Vermont Peanut Butter Company

I was asked by some friends at Simple Nation, a web design company, to shoot product images for a new site they were creating.  I didn't have much experience in this field, but knew it would be a great learning opportunity.  After experimenting with indoor and outdoor lighting, perfecting focus and depth of field, and over consumption of tasty peanut butter, I sent off the photos for use on the new website.  The site went live recently and looks great.  Check out my photos, Simple Nations' beautiful web work, and great VT Peanut Butter at:
 

Vermont Peanut Butter Company  

Finding Sunshine on a Cloudy Day

We found this yawning garter snake staring at a second snake leaning against a log at Niquette Bay State Park.

Yesterday I spent most of the day driving south on Route 7 to Massachusetts. The rain didn't let up during the four hours I was on the road and continued on into the night. On days like these I make sure to find my way outside to explore. I pull on my rain pants and rain jacket, aim my feet at my bog boots and top it off with my baseball hat. Whether rain or shine the natural world is full of activity, especially in early spring. We'd like to share our discoveries with you. Enjoy the photographs below and be sure to get out and appreciate your area's own natural treasures.

Photo Locations: Niquette Bay State Park, Colchester, VT and Raven Ridge Natural Area, North Ferrisburgh, VT (the ridge is off limits and signed in the early spring for nesting ravens and bobcats, but the rest of the area is open to curious explorers).

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) possesses a root that exudes bright red sap resembling blood. Please don't pick. These spring ephemerals (short lived plants) inhabit mesic woodlands with rich soils. Native Americans called it "Puccoon" and used is as red dye.

Sharp-lobed hepatica (Hepatica acutiloba) is tolerant of poor (acidic) and rich (alkaline) soils. According to the "Doctrine of Signatures" it was used for liver ailments and over 400,000 pounds of the herb was used in 1883. The Doctrine of Signatures held that plants resembling body parts could cure ailments associated with those organs.

Trout lily (Erythronium americanum) has green mottled leaves that are one of the first to pop up from underneath the duff layer in the early spring. This red and black beetle may be a pollinator for the plant (we are working on the beetle ID) that produces its nectar at the base of its yellow tepals.

We came upon these two wood frogs (Rana sylvatica) mating uphill from a large linear vernal pool blending in well with the organic matter bordering the walking path. Jim marked them with a few sticks to keep them safe from unsuspecting hikers.

This is the early first stage of the cedar-apple rust fungus. The fungus is found on eastern red cedar trees and during early spring after a rain, gelatinous fingers sprout out from the holes like tentacles. They release spores which can travel up to six miles and land on shrubs or trees in the Rosaceae family such as apples, hawthorne, and serviceberry (see photo below). The fungus then starts the second half of its life cycle which appears as colorful dots on the leaves of the host.

Serviceberry (Amelanchier spp.), or shadbush is one of the first flowering native shrubs of the spring season. You'll notice them flowering on the wooded borders of the highway if they haven't been out-competed by honeysuckles. Their dark blue berries are edible.

My favorite part about rainy days is the increased chance of seeing traveling amphibians. This tiny red eft is traveling through the moist woodland probably to find food and a new water source.

Here are the unfurling fronds of the evergreen Christmas fern (Polystichum acrostichoides). They are found in moist woodland habitats in the eastern United States.

Thanks for following us on our adventure!

Lake Champlain - Record Flooding

Lake Champlain has now surpassed the 102 foot "maximum known lake level" recorded at Rouses Point in May of 1869 and is not expected to reach its peak until Saturday morning.  The water is flooding lakefront homes, closing roads, eroding shorelines and creating various problems throughout Vermont.  These photos were taken at Perkins Pier and Delta Park.  Delta Park is a large floodplain where the mouth of the Winooski River meets Lake Champlain.

At Perkins Pier the benches remind us of the grassy park now submerged by the spring melt and rains.  Unfortunately, the bike path in this area will need some work to repair it.

 

The following photos were taken near the mouth of the Winooski River at Delta Park.  Here you can see the sand and silt of the Winooski River being deposited in Lake Champlain.

 Low lying homes and roads are flooded.  

  

The animals of Delta Park are doing what they can to find higher ground and wait out the abnormally high water.  Here, some groundhogs wait for the water occupying their den to retreat.

Muskrats can be seen in abundance at Delta Park. 

Lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a mink.

Champ sighting on Perkins Pier

Champ taking advantage of the free meals associated with the high waters of Lake Champlain.

Whether you believe it or not, spring is here. Waters are rising, tree buds are swelling, flowers are sharing sweet volatile oils, and my nose is tingling. With the coming of spring we may be unlikely to see alien organisms swimming towards the municipal dumpster, but we are sure to see a peculiar swamp plant peaking its head out from the decomposed matter dressing the soil. This strange entity is Symplocarpus foetidus, otherwise known as skunk cabbage.

The name is a Latin-Greek derivative meaning stinking (fetid) connected (symploke) fruit (carpus). The odor, revealed by damaging the flower parts, echoes the musky smell of a fox den. The flower, called a spadix, produces many fruits and is protected by a marbled magenta hood known as a spathe.

 

The flowers arrive as early as mid-February slowly melting the snow surrounding them through mammal-like metabolic activity. They are pollinated by flesh and carrion flies attracted to their putrid odor. You may be familiar with its relatives the wild calla, and jack-n-the-pulpit.

 

I found the skunk cabbage in a swampy wetland within Leddy Park in Burlington, VT.

The new seeds take 5-7 years before they produce flowers and can persist for many years. To me they look prehistoric and alien compared to the Trillium growing alongside them.

By now they are rotting away, the purple alien claw shriveling in response to the impetus of Spring. The strange visitors will soon be a mutated memory replaced by their large ovaloid smaragdine leaves, the delicate curves of trillium, and the robust blooms of the silver maple, more signs of proof that spring is here.

This is not skunk cabbage (in case you were confused), these are Trillium shoots.

I Recycled That......

The late afternoon light filters through the clouds guiding our eyes away from the shoreline to the picturesque views typical of postcards and magazine covers.

The intimate reality on the flooded sandy shorelines of Lake Champlain is a colorful array of synthetic polymers (Anyone want a guess as to what this green object is?). 

I often wonder if our lips could survive without lip balm, so small, so easy to drop unawares. How many have I dropped unknowingly in my lifetime?

Styrofoam, didn't we outlaw this stuff a long time ago? Brought to us by the Dow Chemical Company and potentially lethal when ingested by animals in large amounts, Styrofoam is cheap, but not when it comes to the recycling process.

Plastic is light, less expensive to ship, and doesn't break in comparison to glass products.

I was surprised to find this full mayonnaise jar, but not tempted to open it.

The most common plastic objects still intact were bottle caps. But most of the litter consisted of small rainbow shards of broken plastic.

Seeing the red object below brought back childhood memories of walking to the corner store with a dollar bill in hand to buy an over-sized sweet strawberry gem. I enjoyed flashing my "bling" to the cars passing by.

Ah, the infamous lighter litter. So easy to drop off the side of a water craft. Never found without a cigarette butt within five feet of its vicinity.

I guess all litter isn't bad. What's that people say, "One dog's trash is another dog's treasure."?

If you think that plastic is no problem click here: Plastic is no problem.

New Haven River Kayak Festival

The New Haven River Festival took place Saturday in Bristol, VT.   Spring temperatures arrived just in time to melt the snowpack and increase the flow of the river.  The water was frigid, after only five minutes of photographing from within the river my legs had gone completely numb.  It was incredible watching both pro and amateur paddlers give it their all in the head-to-head, double elimination tournament, everyone competing for a $1,000 grand prize.  Enjoy the photos…

 

April Fools!

A snowstorm of epic proportions predicted for April Fools Day was dominating the local news early last week. Initial predictions were stating 16-20" in the mountains!  Well..... April Fools!  It didn't turn out to be as fruitful as initially predicted, although it did leave a nice coating of 5-8" in the mountains.  Danielle and I, along with our friends Chris and Evan, took advantage of the cream cheese like snow to enjoy the glades and chutes of Smugglers Notch Saturday.

 

Danielle and I decided to hike the Teardrop ski trail on the west side of 

Mt Mansfield on Sunday.

 
The Teardrop was cut by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 1930's. Initially an 800' rope tow and lights for night skiing were installed on the Underhill side of Mt Mansfield. Fortunately, for those who enjoy backcountry ski touring, Stowe Resort installed a single chair in 1940, diverting much of the ski traffic to the other side of the mountain. I'd rather spend a bluebird day skinning on my splitboard for one run than fork over $89 for a lift ticket!