Bright Sunshine!

8:45 a.m.

Bright Sunshine!
The Cascades Brook is at 4.4" of flow (no icing as yet),
The skies are clear and blue and cloudless,
The temperature is 33 degrees F and rising,
No precipitation, though there was a frost and fun frost structures in the dirt and mud this morning,
It is very nearly breeze-less,
The USFS Fire Danger Class is NONE.

The weather is beautiful, especially for late fall/early winter. Soak it in.

There is much commotion to our south as the subdivision gets its lollipop cul de sac paved today. The street is reduced in width with parked vehicles for the job site, many trucks are coming and going, and there is no officer to direct traffic so be careful out there.

Spoke again with the DPW Customer Service folks about the illegal trash that appeared in early October, and was formally reported on October 12th. The trash wasn't examined for evidence, and the illegal dumping wasn't removed, yet somehow the file got closed out as having been finished. Well, we get a new confirmation number, an apology, and we hope for the best. The only dark positive in all of this is that the illegal dumper doesn't add new dumping until the old stuff is removed so we haven't had any new problems, just longstanding ones.

Also we pause today to remember Jeff Barnard of Wormtowntaxi who died yesterday. God bless Jeff.

Volunteer Thursday!

Every other Thursday morning this summer, we're doing sign work with volunteers here at the Lodge. If you can wield a paintbrush, an adz, a hand saw, we'll find something for you to do. Work goes on here until 11:30 today.
(to the accompanyment of the woodchipper next door...'though I am freshly assured that this will end by noon today!)

At 9:30 it is 71.1 degrees and rising...quite pleasant.
42% humidity and falling
29.18 inches of mercury and steady
We have 1 mph of wind
The streambed is just a trickle (and likely to stay that way, unless the isolated showers for tonight pan out).
Fire danger is LOW ('though it's MODERATE just to our west).

Damp

The 0.4 inches of rain that we got last night all fell after midnight, so it's on today's count. Expect it to be damp on the trails; we're still hearing the drip of water off the trees now.
It's 76.1 degrees and rising at 10 am.
51% humidity and steady
29.21 inches of mercury and steady
O mph of wind
And the rain wasn't enough to bring the stream up above a trickle.

In addition to some family health excitement, the lack of posting has possibly been because it's been hard to hear yourself think here at the Lodge lately. The development next door has made it up the property bound to the house now, and the boundary runs without many trees as a buffer up here. They have cleared right up to the boundline, with chainsaw and excavator and chipper, and it's been loud, to say the least. We also have an impressive pile of woodchips along the boundline, and an unprecedented amount of sun in the backyard.

You can join us for sign work here between 8:30 and 11:30 Thursday morning!

Workin'

We've got some workers here today, building more stone wall and working on a platform for firewood. Also, today's weekly work project is TONIGHT at God's Acre. You'll find us at 5:30 off of Swan Ave (find a map here) for a trail blazing project in the Tessaset Hills trail. If you RSVP to Mary (mary@gwlt.org), we'll make sure there's pizza for you.

At 10:30 it is 71.1 degrees and steady.
48% humidity and steady
29.38 inches of mercury and rising
Clear sunny skies
No wind to speak of
The stream continues below measurable levels.

And the development is RIGHT over against the Cascading Waters boundline today (but, mercifully, no banging today).

Come search for the ALB!

You can join us in hunting the Asian Longhorned Beetle this afternoon over on the Kinneywood property. The hunt starts at noon at the very end of Dawson Road (just down the street from Cascading Waters). Bring binoculars and water!

At 10 am, it is a comfortable 74.3 degrees and steady
45% humidity and steady
29.18 inches of mercury and rising (those storms are still moving out)
Although we did get a spatter of rain here last night, it wasn't enough to move the rain gauge. It looks like the dramatic weather on that one went north of us.
The stream is below registering.
No wind at the moment.

The development next door continues on apace, 'though they seem for now to have given up the heavy drilling.

Sticky

High humidity overnight, 'though it's heading down. Currently, it is 59%.
76.8 degrees and rising at 10 am
29.21 inches of mercury and steady
No recordable wind
Fire danger is back up to LOW (it doesn't take long)
The stream is back down under the rocks.

No hydro-ax this morning so far, but the excavator is busy.

Cue the hydroax

...and it's nine am here...cue the hydro-ax next door.
Yes, the development next door is continuing on apace, and, as we could tell you, it's not many inches to ledge here, so they're having to slam their way through to get the water lines in. It's noisy, to put it lightly.

At 9 am, it is 76.6 degrees and steady (that's good news!)
51% humidity and steady
The barometer is at 29.32 inches of mercury under clear blue skies
We have a nice 1.5 mph breeze right now.

No, thank you

To whomever saw fit to dump a crib mattress and bag of trash next to the end of the trail: no, thank you. We don't have some sort of free deal for getting rid of other people's stuff, and we'd much prefer you took care of it yourself.
To the rest of the universe: should you see someone dumping on GWLT lands, please let us know. Photos, license plate numbers, and any other identifying info is especially good. Just don't get yourself hurt doing so.

As for the rest of the report:
Digging continues on apace at the development next door. We're pretty sure they've got the water line in, so what they're up to now, who knows? They start up the excavator every day at 7:30, however, so clearly they feel there is work to do.
At 9:30, it is overcast and 52 degrees.
Temperature is rising, 'though not much.
The barometer is at 28.61 inches of mercury and steady.
I'm having some trouble tracking down the fire danger for today, but keep in mind that we have not gotten much actual rain, so it's pretty dry out there.
The stream is running at 4.8 inches.

Worcester State class coming through

...and don't you think they're all glad to be outside today, rather than in a classroom? A Landscape class, looking at neighborhoods, taking a walk on the property today.

The stream is at 7.8 inches, still running fast.
The Cascades are rushing.
At 10 am, it has just hit 50 degrees and rising.
Light wind
The fire danger locally remains low, 'though western Mass is creeping into moderate
The barometer is at 29.18 inches and steady

For those of you interested in the development next door, you might want to know that the owners are going before the Planning Board next Wednesday. The meeting starts at 5:30 pm in the Levi Lincoln room at City Hall, and the plan for 125 Olean is 7th on the agenda. They're asking for an extension on their approval for a subdivision, as their current one has expired.

Golden day

The light is golden under the leaves today...beautiful out there right now!
It is COLD, though, so wrap up! While we did not have a frost here at the Lodge (the trees are good insulation), there was one out on Olean Street. It is definitely fall!

At 9 am, it is right at 40 degrees and rising (but not much and not fast)
The barometer is at 29.41 inches and steady under blue skies.
The stream stands at 3.2 inches from yesterday's rain.

We've got some activity next door at the proposed development today; it looks like they're moving logs around.

Moving forward

We've got some workers in the street this morning, digging up the road. Looks like work on the development next door is moving forward.

At 9 am, it is 22 degrees and rising
61% humidity and steady
Barometer stands at 30.36 inches under cloudy skies with an occasional flake of snow
National Weather Service says we'll have a bit of snow through 10 am
Stream is 4.4 inches deep
Fire danger is NONE

We've got "Snow Ghost" coming in early this afternoon to record a broadcast; we'll give you info on that when we have it!

Beautiful Labor Day

We've had quite a number of hikers coming through to enjoy it!
We've failed to mention that earlier this week, the excavator next door left. They left quite a bit of the property wooded, too much, we're fairly sure, to put in six houses. It looks as though the word around the neighborhood (that fewer would be built) may well have been right.
At 4pm, it is 74 degrees
53% humidity (very dry for here)
Barometer is steady at 30 inches

School buses are rolling...

Did you notice all of them out there practicing yesterday?

A bit chilly this morning!
At 9 am, it is 57 degrees
78% humidity
Barometer is steady at 29.91 inches
Fire danger remains LOW
We never got any of that rain to speak of yesterday. Here's hoping the fish hold out!

The excavator next door fired up at 7 am today and has been busy. There's a rumor going through the neighborhood that they don't intend to build out the property, perhaps only building a few of the houses for family. We'll see...

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.

Clear skies and construction

The excavator is busy next door; more trees coming down.
(And don't we all hope that none of them are maples with ALB??)

At 2:45 pm, it is 81 degrees
60% humidity and falling
Barometer is reading 30.27 inches
Fire danger is LOW, 'though expect to see it go up over the weekend if we get the clear skies forecast.
We've had some bicycles and a few dog walkers go through this afternoon.

About that development next door

For those of you wondering just what the heck is going on next door, we do have the proposed plan here at the Lodge; if you're interested, let us know.
To give you the quick rundown: they're putting in a cul-de-sec ("Olean Circle") on the south (Tatnuck Square) side of the current house. There will be three houses behind the current house (on the Cascading Waters side), two on the end of the circle (backing up to the backyards of the houses on Cataract Street), and one on the south side (they don't own as much land on that side). Yes, that's six houses there, and won't we all be interested in how they squeeze them all in!

It's nice

Very busy around here with hikers this morning, and we've already had a truck pull in next door.

At 8:30 am, it is 69 degrees and rising.
89% humidity
Barometer is steady at 29.74
Looks like there's a small line of clouds coming through this morning.
Fire danger is LOW