Cooks Pond Madness!!

4.5 hrs.
10 Volunteers
42 Bags of brush
Including Bittersweet, Japanese knotweed, Norway maple, and Black locust, among other invasives.

Thanks to the Tatnuck/Cooks Island Cub, GWLT Volunteers, for an EPIC cleanup, IN A SNOWSTORM no less!

We started with a few flakes on the ground and ended with a full snowman out on the ice! It snowed A Lot! The whole time!

Free tomorrow? Come help us clear!

Just in case you are looking for a little bit of outdoor volunteer work during this winter month, we have an opportunity available!

On Saturday, January 18th (tomorrow!), a group of volunteers will be gathering at 11:00 am near the benches that overlook Cooks Pond.  The plan is to cut back the vegetation in that area to make the pond more visible and to remove some invasive species.

If you are sensitive to poison ivy, you may wish to miss this one ... there is definitely some in the area of work.

There will be some tools available, but feel free to bring your favorite pair of loppers or small clippers!

Cook Pond drawdown

A notice from the Cook's Pond Association: beginning Sunday, they have begun a PLANNED drawdown of the pond for dam repair and spillway work.
The water should be down enough as of this coming Sunday, October 27. They hope to have the work completed by the first weekend in November, at which point they will bring the water level back up.
No need to panic!

Muir Meadows celebrations!

This Thursday at 11 am, join Lieutenant Governor Murray, Secretary of the Environment Sullivan, and many others for a brief ceremony celebrating the preservation of Muir Meadows! You can find it at 205 Pleasant Street, which is just over the Paxton line. Plenty of parking at Howe's Farm Stand, should you need it.

For those wishing a rather more strenuous celebration, join GWLT staff on Saturday morning at 8:30 on a hike from Cook's Pond all the way to Southwick Pond in Leicester (which, thanks to Muir Meadows, is now that much more on preserved land!). This will take you through Holden and Paxton along with way; it is almost entirely UPHILL! Not for the weak of heart (or knees!). Call or email Mary (mary at gwlt.org) for more details.

Running high

The stream is down a bit from yesterday, to one foot even this morning. We've had a break from the heavy rain for a bit this morning.
Cook's Pond is quite high, having taken over much of our neighbor's backyard (across Olean Street).
Currently it is misting a bit.
The Cascades are roaring.
It is 40 degrees (down a bit) at 9 am.
The barometer is 28.91 and rising.

Also, Bill Randall's got a nice photo of the Cascades up today.

Cold day to vote!

We're posting a bit late today, as we took a bit of the morning to walk down to the polls. Cold out there today!
(Go vote, anyway!)

The cold means that Cook's Pond is starting to get a coat of ice; it's a bit bigger every morning. As it looks like we have only a slight chance of getting above freezing for any length of time this week, that will only continue. Most of the snow we got over the weekend has stuck around, except in the spots that get a lot of sun.
The stream this morning, which is still running briskly, is at 5 inches even.
The barometer (at noon) is at 29.47 and rising; that will change over the course of the afternoon, as we've got a storm coming in.
Current temperature here is just 40, with a bit of a breeze. It was 30 when I check this morning at 7 am.

Snow coming in tonight, through tomorrow lunchtime: could add up to several inches. Best chance of a snow day we've had so far this year!

Culvert check

As I type this, the big DPW truck is checking the culverts up on Cataract Street. Thanks! Always good to avoid unnecessary flooding (the National Weather Service does have a hazardous weather warning for street flooding up)...And the Cascades are running nicely today!

It is raining again here, knocking down a lot of the yellow maple and hickory leaves. It doesn't appear to have slowed down the squirrels, however.

At 9 am, it is 48 degrees
The barometer is at 29.23 and steady

And just to clarify: even if there is no sign up and I don't see you? You still can't take an ATV over by Cook's Pond.

Last clear day

It looks as though Hurricane Hanna is headed our way, so if you want to spend some (dry) time outdoors, squeeze it in today! The streambed is nearly dry, and we are trying to avoid the painful sight of the Cook's Pond mudflats, so we'll welcome the rain here!

At 9 am, it is 71 degrees and rising
93% humidity and falling (sun's up)
30.06 inches of mercury, holding steady so far

Rain, finally

Last night we had 0.12 inches of rain after midnight, and nothing to speak of before.
While it was enough to get everything wet, that isn't much water.
We're sitting here looking at the mud in Cook's Pond and wondering if it's getting any deeper. While the U.S. Forest service map is down, so we don't have the fire danger map, it won't help with that, either.
At noon, it is 68 degrees.
92% humidity
Overcast skies with a steady barometer of 29.97 inches
The Cascades and the brook continue to trickle.

Of Bounds and Impounds

Ok, so dig this...

We get a call this a.m. from a woman who is sure that the pond is still draining.
We promise to go and look for ourselves as I saw the guys close the valve, and saw the flow stop days ago (Saturday).
(In the back of my mind I wondered if the release pipe had gotten undermined somehow, if her story pans out.)

This afternoon I go out to the Olean Street frontage and the water looks more or less the same, and then I turn my head and look north and it looks drier.
Drier?
I go up to the north end of the pond and it sure does look drier.

After making a call another person goes out, but this time to the south end of the pond by the dam.
There is no outflow (good), and the water level seems to him to be rising.
Rising?
Huh, how's that?

I go out to the dam myself, and sure enough, no outflow (good) and the water level is rising (also good). Heck the fish are jumping all over at the dusk light for insects!

So what gives?

Here is my guess:

Pools were left behind to the north on Saturday, which is the shallower end of the pond and the part of the pond that was clearly flooded by the dam to make the pond as big as it is.
The pond had only recently gone down and everything was still wet.
While the flow did stop, the pools were nevertheless on higher ground, even if they were cut off, and over time water sought its own level.
Thus, drier to the north, but overall the pond is reflooding.
Or I am just plain crazy.

Weirdest dang situation.


And then there is the continuing land clearing on our southern flank here at the Lodge.
To date the guy in the forwarder has been great about leaving a buffer on the conservation land of some 8-10 feet. Nevertheless, step away to grab some groceries, come back and decades of tree and understory growth can disappear. So we posted the bound line on the southern and western flank with Greater Worcester Land Trust Property Boundary tags.
Theoretically this, in addition to the operator's caution, as well as the project's own site flagging, should ensure that the project doesn't creep over and accidentally undo what nature has been hard at work at.
This was also a great chance to look carefully at the trunks of numbers of trees, and to look for yard waste dumping (yeah there was some), and trash (not so much thankfully.)

And so ends another busy day here at the Lodge.

Presently it is 8:38 p.m.:
the temperature is 66.0 degrees F and falling,
the humidity is 82% and steady,
the pressure is 29.80" of Hg and steady,
and the USFS Fire Danger Class is LOW.

By the way, unfortunately those rain storms never materialized, so the refill continues in slow trickle mode.

Some help for Cook's Pond

Looks like a line of storms will be coming to the rescue of those bass (in time, we hope!)

At 9 am, it is 68 degrees
95% humidity
Barometer is steady at 29.77 inches, showing rain
Fire danger continues at LOW
Although things are damp, we have had no measurable rain so far today

The Case of the Disapearing Pond

Last Sunday I noted that the Cooks Pond across Olean Street was really low.
On Tuesday I spoke with one of the owners of the pond who was at a loss as well.

But the water level seemed stable, and there has to be a reason for the drop I thought, besides I was distracted by the Asian Longhorned Beetles even in my sleep.

Friday things 'seemed' a bit lower.
This Saturday they were clearly even lower and folks were calling.
After some scrambling we all worked together to stop that.

Finally I have an answer to the quandary: where did the pond go anyway?


The pond is controlled by a dam, and the dam has a release valve.
The valve assembly had unfortunately been messed with earlier, and in an effort to fix that vandalism up and protect the mechanics of the dam the owners of the pond decided to lower the pond level slightly to better access things.
When they opened the valve they discovered that the flow was obstructed and the water wasn't being released.
They opened the valve wider, but still not much flow.
They opened the valve all the way.

Well, over the week the blockage slowly was working its way out, and by Saturday morning the valve was fully open and the flow was going great guns draining the pond away.
Problem was that the sudden change wasn't immediately moderated by a judicious closing the valve. Alas.
Thankfully the neighbors were observant, persistent, and concerned.

The valve was re-closed, the water flow was stopped, and now the slow process of refilling begins as the Cascades Brook, the Tatnuck Brook, and the Moreland Brook all work to raise the water level.

Some interesting observations from a neighbor on the extreme draw down:

There are pretty large tree stumps typically submerged that have tops that look to have been chopped by beavers way back in the day to the eyes of Brendan.

There are some amazingly large bass revealed that live in the pond regularly avoiding being caught by decades of folks persistent trying.



Watch Cooks Pond as it refills.
Thanks to all who noticed and called or dropped by to get things figured out.

More animals closer to home

Yesterday the junior rangers report a garter snake here on the lawn. About two feet long, he wasn't so much afraid of us as wanted to be left alone.
The geese across the street at Cook's Pond are the proud parents of five goslings. The neighbors report that there were six, but, well, Mrs. Mallard's mistrust of places where there were "turtles in the water" was well-founded!

At 2:30 this afternoon, under skies that are alternately sunny and cloudy, it is 63 degrees.
38% humidity
No rain to speak of. It keeps threatening, but none falls.
Fire danger is MODERATE.