Thornapples

I finished reading another book a few days ago. This one is Thornapples: The Comings, Goings, and Outdoor Doings of a Naturalist. The author is Charles Fergus, a native of Central Pennsylvania, who for years wrote the "Thornapples" column in the Pennsylvania Game News magazine. This book is a collection of some of those columns, and focuses on nature – everything from leaves and nuts to chickadees and owls to otters and porcupines to deer and black bears. In a number of those stories, Fergus also includes friends, neighbors, researchers, and game protectors to add the human aspect to the picture. The only chapter that I really didn’t care for was the last one – “Empty Days” – in which the author recounts his experiences during a two-week deer hunting season. This was the only chapter that focused on hunting, and that’s a subject that has never interested me at all. I found the other chapters very interesting and loaded with lots of fact-filled tidbits about nature in Pennsylvania.

I really enjoyed Thornapples, as many of the places Fergus discusses in the book are places that are familiar to me.

Winter is coming...part 2

In my October 27 post, I stated that the sighting of a Dark-eyed Junco was an indicator to me that winter would soon be arriving. The second sign of winter’s arrival was here yesterday, as Char and I covered the Miata for the year. Sunday was a very nice day, with a high temperature of about 57 degrees, so Char put the top down and took it for one last ride. It was a good day to cover it, too, since the car was dry. I don’t like to cover it when it’s wet, and the forecast (correctly) called for rain today.

We don’t run the Miata (and have reduced insurance coverage on it) during December, January, and February. So, conversely, around March 1, when we uncover it again, that will be the sign that spring is just around the corner. That’s a much more enjoyable time of the year.

Char stands next to the "wrapped for winter" Miata. It will be unwrapped again around March 1.

Thanksgiving

Char and I celebrated Thanksgiving at home, which has become the tradition over the past few years. Char cooked a turkey breast, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, soul style sweet potatoes (home made), rolls, and pumpkin pie. Matthew and Gina brought a blackberry pie over. Matthew helped Char make the gravy from the turkey drippings. He also helped her tie all the loose strings together to make the meal all come together. The three of them enjoyed a couple varieties of wine, and I had my iced tea. It was a nice, quiet day – just the kind I like.

This time of the year is always a bit sad for Char and me, though. My father passed away on November 27, 1978, the Monday after Thanksgiving that year. Char’s father passed away on December 11, 1997, two weeks before Christmas. It’s hard to believe the years go by so quickly.

Matthew, Gina, Char, and I make a Thanksgiving toast. It's OK to toast with iced tea.

Bucky apparently had too much turkey and had to take a nap! (Char took this photo with her Blackberry.)

Early Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving dinner was served today at the assisted living center where my mother-in-law, Shirley, resides. Along with me, my wife, Charlene; son, Matthew; brother-in-law, Rich; and his wife, Sharyn, attended. Another woman, Mary, who lives at the facility also sat at our table. Mary has no family. Char has befriended her and wanted to make sure she had someone to be with on “Thanksgiving.”

A woman who had been our next-door neighbor for the 33 years Char and I have lived in our house was having her Thanksgiving meal there, too. Like my mother-in-law, she has just moved into the assisted living center this past summer. Three of her daughters and a son-in-law were there to dine with her.

I’ve been reading a bit lately. I just finished the book The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring and the Rise of the Environmental Movement, by Mark Hamilton Lytle. Rachel Carson was born in 1907 in Springdale, Pennsylvania, just 15 miles northeast of Pittsburgh. The book came to my attention as it was published in 2007, the 100th anniversary of her birth, and the author made an appearance at The Rachel Carson Homestead. If you are a person who cares about the environment, Rachel Carson is a person you have to admire. She was extremely intelligent and faced many challenges to accomplish what she did. As indicated by this book’s title, many believe that Carson’s book, Silent Spring, brought to the forefront the damage that was being done to our earth and, in fact, was the beginning of the environmental movement as we now know it.

This book is a quick, easy read, yet very informative -- just the kind I like.

Birthday reading

Matthew and Gina gave me the book Bogs of the Northeast, by Charles W. Johnson, for my birthday in early October. I finished reading it about a week ago and found it to be a very informative book.

This past summer I was able to explore a few bogs, but didn’t really know too much about them. There was a lot to absorb in this book and, hopefully, I retained some of it. The book will also serve as a good source of reference in the future.

One thing I learned is that the proper term for these types of wetlands is peatlands, and that there are two types of peatlands – bogs and fens. A large fen in the Boston area was drained for development many years ago and is now the site of Fenway Park, home of the Red Sox. I’ve been a baseball fan almost all my life and never knew the origin of the stadium’s name until now

The book also has great sections covering the flora and fauna of peatlands, as well as uses of peat, both past and present. The last chapter is titled “Preservation or Obliteration?” In it, the author presents his thoughts on the future of peatlands and society’s role in preserving the ones that remain. Since the book was published in 1985, I’d be interested in how he feels we’ve done in the (almost) quarter century since then.

Bogs of the Northeast also contains a listing of selected peatlands that can be visited.

NOW...and then

Last evening Char and I attended the annual dinner of the Johnstown Chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW). At this dinner, NOW honors someone as the Person of the Year. The award winner for 2009 was Dr. Susan Anderson, superintendent of the Westmont Hilltop School District (from which Matthew and I graduated). Susan and Char graduated in the same class at Conemaugh Township High School and were friends a few decades ago.

Also at the dinner, Char gave a little talk about the Witnesses to Hunger exhibit that she is spearheading. The exhibit will be in Johnstown for almost three weeks this coming February. For someone who doesn’t like to speak in front of large crowds, she did an excellent job!

Another highlight of attending the NOW dinner each year is sitting with Alice and Kathleen, who never fail to provide an evening of entertainment with the stories of their real-life adventures.

On the “then” side of things…I just finished reading a book that is mostly about our area’s heritage, history, and culture. It is Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains: The First Frontier, by Dave Hurst. Last week I attended a discussion and book signing with the author at the Johnstown Area Heritage Association’s Discovery Center. The book is small and easy to read – it must be if I read it in a week in my spare time. It’s filled with a lot of interesting information about our area, though, and I enjoyed it.

Dave Hurst writes a regionally syndicated newspaper column. This book is a collection of some of those columns that have been reworked so that they won't go out of date being in book form as time passes.

Winter is coming...

It must be, because I saw my first Dark-eyed Junco last Wednesday. These cute little birds head "south" for the winter to our area and usually stay until April, when they head home again. After doing some yard work, I was resting on our front porch and spotted a single Junco, but I'm sure more will soon be appearing.

This isn't the bird I saw last Wednesday -- I didn't get a picture of that one. This is one I photographed in our front yard in March, 2009. He's holding a sunflower seed.