HERE COMES THE SUN

Here comes the sun

Here comes the sun, and I say

It's all right

It's all right

–––The Beatles

Solar! The black clip on the sharp left corner is to keep humans–or cows–from head injuries

Did I mention how much sun shines on our land?  Before we lived here I don’t think I was ever so aware of sunlight unless I was at the beach.  I open the front door at, say 2 in the afternoon on a bright June day, and wham!  I’ve got to reach for my sunglasses just to see.  (Remember the Seinfeld episode when Kramer’s apartment was blasted by the hellish beam of the neon sign from the chicken restaurant?*  It’s like that. Almost.)  We face directly west, our back to the east where the slopes rise to Buck Mountain, delaying our morning light noticeably in the winter but not a whit this time of year, woods on the north side, and nothing whatever to impede the sun from the south.  Energy, wild, unharnessed. 

Well, now it’s harnessed, at least modestly. 

In Vermont, in our field, a big dig begins; making holes for the sona tubes that will hold solar panels

I guess we were solar-ready in a way.   In Masssachusetts, where we lived until 2010, there was a fleeting period of energy-consciousness in the early 1980’s––most likely emanating from the time of the Carter administration and latent memories of the gas crisis of the 1970’s––when sizeable rebates were available to anyone who installed solar panels.  We had two panels to heat water placed on the roof of the more-or-less south-facing garage of our house in Lexington.  (We’re talking about solar water heating.  Photovoltaics were out of the question; they were too expensive and far less efficient than they are today.)  On brilliant sunny days I liked thinking that the water we showered in was heated by the sun.  But we never got a clear picture of the energy we saved.  The temperature dial on the solar tank fizzled after a couple of years.  We tended to forget what the reading were supposed to mean anyway.  Only a slight gurgling noise from the tank suggested our water was actually getting sun-warmed.  Over time the trees around the back yard grew larger, and before long the panels were in a veritable hole of sunshine.  When the possibility of replacing the solar water tank loomed for the second time, we had the panels removed. 

Our first solar romance was over.

Some pretty much VT-type sentiments
(car of one of our solar installers)

There were never very many solar installations in Lexington.  A handful, maybe.  A few I’d noticed in the 1980’s and 90’s had, like ours, tended to disappear by 2000.  But then I never thought to see much in the way of solar panels on homes in any state in the Northeast. (Boston averages about 200 days of sunshine per year.  That sounds optimistic, but it’s a fact.  Really.)  In 2008 we happened to be driving around Las Vegas, a city with nearly 300 days of sunshine a year (292, counting partial), and got lost in a suburban landscape of endless spanking new housing communities, raw and still mostly unoccupied.  (A condition in which they would remain, given the recession just around the corner.)  Not a single roof bore solar panels.  Not one.  I’m sure there must have been housing elsewhere with solar panels that we happened not to see, but you would expect solar to be a no-brainer anywhere in the state of Nevada.  The thing is, there are few incentives for homeowners in that state.   According to a site tracking solar progress in Nevada http://solarpowerrocks.com/nevada/ incentives are "geared toward industrial size installations for businesses or power companies with eyes on creating horizons of silicon in the desert."

  

A small Nevada town whose name I forgot, where the sun shines without hitting a  panel

Here in Vermont we have half that average number of days with sunshine (a mere 159, counting partial), yet we live five miles from a solar array, and other solar is not terribly hard to find.  There is a move to get more homeowners onto solar, concentrating for the moment on our county.

Suncommon is the Vermont agent for SunPower 

During the winter we read in our local paper about a new concept to encourage people in this area to go solar.  Leasing.  Sure, if you want to spend some $20,000 or so you can buy a solar system and never pay another penny for electricity.  On the face of it, if your electrical costs were, say, $1,500 a year, you would break even in well under twenty years.  If you lease, you don’t own the system, and you continue to pay your $l,500 or so for electricity.  Still, why bother?

The sona tube goes down about 6 feet and will be filled with concrete.
This is necessary as the panels will be like sails in the wind.

The trench from panel 3 brings the power to the electrical panel in the basement.
(Where did all those rocks come from? All the soil is pure clay.)

One reason, of course is that it feels like the right thing to do.  We are helping in a small way to save energy.  But that’s not really enough.  There is a sweetener.  Whether you own or lease, if your system produces more kilowatt hours than you use, our electric company, Green Mountain Power, will buy back the electricity at a “guaranteed fixed rate” of $0.20 per kilowatt hour, $0.21 by year four.  (Our most recent bill from Green Mountain Power charged us only $0.147 per kilowatt hour.)   The three panels installed in our sunny meadow are set to produce a “guaranteed range of annual production” of 14,704 to 16,252 kilowatt hours in year one.  Our actual electricity usage in 2012 was 9,388 kilowatt hours, in 2011 roughly the same.  Assuming we continue to use power at the same pace, we should be able to claim a rebate from Green Mountain Power for the difference between 9,000-plus kilowatt hours and somewhere between 14,000 and 16,000 kilowatt hours.  Because our system was more expensive to install than a roof system (our roof faces east-west), and we have three panels rather than the two that may have sufficed to cover our current electrical needs, we will have a higher monthly electrical bill (aka lease payment) before figuring in rebates for over-generation of power.   Will we come out ahead, or behind?

The panels are fitted into the frames

The inner workings on post #3

Electrical connections are made

A robin has already laid two eggs in a niche on post #3

After twenty years the kilowatt hours our system will produce is projected to decrease to a range of 14,021 to 15,497.  All solar panels lose power over time, but we noted that manufacturing defects in the industry have recently come to light.  According to a May 28, 2013 New York Times article:

“The solar panels covering a vast warehouse roof in the sun-soaked Inland Empire region east of Los Angeles were only two years into their expected 25-year life span when they began to fail.  Coatings that protect the panels disintegrated while other defects caused two fires that took the system offline for two years, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenues.  It was not an isolated incident. Worldwide, testing labs, developers, financiers and insurers are reporting similar problems and say the $77 billion solar industry is facing a quality crisis just as solar panels are on the verge of widespread adoption.”

Most of the problems, according to the Times, were with panels made in China, the largest manufacturer of solar panels, but some American-made panels were defective as well.  Our panels (we asked) are among those manufactured in the US.   One of the installers commented they were "really good" panels.  In any case, we don’t own them.

The solar array, and visitor information, above, at the edge of Vergennes center

Our system is not officially operational; it awaits an exchange of paperwork and stamps of approval that signify we have a functioning system.  Suncommon, the company that makes presentations about solar power and installed our system, serves as the Vermont agent for SunPower, the company based in California that actually owns our panels.  We have no responsibility for upkeep (if there is any) or anything else for that matter.  (Except that it falls upon us to ask the power company for the rebate.)   A computer site will monitor the energy our system is producing.  So far the system was “on” only for limited testing purposes.  It was 4 o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was still high in the sky, and it was producing energy.  No fuzzy picture this time.  Those few minutes (was it a half hour?) of production, according to our monitoring site, gave the equivalent of  “not driving 16 miles in a standard car.”   Wham!

Nearly complete, with panel #3 before electrical work

*This was "The Chicken Roaster" episode, the 142nd episode of the sitcom Seinfeld, the eighth episode of the eighth season. It aired on November 14, 1996.  You can look it up.

A GOOD DOG

Rufus is no more. 

Today I rolled up his outdoor leashes.  He had two of them, two ropes, each attached to a 20-pound weight, one for the front, one for the back, that we would move to different places on the grass.  I picked up one remaining poop.  I haven’t yet put away his food dish that still sits on the floor next to Harry’s.  The collar that said “Rufus” along with our phone number and his license is still around his neck, in the ground.  I have a hard time looking at his harness, the one we used to ease the pressure on his neck, so I put it down in the basement. When I touch it, or touch his bowl it’s as if he’s still here, alive, somewhere.

A remarkable thing, the attachment you can have to a dog, even a dog you’ve only known for a short time.  Maybe because there is a perfect innocence that dogs–animals–possess.  Combine that with an awareness of you, you their master/pack leader/guide/food supplier, a relationship that is at its best a warm, even loving, interaction between species.  We see a lot more in dogs, I think, than they see in us.

Harry and Rufus atop Buck Mountain in the summer of 2012

Rufus wasn’t a beautiful dog.  And I don’t think anyone would have called him cute.  He was a nice dog, a good dog.  Big for a beagle, he had lovely soft ears, bowed front legs that splayed outward, a nose that was a bit bulbous, a midsection that was a bit too large, and clouded eyes.  All in all he looked his age.  His adoption papers gave his age as “8-plus.”  We put the question to our vet who guessed “maybe 14?” 

We adopted Rufus in December of 2011.  There was a sweetness about him that was evident as soon as we saw him.  He wagged his tail at Harry and at us right away, and seemed at ease with our taking him to a new home that he would share with another dog.  He adapted to his new circumstances with an easy nonchalance.  He never growled at anyone, was never aggressive, even when he was around other dogs.  He got along with everyone.   He was respectful to Harry.  He didn’t spar with him for the best space on the sofa, or expect first dibs on the dog bed.  He took what was available both in food and love.  He was a beagle, though, and I know his conduct would not have been sweet when it came to rabbits, chipmunks or other small mammals.  His eager sniffing suggested what he would do if he could.  We never gave him the opportunity to demonstrate those beagle abilities with chickens, or any small creature for that matter.  I know this sweetness had its limits.

Not the most beautiful, nor the cutest dog, but the most sweet

Rufus’ beagle nature meant we would not be able to let him run loose.  We found this out after letting him sniff around the pond one afternoon, unmonitored, for some fifteen minutes.  I realized he had disappeared only moments before a car packed with family and children came down our driveway.  The car door opened, and out popped Rufus.  He had been found wandering, they said, about a mile or so up the road.  Beagles can move fast, we learned, when they’re on a scent.  That’s when we got him a collar with our phone number on it.

Walks in the field with Ken and Harry gave Rufus a chance to enjoy culinary treats like deer poop

There was one problem though:  his eyes.  He had incipient glaucoma, and cataracts in both eyes.  We decided we could fix that for him.  And for several thousands of dollars we nearly did.  After laser surgery his eyes began to look clear and he could see better.  But it was not to last.  Despite numerous eye procedures and eye medications Rufus remained stubbornly in the category of dogs with complications.  By this past winter it was obvious he was nearly blind.  By early spring he was totally blind.

There was one problem though:  his eyes.

Of Rufus’ early life we knew nothing.  He was found as a stray some ten or so miles away.  He was not neutered until he arrived at the local animal shelter.  Given his poor vision he could easily have sniffed himself far away from home and then, unable to see his way back, simply wandered.  He wasn’t in good shape when he arrived at the shelter.  Like any human being who spent time living on the streets, he was a mess:  he had broken teeth, an ear inflammation, one red eye, and his coat was dull and dry. There had once been a time when someone had cared enough about him to teach him some commands.  He knew the usual ones (sit, lie down, stay) that any dog needs to learn whether he’s to be a working dog (people use beagles for hunting rabbits) or a pet, but he also knew a few that were surely taught him just for fun:  he knew “paw” and he knew “roll over.”  If there were other words he understood––maybe a few words related to rabbit hunting?––we never learned about them.  What, we wondered, was his original name?

 

One of Rufus' favorite locations in winter.

In his final weeks we found we would have to put him on a leash and lead him up or down the stairs to keep him from bumping into things, or to help him find the front door, even to find his water dish.  His nose was sometimes bloody.  We might see him standing immobile in the middle of a room or facing a wall, appearing not to know where to go. Outdoors he often walked in circles and might eventually bay at the wrong door to be let back in.  His hearing seemed to be going as well, as he no longer reacted to our calls or to his name, or to our leading him by making sounds as we had gotten accustomed to doing.  Occasionally he would pee or poop indoors, probably because he was confused about where he was.  Other times it was because he couldn’t last through the night, so we took turns getting him outdoors as early as 4 or 5 in the morning.  When he was being fed he began to eat more and more desperately, almost charging the wall in a panic to get to his food bowl.  It’s as if food is the one sure thing he can do something about.  He began to have trouble even finding his favorite spot on the sofa.   He was lost.  Yet with all this, he wasn’t actively dying.  This made our decision to bring his life to an end so wrenching.

Rufus, recently

The vet came to our house.  After so many dozens of visits to doctors’ offices there would not be any more.  Dr. Mark gave Rufus a sedative.  While that took hold we gave Rufie as many treats as he was interested in eating, what he liked most, until he was just too tired to eat any more.  After Rufus was fast asleep our vet gave him a second injection.  And that was the end.  It was a good death.  

RITES OF SPRING

Hepatica

PATRIOTS DAY

Patriots’ Day in Boston, when the weather cooperated, was a day to check out the garden, clear some of the debris of winter, maybe put in a few hardy plants.  Unless this was one of those Patriots’ Days when I would get out of bed at five o’clock to see the reenactment on the Lexington Battle Green, the shaggy Minute Men facing the red-coated British regulars.  After seeing the morning reenactment, it was nearly impossible––too tired!––to consider going to watch the Boston Marathon, so we usually ended up watching it live on television.  Just about everyone I knew watched it on TV or saw it live whether they cared about running or not.  Of course I was there the year Lesley officially ran it in 1997 with the Dana Farber team, the same year Ken walked the whole 26 miles (afterward taking a taxi home to make dinner for all of us).

Unforgettably marred, this rite of spring, by the bombings near the Marathon finish line.  It will not be easy to watch another race without remembering this one––the one that never finished on a beautiful day in spring, the day evil exploded.  From the descriptions of the bombs it was clear the bomber wanted to hurt and maim people, and spoil something that was lighthearted and fun.  It wasn’t the usual stereotypical target an international group seems to like, but a target created out of anger and bitterness and hatred, and by someone who took the trouble to learn––or knew well­––the rhythm of the Marathon. 

Enough.

SPRING REVELATIONS

The Adirondack "alps" from Buck Mountain

There are some things you can see this time of year that you won’t see anymore once spring is in full bloom.  The grass will slowly cover over the trails that were made under the snow in winter by moles or mice.  The Adirondacks will look less like alps when their snow has melted.  Hepatica,* the first flower we’ve spotted blooming in the forest, will be succeeded by other, bolder blossoms.  At first we saw only a few clumps of flowers, but once we began looking beyond just the trail we could see it everywhere in the forest.  

Hepatica comes in white, 

as well as purple (and pink, top photo)

Mole trails in the grass

Mole trail, showing the mole hole

During the winter some critter excavated underneath the concrete patio

Our pond, clear now, has been visited by breeding pears of ducks (Mallards and Mergansers) and geese (migrating Canadian) all of whom, after checking us out,  will doubtless settle on larger bodies of water for their spring and summer homes.  We've had no long term residents.  

Hooded Merganser who visited with his less colorful mate (out of the frame)

I don’t know much about deer behavior in the spring; we spotted them in the late afternoon or early evening in the field not far from the house for several days in a row, but on the last day visiting dogs Sadie and Scamper darted out after them and chased them back into the woods.  We haven’t seen any deer since. 

Three of the deer group in our field, just days before the grass began to green

Just a few short weeks ago we had had our final cross country ski.  It had a finality in actual fact:  the path we ski on from behind our house in the morning to where it joined a ski mobile trail to route 17 melted before our eyes.   By afternoon we would have had to take our skis off and walk back.

Ken (right) with Allan Ames (left) on our last ski

Buck Mountain, behind our house, was our first (modest) climb of the season.  It was from this point that we looked over to the mountains in the photo at top, and it was here we spotted the hepatica.

A still pond halfway up Buck Mountain, in wait for greening

Ken en route up Buck Mountain

*Hepatica, known also by less attractive names––liverwort, kidneywort, pennywort––is a member of the buttercup family.

  

WATER AND SUGAR

Fruitless last-minute efforts to save houses on Plum Island, Massachusetts.

Water

On the morning of March 7, the first of several dangerous high tides clawed at the sand tubes (“coirs”) and concrete blocks homeowners had placed to shore up the foundations of their homes on Plum Island.  I happened to be in Newburyport the week of the storm and we checked out the beach at the first dangerously high tide.  (Plum Island serves as Newburyport’s barrier beach.)  The distance between houses and ocean had already been drastically shortened by earlier storms.  It was clear that some wouldn't make it through this storm.  Two high tides later, several of the houses were upended by the waves, others in danger of the same fate. 

Photo from the New York Times shows how the beach looked two days later.

Sugar

The days grew warm and the nights remained cold later that week back in Vermont.  Perfect conditions for the maple sap to start running.  The Hustons and Goudeys (Newburyport had come to Vermont) rounded up the sap barrels and spent most of the weekend overseeing a boil. 

Hans checks out the line-up of sap-filled bins.

A load of sap, plus Ben, riding to the sugarhouse.
(Re the snow:  photo taken two weeks after the first boil.)

Audrey using the hot sap to boil an egg.  (Why not?)

The first boil is on!

While the sap was boiling away, and just to keep busy (waiting for the sap to evaporate is a long boring process!), Cliff and Chris built us a bridge over the narrow end of the pond.

Water

The second day of the boil it rained on the snowless ground all day and all night. The directions that water seeps through the meadow were clearer than ever.  Three different seeps feed the pond.  We watched the pond rise, and the new bridge nearly floated.  All in just a few hours.

Left to right, Carly, Audrey, Ben (nearly obscured next to Hans),  Hans and Olin inspect the flood

Peak flood.  (The bridge awaits a railing.)

The big drainpipe at the other end of the pond lowered the water level fairly quickly as the rain slackened.  There was now a roaring brook on the other side.  Ice had probably helped impede the flow.

Sugar

Last year’s weather didn’t allow the trees to produce as much sap.  It was a poor sugaring year for everyone, including commercial producers.   Plus we knew less about making syrup.  This year our prime brewers (sugarers?) made sure that the syrup was at the proper temperature when it was finished.  The higher the sugar concentration in a sugar solution, the higher the temperature at which the sap boils.  As you evaporate water from the sap the temperature of the boiling liquid increases.  Finished syrup boils at 7 degrees Fahrenheit above the boiling temperature of water (212 degrees).  Hence, 219 degrees is optimum for finished syrup. Boiling it longer will result in syrup that is too dark or too thick.  (Somehow we’ve never had a problem with “too thick.”)  We filtered the finished syrup, a tedious process, through several layers of cheesecloth to get a clearer product.  (When sap is boiled, the minerals that are naturally present in the sap are concentrated or hardened into a grainy substance called niter, otherwise known as sugar sand.)

Our set-up for filtering out the sugar sand.

After the first weekend boil we ended up with over 45 jars of the sweetest maple syrup I’ve ever had. The first day’s syrup was light but tasty.  The second was darker and more robust.  And there is more to come.

The jars of syrup begin to accumulate.  The earliest syrup is on the right.

Water

After all the rain there was a dusting of snow.  About the right amount for a day in March.  Time for pruning, I thought.  But all I had a chance to trim were the apple trees.  Then winter returned with a new fall of snow–enough to cross-country ski on our own land and create the best downhill ski conditions of the season.  Cold enough, too, to have the snow last longer than you might expect for late March.   And snowy enough to postpone the rest of the pruning.

Olin on the TAM (Trail Around Middlebury).  About the right amount of snow for March.

Snow again, a week later.  Following the trail to the Mitchell's land.

 ***

Still, it is officially spring.

Some of the things that are probably happening now, even if it's not obvious:

·       Pussy willows are beginning to open.

·       Great horned owls are nesting in old retailed hawk nests.

·       Skunk cabbage is flowering in swamps.  

·       Brown creepers are among the earliest spring migrants, perhaps because they don’t migrate far.

·       Male woodcocks return as soon as the ground has thawed enough to make earthworms accessible.

·       When the snow melts, tunnels in the lawn are revealed. The tunnels were made by moles.*

And...on a warmish day a week ago, before the fresh snow came, the red-winged blackbirds arrived in large numbers.  Even with snow still on the ground we hear them chirping––in truth, more of a “conk-a- reeeee” sound, not especially tuneful, but one we will hear every day from now through summer.  They will build nests in the meadow.

Spring?

 * Items in this list are from The Place You Call Home, “A Look at the Season’s Main Events: Spring,” Center for Northern Woodlands Education, a publication of Vermont Fish and Wildlife, 2008