All invited to join invasive plant eradication initiatives
A buck amid the wild flowers.
The thunderstorms that rolled through this past week should have helped with our shortage of water. Most of the rain was soaked up with hardly any run off. This will surely help with the ripening blackberries.
I’m finding evidence of them in Bear and Coyote droppings already, so they are being nipped from the bushes somewhere.
Many states are still in a drought situation with no relief in sight. Brush fires are popping up in many of these areas.
We aren’t out of the woods yet as streams and rivers are about as low as I’ve seen them in a long time.
The Stillwater Reservoir looked about four feet down when I passed it yesterday.
Invasive plant control continues here in the Adirondacks.
A training session for property owners on how to control invasive plants and effective use of herbicides will be held at the Park Avenue Building in Old Forge on Tuesday, August 21 from 1 to 3 p.m.
The meeting will be conducted by Brennan Quirion, a representative of the Adirondack Park Invasive Plant Program.
Macro frog
If you have the invasive plant Japanese Knotweed growing on your property and want it eliminated you can contact Inlet Town Clerk Patty Wittmeyer at (315) 357-5771 or email: clerk@inletny.com.
Written permission is needed to use the control measures on your property. Tax exempt checks can be send to support the control effort to Town of Inlet, Invasive Plant Control Fund, Town of Inlet, PO Box 179, Inlet, N.Y. 13360.
Money from this fund has been used to control knotweed and other invasives in Inlet, Eagle Bay, Old Forge, Big Moose, Raquette Lake, Blue Mountain Lake, Long Lake and other points east and south.
The subject of Wild Parsnip came up at a meeting I went to yesterday.
The invasive plant, which can cause third degree burns on your skin, is getting a foot-hold in the area and efforts are being taken to get it under control.
Purple Loosestrife, Phragmites and Garlic Mustard are also being sprayed and pulled as part of this eradication effort.
The tadpoles are quickly losing their tails and moving to land. I see little black specks hopping out from under foot as I walk to the pond each morning.
I wonder just how many of those thousands of little frogs make it out in the big world.
With their quarter-inch jumps it must take them forever to get anywhere.
I’m sure their own moms or dads gobble some of them up mistaking their movement for a bug.
The ones just leaving the pond would surely win prizes for being the smallest frog at the Father’s Day Frog Jump. They are only a quarter of an inch long from head to tail.
We never get a good old thunderstorm anymore. When we were growing up our bedroom window faced west and we could watch a storm coming from quite a distance.
Lightning streamed through the night sky followed by big booms of thunder, depending on how far away the storm was.
These days you had better take cover when a thunderstorm hits as they aren’t like the normal storms we were accustomed to.
Just last night (8/5) there were warnings for approaching violent thunderstorms in the Carthage area.
They reported possible wind gusts of 50 to 60 miles an hour and damaging hail.
I don’t know if the storms hit that area but my son Mitch said one hit his battlefield encampment at Oriskany yesterday morning.
He said the encampment was nearly blown away by winds that were accompanied by large hail.
That ended the battle. Mother Nature won.
On my way to Henderson Lake last week I passed through the old village of Tawhaus where a violent storm had passed through the previous Tuesday.
A big wind or a micro burst cut through a quarter mile or more of trees. All the trees were just laid flat, mostly in the same direction.
Luckily there were no structures in that area, however it took a road crew a couple of days to clear up the mess.
If you were camping in the woods in that area it would have spoiled your trip, for sure.
I don’t know how long the storm stayed on the ground but sooner or later it must have hit something other than woods.
These storms move at a pace of 50 to 60 miles an hour, so if you hear thunder in the distance either on land or water, get to cover or shore as fast as you can as the storm will be upon you in a flash.
Being the only object in the middle of a lake in a thunderstorm is a dangerous situation.
Lightning kills more people in the United States than any other weather related deaths.
The Warblers are on the move, but that’s another story. See ya.
