tamarack

Retention on the Downeast coast is generally terrible (2014-15 excepted - Machias reached 74" that Feb.) so you can probably drive in and out with a 4WD SUV. And pine wood is soft, easily cut with a chainsaw. I don't think the board has ever had posts from Washington County. Cool Spruce () was closest at Ellsworth.

Or Siri Island, an Iranian oil-terminal spot. I've seen it with 98/90, winds 25, condition "sand". Just lovely - blowing sand sticking to one's sweat.

It's past my previous delay of 1st frost - Oct. 6, 2011 - and I'm guessing at a week from today as a possible date, and could be later. Farmington co-op's latest for 1st frost was Oct. 17, 1990 and that year's Sept. had 3 mornings at 33. For certain my spot would've frosted on those days. Last month's low here was 34 and the co-op 35. Good chance this will be the co-op's latest 1st frost since they began records in 1893.

OT, but any way to seal off all but a ground-floor section that you would be using? Save on heating and perhaps be less depressing than having all that open space around. (I suspect you've already considered that strategy.)

Having seen vets buzzing beaks of parrots to avoid overgrowth, I'd guess affirmatively though I've no idea how long it would take.

Leaves over snow make for unstable footing. I found that out when remeasuring a pine plantation (established 1984) north of Flagstaff Lake in 2000. Long Falls Dam had recorded 10" on Oct. 10-11 and I was there a week later, with the popple (aspen) leaves having fallen in between. Wet leaves atop wet snow makes for a skid special, and wet clothes after numerable landings. (LFD had a 14" dump end of the month and some other bits for 25" total, not bad for October.)

The maintenance folks outside my former office use leaf blowers, and they're noisier when heard thru closed windows than my 8-horse Craftsman snow blower when I'm at the handles. (And I run it full throttle.) Motors may produce similar decibels but that fan is orders of magnitude louder than the business end of the snow blower.

The oddest thing I found with helicopters is how they react to turbulence. Much less up and down or bumpiness, but more tail-wagging. I've hit my head on the ceiling of a light airplane in turbulence (yes I was tightly belted in) and have been on the edge of nausea, but not even close to that in rotorcraft.

We had one from a red oak (the big acorns) smack the windshield as we drove by at 45 mph - no damage but quite startling.

Maine locations are essentially climo. I'd be surprised if the entire state landed that close to their 30-year norms.

With all the elevation available, you get to see an extended peak as the change moves downhill. Colors here are about average, meaning beautiful, and though the trees around the house are typically short on reds there's a better than usual amount of those hues this year. The sequence I hope never to repeat came in my first year on the forum, 2005. That year the leaves were about half changed going into the holiday weekend, which was 2 days earlier than this year's. On Oct 7-9 we had nearly 6" RA with gales, stripping half the leaves off the big (still mostly green) oak and essentially everything else. The year without a peak.

Very true, though after about 2 hours in a 'copter my brain get overload from all the visual info. My wife and then 3-year-old son flew before I did, on a NJ trip while we lived in BGR, though my catch-up flight was more fun. On Jan 13, 1976, my 7th day on my first forester job, I accompanied 2 other Seven Islands Land Company foresters (and the pilot!) on a Bell Jet Ranger flight to examine some deeryards from above. It was -37 that day and the ship, which had been kept warm while sleeping at its home base in Greenville, had to stay running as we refueled. That day I learned 2 things beyond seeing the woods we managed in such a wonderful way. First, rotor wash is some cold when it's in the -30s. Second, the outside temp popped up 15+ degrees within 10 seconds of lift-off, in the first 500 feet of climb. Later I would see that inversion clearly when commuting from our back settlement home to the office, about 450' lower elevation. If the smoke from the cedar mill cone burner across the river in New Brunswick included a distinct layer about 100 yards or so above ground, the temp at the office would be 10-15° colder than at home. And the Jet Ranger was great but my one flight on the little Bell X-47, also about deeryards, was even better. Watching the forest zoom by between my feet was a memorable experience.

Thanks. I have an A-fib issue that put me in the hospital in Jan 2018 and it's returning. The real fun Monday morning is when my pulse dropped to 25 and things began to happen fast. Ended up losing the 2 BP meds that slowed the heartbeat, and a 14-day monitoring patch that records each heartbeat then gets sent away for interpretation. Because flipping the canoe, something I've never done accidentally, would wreck the monitor, I can't take advantage of all these bright warm low-wind days when I just know the fish will be biting. Also indefinitely postposed our grandkid-visit trip to SNJ. When we had the heat pump installed last November I had to relocate my max-min as it was close to the exhaust from the new machine. The ~10 foot move was from the NW side of the chimney to the SW side, putting the instrument about 2 feet higher in elevation and more exposed to sunlight, for which I've added some extra screening. Winter temps seemed a degree or 2 less cold in the new location (thermometer is only 3 feet from the woodstove side of chimney though below the thimble), especially the minima, and for all seasons but winter there's sometimes a false max about 11 AM on sunny days that will be 2-3° above the true max later in the day. We're coping and my data is unofficial anyway. This overly long paragraph is my way to illustrate how minor differences in location can be surprisingly different in temps.

Only things biting out there now are ticks. (But that's enough - stay on the trail, or on ledge.)

I had a hospital stay Monday morning thru mid-afternoon yesterday and when I checked the garden today I noted that the cukes had been frostbit. They're the most sensitive plants out there but the temp never got below 37 while I was elsewhere. Odd that they suffered no damage on 9/29 when the low was 34.

I think most of Maine's Nat Gas, at lease for points a ways north of PWM, comes thru the Maritimes corridor from the St. John, NB supertanker port. As for NIMBYs, at the Farmington public meeting about NECEC, attendees were overwhelmingly against it. (Same occurred in most other nearby towns.) Meanwhile, the state's biggest (by an order of magnitude) solar array is approaching completion in that town, and had only minor opposition.

Mills was apparently once against the corridor, perhaps because then-Governor LePage was head-over-heels in favor, though during her campaign for gov. she was up front in favor. LePage's enthusiasm led to an unconstitutional (according to a recent ruling from a Superior Court judge) act when he had Parks and Lands sign a lease with CMP for a section of NECEC on north public lot on West Forks. Constitutional amendment 164, passed 73%-27% by citizen referendum in 1993, states among other things that Bureau-managed lands involved in any lease issued by the Bureau of Public Lands (now Bureau of Parks and Lands) "may not be reduced [sold/traded] or its uses substantially altered except on the vote of 2/3 of all the members elected to each House." Perhaps anticipating an adverse reaction, Gov. LePage had the lease signed w/o consulting the legislature. (As Governor, he frequenting made or tried to make end runs around the legislature.) Current Governor Mills continued/enabled the process on her watch Opinions will differ, but changing the use from well-managed commercial forest to powerline R-O-W passes my smell test for "substantially altered". The retro part of the question aims to correct this apparently unconstitutional act. It's not much different from someone building illegally in a protection zone and then having to dismantle the structure at owner's expense. (Not infrequently, people do this under the "possession is nine-tenths of the law" philosophy.) Once a flatlander always a flatlander though. I've been 15 years now and I'm still one. Humorist Tim Sample once told of Chester Atwood (or some such made-up name) moved with his parents to Maine when he was 6 months old. All his adult life he was miffed that, even with his early arrival, he was never considered a native Mainer. When he died at the ripe old age of 97, his tombstone epilogue was "He was almost one of us" Personally, in my 48 years since moving up from NNJ I've only had one incident like that and it was from a State Senator with an axe to grind. Key seems to be never pretending that one is a native.

When we visited the kids, then living in DEC, over New Years in 2011-12, they were still harvesting greens from their cold frame when we left on Jan. 2. Decatur has less than half Boston's snow but runs 1.4° colder in met winter.

Peak here is now thru early next week, though the oaks remain green.

No frost here, yet, so just passed Oct. 6, 2011 as the latest 1st frost here. Until 2018-19 I'd have agreed with dryslot that Novie snow was good only for the deer chasers. In those two year continuous cover began on 11/10 and 11/11 respectively, and with short cloudy days some white cover mediates the early dark.

Should be near to slightly past peak, except for the abundant oaks in that area.

Red spruce and balsam fir. At that elevation they're probably more abundant than the maples and birches.

Was upper 30s by 10 last evening with bright stars above, so a frost seemed on the way. Mid 40s with sprinkles this morning. I think our first frost here comes a week or more down the road while we're visiting grandkids in SNJ.

Have you been up north to look? Reports/maps for Maine, compiled from observations by Maine Forest Service rangers and foresters statewide, point to a week or less late.

Its natural selection, thanks to genetics that produce different phenology within a species. As climate has warmed and cooled in the past, conditions in which, say, a sugar maple can survive and regenerate seedlings move up/down or north/south. A cooling climate would cause late frost damage to the maples which leaf out earliest, leaving the later leaf-outs (which are typical early droppers as well) to take over that site. A warming climate would allow the long-growing-season varieties to move up/north as their extra days of growth would make them more competitive. Trees grow where they can compete well and produce viable seed, and time sorts out which varieties are best suited to which site characteristics.