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Moose Mountains panorama (photo: J.Morris)

One of our newest land stewards, Jason Morris of Farmington, has a blog that describes his adventures hiking in NH and beyond. He's been posting some about Moose Mountains Reservation in Middleton, where he is a land steward along with Scott Lavoice. You can find it here, and I've also listed Jason's blog under the Links/Documents section in the sidebar of this blog. Moose Mountains is a fairly large reservation, over 1000 acres, with lots of great hiking potential and interesting cultural and natural features. Unfortunately, there's also some issues with motorized wheeled vehicle use (trucks and ATVs) which pre-dated our ownership of the property and which we'd like to get under control to protect the natural resources and road/trail infrastructure there. Check in on Jason's blog every so often if you'd like to know how things are progressing...

Starflower (photo: J.Morris)

Photo: J.Morris

Northern Leopard Frog (photo: J.Morris)

Lady Slipper at Moose Mtns (photo: J.Morris)

North and South Workdays

Earlier in May two workdays occurred on Forest Society properties at opposite ends of the state. On May 12th, a group of 20+ land stewards and other volunteers gathered at Lost River Reservation in Woodstock, NH to assist with trail maintenance and assorted spring cleaning tasks that needed to be accomplished in order to get the property ready for the Gorge's opening weekend. Lost River is the Forest Society's oldest reservation, protected in 1912. The portion of the property that contains the spectacular gorge and boulder caves is leased by SPNHF to White Mountain Attractions (WMA), which operates the Lost River Gorge. The funds from our lease agreement go directly towards stewardship of Forest Society reservations, as well as new land protection projects, so it's a win-win situation for both parties. Every spring we assist WMA with preparing for opening day, and also conduct maintenance on the other parts of the Lost River property that are not under lease agreement. Included in this area are two great trails- the 1/2 mile Kinsman's Notch Ecology Trail loop, and the much more strenuous Dilly Cliffs Trail.

There is always chainsaw work at Lost River

Volunteers spruce up the paint near the entrance

BBQ lunch after the Lost River workday

A second workday was held on May 14th at Gap Mountain Reservation in Jaffrey and Troy, NH. A group of volunteers led by Frank Bequaert of the Metacomet-Mondadnock Trail group built several new rock waterbars on the north trail up Gap Mountain and improved some stone staircases. Gap Mountain Reservation is also under lease agreement, to the NH State Parks, and is managed as a part of Monadnock State Park. The trails on both Mount Monadnock and Gap Mountain see very heavy use over the hiking season, so constant vigilance is needed and trail maintenance projects are never-ending! Just ask our land stewards at these properties....

Installing waterbars at Gap Mountain (photo: H.Lindquist)

photo: H. Lindquist

New Class of Land Stewards!

Sorry for the hiatus in posting- I've got some catching up to do! I've been very busy the last month or so planning for the 2011 Land Steward CORE Training, which just finished up this past weekend. Twenty seven newly minted Land Stewards now join the ranks of the roughly 85 of you already out there and active on your reservations. Join me in welcoming them please!

We had a great class this year, with folks from all corners of the state... from Wilton to Somersworth to Cornish to Milan and everywhere in between. The training was held at Geneva Point Center in Moultonborough- a lovely setting right on Lake Winnipesaukee with lots of trails and acres of woods for outdoor learning activities. And most importantly, there was a huge screened in porch with a fireplace (no rain! no bugs!) to get to know each other around in the evenings.

As it has the previous few years, the curriculum included forest management, trail maintenance, map/compass/boundary monitoring, community engagement, and recreation management. This year we were able to visit a few recently harvested forests as well to round out the training and give people a better idea of how and why the Forest Society conducts timber harvets on its lands. We are really excited for the new steward class to get started and hope they have been energized by the training weekend!

The Spring Cleaning Toolkit

Now that the snow is almost gone, it's a great time to get out on your Reservation and do a little spring cleaning. What are the best tools to take with you on a spring cleaning foray? I like a shovel or hoe of some sort, a hand saw, and a plastic trash bag at this time of year... and here's what I use them for:

1. Clean out Culverts - if there are any culverts on the roads and/or trails on your reservation, spring is a good time to make sure they're running free. Culverts can easily plug with sediment and debris over the course of fall and winter, and if they block the flow of water completely, the consequences can be disastrous. Use your shovel or hoe to scrape debris out of the culvert's intake and outflow as best as you can.

culvert failure

2. Clean Waterbars & Drainages - The upslope side of trail waterbars should have a nice drainage channel to divert water off trail. If those on your property have filled in with dirt, leaves, or other debris and are flush with the bar itself, they're due for a cleaning. Scrape out any accumulated debris with your shovel or hoe and restore the drain channel. Be sure it extends well off the side of the trail so the water won't just pour back on the trail a little further down!

a waterbar (looking downslope) with cleaned drain channel (Photo: P. Ellis)

3. Take out the Trash - After all that dirty snow melts, you will inevitably find trash items (cans, bottles, food packaging) along your property's road frontage, and possibly along trails as well. Remembering to bring a plastic trash bag with you is a good idea at any time of year, since you can whip it out to hold all those yucky rubbish items when you run into them.

4. Watch for Windfall - Winter storms often leave branches, large limbs, and sometimes even whole trees across the trail system. Early spring is a great time to get out and make sure the trail is passable for recreational users. Here's where your handsaw will come in handy... use it to help you saw larger branches and remove them from the trail corridor. If large trees have fallen, you may use a chainsaw as long as you have completed SPNHF's Chainsaw Safety and Maintenance Workshop and feel you have the skills to remove the tree safely. If not, alert Forest Society staff to the problem and we'll do our best to get out and clear the trail as soon as we can!

Winter Blowdown - only tackle these if you feel confident you can do it safely (photo: L. Martin)

Sweet Spring Season

At the close of each winter, when the nights are still below freezing and the days above, it's that time again. Time for New Hampshire's sugar maples to be pressed into service to provide their sweet sap for reduction into golden maple syrup, in turn to be poured over the nation's pancakes, french toast, and other breakfast edibles.

Maple syrup is undeniably a forest product, just as lumber, wood chips and paper are - and the harvesting of sap from maples each spring is also a form of local and sustainable agriculture. Despite this, management of an active sugarbush can run counter to other common timber management objectives - in a sugarbush, sugar maples are favored over all other species, creating a kind of monoculture, and tap holes certainly decrease the value of maple logs if the area were ever harvested. Although we wouldn't want a sugaring operation on every northern hardwood forest SPNHF owns, the Forest Society does have several sugarwoods on it's reservations. The Rocks Estate in Bethlehem has one, complete with a maple museum and operating sugarhouse to let visitors experience all aspects of maple sugaring from tapping to sap collection to boiling and syrup draw-off. The Forest Society also leases portions of a few reservations (primarily those in the sweet soils of the CT river valley like Nemiah Forest in Lyme or Yatsevitch Forest in Plainfield/Cornish) to maple producers to operate as sugarwoods. So if you see sugaring lines on the Forest Society reservation you monitor for us, be sure to check with SPNHF Land Management staff to make sure this is part of an active lease agreement!

Taylor Brother Sugarhouse in Meriden, NH. Some of the sap they're boiling comes from trees on the Yatsevitch Reservation in Cornish & Plainfield.

If you have never been to a New Hampshire sugarhouse during March or early April, you should make plans to visit one. It is quite an experience to eat a donut slathered in maple cream or sip a cup of coffee flavored with Grade B syrup (the darkest and most flavorful grade, produced towards the close of each sugaring season) inside the sweet and steamy sugarhouse. It's a true NH treat!

Become a First Detector for Invasive Forest Pests!

Emerald Ash Borer - adult beetle

Invasive insect pests are a serious threat to our forests in New Hampshire. By now you've probably heard the names "Hemlock Woolly Adelgid," "Emerald Ash Borer," and "Asian Longhorned Beetle" bantered about in conservation circles, but would you recognize all of these bugs if you encountered them on the property you monitor for the Forest Society? Would you know where to look? Or what to do and who to contact if you did find an invasive pest? Did you know that Hemlock Woolly Adelgid is already being discovered in the southwestern part of our state? That Emerald Ash Borer has been found in upstate NY, only 80 miles from the border with NH? Or that native wasp colonies are being employed to help monitor for the presence of Emerald Ash Borer? If you're interested in learning more, we've got great news for you!

Invasive Pest First Detector Training, sponsored by the UNH Cooperative Extension, NH Audubon, and the Forest Society, is being offered to Land Stewards on Thursday April 7th at the McClane Audubon Center in Concord. Stewards will learn how to monitor for and identify invasive insects that currently threaten New Hampshire's forests, and will then be part of a nationwide network of "First Detectors" working to provide early detection of these invaders as they expand into new territories. Insect collection and submittal for identification confirmation will also be covered. Some damaging invasive plants will also be included in the training protocol. This is a fantastic opportunity to expand your stewardship skill set and assist the Forest Society and NH's conservation community in protecting our forestlands. To sign up for the workshop, please email Suzanne Hebert at UNH Cooperative Extension (suzanne.hebert@unh.edu) or call her at 862-3200. There is no charge for the workshop. Check out the flyer (with training agenda) here.

Archaeological Remains - Where and What

Those of us who are out in the woods a lot are the most likely candidates to find archaeological remains. Knowing where to look and what to look for can help you to spot these things.

People have been living in New Hampshire for 12,000 years, and during the 11,500 years of prehistory they were living over and over again in the same preferred places: on river and lake shores, especially on river and lakeside terraces, at falls and at river deltas, inlets and outlets. Post-glacial nomadic hunters camped in these locations, hunter-gatherers preferred these spots for seasonal settlements, and village horticulturalists found this to be the best land for planting, so these locations often have layer upon layer of buried artifacts.

One other potential archaeological location is at or near outcrops of fine-grained stone, where people repeatedly came to quarry the stone, knock it into rough "blanks", and carry it away to finish tool-making nearby.

Of course these spots are likely to be covered with soil and trees, but wind and water may expose the artifacts. Where there is disturbance, look for pieces of fine-grained (smooth, slippery) stone. Look for signs of straight-line fracture or of chipping of the edges - these were tools or the debris from making and sharpening tools. You could be looking at something 12,000 years old. Look for pieces of pottery, often "stamped" with a raised pattern on the outside surface; this could be 3,000 years old. Also look for metal, often oxidized to green or another color - this could date from the time of contact and the fur trade.

In rare instances you may find wood, bones, birchbark and other organic material - usually in a wetland, and especially a peatland, environment. Again, draining or other disturbance is likely to reveal these things.

If you find something, there is probably more underneath, and the undisturbed stratigraphy is very important. So, mark the spot (but not too obviously), and don't dig! If you are on SPNHF land, notify Carrie or Dave Anderson. As the landowner, SPNHF will follow up with the Division of Historical Resources, and the site may be visited by archaeologists. There will not be much fanfare, because archaeological sites are fragile and sensitive to destruction by casual collectors. In fact, archaeological site information is exempt from the Freedom of Information Act for just this reason.

If you are on other land, notify the landowner, recommend contacting the Division of Historical Resources, and emphasize that an archaeological site does not affect a landowner's rights in any way. If archaeologists are permitted to visit, they must follow the landowner's instructions, and if they excavate the site, they will restore it. In fact, they will do their best to make it look like nothing ever happened there.

There is also Historic Archaeology, so cellar holes, old dams, old dump sites, etc. are worth noting, marking, and notifying SPNHF. The same procedures apply.

Nine-tenths of archaeological sites are found by non-archaeologists and SPNHF stewards and staff are likely to find some.