney Rocks and Canoe Creek – While Chimney Rocks didn’t offer a heck of a lot to explore, it did offer a hell of a view.  We passed on the viewing platform and opted to sit right on the rocks.  Incredible!

At Canoe Creek, we watched a swan named Burt honk away a Mallard Gang – clearly they couldn’t share the popcorn some lady gave both types of birds.  Canoe Creek is quite beautiful, though very open – a good place to go and relax, but less stimulating for the mind.  Again, though, I may have been distracted.

Prince Gallitzin – We ventured out here smack dab in the middle of September, and I wish I could have made a return for the Apple Cider Festival.  It doesn’t matter.  I’ll return any day.  This place is beautiful!!! The way the trees let some sunlight on to the forest floor, the way the water creeps up on you at the terminus of one of many trails … I want to return here, because it seems most interesting, with much to offer.

The last week of September, I was a camp counselor at Outdoor School, which I may write a separate entry for.

Midway thru October, and I haven’t been able to get out to many more places, but I did have a couple of ventures into Rothrock State Forest – once to assist my roommate in finding a spot to hunt at, which was fun – and another to help a friend prepare for a run taking place over the Tussey Mountain itself.  The 50 mile relay went well.

And, of course, I’ve been engaged in a hearty dose of schoolwork since the end of August, largely centered around a special event planning class, as well as other lectures.  I am also in a Fly Fishing class, which is fantastic!  I spent a day at Spruce Creek with Joe Humphreys.  You’ll see an entry about this.

…Needless to say, the “Lazy July” attitude of the last entry has been completely vacant from the past couple of calendar sheets.

And, if anyone happens to be reading this that knows homeschooled families around central PA, here’s a flyer for the event we’re working with Bald Eagle State Park to facilitate next Wednesday, October 27 … my birthday, no less!

Cheers, for now.
Rutabaga

Sometimes it seems that all points converge on a single day, but before and after there is little but the consistent warm weather, the same summer birds, and the consumption of probably too much beer for one’s own good. That point appeared to me some time last week, when an opportunity arose to live with a good friend in a great location for an appealing price. So instead of moving to yet another expensive housing development with some random folks, I grabbed the opportunity by the balls.

And after the initial craziness of transferring one lease to another person in an awful hurry, things are calm again. Calm enough for bird walks (aside from the usual robins and cardinals and crows and barn swallows, a little uninteresting – perhaps they’re just too hard to see in the foliage) and fishing (I caught a 12″ bass on a boat yesterday! – but it was the only fish we caught over about four hours).

So as the rain of the “severe thunderstorm” hits and threatens the internet connection, I write, a little bored. I miss the constant developments of last semester at school, the ability of one person or other to introduce some phenology of the moment that I never considered before.

It’s not like things are dreary or depressing; it’s not like I don’t eventually find something interesting to research on the internet late at night, or some plant in the herbacious layer that intrigues me during the day. I suppose it just seems somewhat lonely here – in a house of seven, no one can think of much to do besides play video games and buy more Yuengling.

Ah, nonchalance – oh, well.

Brett is in the background going, “Holy fuck.”

This is seriously like the tenth fish I’ve ever caught in my life, and probably the first that wasn’t a bluegill. Granted, I haven’t ever fished too much in my life. My dad’s really big on it, but I always hated going out in his boat, and putting the worm on the hook – especially the nightcrawlers that bleed all over your hand – and waiting for the bobber to pop under the water. I don’t think I’ve caught anything in years.

But now, after I went fishing with Zack a couple weeks ago and caught five bluegill, I’ve been a little pumped about it. Brock gave me a rod to use and a primer on casting, and a spin bait with a big-ass hook.

I actually was nearly about to change the lure to something much smaller, and I recall something going through my head like, “Ahh, one more with this lure.” And boom – at first I thought it was just caught on something real nasty, but then it was definitely moving–! And good heavens. I think the rod almost broke.

The big-mouth bass bastard probably weighed almost three pounds and compared to Zack’s arm, which we measured later, was around 14-15 inches.

Well, I’ll be damned.

I also got a little practice on a fly-fishing rod; I didn’t catch anything, but golly, that’s pretty neat!

A link to newly developed photographs (as in, REAL FILM!) from the road trip, here called “East/West” –

http://www.jcolt.com/CrossCountry/CrossCountry.html

Enjoy.

This is hardly a fraction of them, but to satiate any potential readers, here is a selection of photos on a “tumblr” blog that was actually updated throughout the trip.  None of the photos are mine – they were uploaded from an iPhone – but most of them are quite good.

Example:

View the rest at http://letsgetintotroublebaby.tumblr.com/

The photo gallery is now in working order, and has several albums in it, so far mostly from my Block Semester at Shaver’s Creek:

MacNeil’s Sugar Bush
Maple Harvest Fest ‘10
Alan Seeger (during Birding Cup and shortly thereafter)
Shaver’s Creek (mostly around the not-Lake Perez, but some are from a few years ago during the draining process.)

Also, pages from a “Birding Basics” field guide created for an exhibit.  Feel free to use them for your needs; if you want the Adobe Illustrator files, just contact me.  I may add more in the future; they’re pretty easy to edit (except for the sprite artwork, but I really like the flair it adds).

Coming soon, photos from the road trip.  For now, a Google Map of the entire trip:

(Click to see it in Google Maps.)

I am currently preparing a rather large essay on my recent road trip, but here’s an entry in the style I suspected I would use this blog for.

I just got back from a short trip to the Arboretum at Penn State – not the new structure with cultivated gardens, but the reclaimed farm area surrounding a railroad track-cum-public trail.  I’ve been there dozens upon dozens of times, and the entry point is no more than five minutes from my house.

Just before hopping on the trail, I noticed a few rather large Crows and a Grackle apparently annoyed at them.  Shortly thereafter, Robins all fluffed up and pruning their feathers – very reddish bellies.  A groundhog sat poised on top of a dirt mound that I wouldn’t have noticed if my binoculars hadn’t drifted upward.

Many Cardinals, many mewing Catbirds.  One little brown bird which may have been an Ovenbird, but I can’t say definitely.  Plenty of Grackles, at least one Mourning Dove, and amusing Mockingbirds testing their repertoire of mimicry.  The usual, I suppose.

And then–!  A flash of tangerine and black.  An Oriole!  My first.  I’ve been wanting to see one.  From a quick conclusion with my NWF Field Guide, a Baltimore Oriole – the neck around it very orange, the wings black with white wing bars, the head black.  Josh Potter tells me we’re likely to see Orioles and Orchards around here at this time, so I suspect it’s a Baltimore.

I sat down to read a little bit of Aldo Leopold’s Sand County Almanac – a beautiful book that I just purchased yesterday at Websters – and saw the Oriole flit across the trail a couple more times, but upon approaching, it entered the foliage and became invisible to me.

I decided to check one more spot before leaving, where I’ve seen a lot of activity before, and hoped to see a Blue Jay.  No dice.  Nothing, really – but I didn’t stay too long, and other joggers were running past me and distracting me somewhat.  I had to work soon, so I decided to just leave.  Fantastically, on the way out I saw two rabbits, a pair of Blue Jays, and one deer (no antlers) gnawing on some shoulder-high-plant matter.  It seemed to notice me and did a slight jog towards the woods, but must not have been too afraid, as it launched back into a jolly gait before disappearing.

The wildflowers are blooming all around, and I saw many plants that require a trip with a proper field guide to identify.  I am a little disappointed in the NWF’s new Wildflowers Field Guide – though their series has been excellent so far, and the book is indeed massive, I can’t help but feel that the sheer amount of plants make for photos too tiny to discern the features of.  I plan on investing in a Newcomb’s, and possibly an Audobon’s, as soon as funds allow.  I noticed several plants that were very distinctive, but lacked flowers at this time – one I would say has “Alligator” leaves in an alternating fashion, but completely connected around the stem, so much that water has pooled around it on every level.  What an interesting micro-eco-system, I should think!

And the Garlic Mustard has turned gnarly and tough.  I attempted to pull out some of it before my trip, but there is so much.  Jewelweed, however, seems to be taking over at this point, and it is quite pleasant to look at.

I also noticed some plants with leaves well over a foot long and in some cases perhaps a foot wide (and even longer).  I cannot say what it is, either, however.

All in all, an enriching early afternoon walk, and just the first of many to come in the midst of summer!

As I do my laundry at the laundromat in lieu of broken drier belts, and wander around State College with the view of Tussey in the distance, I find my throat feeling funny.   Funny as I run up the steps at my house, funny as I squat down to watch a congregation of Cardinals, Chickadees, Nuthatches, Chipping Sparrows, Nuthatches, Mourning Doves, Grackles, Robins and Chipmunks scour the ground below a birdfeeder that I never knew existed outside of a pet supply store.  As I approach, they scatter; when I leave and return after moving my clothes from the washer to the drier, they have returned.  A funny series of birds, these: birds that six months ago I couldn’t have identified for the life of me.  I might have guessed that a robin is a robin and a dove is a dove, but wouldn’t know with any certainty.  Now I study their behavior, their flight patterns, their calls, adding and recategorizing the information in my brain.

I don’t know why my throat feels the way it does.  Pulse is a little high.  I did sleep almost twelve hours, probably in some cockamamie positions on my hard, barely carpeted floor.  I have been smoking a few too many cigarettes.  Yet the feeling is weird.  A sensation I’ve never felt before.  Not quite painful, just strange.

I feel fairly calm on this day, Sunday, before we export everything we need along with our bodies to the west coast via a rented 2010 Toyota Carolla.  This isn’t my first time going on a trip of sizable distance: earlier this year, I partook in a school trip to Vermont and Cape Cod, about nine hours away.  But this is going to be a solid 24 hours to just our first destination, Boulder; then another 12 to Boise; then another 12 or so to Buckley, WA.  I will be seeing a friend I have known for nearly a decade but never in person.

I think it will be fine.  I suppose the weird lull in my throat is an expression of a subconscious nervousness.  The trip is not as well defined as the school trip.  Money is much more of a necessity.  Gas, food, sleeping, car rotations, directions – all our responsibility.  Again, I don’t feel worried: GPS is fairly reliable, and the scattering of gas stations and interstate grocery stores is downright ensured by America’s capitalistic mentality.  So that is comforting.

I am excited.  I am excited to see new birds, new landscapes, new civilizations; meet new people, meet old friends.  It will be great.

I always liked Wordpress – I liked the ability to install a blog on your own server that was easy to use.  But holy mackerel, it’s been a few years since I last used it, apparently – it’s awesome!  Talk about great interface design.

But really, what I wanted to point out is the wicked neat “Invasive Species of the Week” sidebar widget.  I stumbled on it completely by accident, and I love it!  Although this week’s invasive species is the BEAVER, which I find strange … yet is arguably destructive, I suppose… maybe I’m just jaded because I was lucky enough to see one here at Millbrook Marsh last week.

The guy also has a “Wildflowerizer” that displays randomized wildflowers and a “Bug of the Day” widget too.  They’re pretty neat, but they don’t seem to work for me.  Perhaps you’ll have better luck.

This is a journaly-blog-life-list type’a thing that you may or may not have any interest in.  Enjoy!