Early July NEHiN

There is an effort by The Nature Conservancy to reestablish oysters in the bay. The oysters are filter feeders and will help clean up the bay. They are laying beds of shells and seeding them with oyster spat. Hopefully the spat will survive and grow and establish colonies.

(Jul 09, 2018 09-26 AM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

Oyster Barge

Mark’s blueberries are starting to ripen. The berries are not ripening all at once and the critters are eating them faster than they ripen, as a result we have not harvested any blueberries yet this year. 😦

Blueberries

Eating Mark’s Blueberries

Eating Mark’s Blueberries Video

The yard has been active as ever. We saw a boiling ball of paint dipped goodness recently.

(Jul 03, 2018 05-45 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 03, 2018 05-47 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 03, 2018 05-51 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

Paint Dipped Goodness

(Jul 03, 2018 05-46 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

Hen Turkey

(Jul 04, 2018 04-22 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 04, 2018 04-23 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 04, 2018 04-24 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 04, 2018 09-44 AM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jul 04, 2018 09-45 AM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

Bird Feeders

NEHiN Critters Video

All for now.

Mark, Wink and Meg

I have filled all my allotted space for this site with no easy way to increase it. So I will have to change what I am doing. This will be the last blog here until I figure it out.

😦

Late June NEHiN

I am getting behind in my blogging again. Summer is in full swing here and we are busy but not so busy that I should have been able to get my blogging done. The babies are out and about.

(Jun 22, 2018 07-25 AM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

(Jun 22, 2018 07-26 AM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456)

Baby Deer

Baby Woodchuck

There is also the usual activity going on in the yard.

Buck in Velvet

Hot Chicks in a Bath

(Jun 13, 2018 05-46 PM)NIKON COOLPIX P900(4608x3456).JPEG — Soggy Skunk

Cardinal

Robin

Tom Turkey

All for now.

Mark and Wink

Y NEHiN – Late Spring

This is an update to last Winter’s blog: YNEHiN. It was shown that Nuttin Evah Happens in NewMahket because our yard provides three things: Food, Water and Cover/Habitat. We now can see the results of all of that.

FOOD

There is a lot of natural food but we still maintain our bird feeders.

Deck Bird Feeder

Oriole Feeder

WATER

We still have the spring in the yard but we have supplemented the deck bird bath with a bird bath on the front entrance.

Deck Bird Bath

Front Bird Bath

HABITAT

We have the four and a half acres that are partially wooded with two hundred feet of waterfront on Great Bay in New Hampshire. This combination has produced an explosion of babies. Enjoy the habitat pictures.

Baby Canada Geese

Baby Birds

Baby Deer

VIDEO HERE

Here are some miscellaneous pictures for your enjoyment.

Fun Pictures

Father’s Day

We had a relaxing Father’s Day.

Andrew’s cats

We made cowboy steak, asparagus and truffle fries for dinner. It was fabulous.

Fathers Day Dinner

Just gettin by in NewMahket, where nuttin continues to happen.

Mark, Wink and Meg

Road Trip X – Wilson’s Creek Battlefield

Wilson’s Creek was the site of the second major battle of the American Civil War. It is in Missouri and occurred shortly after the first battle of Bull Run. It was a Union defeat and the first Union General to die in the war was killed in this battle.

It was memorial day and they had re-enactors inside. They do field exercises some weekends.

Battlefield Weapons

Re-enactors kit

Battlefield Views

Ray House

The locals fared poorly after the battle.

Mark and Meg

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip IX – Rocky Mountain National Park

We drove from Dinosaur National Monument to Boulder CO. via Rocky Mountain National Park. We had hoped to get to the Visitor Center and walk up to view the continental Divide. The trip to Newmarket would be downhill from that location: 14,000 ft to 0 ft.

Moose

Elk

Snow

Home is downhill from here

Mark and Meg

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip VIII – Dinosaur National Monument

I think this was my favorite stop. We stayed at the Dinosaur Inn in Vernal Utah. The people were pleasant and the food was marvelous. There is a museum in town and it was a short drive to the park. It is definitely worth doing.

There are dinosaur statues outside the Utah Field House of Natural History. Some of the statutes reflect the thinking of the 1960’s and have the tails on the ground.

Classic Dinosaur Poses

More modern thinking suggests the tails were for balance and mobility and modern poses are much more dynamic.

The museum has a wall that identifies the sediment layers and fossils found. The rocks fractured when the continental drift causes the rocky mountains to uplift. The fossils leave a record of what the environment was like during the deposition phases. The various layers can be identified by color and content.

Rocks

It is amazing how much they can piece together about the past.

Dinosaurs

Fossils

Fossils

The next stop was Dinosaur National Monument. You park at the visitor center and get a shuttle ride to the quarry. We walked back down,

Visitor Center

Quarry Wall

Quite a few famous fossils came out of this quarry. It is pretty remarkable to see.

Quarry Maps

Quality Experience

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip VII – Great Salt Lake

We went to Antelope Island, a peninsula extending into the Great Salt Lake. Our hope was to see migrating shore birds and collect some sand from the beach. We were warned that the bugs would be bad and we should take protective action.

Great Salt Lake Views

Meadowlark

The birding was not especially good on Antelope Island. We were told it was better in a preserve about an hour North of us. We saw more mammals that birds.

Bison Herd

Antelope

We also saw some coyotes and Meg got some video of one of them grabbing a snack.

We didn’t have time to go to the Northern Sanctuary and failed to find a beach with the sand Meg wanted to collect. So this was not a complete success but we enjoyed seeing the animals.

Mark and Meg

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip VI – Canyon de Chelly

We next visited Canyon de Chelly on the Navajo Reservation. It is a national monument that is still inhabited by a few Navajo residents. It’s name in Navajo meant, water comes from it. Right now they are in the middle of a six year drought and so it is pretty dry. Organized tours require a native guide. The terrain is a little rough and four wheel drive or horses are required. Here is our guide:

The canyon splits into a North and South Canyon early. We elected the half day tour and spent most of our time in the North Canyon – Canyon del Muerto. Here is a google map picture of the canyons.

We got a cabin at Thunderbird Lodge in the mouth of the canyon. We took the tour in the morning and got overview pictures on our way to Great Salt Lake.

The canyon was inhabited by the Anasazi, Navajo and Hopi tribes over time. Both the Spaniards and the US Army committed atrocities against the local peoples. Some of it is documented on the canyon walls.

It is hard to image how large the canyons are. Here are some rim views from the South Canyon.

Canyon de Chelly Overlook

The ride through the canyon was rough. The guide was informative. It was worth the price for a guided tour.

Navajo Petroglyphs

There were horses in these and so it is after the time of the Spaniards. The story he told about the horse and deer was that the hunters used to tire the deer out by running it and then suffocate the deer so they would have an unblemished deer for ceremony. The jumping man is likely a dancer at ceremony.

Anasazi

It is important to remember that the canyon floor was not where it is today when these structures were built. The structures were built into the North Face to get the winter sun. The summer was spent on the canyon floor. The winter could be very cold on the floor as it did not get sun in the winter.

The story about the Spanish Priest is a sad one. The priest and soldiers can to the canyon to gather some slaves when the men were out hunting. One of the women resisted the soldiers killing one. The other women and children were hiding in a cave and the Spaniards opened fire killing over one hundred women and children.

Mesa

Around the time of the American Civil War there was a deportation of the Navajo from their ancestral lands. Some Navajo resisted and climbed to the top of this mesa. You can see the ladders they used. Apparently Kit Carson was among the soldiers relocating the Navajo. The was the Navajo ‘Trail of Tears’ and among the Navajo it is called ‘The Long Walk.’

Meg and I agreed that the half day tour was more than enough. We both enjoyed the tour.

Mark and Meg

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip V – Grand Canyon

The next stop was at the Grand Canyon. There were two parts to this stop, Horseshoe Bend and the North Rim. We visited Horseshoe Bend late in the evening and got a cabin on the North Rim.

DSCN5541

There are no fences at the rim and the rock is sandy. I erred and wore flip flops and collected sand along the way. I have a very real respect for heights, Meg calls it my phobia. I was disquieted enough even my feet were sweating and this made my flip flops slippery. I would not willingly get too close to the edge and this limited my picture taking. Not everyone was as cautious as I was.

Walk to the Bend

Horseshoe Bend

We then drove to the North Rim and arrived at the cabin almost too late for dinner. We crashed right after we got a bite to eat.

North Rim

After the North Rim we headed to Canyon de Chelly.

Mark and Meg

ROAD TRIP

Road Trip IV – Meteor Crater and Petrified Forest National Park

Meteor Crater National Landmark

Meteor Crater was on the way to the Petrified Forest and so we stopped there to gawk. Apparently, it is enough like the moon that NASA used it as a training base. Here is the crater:

At the bottom of the crater is an astronaut and flag similar to the moon landing for scale.

The rock walls of the crater tell of a significant event.

Crater Rim

I don’t know what the geologic consequence of this event was but it was smaller than the extinction events but still must have been pretty powerful.

DSCN5057

Petrified Forest National Park

The next stop was the Petrified Forest National Park. We didn’t get there until after 3:00 PM and due to staff shortages they close at 5:00 PM. We only had time to visit the visitor center and associated hike on the first day of our visit. It is an interesting place to visit. There are quite a variety of things to do and see in the park.