By the first of March, and often earlier, the world is all agog concerning signs of spring. The welcome accorded winter during the holidays is no longer extended to the remaining snow-storms, and we meet with a frown the last cold wave of the season. ~ Charles Conrad Abbott (Days Out of Doors)
Sometimes life gets so frustrating! We haven’t been out for a walk in over two weeks. Blaming this on our health problems, car trouble and stormy weather. But on the bright side, we’ve managed to tackle a few neglected projects around the house.
Connecticut’s covid positivity rate is hovering around 3%. My sister worries because there are 72 new cases at the college this week and 4 of her students are isolating. All students and faculty are vaccinated and boosted so hopefully no one is very ill. Still, it’s concerning.
I’m looking forward to spring and the return to our walking adventures soon!
The ground was pretty soggy from melting snow and days of rain so we decided to take a walk in the village of Stonington Borough, rather than traipse through the muddy woods. I visited this lighthouse many years ago with my sister-in-law and climbed the very narrow circular stairs up the tower to the lantern room on the top. The view was wonderful. There wasn’t much space to move around or stretch out, though!
The Stonington Harbor Light is a historic lighthouse built in 1840 and located on the east side of Stonington Harbor in the Borough of Stonington, Connecticut. It is a well-preserved example of a mid-19th century stone lighthouse. The light was taken out of service in 1889 and now serves as a local history museum. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976. ~ Wikipedia
The Stonington Harbor Light is located at the southern end of Stonington Point, marking the eastern side of Stonington Harbor. The light station consists of the tower and keeper’s house; both are built out of large granite blocks, and the keeper’s house has a wood-framed ell attached. The tower is an octagonal stone structure 35 feet (11 m) in height and 10 feet (3.0 m) in diameter, with a circular glass lantern house on top. The house is 1½ stories and about 30 feet (9.1 m) square. ~ Wikipedia
leftover Christmas wreath above the door
The promise of a water view behind the lighthouse lured us around the back and across the spongy lawn. How nice to see a bench there. Looks like a nice spot to enjoy a warm spring day. But no sitting for us on this wet day!
the back of the lighthouse
There were lots of sparrows chirping and flitting about, making it feel like a spring day. We found a sundial in a corner of the yard but it was too cloudy out for the sun to tell us the time. It might have been accurate, too, because we are not in daylight savings time. I wish they would do away with the time change. We’re only under “real” time for about four months out of the twelve…
small sundial
gray skies to the east
Looking west on our way down to Stonington Point we saw a moment of blue sky! From the end of the Stonington Borough peninsula one can see two lighthouses in two different states.
Latimer Reef Light Fishers Island, New York
Latimer Reef Lighthouse, which was placed on the western end of the half-mile-long rocky reef, consists of a prefabricated, cylindrical, forty-nine foot-tall, cast-iron tower with a cast-iron, concrete-filled foundation. … There were a number of other lights built around this time using the same design and employing the same construction methods. They were initially referred to as “Coffee Pot” lights because of their shape, but a few decades later, after the internal combustion engine was in common use, these towers became more commonly known as “Spark Plug” lighthouses. ~ Lighthousefriends.com website
A good portion of the parking lot at the point was still covered with the snow deposited there from the blizzard. It blocked a lot of the views! But in the distance between these mounds (above) I spotted Watch Hill Light, which we visited in October. So I walked across the waterlogged lawn area and used my zoom lens to get a picture of it from Stonington Point. (below)
Watch Hill Light Watch Hill, Westerly, Rhode Island
Our plan to keep our shoes dry failed completely! But at least they were less mucky than they would have been had we gone for a walk in the woods.
winter at Stonington Point
Years ago I used to be a member of the Stonington Historical Society but discontinued my membership when paying the dues didn’t fit in our budget. But it was there that I found a letter written to the Society by my great-grandmother in a file. Emma Flora Atwood was asking them if they had any information about her husband’s parents, William Martin White and Ellen C. Hill, who lived in Old Mystic, another village in Stonington. I don’t know what their reply might have been, but the folder had little else in it. It was exciting to handle a piece of paper that she had touched, too. I like to think my great-grandmother was as interested in family history as I am. She was my mother’s Grammy and that’s why I wanted to be Grammy to my grandchildren. ♡
The other thing I learned while I was getting the Society’s newsletter, was about my 2nd-great-granduncle, Pvt. Rufus C. White, brother of my 2nd-great-grandfather, William M. White, mentioned above.
Rufus C. White, born 6 June 1839, died 16 May 1864, age 24, at Drewry’s Bluff, Virginia. Rufus served as a private in the Union Army, Company E, 21st Infantry Regiment, Connecticut and was killed at the Battle of Drewry’s Bluff. In the 1860 census, Rufus was recorded as a farmer with a personal estate of $100.
The following is from Stonington’s Forgotten Heroes of 1861-65 by James Boylan:
The second large Stonington unit was Company E of the 21st Infantry Regiment, which was recruited in the summer of 1862 from eastern Connecticut. About seventy Stonington men served in Company E, under Captain Charles T. Stanton, Jr., of Stonington. Like Company G of the Eighth, this company became involved in the fogbound battle of Drewry’s Bluff, in which Stanton was severely wounded, and the siege of Petersburg, where Captain Henry R. Jennings of Stonington was wounded. Partly because its term of service was shorter, it suffered fewer casualties.
And there was another pleasant memory, which Tim & I recalled as we passed the Society’s Captain Palmer House Museum on our way home. It must have been in the early 2000s, when I read with great interest, In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick. I am distantly related to some of the sailors he wrote about on that ill-fated voyage. Imagine how excited I was to attend a lecture he gave about his book at the museum. Tim and Larisa came with me and we had a brief conversation with him afterwards.
So, the facts and figures have been determined. We had blizzard conditions for over 8 hours yesterday. And, Groton’s snow total was 21.5 inches! The wind chills were below zero every time I checked. I took pictures through the glass every once in a while, all the following are in order, but I can’t remember the exact times I took them.
snow collected by first light (the shadow is from a security light)
river birch from my kitchen window
snow swirls and drifting from the wind
an attempt to photograph the wind gusts
and still more snow
the mini snow plow seemed overwhelmed
this little table has turned out to be a great way to illustrate snow depths
Before it got too dark we opened the front door to take a couple of pictures of the garden. We had to push hard on the screen/storm door to move the snow out of the way.
the wind blew the snow inside the storm door to decorate the winter wreath
our garden
our car in the middle
one last picture before dark
The last time we had a blizzard like this was seven years ago on January 27, 2015.
Today we were hoping to go to the Essex Ed Groundhog Day Parade but it was canceled because of the storm and how long it will take to clean up the roads and parking lots. Sigh. It’s something fun to look forward to between the winter solstice and spring equinox! Maybe next year…
Instead, it looks like today we will try to brave the cold and shovel some snow off the balcony. I don’t even want to think about getting to the car, although it looks like the sidewalks were shoveled overnight.
Our nor’easter here in southeastern Connecticut has now been an official blizzard for the past five hours. The way the wind is blowing the snow into drifts it’s hard to say how many inches we have, maybe 14 inches so far? The snow is still coming down, fast and furious.
In the above picture, on the ancestors chair we have our two groundhogs waiting patiently to see what the sun will be doing on Groundhog Day. On the little stool sits Tim’s webcam which is providing a live snowstorm stream to our kids and his brothers, who have all moved far far away from Connecticut many years ago.
Notice how high the snow is on our little outdoor dining table!
Friday morning we woke up in the middle of a wonderful, long-awaited snowstorm. Less snow fell here than expected by the end of the nor’easter, but the 5 inches it left behind were enough to delight me. And there was no freezing rain or sleet at the end so we could get out and about in the afternoon and enjoy the fluffy white stuff. ❄️
1.7.22 ~ my river birch during the morning snowstorm from my kitchen window
First stop, Avery Pond. Lots of Canada geese and mallards, but a pair of American wigeons caught my eye.
American wigeon
American wigeon
Next stop, Eastern Point Beach. The gulls were hunkering down in the parking lot. I got out of the car to take some pictures and was nearly blown over by the wind. Other times I tried opening the car window to take pictures. That sent most of the gulls up in the air, flapping and squawking. I suspect they thought I might be going to feed them.
ring-billed gulls with eyes open just a little bit
snow on the rocks
gulls drifting in the wind
juvenile herring gull sticking right by our car
snow covered sand on the beach
Next stop, Beach Pond. No wildlife to be seen at all…
snow all around the pond
snow in the dune grass
cattails
snow and cattails
Next stop, Avery Point. There were quite a few folks out walking their dogs. Too nippy to get out of the car!
don’t know the name of this sculpture
“Azucar” by Christopher Wynter New London Ledge Light in the background
Avery Point Light and windswept snowscape
Last stop, Birch Plain Creek. Got out of the car here. There were lots of birds chirping and flitting about. I was lucky to get a couple of shots.
song sparrow
song sparrow
snow and ice on Birch Plain Creek
white-throated sparrow
white-throated sparrow
It was wonderful having some snow stick around for a change and feeling the winter season the way I remember it. A hot cup of tea at home to enjoy, snuggled under a blanket, looking out the window as darkness fell over the snow… Bliss!
It is in midwinter that I sometimes glean from my pines something more important than woodlot politics, and the news of the wind and weather. This is especially likely to happen on some gloomy evening when the snow has buried all irrelevant detail, and the hush of elemental sadness lies heavy upon every living thing. Nevertheless, my pines, each with his burden of snow, are standing ramrod-straight, rank upon rank, and in the dusk beyond I sense the presence of hundreds more. At such times I feel a curious transfusion of courage. ~ Aldo Leopold (A Sand County Almanac & Other Writings on Ecology & Conservation)
After a bitter cold snap we managed to get out for a good walk on Wednesday. Another new place for us. This time I brought my father’s cane to use as a walking stick so I wouldn’t have to find one in the woods. It fit perfectly and had a good energy! Papa was very fond of his cane because his father had carved it and used it. (A couple of pictures of him with it here.)
photo by Tim
Our daughter-in-law mailed us our old camera a couple of weeks ago so I could see how it compares to the one I’ve been using for several years now. But so far I haven’t felt inclined to pick it up so Tim took it along on this outing. It was fun with both of us having a good camera.
beautiful blue sky
still a bit of ice and snow in places
We were looking for the remains of a famous huge oak tree in the woods here. Before long we spotted the sign and were saddened to see just how very little was left of it.
During the summer of 1969, the gypsy moth defoliated an estimated 260,000 acres of trees in northeastern woodlands — more than triple the defoliated acreage of 1968. ~ Ralph L. Snodsmith (The New York Times, April 19, 1970)
image credit: Ledyard Historical Society The Ledyard Oak, c. 1910
The famous oak didn’t survive the gypsy moth assault in 1969. Fifty-one years later this is all that is left of it:
decomposing
devastation from an invasive species
My feet will tread soft as a deer in the forest. My mind will be clear as water from the sacred well. My heart will be strong as a great oak. My spirit will spread an eagle’s wings, and fly forth. ~ Juliet Marillier (Daughter of the Forest)
This little oak was planted beside the original in 2009. Maybe 400 years from now…
We continued walking and found a historical cemetery.
interesting roots
Lester family cemetery, early 1800s
In memory of Solomon Lester who died Dec. 4, 1840 aged 69
Miss Lucy Lester died Apr. 18, 1814 in her 70th year
unused fence post and its shadow on a tree
some kind of moss or lichen
a huge rooster
a hen (?) and said rooster
Within this park are more trails and the Nathan Lester House & Farm Tool Museum, presumably the home of the chickens. We will have to wait to explore when the pandemic is over.
2.24.21 ~ Hewitt Farm, North Stonington, Connecticut
Because of the winter storms we hadn’t had a real walk in the woods in over a month. “Get out there!” my favorite TV weatherman advised on Wednesday morning. We opened the door and the birds were singing and it felt like a spring day at 45°F (7°C). Most of the snow had melted. So we headed out to a new park for us, the Hewitt Farm in North Stonington.
This 104-acre park and recreation area was purchased by the Town of North Stonington in 2008 for the enjoyment of its residents and visitors to the region. The property consists of forests, fields, wetlands and streams; more than a mile of hiking trails, including the town’s Bicentennial Trail; the Shunock River; 3.5-acre Lower Hewitt Pond and dam; and several structures. The dam originally provided water-power to John Dean Gallup’s woolen mill located nearby. ~ Hewitt Farm Trail Map
a preview of the bigger rock to come
We took the Bicentennial Trail. It felt so good to be outside with a just a sweatshirt and no gloves needed! We walked for an hour and a half, up a hill to Tipping Rock, a huge glacier erratic that didn’t disappoint. From the top of the hill we could see the wooded landscape 360° all around us. But there was also lots to see along the way.
moss texture
another glacial erratic with a different energy
interesting root formation
For most of us knowledge comes largely through sight, yet we look about with such unseeing eyes that we are partially blind. One way to open your eyes is to ask yourself, “What if I had never seen this before? What if I knew I would never see it again?” ~ Rachel Carson (The Sense of Wonder)
perhaps the largest burl we’ve encountered
Not sure how long the trail would be we were thinking of turning back but then we saw the sign. So we pressed on up the hill…
first glimpse (telephoto lens)
what? could that be a ladder?
yes, indeed
no, we do not “do” ladders!
photo by Tim
After much oohing and aahing we headed back down the hill. It was a lot easier and faster than climbing up, but we still paused to see a lot of nature’s delights.
pincushion moss, I think
another interesting root formation
About half way down we heard the delighful sounds of excited children approaching. Two mothers with two babies and four little ones between them were coming up the trail so we took our usual six-feet-off-the-trail position as they passed. We exchanged pleasant greetings. They were wondering about the ladder…
remnants of autumn and winter
We were so happy to be out and about, as much as is possible, during the pandemic. Tim got his first shot on the 17th. Next one scheduled for March 17. My age group opens up on Monday but it may take a while to get an appointment because there are a lot more people in my age group than there are in Tim’s.
2.19.21 ~ white-throated sparrow, Birch Plain Creek
One can only hide from the cold for so long. One’s mind needs to be outdoors! One’s spirit needs simple things. It snowed most of the day on Thursday and Friday and when I woke up at 4 a.m. Saturday morning there were still flurries dancing around. We went for a walk in the scattered snow showers on Friday, with about five inches of the white stuff on the ground. Not wanting to drive anywhere, we walked in the woods and along the creek behind our condo complex.
I spotted a new bird, for me, a white-throated sparrow! She was not cooperating about posing very much but I was happy to get the above picture. One musn’t be greedy. I wonder what she was eating.
left over from a city-wide Valentine’s Day scavenger hunt
mourning dove
A mourning dove landed on a branch and eyed me. I thanked her for letting me see the coloring under her tail. Another new thing for me to see. And then she knocked some snow off the branch — yes dear little dove, I did see you do that. 😉
mourning dove knocking snow off the branch
waiting for spring
The creek was mostly frozen over. Tim spotted three gulls out on the ice. Two waiting for an opportunity and one devouring a fish. One always wonders who stole it from who…
great black-backed gull, first winter
it looks cold out there on the ice
winter survival
How surely gravity’s law, strong as an ocean current, takes hold of even the smallest thing and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing — each stone, blossom, child — is held in place. …
This is what the things can teach us: to fall, patiently to trust our heaviness. Even a bird has to do that before he can fly.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke (Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God)
somebody’s tracks
Birch Plain Creek
My mood improved 100% by the time we returned home. Pretty flurries just continued floating through the sky all morning and afternoon, until dark, still there every time I looked up from my book. I have finished reading The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden and have started on The Girl in the Tower, the second book in the Winternight trilogy. Perfect books for winter.
