Blietzkrieg Road Ramble of Death

Blietzkrieg Road Ramble of Death

Always Bring Your Bear Spray

It's nice to have friends. But I'm not so sure about frenemies.  My friend Steve is also my enemy and I have to always be on the lookout when he asks me to go on a hike. He could lead me to a predetermined spot where he already dug my grave and just pop me and put me in like a neatly wrapped Christmas present. 

So when he asked me to meet him at the Blietzkrieg trail in Hopkington, Rhode Island, I immediately was suspicious, especially when I Googled the word blietzkrieg which means "an intense military campaign intended to bring about a swift victory." So maybe this will be a short hike after all. Not if I can help it. 

Background of Hatred.  

I may be wrong, but I believe he is trying to kill me because I beat him at a game of Pooh Sticks not too long ago. Or maybe because I beat hime in a one on one game of basketball game with a sore torn ACL knee. There are so many jealousies that he could have that I have given up trying to figure out what he wants revenge for. 

Beginning of the Blietzkrieg Trail.

We arrived in different cars and I showed him my bear spray and how fast I can take it out to spray peopl, I mean bears. I purposely showed him that I can take it out and spray in 8 seconds when I can quickly take it out in two.  If he was going to try to attack me, he will be the lowly dog and I will be the triumphant skunk. 

Fact Sheet on Wood Frogs

After a few minutes of walking and talking we quickly got into our first argument. I saw a Wood Frog and even said it's scientific name, Lithobates sylvaticus.  He called it a turtle or something, I can't remember and we nearly came to blows. I had my thumb on my bear pepper spray and was ready to blind him if he attacked. No attack came and that's when I rolled my eyes and said to myself, "this ain't going to be a blietzkrieg attack after all." 

Spring Peeper Tik Tok

After another few minutes Steve pointed to the sand and said, "Hey look at that!" Obviously it was nothing. This was his attack plan. Get me to look at nothing and then he was going to hit me over the head with a karate chop of death. But I saw movement. It was a spring peeper. I took out my phone so I can get video of the spring peeper or maybe even him committing first degree murder. But instead I got the spring peeper which was really cool. And oh by the way, yes I told Steve it was the Pseudocris crucifer. He was either really impressed or getting more angry. I couldn't tell. 

We hiked for another mile or so until we came to clearing with a sign on a tree. Steve said, "Go up and take a picture of it." 

I went up to the picture and found out how he was going to try to kill me. 

"It's a good thing I put on bug spray." I said. 

"Why don't we take waterhole trail. We've never been down that road before." Steve said. 

We hiked down the trail until it came to a small roundabout near the Wood River. I walked into the river to cool off my feet but the trail and entire area was loaded with mosquitoes. 

"Let's start walking back to our cars." I said, "It's getting really buggy." 

Steve quickly agreed. I noticed he walked behind me a bit and slowed his pace. 

"Can you walk a bit faster so we don't get eaten alive?" 

"Oh yeah, sure" Steve said. 

And then I saw how Steve wanted to kill me. A huge widow maker was hanging about 20 feet in the air just waiting to crush me. Steve was talking and getting next to me and I was hugging the side of the road right under where the tree branch was going to crash. The leaves of the tree branch had turned a darker color than the living leaves all around it. Without any warning I elbowed Steve hard in his ribs and pushed him down on the sandy land quickly got him in a headlock. 

"Hey! Let me go! What the hell!" Steve yelled while struggling to get out of the headlock. 

"You trying to kill me the entire hike! It's not gunna happen!" I yelled back. 

We scuffled for a moment and I really should have known better. I felt Steve's hand take the pepper spray out of my holster and within a second both of us had both of our hands on the pepper spray trying to twist the nozzle towards the other person's face. He slowly pointed it toward my face and was about to push the top to spray me when all of a sudden we both heard a loud crack. The widow maker was about to fall. When Steve looked up at the tree, I grabbed the bear spray out of his hand and then grabbed his arm and yanked him as hard as I could towards me and away from the falling branch which landed right where he was and smashed into a thousand toothpicks. 

"You saved my life, I can't believe it." Steve said while he lay there huffing and puffing. 

"And that's why I'm going to do this," and then I sprayed him point blank in the eyes with the bear spray. Steve gave out a yell of pain that I could barely hear over my cackle of a laugh. It was so hilarious to see him rubbing his eyes with sand and ruffling through his backpack for water to clean his eyes out with.  We walked back to our cars, said our goodbyes and as Steve was entering his car, I heard him mutter to himself, "I'm going to really kill him next time." 

THE SECRET DOG POND

GETTING THERE. USE THIS MAP TO DRIVE TO THE PARKING SPOT

There is a fantastic dog pond located very close to East Greenwich. It is just over the line in West Greenwich and can give you a beautiful change of scenery for you and your dog. 

It is located in the famous "Sand Dunes" of Rhode Island. This is a gem of a place to explore. There are driving directions in the picture above, but I will list them below as well. 

From East Greenwich (Middle Road) 
1. Drive west on Middle Road all the way to Carr's Pond Road.            (You will drive to a "T") 

2. Turn right onto Carrs Pond Road. 
     (Again, drive until you get to a "T") 

3. Turn left onto Division Road. 
    Drive until you get to a 4 Way Stop. Drive straight. 

4. You will almost immediately see parking on your left. From your parking spot, you will walk straight out and turn right and curve around to the Secret Dog Pond. (See the picture below) 

The Secret Dog Pond is a wonderful area to explore with your dog. The only caveat is to wear orange during hunting season. Is is out in the open and near the road so I feel that even during hunting season, it will be a safe place for you and your dog.  To find out more about Rhode Island and its natural resources click on the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management link below. 

http://www.dem.ri.gov/index.htm

Be forewarned though, that it may be hard to navigate. There are many links on the site. 

Enjoy exploring the Secret Dog Pond located in the geologically exciting Sand Dunes! 

My Crash With David Burnham

This blog post is dedicated to the life and memory of David and Anne Burnham who both passed away earlier this week. Both were close family friends. So close in fact, that David performed the service at my wedding. My beautiful wife told me that Dave would say "I married only two women in my life. Anne and you!" That is pretty impressive when you consider that David and Anne were married for 62 years! 

The Willimantic River

Spring is the time to run the Willimantic river in Connecticut. Some of my favorite memories were gathering with my wife's family and friends and spending the day on this river. During one of these trips Dave Burnham joined us and unfortunately for him, he ended up as my canoeing partner with me in the bow of the canoe.

The Crash

It was fitting for Dave to be at the back of the boat. He was a natural leader and would guide our boat to the end of this wonderful river. But I did not know that I had to look out for rocks. So after a few minutes of canoeing, Dave and I went to the right of the main river and decided to explore a little channel that swung back and connected downstream.

The rock we hit was so well camouflaged that it would have made a Gecko jealous. It was lying just under the water's surface and we hit it in a way that slowly turned our canoe sideways. Once the side rim of the canoe tipped down into the river we were goners. Both of us bailed ship and water engulfed our canoe and pinned the canoe against this large rock. With the oncoming rush of water we had no chance to right the canoe or push it to the side. We couldn't even use our bailers to bail water out of the canoe because water kept rushing back inside of it. The aluminum canoe had a slight bend to it but it was not going to break. 

Dave was genial and humorous. He did not make me feel bad even though he pointed out that I should have seen the rock and told him about it. To release this canoe from the rock we found a large strong branch and used it as a class one lever to inch the canoe away from the rock. It was difficult but it was also fun. The canoe was intact but had a heck of a dent from the water pushing it against that large rock.

One of the best parts about this story is that the canoe was a wedding present to my best friend and this was its maiden voyage. At least he did not name the canoe Titanic. 



Thanksgiving Changes Ahead

One tradition that I noticed every Thanksgiving was Dave cutting the turkey. The pictures below show Dave's last time cutting our Thanksgiving turkey. I love how in both pictures Anne is in the background, not too far away from Dave. 

May they both rest in peace together until we see them again.

David Burnham cutting our Thanksgiving turkey.

Rest in peace Dave and Anne.

http://bit.ly/1oLjqDw    
Here is a link to a description of the river from Paddling.net





http://bit.ly/1kQhnQo   
Above is a link to a RiverFest that is held in May to celebrate the Willimantic River.  

Link To Whitewater Rafting at Zoar Outdoor

Click on the link below to see a whitewater rafting slideshow at Zoar Outdoor in
Deerfield, Massachusetts.

http://www.empressr.com/View.aspx?token=Hayh4l8kHh0%3d

Creepy Crawly Spiders

Brown Recluse Spider. This spider's bite is not very painful but causes much pain when its venom starts to eat away at your flesh. A person in Bristol, Rhode Island was bit over the summer. It bites only in defense. So if you see this spider, it should leave you alone. 

Spiders are just plain creepy. I don't know if it's the eight, gangly and hairy legs or the big black, unforgiving eyes that look right through you with a predatory stare. Crawling on walls, skittering on the floor, hiding in crevices and corners. When I was little, I sometimes wished they were all dead. That tells you how little I knew about food webs back then. Because without spiders, insects would surely rule the Earth and "bug" us all to death.

 I hate our Halloween spider decoration. It hangs from the ceiling and any loud, sudden noise makes it drop on a string and then it slowly pulls itself back up the string. It's now on the steps in the foyer just sitting there looking at passersby, doing more of what a real spider would do. Maybe I'll smash it with my shoe after Halloween, doing more of what a bug killer would do.

And as the only male in the house, I am the celebrated bug killer. I sometimes look in the mirror and see a metallic bug zapper with blue lights, indiscriminately killing any insect or arachnid that comes my way. During "Spider Season", which lasts from March through August, I am used to being told that a HUGE or WICKED LARGE spider is somewhere in the house and that I should kill it. Every single time I see this HUGE spider, I am relieved to find that it is simply normal-sized, because what they do not know is the actual size of some spiders that I have seen in the past. Two or three times I have witnessed an enormous spider that dwarfs all the ones I have seen in my life. No one else has seen these spiders and I don't care to inform my family members because I don't enjoy inflicting psychological harm on other human beings. These Monsterquest spiders are dead now but I know they probably reproduced.

 So when I see a spider I tell myself two things; "I am not its food," and "It gets rid of mosquitoes." These things calm me and gives me a brotherly bond with spiders in our mission to rid the Earth of evil, blood sucking mosquitoes. But even with our brotherly bond, I still think they are creepy. Very creepy. Included below are some pictures of spiders I have seen over the summer.

Enjoy if you dare.

My Mom is trying to get a black jumping spider to come out of the crevice. I say  "let sleeping spiders lie!" 

 

Wow! This was a huge jumping spider on my driveway. I let it live. 

I said three words with I saw this spider. OMG. This was huge orb spider in a defensive posture. I let it live and the next day it made a web in a bush next to the house. 

This is another orb spider. Pretty huge. I caught it in a jar and let it loose in a pine tree farther away from the house.
 Go get 'em mosquito slayer! 

This is a flattened weird spider near a bike path in West Warwick. It might be related to a jumping spider. 

I have no recollection of this spider. Very big abdomen here. Makes me appreciate those Daddy Long Legs. 

When I go geocaching I sometimes blindly put my hand into dark crevices and holes like this. All for a geocache? It's the thrill of the hunt. I'm just hoping that I don't become the prey someday! 

Year of the Comet

Could 2013 be the year of the comet? Maybe. I still remember the thrill of seeing Halley's comet back in 1986. It wasn't like seeing fireworks at Disney, but to see a fuzzy blobish light through my old telescope and knowing it was the famous Halley's comet sent shivers up my spine. It still does today.

St. Valentine's Day Almost Massacre

I recently found out that several significant astronomical events will take place in 2013. Let's start with February 15th. On this day a 150 foot long meteor (or 149 feet, 11 inches long if you use Subway's calculations,) will travel by Earth at a ridiculously close distance.   This meteor will travel under some man made satellites and according to NASA's calculations it will not hit Earth. I completely trust NASA's math analysis on this prediction. Not because they have the best mathematicians and landed humans on the moon, but because I'm too lazy to do the math myself. If you are still a bit worried, watch this NASA scientist put you at ease with this short video.   http://youtu.be/1ycGo-b25TQ

Mid March

Beware the Ides of March. Or rather beware the dumb names of comets. Usually comets are named after the people who discovered them like comet Halley, comet Swift-Tuttle, comet Hale-Bopp and my personal favorite, comet Hyakutake, which I am tempted to order every time I eat at Seven Moons. 

The comet of this month is called Comet PANSTARRS. Ready? This comet is named after the Panoramic Survey Telescope And Rapid Response System project based on Hawaii. Can't we call this the Hawaiian Comet? At least that sounds like a lovely drink. Non-alcoholic of course.

So between March 12-18 look for the Hawaiian Comet right after sunset towards the west. 

Early April - Comet Lemmon

Named after the Lemmon Observatory in Arizona and not after Del's Lemonade, Comet Lemmon will be visible in the western skies around April Fool's Day. This comet has a period of 11,000 years which means that only vampires that are alive 11,000 years from now can see the comet again. The greenish tinge of this comet is caused by -- you guessed it --the poisonous gas cyanogen.  This factoid basically means nothing unless you are excited, like me, to share this knowledge with forlorn looking people at dinner parties. 

The Comet of the Century (maybe)

Here we have Comet ISON named after the International Scientific Optical Network based in Russia. I'm actually OK with this name because if this comet was named after its two discoverers it would be called comet Nevski-Novichonok which doesn't roll off my tongue as easily as comet Shoemaker-Levy, which smashed into Jupiter back in 1994. 

Currently, comet ISON is near Jupiter and may be visible to us in late October as it approaches the Sun. On November 28th, Comet ISON will be inside the corona of the Sun and will be enduring much stress due to the corona's 2 million degree temperature which is almost as hot as Florida in July. If comet ISON can survive this Floridian heat, it may be visible during the day and be spectacular at night. This is the comet that just might be the comet of our lifetime. But comets are unpredictable, so you never know if they will live up to their own hype. Sort of like the Forty Niners in the Superbowl.  

So there you have it. Three comets and a meteor.

Even though that sounds like a bad ABC comedy, 2013 looks to be a spectacular year for looking up to the skies.  

A Red Shouldered Hawk Gets Mobbed!

A Red Shouldered Hawk flies away to evade annoying mobbing by a family of crows.

There was a large, slow-gliding shadow over the bird feeder. As I looked out my kitchen window, I saw one motionless goldfinch on the feeder hoping not to be spotted. I was glad to not hear a low thud against the window pane. Sometimes when birds of prey surprise a flock of birds at the birdfeeder, the potential meals scatter and some zoom right into the kitchen window and get knocked out, leaving behind a tuft of feathers clinging to the glass.

I was lucky to see the hawk perched on a white oak branch not too far away from the birdfeeder. I watched it for a few seconds and rushed to get my camera. I had a feeling this ragged raptor was going to hang out for just a few fleeting moments. When I hurried back to the window, I noticed a family of crows sprayed out on different branches in nearby trees. The crows were cawing loudly and making sure all animals knew this predator was in the area. I snapped a few pictures of the grumpy hawk, and worried about identification later.

Everybody loves an underdog.  And these ordinary crows were no match for the strength and agility of a raptor.  Working as a group to harass the hawk gave them a boldness that they would not have as individuals.  This is called mobbing behavior. Crows use this to teach their young what a predator looks like and to drive a predator away from a nest site. 

Without warning, the hawk flew off realizing that it would find no rest in my backyard.  (see picture)

A crow mobbing a red shouldered hawk waits for it to move.

A friend of mine told me it was a Red Shouldered Hawk. That was news to me because the last time I tried to identify a hawk in the back yard I had difficulty deciding if it was a Cooper’s Hawk or a Sharp-Shinned Hawk. If you see a hawk and want to identify it, try the link below. This link will bring you to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website which specializes in helping you figure out which bird is what. Or you can just email a friend.

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Red-shouldered_Hawk/id#similar