Notes from Maine - 2025/09/07
Mom booked her flight—she’s leaving Tuesday to return to warmer climes. She arrived on July 11. This has been a nice, long visit. We worked on a ton of projects. We visited the beach with my sister and stayed the night up at the camp with a bunch of friends. This house won’t be the same without her presence. I’m sure she’ll feel the emptiness of her own house when she wakes up there on Wednesday morning. The horses run to the fence when the carrot lady visits. In a week they’ll forget to expect those treats.
She’s not the only one flying south. The geese have been honking their way by for a couple of weeks. Giant flocks stay the night near the cornfields up the road from here. Goose season opened on September 2. We’ve heard shots every day.
It was geese like these who caused the emergency landing of Flight 1549 (“Sully” Sullenberger’s “Miracle on the Hudson”) in 2009. To be sure of the cause of the water landing, bits of birds were sent to the Smithsonian’s Migratory Bird Center for stable isotope analysis. Looking at the deuterium in the samples (an isotope that varies by latitude), ornithologists determined that the geese sucked into the engine of Flight 1549 were migrating, not permanent residents of New York. The Airbus A320 was capable of withstanding impacts of four-pound birds (2kg). The geese averaged eight.
There’s no telling what mayhem our geese are on their way to commit. Canada geese have been involved in over 1700 aircraft strikes in the past 30 years. I got a good look at some of them as I drove by the cornfield the other day. Some of the geese definitely looked shifty and up to no good. Maybe the hunters ended the migration of those individuals. One can only hope.
Last night it rained, and rained, and rained. The meteorologist on the 6 o’clock news was careful to tell viewers that all this rain wouldn’t have much of an impact on the drought we’ve seen this summer. “It won’t hurt though,” he said. I pondered over that statement for quite a while. In what scenario could rain “hurt” when we’re having a drought? Maybe he was thinking about things from the drought’s perspective, in which case it seems like the rain would hurt. He also talked a lot about how we’re now in “Meteorological autumn,” which is from September 1 to November 30. That differs from both Astrological and Astronomical autumn, which take place from September 22 to December 22 (roughly). Does that three-week shift really deserve a different moniker?
I read a quote from the NCEI (National Centers for Environmental Information) that said, “By following the civil calendar and having less variation in season length and season start, it becomes much easier to calculate seasonal statistics from the monthly statistics, both of which are very useful for agriculture, commerce and a variety of other purposes.” I’m going to have to take their word for it, I suppose. Right now, astronomical winter is our shortest season. In about 10,000 years the summer will be the shortest season in the northern hemisphere. I’m going to have to take their word for that as well.
Meanwhile, the rain still falls and it’s not “hurting” the drought, whatever that means.
The fence people finished yesterday. Not having a complete fence around the pasture was disturbing. I was constantly concerned for the horses. Things feel back to normal now, or at least they’re trending in that direction. I haven’t installed the electric wire on the inside of the fence. So far, the horses haven’t noticed. They’re accustomed to never touching the fence. I need to put the wire up before they decide to test the situation.
Albert (dog) has been more affected by the new fence than anyone else. The old fence had about 14 inches (36 cm) between the bottom rail and the ground. The new one is only 10 inches (25 cm). Chasing his frisbee, he can no longer squeeze under easily. The gates are a little higher off the ground. He can go under those, but it’s inconvenient. It will be interesting to see how he adjusts. He didn’t get to play much this morning. It was raining too hard, turning the dry pasture into mud. I should teach him how to chase geese.
