tamarack

Upper 70s here. We had nearly 1.5" RA on April 30, only 0.69" since. A few more pollinators in the apple trees this afternoon compared to earlier in the week. Good thing as petals are beginning to fall.

Strange? That seems a reasonable warm season indoor temp, though we all have different preferences and temp tolerance.

Back to the "other" banter subject: Maine is looking really weird concerning COVID - top 5 in vaccination percentage, also top 5 in new cases per 100k. Not quite the logical trend, especially since state regs have been on the very conservative side, though that's scheduled to change on 5/24. However, the fatality rate is running <0.5% so maybe most new cases lean toward the younger and less vulnerable folks.

We "installed" last fall when we had the heat pump put in. The rebate and a one-time federal tax credit covered nearly half the cost. Used it very sparingly for heat over the winter (says something about that season) but will enjoy it immensely this summer, especially if the run of AN months continues. NOV +1.9 DEC +4.3 JAN +5.8 FEB +0.8 MAR +2.8 APR +3.8 MAY +1.0 thru 18th, will be about +3 by Sunday NOV-APR is +3.3, quite significant for a half year. My warmest year, 2010, is 2.8° above my 23-year average.

Last 6 days have averaged 74/36, with diurnal ranges 34 to 42. May at its finest, except for the bugs. Pollen isn't too bad but the white pine is about to change that. On another subject, very few bumblebees are working the hugely abundant apple blossoms. Hope there's enough to get a good crop set after last year's total failure - total of one single bird-pecked fruit from the 3 trees. The 27° morning last June 1 probably contributed to lousy fruit set.

For central and northern Maine, FMAM was far milder in 2010 than 2012, even though the greatest daily departures came in that awesome week in March 2012.

That all sounds great except for the (I) Wonder (if it's) Bread. Though I grew up mostly on similar puffy white bread before my taste buds matured. No farmer here, but scrapes and cuts by the dozen, drinking lake water, finding (and being found by) yellowjackets, catching snapping turtles plus indifferent washing prior to reaching my 20s - probably exposed often to most of the available germs and allergens.

And call it "Truth" like the Russians do?

Anyone who fly fishes for trout knows exactly what mayflies are. Many years ago two of us in a canoe on Allagash Lake heard a whining sound from shoreward near the end of evening twilight, and commented about what fun it would be going ashore among the billions of mosquitos, including the hundreds that would sneak into our tent when we opened to flap to enter. We paddled in and maybe 50 yards from shore ran into the most incredible hatch I ever expect to encounter - green drakes, common name for one of the largest species of mayfly. Dozens were bouncing off us at a time and one wanted to breathe thru one's teeth to avoid getting a couple stuffed up one's nose. Moby Trout and his best buds were rising all over the place, sucking down the protein. Unfortunately neither of us had a flashlight, so tying on a bigger fly wasn't an option and the fish ignored the smaller ones we'd been fishing earlier.

May heat generally comes with modest dews. Between that and limited transpiration the sun has much less water to heat, so it does a better job of cooking the air.

In early 2019 one of the I-Pads we loan to our logging contractors survived the fire that toasted a cut-to-length processor. Hot fire too, as all 4 tires were consumed.

Only time we've seen a near-full semicircle was at sunset, the bow over Casco Bay as we drove thru PWM on I-295. Of the 3 consistent cocorahs observers in Franklin Co., 2 had about 0.1" yesterday and we saw nary a drop. Broke a string of 5 consecutive days with some RA, total of 0.18". We survived the flooding.

Can't judge the size of that mesh from the pic. Is it small enough to keep out small rodents? When I planted our fruit trees I made cages from 1/4" hardware cloth.

With 2 outs, Mike Trout, hitless in his last 18, pops one way up, and it's perfectly placed between 3 defenders. Then Ohtani curls one around Pesky pole.

As we left church in Farmington the whole western sky was inky dark. Over the next 4 hours the skies stayed fairly dark and I heard a couple of distant rumbles, or at least thought I did. Not a drop and the echoes are all east of here or hundreds of miles west.

Deer love chestnut shoots.

Most of the smallies I kept came from Seboeis Stream, about 40 miles north of BGR, and the crawdad feast apparently (judged by smallie tummies) continued throughout the warm season. A rocky stream bed offers wall-to-wall crawfish habitat and the bass know it.

I've never heard anyone say that (yet), but maybe it's because the blackflies are generally at their worst. (In the north part of NNE, they would then be "Juneflies.)

The yellow birch near the house is covered with catkins like those. White pine flowers just starting to show - looks like yellow/green coatings coming in a week or two.

About the same here, though the blackflies are at peak and mosquitos also out in force. Wore a chamois shirt while jacking up the toolshed and getting the cedar logs beneath it. Kept the skeeters from slipping their straw thru a t-shirt. Way too much clothing, lots of sweat, but I despise bug dope (though I always carry it when in the woods at work - can tolerate a lot more bugs if the antidote is in my pocket..)

Every smallmouth I've caught and kept that had food in its stomach had one or more crawfish, sometimes with other items as well. Have not killed a smallie in more than 40 years but I'd guess their dietary habits haven't changed since then.

A couple years before I moved north in 1976 to work for Seven Islands, one of their techs was driving his sled back toward his truck, using the track he'd broken on the unplowed road while riding in several hours earlier. Turned a corner and there was a cow moose standing on the track - much preferring the now-firmed snow to the belly-deep powder off to the side. He began yelling at the moose and inching the sled closer, until the hair stood up on the moose's neck and she headed in. The fellow dove off into the deep stuff and wallowed away from the road while mama moose pretty much destroyed the cowling of the sled before wandering into the woods, fortunately on the opposite side from where the guy had gone. So he picked up the larger pieces and continued on his way with a story to tell.

Not a bear expert, but bears coming out of hibernation will sometimes tear into trees to get at the high-nutrient cambium layer. However, they've probably been out of their dens for a month or more - seems odd they would still be breaking trees now for that reason. Unless there was some critter in the tree that the bear was trying to catch, I don't know why the it did that. About the halfway point of leaf-out. Maple leaves are nearly full size, oaks approaching half and ash/basswood buds are open and shoots elongating. On another subject, sun is back out after about 2 minutes of RA+. More little pop-ups upstream.

Seems odd that my area in west-central Maine is now white. It was in the yellow right after April ended and we've had only 0.67" in May, <50% of normal and not the way to bury Stein. Maybe the April 30 rain wasn't part of the earlier map?

Common sense? Compassion? Maybe a touch of selfishness: A couple years back a young man who used to go to our church was doing a wheelie with a heavy bike when the back wheel caught on the pavement and flipped the machine on top of him. No helmet, brain damage, coma for weeks, they had to remove part of his skull, PT for months. His recovery was almost miraculous but a few days ago he fell down stairs (I'm guessing his earlier injuries contributed) and his right side now isn't working right. I think all that medical treatment runs well into 6 figures, maybe 7, and its bottom line comes from my insurance and yours. I'm not a fan of loud bikes either. Aren't you a big time snowmobiler? They are pretty loud too, just saying. Of course the sleds are usually out in the puckerbrush, not roaring down the street in front of one's house.