Anatomy of a Misplaced Tropcial Storm

In college, my roommate had a boyfriend named Kyle (she also had a hedgehog, a 6-foot long boa constrictor, a freezer filled with frozen rats for said boa constrictor, and a very badly trained little white dog named Chessie, but that’s another story). Kyle, although relatively pleasant, was really kind of a slouch: he’d show up an hour late for dinner, or linger at our apartment for days—not going to class or doing his dishes or anything other than laying around, monopolizing the t.v., and often eating groceries that I had purchased.

Tropical storm Kyle seemed a whole lot like third-wheel-roommate Kyle when it arrived today: late, pretty soppy, and capable of creating low-level annoyance. Instead of drama and winds and pelting rain, we got soup, soup, and more soup. And not the fabulous cheesy broccoli soup or even a hearty lentil stew. This was a thin, uninspired, poorly seasoned storm—one frustrating enough to turn even the most agreeable caninaturalist into a singularly grouchy dog.

8:00 am: Our morning walk
Temperature: 63° F
Barometer: 29.93
Wind speed: 5 mph
Visibility: 10 miles

11:00 am: pouring rain
Temperature: 64° F
Barometer: 29.87
Wind speed: 3 mph
Visibility: 1 mile

1:00 pm: Time for a bathroom break

(aka, “really, go ahead and try to make me go outside again”)
Temperature: 66° F
Barometer: 29.30
Wind speed: 8 mph
Visibility: 4 miles

3:00 pm: check on household drainage
Temperature: 67° F
Barometer: 29.8
Wind speed: 12 mph
Visibility: 10 miles

5:00 p.m. NOAA radar check

7:00 pm: Misty stillness
Temperature: 65° F
Barometer: 28.5
Wind speed: 3 mph
Visibility: 3 miles

9:00 pm: No really, I DARE you to make me pee one more time outside
Temperature: 63° F
Barometer: 29.3
Wind speed: 3 mph
Visibility: 10 miles

11:00 pm: Good luck, Nova Scotia!

Batten Down the Hatches

High: 64° F
Low: 58°F
Conditions: Rain with increasing winds.

Kyle (or would that be Khyle?) is on the way and expected to make landfall here in Maine sometime on Sunday. Meteorologists are forecasting winds of 70 mph (with gusts exceeding 100 mph) and six inches of rain. All of the local critters have already taken cover, but we thought we’d go take one last stroll nevertheless. That's all for now, then. We’ll have more to report on Monday—stay tuned!

Issued by The National Weather ServicePortland, ME 1:13 pm EDT, Sat., Sep. 27, 2008
... TROPICAL STORM WIND WATCH IN EFFECT THROUGH SUNDAY EVENING...
... NEW INFORMATION... AT 1100 AM EDT... THE CENTER OF TROPICAL STORM KYLE WAS LOCATED NEAR LATITUDE 32.1 NORTH... LONGITUDE 69.6 WEST OR ABOUT 280 MILES WEST OF BERMUDA AND ABOUT 635 MILES SOUTH OF NANTUCKET MASSACHUSETTS. ... AREAS AFFECTED... THIS STATEMENT RECOMMENDS ACTIONS TO BE TAKEN BY PERSONS IN... WESTERN MAINE. INTERIOR WALDO COUNTY.
... WATCHES/WARNINGS... TROPICAL STORM KYLE WILL THREATEN PORTIONS OF THE WESTERN MAINE SUNDAY AND SUNDAY EVENING... A HURRICANE WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COAST OF MAINE FROM STONINGTON TO EASTPORT. A HURRICANE WATCH MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA... GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH IS IN EFFECT FOR THE COAST OF MAINE SOUTH OF STONINGTON TO CAPE ELIZABETH... INCLUDING THE PORTLAND AREA. A TROPICAL STORM WATCH MEANS THAT TROPICAL STORM CONDITIONS ARE POSSIBLE WITHIN THE WATCH AREA... GENERALLY WITHIN 36 HOURS. A TROPICAL STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR BERMUDA. KYLE IS MOVING TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHWEST NEAR 15 MPH... 24 KM/HR. A TURN TOWARD THE NORTH AND AN INCREASE IN FORWARD SPEED IS EXPECTED LATER TODAY... AND A TURN TOWARD THE NORTH-NORTHEAST IS EXPECTED TONIGHT OR SUNDAY. ON THE FORECAST TRACK... THE CENTER OF KYLE IS FORECAST TO BE NEAR EASTERN MAINE OR THE CANADIAN MARITIMES LATE SUNDAY. MAXIMUM SUSTAINED WINDS ARE NEAR 70 MPH... 110 KM/HR... WITH HIGHER GUSTS. SOME STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST DURING THE NEXT 24 HOURS... AND KYLE COULD BECOME A HURRICANE LATER TODAY. RAINFALL TOTALS AROUND ONE INCH ARE POSSIBLE ON BERMUDA THROUGH TODAY. RAINFALL TOTALS OF 2 TO 4 INCHES WITH MAXIMUM AMOUNTS OF 6 INCHES ARE POSSIBLE OVER EASTERN PORTIONS OF THE NEW ENGLAND STATES... NEW BRUNSWICK... AND NOVA SCOTIA THROUGH MONDAY MORNING.

Common Ground

High: 67°
Low: 40°
Conditions: Mostly sunny and calm

This week marks the start of autumn, and we can think of no better way to celebrate it than the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardener's Common Ground Fair. One of the largest of its kind in North America, Common Ground brings about 60,000 visitors to Central Maine over the course of three days for food, fun, and a little social activism. The fair is a special kind of place: its fried dough is 100% organic whole grain, its midway is filled with folk artisans and peace and justice groups, and the only rides there are the ones you catch on a friendly horse or two. It's a great place to be a canine naturalist--whether you have two legs or four.

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Heirloom Apples For Sale

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Sheep Dog Herding Demonstrations

Gourd Bird Houses

Oxen Pulls

Fleece Tent



Fleece Maker




mmmmm. . . honey

Fair Shuttle Bus

Winter Shuttle Bus

Winter Shuttle Bus Driver

Food As Art

Food For Lunch

Food On Parade

Friend, NOT Food

Loaf Love at First Sight

The First Frost of the Season

Low: 33° F
High: 60° F
Conditions: Cool and clear

O, WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,

. . . .
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O, wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

(excerpted from Percy Bysshe Shelley's, "Ode to the West Wind")

The Sky is Falling

High: 68° F
Low: 45° F
Conditions: Blustery winds

No doubt, you have heard the tragic story of one Chicken Little, a Gallus domesticus plagued by gravitaphobia. One day, poor Chicken Little was walking in the woods when she heard a sound described by several eyewitness accounts as “KERPLUNK.” This herald was then followed by an unprovoked assault by a most pernicious seed on her person (or chicken?). Understandably terrified, Chicken Little raced off to report this atrocity to the King, whose jurisprudence apparently included not only silviculture morphology, but atmospheric dynamics as well.

In a confused series of events the likes of which historians are still debating, Chicken Little was waylaid on her journey to the crown: she paused to alert other birds to the woodland crisis created by gravitational pull, was nearly consumed by a red fox for her efforts, and eventually concluded that a perambulation should always be accompanied by an umbrella or other protective shield. Logical? Perhaps not. Narratively sound? Doubtful. Relevant? Highly.

But why, the intrepid reader of blogs might reasonably ask, are you evoking this cherished fable now?

Simple.

Meet Chicken Ari. Or Puppy Little. Either moniker will do, I think. What’s most salient about this association is this:

That’s right. Acorns. Lying, seemingly innocently, on terra firma. But as all poultry knows (and caninaturalists have quickly learned), acorns don’t grow on the ground. Oh, no. Their preferred habitat, of course, is high up in the canopy, where they remain sutured to stately oaks by way of an ingenious (not to mention fetching) bonnet called the cupule. That's true most of the time, anyway.

When the season is ripe and the winds quite blustery, these enterprising seeds and seed pouches launch themselves, missile like, from the heavens and then plummet towards the earth. As they do, they accelerate at a rate of g = 9.81 m/s2 . Physics is a mean taskmaster. It ensures, of course, that when said seeds thump an unsuspected canine on the noggin (Or the back. Or the shoulder. Or even just land in the general vicinity of said canine), they pack what scientists sometimes call a wallop. And a big one at that. Heretofore mentioned impact, in turn, often results in an acute case of gravitaphobia worthy of any children’s story.

Gravitaphobia is no slouch of a condition. Its symptoms include general wariness of the natural world. In extreme conditions, it can cause a stubborn refusal to take walks on shaded thoroughfares. If the sufferer of this condition happens to live in the woods of Maine, complications can ensue. Like refusing to walk. Anywhere. That side-effect, in turn, presents something of a quandry for a harried human who needs her dog to WALK before she goes to WORK so that another condition, often referred to in the medical world as carpetpuddleosis, doesn't become an epidemic.

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As for canine naturalism, let's just say it's hard to investigate much of anything from one's front porch. Persuading a dog currently suffering from paranoid delusions of collapsing horizons can be an immensely frustrating exercise in the purest form of futility. Don’t even get me started about the sudden appearance of umbrellas throughout our house.

The Original Original Society of Friends

High: 66° F
Low: 47° F
Conditions: Mostly clear and calm

The new Farmer’s Almanac arrived this week. That’s a big deal here in Maine, where we can boast to being the home state of the almanac’s headquarters. We also tend to be pretty interested in the book itself: not only do Mainers love the folksy wisdom and no-nonsense facts listed therein, but we also tend to be really, really interested in the almanac’s predictions for winter, since we endure more than our fair share of that season every year.

Here at caninaturalist headquarters, we love the fact that, more times than not, the Farmer’s Almanac is shockingly accurate in its predictions. We also love that they continue to embrace time-honored (and occasionally scientifically-suspect) means for testing seasonal conditions. One of our favorites of these yarns is that you can predict the severity of the season by looking at the local creepy crawlies.

This is a wooly bear. More precisely, it’s a caterpillar about to metamorphize into an Isabella moth.


For years, all sorts of almanac readers have been swearing that you can tell how long, cold, and generally miserable a winter will be based on the wooly bear’s coat. The caninaturalist and I were curious about this fact, so we did some investigating. According to the Almanac’s website, this tradition was first tested by Dr. C. H. Curran, curator of insects at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. He and his wife collected dozens of wooly bears and examined their markings in the hopes that it might tell them something about the climatological fate of the seasons. They even went so far as to consult other scientists, meteorologists, and who knows who else.

In the end, Curran's results proved mostly accurate but not overly rigorous as far as methodology is concerned. But that didn’t really matter much to anyone. Thanks to media coverage of this story, The Original Society of the Friends of the Woolly Bear was formed, mostly as an excuse for leaf peeping, cider drinking, and (every so often) caterpillar studying. Through their incorporation, the popularity of the wooly bear was assured.

The caninaturalist and I set out this morning to see if we could find a wooly bear for our own study. We knew two facts about the wooly bears' habitat: they like flower foliage and sunny places. So, for our first stop, we thought we’d examine our sunflowers. We were pretty sure we wouldn’t find anything, since these flowers are 1) cut and in a vase and 2) stationed firmly on our kitchen table. But much to our surprise and delight, we found a lively specimen:

Next, we considered the wooly bear’s diurnal behaviors. When it gets cold outside, the caterpillar tends to curl up like this:

Here’s what we found on our living room chair:
We don’t want to sound alarmed, but we’re pretty sure the house is infested with these buggers. This is what the bedroom looked like just an hour after those first two shots were taken:
At this rate of reproduction, there could be millions of these fuzzy caterpillars in our house by the end of the month. I guess that means we have one very cold winter ahead. And we probably need a box of mothballs, too.

State Park Sabbath Part II

High: 71° F
Low: 49° F
Conditions: Evening thunderstorms and wind.

For our State Park Sabbath this week, we headed to the very lovely Swan Lake State Park, located not far from the coast, for one last swim and picnic before cooler weather arrives.

The lake is really lovely, and a great spot for taking a dip or a quick sail.
Swan Lake takes its name from the neighboring town of Swanville, which used to be called Goose Lake (perhaps a caninaturalist out there mis-IDed their bird the first time around?)

We didn’t see any swans or geese, but we did see a bald eagle, which was not nearly as scary or fierce or adversarial to Ari as this very menacing kite:


After a good 10 minutes of barking, it was pretty clear to EVERYONE in the park that the caninaturalist and kite were never going to be friends. So Ari and I decided to vacate the beach awhile and explore the woods, where we wouldn’t be tormented and taunted by multi-colored canvas tethered to a spool.

One of the most notable features of the park is its mature white pines, which tower over all the other foliage in the place. We estimated that several of these trees must be well over 100 years old. The strange canopy on this tree seems to suggest that it used to be crowded in by a bunch of other trees.

We were also really impressed with the great job the park staff has done in protecting the landscape, like creating these bridges over marshy patches and rivulets so that the ecosystem won't be disturbed. The caninaturalist didn't seem to mind that they also meant her very dainty feet would stay dry.

In the winter, Swan Lake will freeze so thickly that it will become a kind of superhighway for cross country skiers, snowmobiles, and even trucks driving out to ice fishing shacks. We can't wait to check it out then, too. (Hopefully, that damn kite will be gone by then!!)

100!

High: 83° F
Low: 56° F
Conditions: Partly cloudy and warm.

It's our 100th post! The best thing about blogging is all of the nature-loving, writerly, dogged friends we've met in cyberspace. So we thought we'd celebrate this milestone by musing on friendship and some of the pals we've made at our brand new dog park.



The mistresses of ceremony for the park's grand opening:

The importance of finding friends who match your color scheme:
Checking out the park's drinking fountains:



Dining upon new lab pals:

Looking for more suitable treats in my backpack:

Canine Mayhem: The Way Life Should Be.