tamarack

Unfortunately, the "lock the gate behind me" philosophy is common.

Our 54-55 double play - 5 TCs for New England.

It was about 10:15 by the time my eyes got accustomed to the dark, about the same sun-time here as 10:30 there. Some afterglow, augmented by Farmington 6 miles away, on the western horizon even at that time. Nice that the comet's tail points at the lowest star in the Big Dipper's current orientation.

Yes that stinks, but occasionally things happen that cause locals to despise folks from away. The town of Buxton (S. Maine) closed the town park last week due to mega-trash, vandalism and behavior like throwing rocks at kayakers on the Saco River. Despite the closure, over 100 people, nearly all from out of state, state(s) not mentioned, walked past the "closed" signs this past weekend, left enough trash to fill a pickup, and garnered 40+ summons plus 2 for resisting arrest. It's unfair to tar everyone with that same brush but it's also almost inevitable that many people will do so.

Not all that much blew down from those storms. I'd guess than 98% of damage was from the epic flooding. BDL had 21.3" RA that August, 4" from Connie and over 14" from Diane less than a week later. Farther NW, Norfolk had 9" from Connie and nearly 13" from Diane.

Very clear last evening, best summertime view of the Milky Way in a long time. Walked well up into the nearby field and was able to see the comet, fairly dim (no magnification) but quite obvious and moreso than Halley's comet 34 years ago. (I've read that '86 was Halley's poorest display in centuries.)

Probably started tanning in February. Actually, I don't know the details, but they do have the same parentage.

14 years ago my wife, a 2nd generation Norwegian American with typical Nordic complexion, visited her sister on Oahu in early June, when the noonday sun is nearly straight up. Only 30 midday minutes and she had sun poisoning enough to be nauseated and had to stay inside for 2 days. At the ER that afternoon, the DR, a typical Hawaiian, said that she had drastically increased her chances for future skin cancer, saying that his brown skin was meant for sun but her paleness definitely was not. So far so good, and since we had our 49th anniversary last month, she/we aren't exactly young.

Temp has slipped back 2-3F from what it was 2 hours ago - full sun since late morn.

And whether the leaflets are on short stalks or are right on the petiole. Also need to rule out boxelder (aka ash-leaved maple) which has compound leaves like ash though some leaflets are notched. Sounds like you've got quite the puckerbrush thicket there. Brown ash (NNE term for what's black ash elsewhere) also has markedly different bark, brownish (duh) compared to the grays of white/green ash and boxelder, and also a bit crumbly when rubbed.

The obs site is about 100 yards from tidewater. Would need an all-night W wind to avoid that <70F water from influencing minima.

The various willow species are quite confusing to ID at the species level. The dendrology (tree ID) class I had at U. Maine only required Salix, the genus name, while mandating species for everything else. Of course, pussywillow is an easy ID in April but by now it looks about the same as several other willow species. Also, any willow in Maine over 12" diameter (almost could say 6") is black willow, but when it's young an ID is problematic. White and green ash will tolerate some wetness while brown ash is often found in wetlands, in part because it's slower growing than white/green on good sites but competes well in the swamp. There's not a lot of native green ash in Maine but it's probably the mot widely planted ash and it will naturalize. If your tree is white ash, there is evidently some chance it will tolerate EAB. An article in "Maine Woodlands" (monthly publication from Maine Woodlot Owners, formerly Small Woodland Owners Association of Maine) stated that green and brown ash suffered near extirpation from EAB but up to a third of white ash survived. With all the ash (mostly white, some brown) on our woodlot, I hope the tolerance comment is valid. My oak trees are starting to drop acorns.......is that normal for mid-July? Product of the drought? Most acorns drop in September. Are yours full size?

VT may have been close to that but Maine never got below about 65% forest and NH was somewhere in between. North of a Rangeley-Greenville-Danforth line Maine retained almost all forest except for the Aroostook potato lands. I don't know how little forest there was in Bridgton/Fryeburg in 1911, but westerly winds passed over the Whites to get to those towns (downsloping!) and though the operable lands in the mountains had been whacked and hacked by 1911 it was still basically forest, albeit young forest.

It's all 3 NNE states. Bridgton set the Maine record at 105 (twice) and the VT peak is also 105. Also surprising is that except for always-high-minima ASH (and one morning in Franklin, NH) temps would fall into the 60s after all those 100+ afternoons. I'd guess WNW or NW winds with modest dews and downsloping - for a week and a half! Edit: If that 76F low at PWM holds, I think it ties for their warmest morning on record.

And 100 at BHB, perhaps even more impressive as SSTs were probably 10° lower. When I saw the map a week or more ago they were both 1 This past Tues-Fri were my only BN days of the month. Those 4 days might be the cause of the drop in ranking. We'll see if today and tomorrow can push them back up.

With those conditions pawpaw stands alone. Osage orange smells citrusy but is inedible.

Looks a bit larger than Osage orange, though it's close. And of course if one counts cones as "fruit" (they're the seed-bearers, just like fruit) several western pines produce far larger. Sugar, Jeffrey, digger pines have cones that dwarf pawpaw and Osage orange.

Black gum does fine in both wetlands and better drainage. Very nice fall color and unique right-angle twigs/branches. Farthest north I've seen it is Gardiner but supposedly it can be found in the Kennebec Valley up to WVL. That Jefferson tree is proof that in the right place one can get away with planting something far north of its natural range. There's a 30"+ by 75' tulip poplar in Farmington at Perham and High Streets. It's on a gentle slope and right in town.

Two surprises in that post, though I don't doubt either. First, that sweetgum is native at 42-43 north. There was none at all in the woods around our NNJ home - first ones I ever saw were planted where my in-laws retired in CNJ, though its absence 50 miles to the north may be cultural history more than forest ecology. Sweetgum has bright red fall colors, though IMO not as vibrant as red maple. (No shame in trailing #1.) It also has abundant and slightly prickly 1" diameter seed balls reminiscent of sycamore, so some serious yardwork, perhaps. 2nd surprise is baldcypress rated at Zone 4, though it's native to southern Illinois which probably gets to -20 now and again. Since Chris is probably Zone 5B, it might be a good if unusual choice. I don't think it's native in the East north of coastal Virginia.

Quaking aspen doesn't do well in swampy areas, though it would probably persist there. Balsam poplar, its cousin, tolerates wet feet better but I'm not sure it would be available. Maybe some native red maple? Then with the ones in front you would have fall colors from late August in the swamp to near the end of October toward the street. I'd be wary of baldcypress unless one can find a cultivar that's proven hardy this far north of its native range. Either northern white cedar (sometimes sold as arborvitae) or the less common Atlantic white cedar are wetland approved. To respond to S&P's query on pruning tomatoes, I've always pruned to a single stem unless growing paste tomatoes, which don't get pruned or staked. In my location, "soon" comes before "many", as first frost date averages Sept. 19. About 3 weeks from today I'll pinch off the top to prevent our cherry tomatoes (only kind I'm growing currently) from setting any more fruit, so that those already set have a better chance of ripening in time.

Only 0.01" here today as the heavier stuff stayed north. Soil is plenty moist however, though the high of 61 doesn't do much for what's growing there. Next 3-4 days will make up for that. And on another topic, misty drizzly cloudy days in the 60s with matching dews are probably about as common in October as in July - maybe one every couple years.

8/1/75 had been blazing hot as my co-worker and I did some very sweaty forestry research work NW of Greenville (Maine), well up into the 90s at our BGR home, but we had guests (Bro-in-law and his wife) and stuck to our Saturday plan to pick blueberries along Route 1 in Gouldsboro. We lasted until late morning - only B-I-L's Hawaiian wife who had grown up picking pineapples and cold-loving foolish me persisted past 10 AM - and then drove to Acadia and had our one and only swim in warm ocean water in Maine. BHB hit 100 at the water's edge. BGR had touched 101 and was forecast to be 100 on Sunday, was still 90 at 11 PM which was amazing for that part of the world. Next morning it was 70-71 with the occasional sprinkle, most wonderful BD of my life. yeah...I know... it's about on par as that 1998, March 31 event... I was up at the UML lab at 3:15 pm and it was 89.4 on the monitor ( locally), but the ASOS at the time had CAR, ME 37 F with a wind gust to 43 mph from NE.... The 3 Public Lands regional managers, one being me at that time, were at our Scraggly Lake tract just NE from Baxter Park on March 30-31, scoping out our annual 2-day peer review field trip. Wx was cloudy and foggy the whole time, low-mid 30s with occasional showers, some with a bit of IP. We had no clue than southern Maine was flirting with 90.

The world record 22 lb 4 oz bass caught decades ago in Georgia was listed at 32". I saw a pic of a 21+ lb bass from Lake Castaic in CA that was 27-28" and looked like it had swallowed a football. (Bass have been established in Japan and I recently read that one 22 lb 5 oz had been caught there, but the keepers of fish records consider fish within 2 oz to be tied.) I think I screwed up lol. Hammer Nailz was right. 24 inches not 34 ,oh boy my eyesight is shot Your 8.75 lb is probably about what my granddad's 24" fish weighed when he first brought it home.

I don't know if nurseries handle the native flowering dogwood - it often suffers from an anthracnose disease that is frequently fatal, so it may be quarantined. IMO it's even a nicer tree than the Kousa - blossoms at least as pretty and spectacular burgundy/purple fall color punctuated by bright red clusters of "berries" plus a unique "blocky" bark. (I may be biased as I grew up living on aptly-named Dogwood Trail in NNJ.) If red twig dogwood is the same species as the common red-osier dogwood, plant it only in places where you can easily control its spread, which is often done by runners extending through the duff (or mulch).

Did you catch that in the spring? In April 1961 I caught a 26" pickerel that weighed exactly 3 lb, obviously a female that had just laid her eggs. As the main pickerel fishery, on the adjacent lake, had been demolished by a fish kill the previous summer (milfoil control that worked too quickly so rotting weeds de-oxygenated the water) I was sure I'd win the lake community's pickerel trophy - longest pickerel and heaviest bass got awards. Two weeks later I watched a classmate bring in another thin-as-a-rail pickerel and one glance told me my "sure" trophy was gone - just under 28" and 3.5 lb. And he caught it in the same place I caught mine! (Three years later I caught a 22" bass weighing 5 1/8 lb in the fish-kill lake - bass tolerated the conditions better than pickerel - and thought again I'd win. A friend's dad caught a 20.5" bass in the skinny-pickerel lake and that one weighed 5 5/8 lb - foiled again.)