Isabella moth-woolly bear caterpillars

Tree

According to popular myth, I was incorrect. The size of the winter is predicted by the amount of BLACK on a woolly bear, not brown. Funny I was right last year...although it was not really cold-we just had a bunch of snow.

So these guys are claiming we will have a cold winter, I guess. :P

Goatwood

Tree908

I took a walk after morning chores. I headed down the road and decided to take a walk streamside. The path has pretty much vanished, but I made my way to one of our favorite spots to access the stream and found it overgrown and the bank somewhat altered from all the heavy rain. I continued on into the chest high marsh grass, and paused as the footing became questionable.

I saw a large dragonfly hover, and mentally called at to it as I do when I see them, and I was suprised when it flew right at me and landed on my shirt . I stared down at it about eight inches away. It looked like another Western Flying Adder. http://treeocean.blogspot.com/search/label/dragonfly

I stared into its multifaceted eyes trying to see if they were green, but from the angle I could not tell. It was about 4 1/2 inches long.

The dragonfly had caught a small winged insect, and one wing and part of the abdomen protruded from its mouth. The dragonfly stood on my shirt, chewing, and chewing, and I stared down fascinated. I could hear the water running in the stream. I was over waist deep in marsh grasses. I saw movement on the nearby New England Asters, and had a moment of panic when I thought I saw yellow jackets.

It would be a rude suprise to find myself standing inches away from a yellow jacket nest, as their sting is ferocious. But, they were honeybees. I shifted my weight and snapped a stick beneath my feet; the dragonfly stayed undisturbed. Finally, all that was left of the insect it was eating was the one wing, which dropped to my shirt.

The dragonfly stayed, and we continued to stare at each other.

I had a sudden impulse to touch it. I fought the impulse for some minutes, as in the past when I reach that point in dragonfly communion, the dragonfly will leap away at the movement. Finally my left hand came up and as the dragon fly remained still, I found myself wondering what part I wanted to touch.

I decided to touch the end of one of its four wings, and very lightly stroked the tip of the wing. It was so delicate I couldn't feel it. I pulled my hand back and the dragonfly drew one leg over its eye, most likely cleaning it, but it looked like a farewell wave, and it leapt back into the air and flew away.

Suddenly my surroundings seemed very wild, like another reality. I headed out of the marsh, watching where I was walking to avoid any wasp nests, and movement caught my eye. I stopped and saw just a few feet ahead of me a woodland jumping mouse, sitting and staring at me.

"Oh no, did I trample your nest?" I asked it.

It crossed my path in three or four hops and vanished into the grass to my left, and I took the next few steps gingerly hoping I had not disturbed a nest.

Once back to the house, I decided the day had come to try out the chainsaw which had been home from the shop for several weeks. The mechanic warned me that I might have to yank on it a bit to get it to go-which was not what I wanted to hear, as the yanking and stalling is quite a workout, especially with a cranky lower back.

So, I had not wanted to try the saw, but the nights have been cold enough, and even the days, to have a small fire in the woodstove to get the chill out of the house. I have been bundling up dried sticks from the woods, but I needed something bigger. Regular firewood makes too big of a fire and nearly cooked us out of the house last week.

Well, the saw, which is ten years old, has never run better. I fired it right up first pull, and for the first time since I have run it, it stayed running until I ran out of gas. Usually it stalls out if I try to set it down to adjust the woodpile, requiring more yanking on the cord. I had a new chain put on it, so it was cutting like a hot knife in butter.

I went after a pile of goatwood that had been stacked since last summer. Goatwood, a name I picked up from other wood-burning goat-owners, is what goats do to small trees. First they strip everything they can reach-about four feet off the ground. Bark and all. Then I go in and drop the tree and they strip all the rest-all the bark on every branch, every leaf, every bud. Goat treats.

I then take everything off I can handle with the brush cutters, and the rest is sorted hardwood from softwood and stacked in long piles. I cut pretty much all of the stack in about two hours. I put the saplings to work lugging armloads of it out of the woods and throwing it on a scrap of tarp. This was the result-about a third of a cord of wood that will be perfect for the fall. We'll see how long it will last...

I was so beat! My hands and forearms were numb from the vibration of the saw. My left bicep was so weak, I did not have the strength to lift a glass to my mouth afterwards. The muscle was trembling. LOL. But, a very nice feeling to have the saw running well and that pile taken care of!

Tonight after dark I took Peko down the drive. I tried not to think of the "Darkseekers". I bought "I Am Legend" with Will Smith a few days ago, and that movie was scarey!!!! I am really suprised that it was PG13!!!!!

Instead, I stared straight up at the Milky Way as Peko led me down the pitch dark drive. The stars are so beautiful tonight. A good day. :)

The mortgage crisis

President Bush announced today that the fed wants to buy several hundred billion dollars of bad debt off investment firms to help clear their books and get money moving again.

I have been following this economic crisis trying to learn what the mess is and how we got into it in the first place.

So I am going to write what I know, and try to see how the pieces of the puzzle fit.

According to the government, the heart of the crisis is a collapse of the home mortgage industry.

This is my personal experience with mortgages:

About twenty years ago I had a little bit of cash saved up, and decided I was sick of paying 450 a month rent on an apartment and would rather put the cash down on a home. I was figuring that way, the monthly shelter cost would be applied to something I would end up owning.

I went through FHA-Federal Housing authority, or HUD (housing and Urban Development), a mortgage program for first time homeowners. My income was calculated into a payment, and I was told that I would qualify for about 45,000.

I think there were two homes for that price in a 20 mile radius, and I looked at both. One of them was owned by a couple, the wife of whom was wheelchair bound. The entire house reeked of urine. No getting that odor out -short of a match and a can of kerosene.

The second home was located about twenty feet from a major thoroughfare and was about the size of a crackerbox. A couple years after I passed on it, a car left the road at a high rate of speed and hit the house. Glad I wasn't there.

I was told that if I brought in my boyfriend's income and added him as a joint tenant, we could qualify for a larger loan. Although he already had a large payment, it still added more borrowing power. So we did that and bought a home.

We signed in on a fixed thirty-year mortgage. Our interest rate was about 6 percent. The sellers received 57,000. I put cash up front and the mortgage total was 63,000. What?!?!

Well, I discovered that there are things called "points" and "discount fees'-which is money that the lender just tacks on there for fun. The realtor suggested having the seller pay the points, and raising the selling price of the home so that went into the loan. I think the points and discount fee added up to around 5,000-money that went right to the mortgage company. Then there was mortgage insurance; in case we defaulted on the loan, the lender would get paid. I paid that up front. And title search and home appraisal, and inspection fees-to make sure the deed was good and the house was worth the money. All designed to protect the lender mostly, although us too, but of course that was paid up front by me.

So, right off the bat, the mortage company has made 5,000 and has an ironclad guarantee that they hold the title until the loan is paid. If it isn't paid, what they have is worth the money they lent, and they are insured through mortgage insurance, and also work the home owner's insurance into the monthly payment so the property is insured against lawsuit or damage.
Also included in the monthly payment was an estimated tax payment which went into escrow until property tax was due annually. That ensured the town wouldn't be putting a lien on the property for unpaid taxes.

I was then a proud home owner with a nice little monthly coupon book, and a huge folder of paperwork. Didn't I aggravate the attorney handling the closing, when I read through every line on every paper I signed. I wanted to make sure I understood everything as I signed it.

The biggest suprise was the long print-out of the amortization schedule. Mortgages are amortized. Using my example, a 63,000 mortgage for 30 years at about 6% fixed interest, including taxes and insurance, was 600 a month for thirty years. The suprise? The interest is calculated up front, and paid more or less up front. For the first year, about $3 a month goes on the principle (the 63,000). So out of the 500 going on the loan-about 100 was taxes and insurance-497 went to interest. In the first year on receiving payments, the mortgage made about 6,000 for the company -not counting the 5,000 up front. That is more like 10% interest, but that is how it goes in the mortgage industry. Amortization-grrrr.

So I was pretty suprised when every couple of years or so, we would get a letter saying that we would now send the check somewhere else. Mortgages sold as investments. Meaning, after making a nice little sum, the original company would bundle together a bunch of mortgages and sell them to another company.

After about nine years of 600 a month, 1986-1995, the original loan had been reduced by about two thousand dollars, and I wanted out of the relationship. The housing market had not budged in those 9 years. I estimated that by the time lawyers on both sides were paid to duke it out, and the house sold, and the realtors' commission paid, it would costs us both several thousand dollars and the house. That didn't make much sense, so I signed my share of the house over scot free to the ex so he could re-finance it in his name.

Sick of mortgage companies and their interest scams, I bought my own piece of land outright and started building on it. Ten years later, and it is not finished. LOL. But I refuse to borrow the money to finish it off. I figure I have saved-on paper-quite a nice chunk of change not paying rent, -or interest.

Back to the first house and the ex. After the ex refinanced our original loan, house prices took off. The next ten years saw the value of the house more than double. Ok, sometimes that annoyed me, I admit, but good for him for sticking with it. He has mentioned refinancing a couple of times-I play dumb and don't ask for details so I don't know the rate or the amount, or the monthly payment.

The example is just to point out what happened to the appraisal values on homes in the last ten years-they went through the roof. So, what happened?

A lot of the blame is placed on the mortgage companies. While mine had been scrupulous in matching income to loan repayment amounts, and requiring money up front, the word is that changed. More companies wanted in on that risk free mortgage investment, Anybody that could get a loan was given one. Higher demand meant higher home prices.

Higher risk folks were given variable rate loans. Don't EVER get a variable rate loan. Because the rate can change-and it is almost guaranteed to go up. So, it is no longer based on your income. That 600 a month payment might change to 800. Now, a lot of folks would cut out the extras and come up with that extra amount every month, but there is another something that no one on the news is discussing in relationship to the current economic crisis.

OIL. That's right, I'm back to oil. You see, in the last eight years, the price of a gallon of gas here has gone from 1.25 a gallon to the current 3.76 for regular. That is a three-fold increase. The cost doubled since Hurricane Katrina.

Now, it's not just gas for your car, it's gas that costs to ship the food you eat and the goods you buy. It's gas that's cost to harvest the crops to make your bread and feed your beef.

It's heating oil for your home-oops, add 300 amonth heat onto that 800 a month mortgage and your shelter costs nearly doubled in eight years. So did your food costs, and your transportation to your job, if you didn't happen to get laid off.

So people start defaulting on their mortgages. They can't afford to pay them. And most anyone that could get a mortgage in the last ten years got one, so who's going to buy those homes that the folks with better credit can't afford?

The value of property started to drop like a bullet because there is no one able to afford the payment on the home.

Take a couple steps back. While the economy is crashing around our ears, and the taxpayers are going to have to swallow half a trillion dollars in bad mortgage debt so those companies can start the wheel all over again...where did the money go?

In 2007, the top five oil companies had 123.3 BILLION dollars in PROFIT. That's Exxon Mobil leading the pack with 40.6 billion, Shell 31.3, Chevron 18.7, Conoco Philips 11.9, and BP 20.8.

I know, 123 Billion is not half a trillion, but if you figured in this year and the previous two or three years,and the fact that it is not just the one time sale that is coming out of your pocket. Meaning, not just that tank of gas, but the tank of gas to get your bread from the field to the factory to the shop owner, and the oil to heat the shop...that extra cost of gas becomes an huge gigantic mudslide aimed right at the Global economy.

Yeah, blame it all on the poor credit risk mortgage takers. I'm not buying it.

Brown Daddy-long-legs

Phalangium opilio

Photo: Tree 908

"Description: 1/8-1/4" (4-6 mm). Long thin legs. Body reddish brown. Legs dark with prominent paler coxae. Eyes on black turret; 1 eye to right, 1 to left.

Habitat: Fields on tree trunks and open ground.

Range: Throughout North America.

Food: Small insects and decaying organic matter.

Life Cycle: Female thrust ovipositor into soil to deposit eggs. When warm weather arrives, young creep out and grow slowly. Normally they mature in summer, then mate without courtship. 1 generation a year.

On cool afternoons adults often climb trees or side of buildings, seemingly to benefit from residual heat of the sun. A warm knothole may attract dozens of daddy-long-legs, which stand close together with legs interlaced all night."

The Audobon Society Field Guide to North American Insects and Spiders. Milne and Milne

As children we loved Daddylonglegs. They do not bite.-Tree

Elaine

Oh, come again to Astolat!
I will not ask you to be kind.
And you may go when you will go,
And I will stay behind.

I will not say how dear you are,
Or ask you if you hold me dear,
Or trouble you with things for you
The way I did last year.

So still the orchard, Lancelot,
So very still the lake shall be,
You could not guess—though you should guess—
What is become of me.

So wide shall be the garden-walk,
The garden-seat so very wide,
You needs must think—if you should think—
The lily maid had died.

Save that, a little way away,
I’d watch you for a little while,
To see you speak, the way you speak,
And smile,—if you should smile.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

A Golden Day

We saw the Golden Eagles today! It was a perfect day for flying; great visibility and clear air.
We had just pulled back into the laundrymat, and a fellow laundry washer pulled in right after to see me shading my eyes staring up at the sky.

He looked a bit puzzled and looked up, and I explained that I had just been watching a pair of Goldens. We struck up a conversation and I was suprised to see that the insignia on his shirt said, "Alaska Raptor Center" with a picture of a Bald Eagle on it.

While we were chatting away discovering mutual aquaintences, the Goldens returned a bit higher up, and my new friend started ransacking his Land Rover for his binocs, at which point the Goldens soared off again.

We exchanged phone numbers with plans to share some favorite hiking trails in the future. He chastised me for using the dryers (hey, I had six dryers full-way too much to hang up at home) and then I told him we took advantage of the drying time to go for a hike. We said goodbye, and the saplings and I took the upper power line trail across the highway, which was a new one for us.

One of the Goldens flew over us to cross the road, and after a bit uphill hike, we saw the other Golden come out of the treeline and head away from us. Apparently they decided to split up and hunt solo.

We saw moosetrack as large as my hand, and some feline track that might have been Lynx, although it looked rather small.

Once we crested the hill, the view to the West was amazing-we could see Mountains that must be part of the White Mountain range in New Hampshire.

The wildflowers were still blooming;wild morning glory, hawkweed, New England Asters. And the local butterfly population was enjoying them more than we were.

We are actually starting to enjoy laundry day now with our educational hikes. Peko saw me loading the laundry up this morning, and jumped in the back seat, waiting expectently.

NO way was he missing his nature hike! ;)

Full Moon 9/15/08

Tree

Blood on My Hands

Early this morning I was awakened by gnawing over my head. The flying squirrel was at it again. I reached over and grabbed the stick I use to prop open the small hatch, and abruptly rapped hard on the ceiling three or four times.

I saw Ruby look out the window, and I smugly figured I scared the crap out of that squirrel and it had fled its place in the roof.

I contemplated getting up, but was still tired enough to roll over and grab another hour or so of sleep. Then I got up, fed the dog, and then took him out for his morning business.

Jingle, our indoor/outdoor cat, greeted us just outside the door, and I called Peko away. He stopped and started sniffing under my car and I saw a little body in a heap. Uh-oh. I called him away, and after he finished his business, I recovered the body.

I thought, here was my chance to get a picture of a flying squirrel, but to see the large glazed eyes covered in dirt, and the body still warm but quite dead, did not strike me as a nice photo opportunity.

She, for it was a female with long rows of nipples, did not have a mark on her, but to see her beautiful coat covered in dirt gave my imagination of her torturous death much fuel. I felt much grieved, like I had lost a small friend.

I wrapped her body in some newspaper and interred her without ceremony in the compost heap. Do I feel guilty? Yeah. :(

Eastern Red-Backed Salamander

Plethodon cinereous

Tree

And the NIght Comes Day

I love it when I happen to be at the computer as the dusk draws around. First the bats leave their daytime roosts under the eaves. Tonight a large one did a very close fly by of my window. Most likely a Large Brown Bat.

Then Jupiter makes it nightly appearance, usually followed by the flying squirrels. Earlier this afternoon I could hear gnawing in the roof over my bedroom, and I eyeballed the maple branch that is providing them entry. I fiercely contemplated getting the ladder out and taking the branch out-the flying squirrels would have no trouble leaving, but would not be able to return.

The branch is just too high for me to tackle on an extension ladder though. I really don't care for ladders. The tree is straight trunked for about twenty feet, so no climbing it freestyle, either-at least not to saw a branch. Not for me, anyhow.

As it is getting late in the season, I guess I will have to allow the squirrels to stay another winter. Too much later and they would be hard pressed to find a new home before winter.

I heard one cussing the other night, and it was perked in the maple tree fussing at Ruby staring from the window. I shined a flashlight out the window to verify it was a flying squirrel, and it did not care for that and scurried around and down the trunk.

Peko needed his evening stroll, and we headed out about 7:30, which is getting on well dark here this time of year. I have found that I enjoy walking down the pitch black drive led by the dog. The fireflies lie in the weeds glowing brightly, and the only sound is that of the waterfall and crickets. Tonight I could see the shine of the moon on the road, and we walked over to the pond guided only by moonlight.

We had a few more inches of rain since my last trip, and the pond is quite full. I could see fish rising toplit by the moon.

I am hoping to start posting photos again soon, as the pieces have come together for some computer surgery. Hopefully I will be able to put this trusty senior computer into back up mode once again.