The first of the small ponds beyond Julie’s pond. A year ago that would have been dry leaves there. The floating bits of green are duck weed.
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Storm water management Wednesday, Aug 31 2011
Modern Photos 10:15
Contrary to the belief of at least one visitor (yes, let us have a full house while it rains!), we actually did have some damage from the non-event, for us, of Tropical Storm Irene. I don’t object to the fact that our preparations were not needed, I prefer to look like an idiot rather than be an idiot. In any case below are pictures of what water can do, a mild case.
The damage done to the woodlands is extensive and would be very costly to resolve. Thankfully, due to the heroic efforts of those involved and the luck that the water’s first preference is to go just a bit farther down the curve (the one bit of proper engineering on that stretch of road), it was kept out of the pond. A thousand feet of dirt road, stripped to the sub-base in sections being dumped directly into the pond (shallow, spring fed) would have destroyed it beyond repair.
Royal Oak woodlot
This picture shows the bottom of one of the two flows from the lane, about 400 feet down hill from it. I am standing where there had been one of the few remaining colonies of wake-robin trillium in this parcel, now a drift of rock about 8 inches in height.
This shows the first failure, the culvert simply isn’t sized correctly and is also too high in relation to the stream. Consequently, in flood conditions the water jumps into the road bed. From here on down, about a 1000 feet, the stream used the road as its bed, taking essentially all the fine sand and much of the rock. It did not return to the ditch because the grading actually tilted the road away from the ditch in this section.
The pond is directly to my left in this photo, and is actually about 2 feet below the modern road bed. The water doesn’t go into it because at this point the road is graded correctly, into the the inside of the curve and the ditch at the right. Consequently, the ditch widened to take out about half of the road on the ditch side through the curve, which is the worst that should happen. We were also able to keep about a quarter of the flow, which did want to go into the pond, from heading in that direction by some fast shovelling. The ditch should go into a culvert, but that was obviously not capable of handling the water, let alone the road debris, again due to improper sizing; so the water cut across the road, as it had with the first culvert, finally going into the Royal Oak woodlot to the left just about where the break of the hill is in the photo.
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Second cutting Tuesday, Aug 23 2011
Esperanza and Historic Photos and Modern Photos 11:22
Tedding hay 1911
Esperanza has always produced hay, for most of its history it was for its own use. The picture above was probably takn of a second cutting of hay. I don’t know who is driving the horse, but I do know that the horse is Kentucky Chief, one of a matched pair of medium weight driving horses. He would have been well suited to handling a light tedder and would have been much faster than using one of the Percherons, who would have been used to bring the hay in. The farm also had a team of oxen.
Today I take 75 bales and the rest is taken by the farmer who cuts it. That the field has a reputation for being the best in town is a source of pride. (even if the competition is small these days) The field easily breaks a 1000 (est. at 50lb bale, much less when he does round bales) a year, which isn’t bad since only 12 acres are in hay at the moment.
There is always a way to these things. The first cutting traditionally comes in early June, Belmont weekend when the grass turns from silver to gold. Really, the color changes when the wind bends the grass, gold is fully mature seed heads. Brown is too late. Most years, this one was no different, this is the worrisome cutting. The larger and more valuable of the two, it comes at a time of year prone to uncertain weather. It is also the cutting, because of the tall grass height and seed heads, that is more easily ruined. Because it is higher quality grass it is generally considered horse hay, but this also increases the risk for horse hay must be dry. Hail storms beating the grass down before it is cut, rain when it is down can turn it from 6 dollar horse hay to 2 dollar construction hay.
The second cutting happens any time from mid August to before the frost, so end of September. This period has more predictable weather. The cutting is smaller often half the size, unless the summer has had lots of rain, and easier to handle.
- Hay tedder 2011
This picture was taken in June. You can tell by the size of the windrows that this is a first cutting. While the tractor qualifies as an antique, and has another career at tractor shows, the rakes are more modern and of a typical size for New England haying equipment today. Like all farm machinery they are elegant, functional and lethal.
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Flowers of August and a new generation Monday, Aug 8 2011
Esperanza and Modern Photos 15:31
- North Lawn, August 2011
For those that know the house, you can see the new paint looking just as it ought on the gable.
- Snakeroot
Snakeroot, Oriental Lilies, Phlox and Monarda
- Orielle’s first visit
Generation 8 (if you count good old Henry Norton); from Left: Jamie, Holly, Orielle, Betsy, Callye, John
Acair Fearann 