Getting Back on Track

Sorry for the long hiatus; Virginia has been just about as busy as Maine! We've been getting back into the swing of the office, I've picked my harp lessons back up, and we've been working on our end-of-year financials and getting ready for next year's marketing and the season in general. I'll try to pick the blog (and Facebook page) back up again soon.

Until then, here's a picture I thought was pretty amusing. I don't know if Clifton has ever actually seen a car as dirty as our Trailblazer, and it's a lot cleaner than it was for most of the summer! (I'm sure our neighbors love us. No, really.)

October 20 Town Hall

I participated in a "telephone town hall" meeting on October 20 with over 13,000 other sportsmen and women from across the country. The meeting was hosted by Ted Roosevelt IV, John Warner (retired senator from Virginia), George Cooper (president of the Teddy Roosevelt Conservation Partnership), and Captain/guide Franklin Adams. The purpose of the meeting was to garner support for a strong Federal bill regarding climate action.

The four speakers each discussed the reasons behind their support for a strong climate action bill.

Mr. Warner’s epiphany came six years ago when he re-visited the forests of Idaho, where he’d worked as a trailblazer in 1943. A bark beetle infestation, made worse by mild winters and warm summers, had decimated the forests he remembered so well. When he was Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, he was directly responsible for sending troops into drought-stricken areas, tsunami-hit areas, and other lands where uncommon weather patterns contributed to already-dangerous situations. Mr. Warner now works for the PEW Foundation.

Mr. Roosevelt (who would rather tell whoppers about his latest fishing trip than discuss politics) wants the nation’s sportsmen to become an active voice to help the Senate pass the bill. He cited the recent phenomenon of un-fishable waters due to climate change and pollution, as well the science that shows that warmer mean temperatures lead skewed sex ratios in sea turtles due to the incubation temperature of the eggs. (Some scientists are now suggesting that global climate change has the potential to eliminate the production of male turtle offspring if mean global temperatures increase 4°C, and that increases of less than 2°C may dramatically skew the male-female sex ratios. http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/biology/turtles/ )

Mr. Cooper asked that sportsmen take an active role in this legislation because they (we) have such credibility in this arena. Sportsmen know the land like few other people do- many fish the same streams and ponds, and hike the same hills, year after year. Mr. Cooper wanted to stress that the Roosevelt Conservation Partnership is reasonably happy with the House version of the bill, but the Senate version could use some work. He stated that the bill needs an adaptive management clause and that there should be no new bureaucracy; the bill should simply use and strengthen the tools that exists.

Captain Adams runs a fishing service out of Naples, Florida. Florida has seen a sea level rise of approximately 10” since 1930. Given the fact that the mean elevation in the Everglades National Park is only 3’ above mean sea level, a rise of nearly 1’ is drastic. He also discussed the problem of coral bleaching caused by warmer, more acidic oceans. (Coral reefs are the ocean’s equivalent of tropical rainforests- they support an amazing amount of biodiversity.) His take-away message was that listeners should educate themselves about the climate change phenomenon and science before making quick conclusions, and that everyone should get involved.

Due to the large number of people on the call and the fact that the organizers wanted to keep it brief during the dinner hour, only three questions were taken.

Q: Given the GOP’s history of support for conservation, what are the prospects for GOP support of the climate change bill?

A: Mr. Warner, the only Republican to vote for the initial version of the bill, believes we’ll see more Republican support after the health care debate is over; he cited a belief that representatives from Maine would probably vote in support of the final bill. He also believes that partisan politics shouldn’t dominate the issue.

Q: What does the bill mean for rural economies and agriculture in particular?

A: Revisions to the bill are currently being considered to protect agriculture interests. Mr. Cooper cited carbon sequestration credits, which could provide a great financial incentive to both farmers and sportsmen who own land. He discussed how incentives (such as carbon credits) should be included in the bill, rather than disincentives like fines. Mr. Roosevelt then discussed how making ethanol from agricultural waste could also provide an economic boon to rural economies. (He wanted to point out, however, that corn ethanol is a completely different beast and is not all it was cracked up to be at first blush.)

Q: How will the bill change conservation funding?

A: The House bill appears to promise up to $1.7 Billion for natural resource conservation, and the Senate version appears to be tracking the same level. A portion of the funds will likely be used to support state-developed plans for resource management.

The meeting concluded with the hosts acknowledging that many more people had questions that there just wasn’t time for. A website has been set up at www.targetglobalwarming.org to facilitate discussion and answer the questions that could not be answered over the phone.

Other resources on this topic:
http://www.seasonsend.org/
http://www.trcp.org/ The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
http://www.pewtrusts.org/ The PEW Foundation

Name that State

We gathered a little more shale from the shale pit that we know as Matt's Mountain today for the floor around the wood stove in the dining room. Here's a piece we found- let's play "Name that State":
We didn't break, chip, or alter the piece of shale in any way- what you see is what we found. It may not be perfect, but if it were reminiscent of Elvis instead of Maine, I bet I could sell it for good money on Ebay!

Great Heart

From the Red River Bookshelf
Great Heart by James West Davidson and John Rugge

I finally picked up Great Heart again. The book is divided into two parts, and I read the first half in about four days early in the summer. Life caught up with me, and the second half sat unread for about three months. Both halves proved to be quick reads, though, and the whole book skipped by too quickly.

Great Heart is a retelling of the Hubbard Expeditions (Leonidas Hubbard’s, Mina Hubbard’s, and Dillon Wallace’s) across Labrador at the turn of the twentieth century. The authors used the diaries of the expeditioners themselves, along with news clippings, family interviews, and other historic data, to recreate the expeditions as closely as they could.

The first half of Great Heart focuses on Leonidas Hubbard’s fateful 1903 journey, in which he, Dillon Wallace, and George Elson attempt to cross interior Labrador in search of the Naskapi Indians. The party is ill-prepared for the journey; overschooled without the aid of practical application; and a little naïve and optimistic. I have to admit that the words, “Seriously?” and “Why?” escaped my lips more than once, and I shook my head at the book a few times too. When Hubbard’s expedition reached its inevitable conclusion in which Leonidas didn’t return home, I was torn between a quiet sadness and exasperation of the "oh-it-served-you-right" variety.

The second half of Great Heart follows the “race" between Mina Hubbard and Dillon Wallace as each attempts to recreate and complete Leonidas’s original expedition. The authors take us on two very different routes through Labrador: one over land, and one following the rivers. There isn’t much question which expedition the authors were cheering for; the imagery and intonation surrounding each expedition is markedly different. It’s such an entertaining story, though, that those pushes from the author shouldn’t detract most readers.

The epilogue is nearly as enthralling as the book itself. The authors tell us what happened to the expeditioners after the story ends and how their lives played out. They recreate parts of the Hubbard expeditions themselves and do a darn good job answering my question of “why” from above. By the end of the epilogue, I wasn’t shaking my head at the book anymore; in fact, I wanted to grab my own canoe and pole and take on the wilds of Labrador myself. Why not? I’m a little naïve myself, and I’ve got optimism in spades. (What could go wrong?)

After the expeditions, Dillon Wallace wrote two books related to this topic: The Lure of the Labrador Wild: The Story of the Exploring Expedition Conducted by Leonidas Hubbard, Jr. and The Long Labrador Trail. Mina Hubbard wrote A Woman's Way Through Unknown Labrador: An Account of the Exploration of the Nascaupee and George Rivers and co-authored The Woman Who Mapped Labrador: The Life and Expedition Diary of Mina Hubbard. I’ll be looking to pick these up in the future- a quick check on Amazon shows no fewer than twelve versions of A Woman’s Way Through Labrador currently available.
(Other books have been written on these expeditions and people. I’m not going to try and recreate the list here.)

Photos from the expeditions and other information can be found at: http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/pm.php?id=record_detail&fl=0&lg=English&ex=61&rd=19615&hs=0

Happy reading!

Caroline's Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies

I asked Gloria and Caroline to give me a recipe from this summer that I could put on the blog. First up is Caroline’s, which is reminiscent of Girl Scout Cookie Time. “I’m a Girl Scout, so when I thought of peanut butter cookies, I thought about Do-si-dos, a Girl Scout cookie with peanut butter oatmeal cookies and peanut butter filling. This is my attempt to recreate them.”

Caroline’s Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies
Makes 48 cookies

2 ½ cups (12.5 oz) All-purpose flour
2 Tbls. Baking soda
1 Tbls. Baking powder
½ tsp. Salt (this may need to be adjusted based on the saltiness of the peanut butter)
1 ½ cups unsalted butter (room temperature)
1 cup Peanut butter (chunky)
1 cup (8 oz) Brown sugar (packed)
1 cup (7 oz) White sugar
2 Large eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
1 ½ cup quick cooking oats

In a medium bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment (or in a large bowl with a wooden spoon if the generator is off), cream the butter and peanut butter. Add sugar and brown sugar, and beat until fluffy.
Whisk eggs in a small bowl and add to peanut butter mixture.
Add vanilla to the peanut butter mixture and beat.
Reduce mixer speed to low, add flour mixture, and mix until just combined. Add oats and mix until just combined.
Drop rounded teaspoons of batter 2” apart onto a greased cookie sheet. (You should end up with approximately 96 sandwich halves.)

Bake at 350°F for 12 minutes until light golden brown. When cool, sandwich a layer of peanut butter filling (below) between two sandwich halves.

Filling:
½ cup Water
1 cup (7 oz.) White sugar
1 cup Peanut butter (smooth)

Heat water and sugar to a rolling boil. Continue boiling for 1 minute. Remove from heat and cool, stirring occasionally to prevent sugar from crystallizing. Add peanut butter and stir well until the filling thickens.

Enjoy!

Visitors

Around 3:00 today, Gloria noticed some ripples in the pond by the Little Cabins. We took a walk out onto the deck, and there was our resident Mama Moose. A little way behind her, out by the point, was her calf. Mama kept her eye on us pretty well, but she’s used to us by now, and I don’t think she was half as concerned about me taking pictures as she was about making sure to grab the choiciest pond grasses. I watched them for a while from the dock, until it started raining. Once I ducked inside, they decided to come right down into the cove.

Mama seemed perfectly happy with the grasses in the cove, but she had a tough time convincing her calf of their yummy goodness. (I guess teenagers of ALL species share some similarities!) After a few minutes of watching Mama eat, the calf headed back toward shore. Often, the moose will just walk right up over the front deck to get to one side of the pond or the other. Since I had my camera, we were hoping they'd go that way today. Instead, Mama started swimming across in front of the dock, and her calf had to hurry to keep up.
I sometimes wonder (but doesn't everybody), if one were being chased by a moose, whether or not it would be a good idea to jump in the water and try to outswim it. Watching those two cross the pond convinced me that trying to outswim a moose would be a Dumb Idea™. From now on, I'll have to wonder if it would be possible to outmaneuver the moose, cling to her back, and cross the pond like some sort of back-woods Calamity Jane. (Calamity, indeed...)

...

And finally, for your viewing pleasure, a sight seen only on the rarest of occasions: the headless moose. (No moose were harmed in the making of this photograph.)

Early Morning Internetting

I got up at 4:15 this morning to finish downloading my new copy of Photoshop LE. I had 500 MB left in the download (which I had started yesterday morning at 5:00), and I had to complete it by 7:00 or wait for tomorrow. This highlights one of the most interesting issues we have working our “real life” jobs from the middle of the woods- the satellite internet connection. (I could also debate which of my occupations is actually “real life,” but we won’t get into that.) We have both a certain amount that we can download per day and a certain amount that we can download per hour; if we go over either of those, we get FAPped. (FAP stands for HughesNet’s Fair Access Policy.) If they FAP us, our download speed is dropped to levels worse than 1995 dial-up for a full 24 hours. We’re typically very careful, and it’s normally not a problem. Let’s face it, though, there are four computers up here, and if one of them crosses the line for almost any reason, it’s a bummer of a day. Usually happens once or twice a month. Luckily, downloads of any size are “FAP-free” between 2AM and 7AM, so we get up early to pull down large files for work, Photoshop, etc.

When people find out that Joe and I are doing our engineering jobs while we’re up here, the universal first question is, “Holy cow, you really have an internet connection?” That’s followed very closely by one of two sentences: “That’s really great; do you mind if I check my e-mail?” or, “That’s too bad; it’s nice being disconnected from everything out here in the woods.” It’s surprising exactly how polarized our guests are on the topic. I would say the split is about 60/40 in favor of the folks who like the solitude, but both sides are very adamant.

Unfortunately for our guests who would love to be connected in the middle of the woods, though, it’s nearly impossible for us to offer open access because of the aforementioned FAPping issue. It’s nothing personal!

Hello, October.

October has greeted us with a gray, cold, damp day. The thermometer said about 45 this morning, and it’s been dropping slowly since then. Add in a good layer of fog, and it’s a good day to be working inside near the fire.

October also means it’s time to start getting ready to button up for the winter. I turned the propane off to two of the cabins yesterday morning, and we’re taking a look at the energy usage to see where we can save next year.

Based on my rough estimates, the American Plan cabins use about half as much propane per day as the Housekeeping cabins. The calculations are a little squirrly because we didn’t keep good track of which days we turned off water heaters in certain cabins and which days we turned off the gas entirely. When averaged over the season, though, it gives us a decent baseline to work with.

One thing we’re going to look at doing next year to save propane is installing more tankless water heaters. We currently have them in Upper and the Island, and they gave us approximately 25% savings over the conventional heaters. In other words, Upper used 25% less propane per Gardner every day it was occupied. The water heater is the only difference between the cabins, gas-wise.

In the American Plan cabins, it should be an even higher ratio since the only other propane consumer is the lights (as opposed to lights, fridge, and stove in the Housekeeping cabins). I expect we’ll save upwards of 75% compared the amount each cabin currently uses, but we’ll see.

Trials and Tribulations

Running a sporting camp is a tough job. We constantly need to work on providing the best experience for our guests that we can. To do that, we sometimes find ourselves needing to tackle tough jobs like taste testing lots and lots of desserts. For instance, tonight it was Boston Cream Pie. We hadn’t made a Boston Cream Pie yet this summer, and we hadn’t yet tried the recipe we used. (It came from one of the Betty Crocker cookbooks, I believe.) It came out pretty well, although we all agreed that it could use 50-100% more cream filling and a chocolate top that maybe wasn’t quite as stiff as it was. (Picture a nice thick layer of chocolate fudge.) Luckily, we found another recipe that we can try, one which (I just found out) uses thirteen eggs for one 10” pie. I have a feeling that there’s going to be some more taste testing in the future. It’ll be tough, but it’s for a good cause.

Lowes Makes Me Sad

While I was out on the pond admiring autumn and taking pictures this morning, the folks at Lowes were apparently also celebrating... By assembling and displaying their stock of artificial, pre-lit, pre-flocked Christmas trees.

*sigh*

Saturday Morning Photos

I woke up this morning, and a hard frost reminded me that I only have a couple of weeks left in the woods. I'd been meaning to get out on the pond for some "early dawn" photos all summer, but I kept putting it off in favor of a better day, more sleep, and a bunch of other excuses. It's sad how easy it is to put off getting out there and doing something until you're faced with not being able to do it again.


The thermometer said just under 30 degrees, so I bundled up in flannel and polypropylene and a couple of other layers. I wished I'd brought gloves up north with me, but you can't always get what you want. The kayak was white and fuzzy with ice crystals, and the mist was swirling like the proverbial pea soup. It was marvelous.

By the time the sun rose, I couldn't feel my hands, but I was determined to get some decent pictures.


I apologize that you don't get the feel for the mist in these; picture an army of ghosts skirting across the water. (Maybe not quite the caliber of the army of ghosts in the Lord of the Rings movies, but my CGI budget is somewhat smaller than theirs.) Every time the kayak moved a few feet, the world around me changed completely as the mist marched on and the sun rose higher and peeked through different trees.


The leaves are a little lackluster this year. There are a lot of oranges and yellows, but not to many reds. The reds we do have are more of a salmon color; I attribute it to a late frost last spring, all the rain during July, and the warm September.

Jack Frost has always been a good friend of mine; I'm one of the few people I know who wishes winter lasted longer. There's just something humbling and quiet about a world asleep. All thoughts of shoveling snow aside, winter lets you pause, take stock of things, and take a rest yourself. It's cold, calm, and mysterious, and oh, how I miss it when I'm down in Virginia!

Jack, it's good to see you again.

Frontline: Poisoned Waters

I’ll start with this disclaimer. My alter ego is a stream and wetland restoration engineer in Virginia. (I guess that would make this ego the mild-mannered reporter.) As such, I’m very focused on the problems plaguing the Chesapeake Bay, water quality, and the environment in general. I also think everyone has the responsibility to, if not actively focus on these issues, at least be well-aware of them. Why? Because every individual thing we do to impact water has a cumulative effect on our whole society. Only air pollution trumps water pollution in its ability to spread so far and impact so many people and ecosystems.

Therefore, I would recommend everyone take some time and watch the Poinsoned Waters documentary. You can access it at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/poisonedwaters/. It’s broken up into thirteen chapters, each about 10 minutes long, so you don’t need a two-hour block of time.

I can only watch it between 2AM and 7AM due to our satellite connection, so I started with the last four chapters, which focused on Puget Sound in Oregon and Tysons Corner and Arlington in Virginia (right near where I work). Commentary to come later; for now, I need to change into my bright-red alter-ego cape and get some work done.

OOOooooo...

We finished up dinner pretty early tonight, around 6:30, and decided to go for a walk down to the new bridge at Pushineer to take a look at the leaves while there was still some daylight left. The two campsites at Pushineer were empty, which isn't terribly surprising on a Thursday after it rained all day Wednesday. (As a side note, it's incredibly dry up here; even with about 3 inches yesterday, there was almost no water flowing under the bridge.)

As we were walking back up to the main road, we heard a call that was sort of a half-howl, half yell. It didn't sound like a coyote (who remind me a little bit of yappy dogs); it was somewhat more clear like a wolf howl, but higher (maybe a high-B down to G "OOOooo.") It also wasn't sustained enough to be a true howl. I'd say each call lasted less than two seconds. We heard it five or six times from the hill in front of us, and it was answered at least twice from back by Deboullie and once from farther west.

Any ideas? Do we have wolves in our woods? Sophisticated coyotes? Ghosts? Mischevious campers? I'm sure we'll find out at some point, but right now I need to stop playing .wav files of wolf howls from the internet, because I think the cats are beginning to contemplate smothering me in my sleep.

Just Another Day...

We woke up to a beautiful morning today. The tree by the boathouse has turned red, and the ridges are starting to follow suit. (Gloria tells me that the trees out to town are in full swing; I’ll get to see them when I head out to pick Joe up from the airport Saturday.)

Jim is working on shingling the lodge gables. We’ve been looking at bare plywood for so long, the shingles are a welcome change! It’s not a fast process by any means, but we should be able to get all four gables done by the time we leave for the winter. Our list of “things that need to be done to the Lodge” is actually getting pretty short.


Gloria is canning some tomatoes and homemade bread-and-butter pickes. A few days ago, we did salsa, and she’s done jam several times this summer. It’s awesome being able to have the homemade versions of things that are usually bought in the store. (I’d love to have time to do it myself; I may have to juggle my winter priorities a little. Now that I’ve seen it done and had the mystery removed from the process, it shouldn’t be quite as intimidating.)

As for me, I’ll be working on some edits to a wetland mitigation plan down in Virginia, doing some website coding, and taking care of a few little tasks around here. We had an old (1949) handpainted map of the township over in Togue- it’s been there ever since I can remember. I always thought it was a shame it wasn’t in the Lodge, so we brought it over. We’re going to encase the painted portion in Plexiglas so folks don’t wear it out. (We had a large USGS map on the wall in the old Lodge- over the years, the constant attention wore a hole right where Red River should have been.)

So all told, it should be a pretty routine day here.

Comprehensive Land Use Plan Hearings

The Land Use Regulation Commission's (LURC's) Comprehensive Land Use Plan is, in essence, the playbook for Maine's Unorganized Territories. The Plan "guides the commission in developing specific land use standards, creating zoning boundaries and guiding development." (http://www.maine.gov/doc/lurc/reference_new1.shtml)

The Plan was adopted in 1976 and was last revised in 1997; since then, the Unorganized Territories have come under heavy pressure from many directions; fragmentation, the downturn in Maine's forest products industry, and the upturn in renewable energy have all played large roles in a changing landscape, for better or for worse. The new Plan will address these issues, among others.

The Plan is scheduled for revision in 2010; the draft version is complete and currently in the public comment period (September 9, 2009 to October 21, 2009, with an additional week for written rebuttal of prior comments). In addition, LURC is hosting three public hearings to solicit testimony from the public. Hearings will be held in Augusta (September 28), Bangor (September 29), and Presque Isle (September 30). Live audio broadcasts of the hearings will also be available for those who cannot attend in person.

The draft Plan, as well as more information on the hearings, can be found at http://www.maine.gov/doc/lurc/reference/cluprev/PublicHearings/september_public_hearings.html.

I would urge everyone to take a look at the 2010 Plan and get involved. Send LURC your thoughts. Testify at the hearing. Ask questions. More people looking at and critiquing the Plan will only make it stronger. If you think you're too small to matter, you've obviously never been in a dark room with a mosquito.

It's almost autumn

Today is the fall equinox. (Okay, tomorrow morning at 5:40 is technically the fall equinox. It's darn close.) So why in the world am I working from our front deck in shorts and a t-shirt? This summer has been pretty crazy, weather-wise. June was fine, but after I got back from Virginia at the beginning of July, it was nothing but rain, fog, and 50-degree mornings until the beginning of August. (Ironically, it finally cleared up about two days after I got back from Virginia again. Coincidence?)

Now, in late September, we're finally having July. It's about 85 degrees in the sun, the sky is blue, and there's no wind to speak of. I know there are still quite a few people who don't give credence to the concept of global climate change, but I'd feel more comfortable with this Indian Summer if we'd actually had summer in the first place.

What the Heck

If you're reading this, you probably already know who I am, and you probably already know a few things about the Red River Camps. Like the fact that my husband and I took them over this year. That we're rebuilding the main lodge that was hit by lightning last May. That we're working through our "maintenance and upgrades" list for the cabins, keeping up with the guests, and learning all those little things about running a Sporting Camp that you don't get a sense for just because you grew up there, thank you very much. Oh yeah, and we're working full time as engineers in our respective fields (computers and ecosystems) while we're at it.

So I figured that, with my copious amounts of spare time, I'll also keep the world updated on the view from T15-R9. What the heck.