Alexandersmap

    Month: February 2018

    • Dunes

      Separating the surf from the mainland, dunes are a critical protective barrier.  When storm surge threatens inland areas, it’s often the only thing standing in the way.  Dunes aren’t just piles of sand, they’re an ecosystem of dune grass, small shrubs and other plants adapted to survive this hostile environment.  Birds and other animals live in this buffer zone, protected from the waves and wind.

      The MVP tenant in the dune is dune grass.  Its deep roots literally hold the dune together, creating a more resilient barrier when the winds and waves kick up.  Wind blows the sand against the dune, where it is trapped by the grass and helps to build the dune up, grain by grain.  Wave action erodes the sand, and the cycle continues.

      Complicating this endless dance are humans.  People walking in the dunes trample the grass, creating paths that erode in the wind.  The other contributor to erosion of the dunes in some areas is the jetty.  Jetties are constructed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and serve to stop erosion of the beach while also trapping sand between each.  Jetties are essentially piles of boulders stacked in a pyramid and running perpendicular to the beach.  Trapping sand, they serve their desired purpose when engineered properly.
      When jetties are constructed without regard for the downward drift the can destroy the protective dunes and dramatically change the beach.  In Quogue, New York, a part of the Hamptons on Long Island, jetties built in 1992 stopped the natural drift of sand from Shinnecock Inlet and wiped out the dunes.  This exposed the homes that line the coast in this area to storm surge.  Visiting the beach in Quoque ten years after the construction of the jetties, I was shocked at how much the beach had changed.  The double dune was gone, and so was the pristine sloping sandy beach.  It was a great lesson in responsible civil engineering.
      The dunes on Plum Island have faced similar threats over the years.  The jetties built on either side of the Merrimack River serve to stabilize the drift of sand, hopefully keeping the channel wider and deeper than it might otherwise be.  Sand that would otherwise clog the channel is better served as a barrier beach.  Were it only so simple.  Jetties, while built with good intentions, can be a blessing or a curse, depending on where you are on the beach.  While the wind and waves are far more powerful over time than the jetties, the impact they’ve had is transformative here and now.  Dunes, while appearing timeless, are fragile ecosystems that need protection from people.

       

    • Finding a New Routine

      Finding a New Routine

      When Bodhi was younger we would easily cover three or four miles in an hour walking every night.  We were both power walkers, and we had a rythym and pace that we both understood and enjoyed.  Bodhi was clearly burning more calories than I was because in addition to keeping pace with his walking his tail was wagging like crazy the entire time.

      Fast-forward to today, and Bodhi’s pace has changed dramatically.  He’s more inclined to stop and sniff, mark his territory, or really anything that stopped the walk so he could catch his breath.  He’s getting older and walking becomes much more of a process than before.  I’ve learned to accept this, and appreciate our time together more than I did when we were younger and I didn’t fully understand what we had.

      Since Bodhi isn’t walking as much, I’ve found that I’m not walking as much either.  Worse, since I’m not outside pounding the pavement at 9 or 10 PM, I’m replacing that exercise time with television or reading with a drink and snack.  Or sometimes just a drink.  Or two.  Not a good routine for a weeknight, so I’m finding a new routine.  I’m getting back outside to walk, even if alone.  I’m getting up earlier to row when I’m home, and walk when I’m traveling.

      Of course, routines don’t just happen.  They start with the first step on the first day and go from there. The trick is overcoming inertia.  When I rowed and we started the spring sprint races from a dead stop we’d do three rapid, short half strokes to get the boat moving, then progress to a full length and a high stroke rate for twenty or thirty strokes.  This has the desired effect of getting the boat to full speed.  Once you get moving you then settle into more manageable stroke rate for the body of the race.

      Routines are like that too.  Quick, relatively easy burst of activity to get yourself going followed by an increase in intensity and then settle into a sustainable level of activity.  That’s the kind of routine I need to be engaged in now.  Now would be a great time to start.

    • Common Periwinkle

      Common Periwinkle

      Consider the common periwinkle.  It lives a life relatively invisible to humans, unless you happen to be on the coast in New England anyway.  Even then most people wouldn’t think anything of these creatures.  And why not?  The Common Periwinkle lives a modest life fixed to rocks or marsh grass, scarping and eating algae and hoping not to be eaten by predators.

      The Periwinkle (let’s drop the common, shall we?) is a survivor.  Its foot clings to rocks as waves crash and swirl around and on top of it.  At low tide they’re exposed to extreme temperatures.  At high tide they’re underwater for hours at a time, all while whelks, fish and even humans hunt you down to eat you.  At low tide I’ve accidentally stepped on periwinkles, and honestly a feel a little sad about it.  Life is a strange thing, and it’s easy to feel small in this world that we live in, looking out at the universe.  And yet the periwinkle offers a little perspective.  We’re small, but there are many creatures smaller than us.  Life can be challenging at times, but hey, I’m not clinging to a rock getting battered by waves while I scrape off my algae meal.

    • The Buzzard in the Bay

      Buzzards Bay is a 28 mile long body of water lined on one side by the mainland of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and on the other by Cape Cod, the Elizabeth Islands and Martha’s Vineyard.  Buzzards Bay is named after the osprey’s that thrived along the bay.  Osprey are very different from buzzards, but the name stuck anyway.  Names have a way of doing that.

      The saltiness and warmth of Buzzards Bay make it an attractive place to bob around in during the late summer and early fall.  The bay is considered “an estuary of national importance” in the late 1980’s.  There’s no doubt that the bay teams with thousands or millions of fish, shellfish and the birds and wildlife that feed on them.  The king of all feeders is the osprey.  Watching them float and dive for fish is one of the highlights of being down here.  Thankfully they’ve rebounded from the catastrophic introduction of DDT and other insecticides into the environment.

      That  some explorer 400 years ago can mistake an osprey for a buzzard and name the place after that mistake is interesting.  What even more interesting is it didn’t evolve over time to something more accurate.  I guess once you start associating a location with a name it would be confusing to suddenly call it something else.  So the genie has left the bottle and there’s no changing the name now.  Which is a shame because Osprey Bay is a pretty damned good name if you ask me.

    • The NJ to NH Run

      As a road warrier, I’m used to long drives.  Honestly, I don’t even blink when I drive 6-7 hours anymore.  The one exception to that is the drive back from New Jersey to New Hampshire.  The timing of the drive is critical, and so is the weather.  This afternoon neither worked in my favor.

      From New Jersey, there are basically two viable options over the Hudson River; the Tappan Zee Bridge or George Washington Bridge.  When you drive over the GW you assume the worst, no matter what time of day it is.  Heavy traffic and a rough and bumpy road surface are a given 90% of the time.  Usually crossing the GW means placing all your chips on I-95 all the way to New Haven.  That’s a scary bet.

      The Tappan Zee is less predictable, but generally lighter than the GW.  I’ve always found it to be an interesting and enjoyable bridge to cross, largely because of the width of the Hudson at this point, and the beautiful cliffs that line the shores, particularly at Hook Mountain State Park.  The challenges come after you cross the Hudson.  You either roll the dice on the Sawmill Parkway or on the Merritt Parkway.  Parkways sound lovely, but they’re narrow, unforgiving roads built at a time when cars were driving 35-40 MPH.  Quaint.  Of the two parkways the Merritt is more appealing, with rest areas, a tunnel and importantly, no traffic lights.  The Sawmill has multiple traffic lights along the parkway, which puts the park in parkway.

      From the parkways you’ve eventually got to get through or around Hartford before you finally catch a cruise control breather on I-84 from Manchester, Connecticut to the Mass Pike.  This moment of bliss is usually interrupted by the realities of the Pike.  Channeling thousands of drivers from from parts west with thousands of drivers from parts south can lead to epic traffic on the turnpike.  Summer and holiday traffic is especially delightful along this stretch of Americana.

      Life at highway speed isn’t all its cracked up to be, but its still better than bumper-to-bumper speed.  The math has never worked taking the train or a plane to New Jersey.  So we all enter the grinder and hope for the best.

    • Mount Hope Bridge

      Bristol, Rhode Island is home to the first and thus oldest 4th of July parade in America.  The stripe down the middle of the road is red, white and blue.  This town is patriotic and quaint.  It’s home to Roger Williams University and the America’s Cup Museum, but my favorite thing in this town is the bridge between Bristol and Portsmouth.  The Mount Hope Bridge is a two lane suspension bridge over Narragansett Bay.  It’s a tall, narrow bridge that runs 135 feet above the high tide mark.  There are no sidewalks on this bridge – one lane each way at no wider.  It’s on the National Register of Historic Places because there’s quite a history to it.

      The Mount Hope Bridge was proposed in 1920, supported by the wealthy and influential William Henry Vanderbilt III and finally completed four days before the 1929 Stock Market crash that started the Great Depression.  It’s named for the bay that it spans, which in turn is named for the 209 foot hill Mount Hood.  There’s incredible history in this area.  The Wampanoags held meetings at a rock formation called King Phillips Seat near Mount Hood.  Thankfully this is preserved by Brown University, which owns the land in that area.  That history is a blog (or a few blogs) for another day.  Today is about the bridge.

      Timing the ride over the bridge well, you may be lucky enough to see a spectacular sunset over Narragansett Bay and Jamestown.  It’s one of the rare times when I wish there was traffic so I could just watch the sunset.  Sadly there are no pedestrian walkways on the bridge, though in theory I could ride a bike across the bridge.  In practice that’s a scary thought.  The lanes are narrow and there isn’t much forgiveness between moving vehicles and the bay.  I’m not risk-averse but that doesn’t seem like a recipe for success.

      I’ve had an affinity for bridges for a long time.  It may have been all those trips across the Sagamore Bridge going to the Cape as a kid.  It may have been those long rows from Lowell to the Tyngsboro Bridge in college.  Or memorable trips across the Brooklyn Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge and recently the Vasco De Gama Bridge in Lisbon.  Beyond their utility and architectural beauty, bridges represent connection.  The Mount Hope Bridge may be named after a hill, but I prefer to think of the name as nod to optimism.  Connection and Hope.  We could use more of each in this strange world we live in.

    • Maple Season

      As the days get longer and the sun sits higher in the sky, a site unique to the region starts to appear.  Buckets or plastic barrels start to appear around the maple trees.  Plastic tubing running from the trunks of tree to to these containers wind through the woods.  Maple syrup season is upon us.

      The process of collecting sap and boiling it down in barns and sheds to the sticky sweet topping for pancakes and waffles begins now.  The key, I’m told, is to have cold nights and warm days, which triggers the sap to run.  I’m not sure who in history started licking the sap coming out of the maple tree to discover it was sweet, but I do know they’d be shocked at the industry that’s grown around it.

      Maple syrup comes in two varieties, the real stuff and the dark brown, mass-produced junk spotted in the supermarket and made by subsidiaries of Fortune 500 companies.  Look, I’m sure they’re nice people too, but if I’m going to invest in the carbs and calories for syrup, I’m opting for the real stuff.  Real maple syrup, like local honey, just tastes better.  It also has a lower carbon footprint, isn’t full of additives and preservatives, and supports people in my region.  The buckets are a true sign that spring is right around the corner, and I smile when I see them as I drive through New England.

    • For the Birds

      Yesterday while walking with Bodhi I caught a glimpse of brilliant blue in a neighbors tree.  It was a bluebird frittering from branch to branch.  With the snow as a backdrop it’s colors were thrilling as I paused to watch it.  Its not lost on me that I use descriptive adjectives often, and I offer no apologies. The ride is short and I’m going to make the most of it while on it.

      I’m not a birdwatcher per se, as in you won’t find me with a pair of binoculars chasing a tufted titmouse.  But I take the time to observe them, as I do other wildlife.  Bluebirds, finches, orioles, cardinals and hummingbirds highlight the backyard, offering life, motion and color to a sometimes drab canvas.  Hawks, eagles and osprey, so focused on their next meal, are thrilling to watch in action.  Pileated woodpeckers offer their own thrill, with a unique call and a rapid, loud knock that betrays their presence even when you don’t see these shy birds.

      As I’ve said before, I feed the birds, and view the investment in time and seed as worthwhile.  Bluebirds don’t generally visit my yard for seed because they prefer mealworms.  I’ve already started planning the addition of a Bluebird feeder, with it’s smaller 1 1/2′ holes to keep the bigger birds out.  The ground is frozen now and I don’t think it practical to add another feeder to an already crowded pole out back.

      Having an awareness of the world around you – birds, flowers, stars in the sky, the gurgling of the stream as the snow melt feeds it – doesn’t seem unusual to me, but it feels like many people don’t notice, or don’t care.  Maybe they’re much more focused on their careers, or their projects, or replaying a scene from something they watched on television.  Or maybe I don’t notice them noticing the same things I notice.

      We got eight inches of snow overnight, but its rapidly melting as the sun does its work.  Spring is closer, and with it the world becomes more alive.  I’m sensing change in the air.  Longer days as the earth tilts us towards the sun.  2018 is two months old and already highly interesting.  I’ll be starting a new job soon too.  Brilliant color on an otherwise drab landscape draws my eye.  I feel its worth the investment.

    • Morning Person

      I like to think of myself as a morning person.  Most days I actually am one.  By morning I mean that period of time between night and when the sun rises.  Pre-dawn is my time.  It goes back to when I coached crew and had to be up at 4:30 to get to the boathouse.  It was a struggle at times, but the payoff was when I was out on the river as the sky slowly flooded with light.  We used to say that we did more before the sun came up than most people did all day.  I’ve heard that same expression used with people in the military like Jocco Willink who’s started a cult following with his 4:30 club.

      As a 50-something, I’ve grown lazy.  Sure I try to get my 10,000 steps.  But I rarely lift weights anymore, and even rowing on the erg is hit or miss.  Doing either at 4:30 is prohibitively unpleasant.  At least that’s what I tell myself.  And so I put off working out and have a coffee or two.  I journal or read.

      There’s a 63 year old character named Joe in Hampton, New Hampshire who goes for a power walk every morning before sunrise.  His wife also goes for a power walk but they don’t walk together.  Instead Joe walks with a flight attendant of roughly the same age while his wife walks with some other friends.  Occasionally they meet up and walk together at the end of their respective power walks, but usually they do their own walks independent of each other.  Joe looks a lot like Rodney Dangerfield and has a similar sense of humor.  I imagine his walks with the flight attendant are filled with much laughter.

      Joe used to live in Atkinson, New Hampshire where I live.  He downsized a few years ago, selling his house, his condo on the lake up in Maine and the boat that he had up there for a condo near the beach in Hampton.  Joe is happier now than I recall him ever being.  He works part time in a butcher shop, power walks and flirts with women half his age.  Joe is a morning person for sure.

      For me being outside getting some exercise before sunrise is just about the perfect start to the day.  I’ve settled for a couple of cups of coffee and some light reading.  It’s about time I get back to being a real morning person.

    • Ebb & Flow

      Temperatures in southern New Hampshire have risen into the mid-40’s today.  As a result the snow pack is melting, swelling the streams, creating foggy patches and revealing bare lawn and a hint of the pool cover.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of believing spring is in the air.  Hardened New Englanders don’t take the bait.  We’ve been here before.  The promise of spring is a tease followed by nor’easters and April Fools Day storms.

      Sure enough, tomorrow night there’s a snow storm brewing.  New England doesn’t let you off the hook that easily.  Our personalities match this.  One minute you’re getting a compliment from someone, the next you’re the butt of a joke they’re making.  Love with a smack of sarcasm.  That’s how we roll around here, and it’s easy to blame the weather.