Outdoor Adventures with Gary Lee - Vol. 325

We could be back to rain on our weekends again and we sure needed some as it was about as dry as I’ve seen in some time. We did get just about an inch of rain overnight in the thunderstorms that rumbled through about midnight. As I mentioned last week the trees on Stillwater Mountain were dropping their leaves, it is so dry. This may save some of the fruit and nuts that are still on the trees and bushes. The beech nuts were just about done growing as the Bluejays have been working them for a couple of weeks now as I see the empty burs in my driveway every day. Most of the weather this week was pulled in by Hurricane Erin as she inched up the east coastline. She was well out to sea but very wide out of her eye. On 8/16 Erin became a category five hurricane just west of Puerto Rico where the waters in the ocean were .7degrees C higher than normal from climate change, wind speed 160mph, pressure 915 mb as it went north into cooler waters it decreased in intensity.

Another possible hurricane Fernand is following the same path as Erin, and it has a 90% chance of becoming a hurricane in seven days as it crosses the same warm water in the Atlantic. Another system following this has a 50% chance of becoming a hurricane and that one has a better chance of hitting the Caribbean Islands and the U.S. mainland. If it develops it will be named Gabrielle.

This action in the Atlantic will cause temperatures in the middle of the country to be much cooler than normal with much of the area not reaching into the high sixties for the entire week and possible flooding in the state of Maine as both hurricanes pass closer to the state.

I went up the Wild Center in Tupper Lake to hear Bill McKibben talking about alternative energy sources, mostly the sun but some about wind. I bought his new book Here Comes the Sun. He spoke about how many countries are way ahead of the U.S. in putting in solar collectors for energy. There are many sites that can be made into solar farms and still have gardens of flowers and vegetables under them, shading them at times and then giving them enough sunlight to make them grow while the solar panels produce energy. There was a nice crowd there for his informative talk and it was nice to see Bill again after meeting him a few years ago as we walked the same path. His book title caught me as I used the Beetle’s Song at the end of my programs for years with fifty slides that went along with the lyrics.

On Sunday I went to the Loon Lakeside Barbecue at Paul Smith’s College where around two hundred attended the fundraiser. There were many nice, donated things to bid on in the silent auction and a few more in the live auction after the BBQ. The new Director of the Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation, Dorothy Waldt, visited with many of the attendees and spoke of our goals to protect the Loons and raise and save as many as we can from encounters with residents, visitors, predators, and climate change. This is so that the voice of the Loon can always be heard on lakes and ponds across the Adirondacks.

Fire Tower lighting will be Saturday night from 8:30 to 9:30 with several towers in this area being lit that night but that’s another story. See ya.

Photo above: Lit Woodhull Fire Tower