Can't wait for winter

The heat and humidity of summer have kicked in.  On average, a July high up here is only 78 degrees.  Notably warmer than that now.  The very wet air seems to draw out all the mosquitoes and ticks imaginable.  Can't wait for winter as a result.

Even with the heat, summer walks can provide aesthetic value.  Such as:

Two cousins together, yellow birch and paper birch.

Another paper birch that loves to peel.

A baby sugar maple. There are many really young sugar maples on the forest floor.  Thanks to great shade tolerance and long life, they'll dominate a good chunk of the property in a few hundred years.  The fortunate person who owns the land then may make a bundle each year on maple syrup!

Quercus Macrocarpa

There were no bur oaks (quercus macrocarpa) on the property a year ago.  Now there are! After getting some acorns in the mail, planting took place last fall.  A few of the young ones are now above ground and looking good.

So fragile they are now, but bur oak is one of the hardiest of all trees.  It tolerates harsh cold and winds as well as intense sun and drought.  This rugged gem of a species was a must to plant on the property.  No place called Hardwood Hermitage could go without some bur oaks.

Here's a pic of one of our new seedlings. Bur oak is on the white oak side of the oak family.  These long-lived trees could last 400 years or more.  Let's hope they prosper!

Screened-in porch done

The door on the screened-in porch was added recently.  This completes that spot.  The kitty was rather curious, as usual.  Several nice days are expected.  Cool morning today, with low at about 40 degrees.

HH sign is now in place

Because of the bears, we wont be putting out hummingbird feeders.  Even if you take them in at night, the bears might come along during the day.  We have opted, instead for a planter with 'hummingbird-friendly' plants.  And, some of the wildflowers we planted on the north and east slopes are also appealing to hummingbirds.

We finally got the NHTOA sign up.  This is at the end of the driveway where it meets the road.

Today it has been sunny to partly cloudy with temps in the 70's -- a perfect day to be outside!!!

We're still here!

Lots of activity over the last two weeks, just no blog posts.  Here are some pictures and some text to get you up to date:

The construction crew has been finishing up.  We have our permanent landing at the main entry.  It's twice the width of the temporary steps.  Also note the front door painting.  The screened-in porch in the back isn't quite done yet.

We had a big wind storm just over a week ago.  Some conifers were blown over.  This one was ours.  About 500 feet from the house, it fell mostly on a neighboring property.  The shallow roots were simply torn out of the ground.

Another small conifer, which had germinated on moss over a big rock, took a dive onto the driveway.  We were going to take this one down anyway, so thank you, Mother Nature.  Note the really cool rock underneath.

A neighbor's red maple fell in the storm.  The top ended up blocking our driveway.  We cut several branches up yesterday.  We'll burn this, but not until the 2014-15 burning season.

Wood cutting for trees taken down last year on our hill continues.  We broke in a new small saw (PeeWee has been retired) by cutting up some maple and birch yesterday.

Little things still make the property grand.  Like a small blue bird against the clear sky:

Or, a stellar, quadruple-trunked hophornbeam: