Nature notes so far this spring

A couple of friends from camp spotted a cow moose in Gooseberry Bay, just a hundred meters north of our cabin, a couple of days ago. This is a known moose calving spot so I hope that is what she was doing.

A bald eagle attacked three common merganser ducks right in front of us yesterday. The hen is using a nesting box I placed on a tree about 15 years ago. The eagle singled out one of the drakes and was gaining on him when they went out of sight.

A ruffed grouse has been drumming every 10 minutes, night and day, since we've been here. Where does he get the strength?

I've seen a meter-long garter snake twice.

Blackflies have been a problem obly a couple of days. It's just too cold.

Long underwear weather so far

We had a couple of sunny days at the cabin since arriving last week but mostly it has been cold and wet. There were even snow flurries yesterday.

The lake has risen a couple of inches.

The good news is forest fires won't be a possibility for a couple of months.

Making a landing strip for white pine seeds

I scratched up some bare dirt alongside my trail

 We have six white pine on our 65 acres in Nolalu and I would like to have more of these majestic trees. 

Five of the trees have seeded-in naturally from one big tree growing on a ridge toward the western side of our land. Three of the young trees are growing in a line, about 50 yards apart, northeast of the mother tree. In other words, a southwest wind -- pretty much our prevailing wind -- carried the seeds in this direction. 

I'm trying an experiment this spring to bring forth more Pinus strobus or perhaps I should say P. strobi which would be the plural, I think.

Nearly all of the seeds dropped by trees like the white pine don't grow because they don't land in a suitable spot. Seeds that lay upon moss or leaves or grass might germinate with moisture but will dry up and die before their tiny roots reach soil. 

Seeds that land on bare dirt, on the other hand, start growing immediately. There is a term for creating areas of bare dirt in the forest industry. It is called scarification and foresters don't call it dirt but mineralized soil.

So this spring I went around some of the areas that I have created clearings by firewood cutting in the past and have pushed off the grass thatch with my tractor bucket to reveal mineralized soil. All these spots are to the east of the mother tree. Let's see if any white pine seedlings appear in the next couple of years. 

I haven't tried this in the past because whitetail deer would have eaten every pine seedling. Following the enormous snowfall here in the spring of 2023, I estimate the current population of deer to be just 5-10 per cent of what it used to be. So there's a chance pine can get a head start and grow high enough to be out of the deer's reach before the population rebounds.

Making affordable moves to electricity

Stihl MSA 60 battery chainsaw cost $350

We will only be taking one vehicle to Red Lake from this point and that will be our eight-year-old Dodge Grand Caravan, not our 16-year-old pickup truck. That means we will have our chainsaw inside where we are sitting. Our great old Husqavarna leaks and reeks chain oil and gasoline so we have purchased a new battery electric chainsaw for the cabin. It is the Stihl MSA 60. I was able to get this for $350 which includes the battery and charger.

It is a small saw with a 12-inch cutting bar but it should do the job for us at the cabin. Mostly we will use it for cutting up wind-blown trees but we will also probably cut about a third of a cord of firewood each year.

In other electric news at our house, our Rinnai on-demand propane hot water heater has stopped working after just six years and there seems no one in Thunder Bay interested or capable in fixing it. So, it has become the most expensive piece of artwork we have on the wall and we have gone back to our electric hot water tank which we still owned.

Finally, the electronic oven control in our propane kitchen range died. We will be replacing this in the future with an induction stove top and electric oven.

We are a ways off replacing our vehicle with an electric one. For one thing we are not going to pay double what a gas vehicle costs and will wait until mass production brings the costs down.

The only thing left after that will be how we heat our home. Currently we do it with a propane furnace and a wood-burning stove. The furnace is over 20 years old. When it dies, we will need to come up with an electric alternative.

Red Lake ice-out was May 7

 Warm temperatures and, more importantly, a high wind took out the ice on Red Lake and all the other water bodies except Trout Lake on May 7. 

Satellite photos showed Trout to still have some ice yesterday, May 8. Trout Lake is higher than other area lakes and that extra bit of elevation means the air temperature is cooler. It's also a bigger, round-shaped lake and deeper. All those things can make ice-out five days or so later than Red Lake.

Ice-out Red Lake -- it's happening

 

EOSDIS Worldview pic today, May 6. Ice mostly gone

Brian was able to fly from the river, over the ice and into open water in the narrows at camp on Saturday. He said there was lots of ice remaining in the lake but with the warm temperatures in the forecast it would seem total ice-out is just days away.

Once the ice has melted away from the shoreline, which it has, it starts shifting with the wind and crushing against the windward shore.

Hooray!

Wooden lure maker now has website

Nolalu wooden lure artist Dwayne Kotala has started a website where you can see and order his lures on-line. The site is still under construction but does display a few of his hand-carved wooden lures and gives you a way to contact him.

The URL of the site is fuddyduddystudio.square.site

You can find him by typing that into your search engine window or just by clicking here on lures.

 

Where the heck have I been?

EOSDIS Worldview

 Sorry folks, I was out of the country for nearly a month and was not able to update ice-out conditions on Red Lake. 

The latest that I have heard is that the ice is still shore-to-shore, is 16 inches thick but is candled and ripe for breakup.

I wish I had left my first prediction at May 8 as that is likely close to actual ice-out.

The last few weeks of April turned out colder than normal and that set back ice melting. Again, it is only the weather in April that matters. It was the warmest winter on record but it played no part on ice-out.

You can see daily detailed satellite photographs that show ice melt by going to this site EOSDIS Worldview. The satellite passes over Northwestern Ontario about 3 p.m. EST each day. All it takes to see what is happening with the ice is a clear sky. Unfortunately, the last day that happened was April 24, a week ago. In the screen shot of EOSDIS Worldview above, you can clearly see that Middle and Sadler Bays -- small water bodies at the west end of Red Lake -- are still frozen.

 Zoom Earth also has near real-time imagery but it is not as detailed.

You can also download the free apps for both of these satellites to your smart phone. That is what I have done.

Red Lake ice-out moves to May 1

 There's bluebird weather in the forecast the next two weeks and that makes me move my final ice-out prediction to May 1 or one week earlier than "normal."

We deserve a nice spring after some of the crappy ones in the last few years.

Finally, some snow to ease our drought

 

Today, April 1, 2024

We got about a foot of snow last week here in the Thunder Bay area. That was the first snowfall since early January. The ground was bare almost the entire winter. Red Lake did not get this dump but does have some snow, just less than this.

Missing the boat on electric outboards?

 I've been researching electric outboards this winter and, as usual, have found that most of my big ideas have already been put into practice by someone else.

My first idea was that while mono hull boats have little room for batteries and solar panels, pontoon boats have lots of space and weight-carrying ability. Pontoon craft are all the rage right now and I have been impressed at what they they can do.

Sure enough, a search for electric pontoon boats on YouTube brings up production models on the market in Florida. But the higher-performance ones seem to rely strictly on shore-power charging of batteries which can weigh 800 pounds. On a pontoon boat 800 pounds isn't much of a factor. 

Searches of solar-powered pontoon boats brings up boats with roofs covered from end to end with solar panels and then propelled with a low-powered electric motor. My little bit of experience with solar generation at the cabin makes me think both systems are missing the mark.

Nowhere is there as much sunlight as in a boat. That sunlight not only strikes from above but reflects off the water. So access to energy is not a problem. You just need to get it to the motor. The battery is slowing things down. You can only charge batteries so fast. That is why you have charge controllers on solar systems -- to keep from charging too fast and from overcharging. So why can't we have a system where the motor gets its energy right off the panels and bypasses the batteries? It could do both at the same time, of course.

And then there is the electric motor itself. I think it should be capable of at least two voltages, a higher voltage when the power is coming off the panels and then a lower voltage when running on the battery. Dual voltage electric motors exist right now, just not for boats.

The panels don't have to be on the roof either. They can be on the skirting below the rail. If the panels were the type that generate electricity from either side, a boat could get twice the electricity. 

Pontoon boats that charge their batteries from shore are just substituting batteries for fuel tanks. That's a waste when the boat is flooded with sun -- read that electricity -- while on the water.

I think solar boats should be able to go faster when there is lots of sun, just like a sailboat does with wind.

I'm telling you, the power coming off solar panels is incredible.

Ice-out on Red Lake will be May 8!

 How do I know this?

Well, April is just about here and using my system that says April's weather is the only month that matters when it comes to ice-out, I look at the Weather Network's 14-day forecast and see that the first two weeks of April are expected to have normal temperatures. Normal ice-out is May 8. So there you have it.

If the actual weather differs from the prediction or if the last two weeks of April are not normal, I will adjust my ice-out time.

I'm 'in the pink' with new wooden lures

 I'm looking forward to trying new wooden lures made by my neighbour, Dwayne Kotala. I'm lucky to get prototypes of what might become production models in the future.

Dwayne hand-carves these from native tree species like pine. Many are modeled on historic lures from 100 years ago. Some come right from Dwayne's imagination. 

I'm going to use these to fish for northern pike, my favourite species. I cast for these fish, mostly, and an advantage of wooden lures is they are heavier than plastic models; so, I can use my baitcasting rig which is ideal for handling big pike. The drag system on a baitcaster is so smooth compared to a spinning reel.

I surprised Dwayne, I think, years ago by telling him that pike like pink. As you can see he has painted many of these models just for me.

I replace the trebles on Dwayne's lures with single salmon or siwash hooks. The reason is the fish tend to take the entire bait into their mouths and the trebles are too difficult to extract quickly. 

I left the trebles on one of the lures in the photo to show how much larger a single hook needs to be to work effectively. 

Salmon lures almost always have single hooks. The reason, I'm told, is that when a fish is caught with a single hook it nearly always stays on.

If you are considering changing hooks as I have done you need to know that ordinary single hooks will not do the trick. You can't use a baitholder hook, for instance. It needs to be a salmon hook. These have long shanks, both on the standing part and the barb part. 

Siwash hooks are just salmon hooks with an open eye that you can close with pliers. You can only do this once. If you try to re-open it, it will likely break. 

Make sure your hooks on plugs face forward. That way you will pull them into the fish's mouth when you set the hook. 

****Update****

Dwayne now has a website where you can order his creations.

You might want to move to Thunder Bay

The Sleeping Giant as seen from Hillcrest Park. To its right are The Welcome Islands and in the distance, Isle Royale

 I would suggest that if you live in Canada. If you are from the United States, Duluth might be a better choice. 

Here is my reasoning: summers are going to get progressively hotter. Places where you could cool off in the shade or just by opening the windows in the house already demand air conditioning the entire summer. Eventually you are going to experience a power failure during a heat wave and that could be fatal in the sweltering heat.

Thunder Bay and Duluth are located on the shore of one of the world's coldest water bodies. When the wind blows from the lake onto shore it is like a refrigerator. It provides natural air conditioning. And if the heat is unbearable and the winds are not obliging, get in the lake itself. At this point it has a summer temperature of 4 C. 

Also, it has plenty of water to drink. That is going to be a factor in the future too. Lake Superior is more than 1,000 feet deep. It will take a long time for it to evaporate.

I had been thinking about this in the context of what we can do personally about climate change when I saw this article on Reuters News Service about people moving to Duluth. I love the slogan: Duluth -- Not as Cold as You Might Think.

Lake Superior could become a haven for climate migrants. 

Thunder Bay has a lot going for it. It is a city of 109,000 people. It is a major harbour, has light industry, a university and a college, a pulp and paper mill and other forest product mills. There is also an agriculture sector. At present this is mostly dairy, hay and potatoes but with longer growing seasons ahead we can expect diversification.

It has a thriving music and theater scene, probably a hundred restaurants and a couple dozen hotels and motels. Its Community Auditorium is a premier site for concerts.

Thunder Bay also has something that many people don't think about -- a large, bustling airport. It is the third-busiest airport in Ontario behind Toronto and Ottawa.

The average house here sells in the $300,000 + range. That is about one-third what houses cost in the Toronto region. Housing is in short supply, though. There is a move afoot to build 6,500 more homes in the decade ahead. Some of that will be to accommodate the thousands of mining jobs that are expected in the near future. These would come from new mines for minerals used in electric auto batteries. A few mines are nearing completion and more are likely on the way. 

Finally, Thunder Bay is known for its spectacular natural wonders. The Sleeping Giant land form is right across the bay from the city. There are square-topped mountains, deep canyons and waterfalls. Ski hills and cross-country ski trails, sailing, boating and fishing are right at your doorstep.

Kakabeka Falls, not far from our home in Nolalu, is the second highest falls in Ontario. The other is Niagara.

Thunder Bay has another thing that most people don't think about: it is surrounded primarily by hardwood forests. They are not as susceptible to forest fires. 

Food for thought.

Looking south you see the square top mountain of Pie Island and Mount McKay at the right

Whopper forest fire year could be ahead

 

Worldview satellite image shows snow cover

  

 

 

Windy App shows snow depth

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all honesty, that could be the headline for any year from now on but there is something really alarming happening -- there is barely any snow in Northwestern Ontario. We're talking one inch for Thunder Bay and areas west along the U.S. border all the way to Manitoba. It isn't much better going north toward Red Lake. They have about four inches. Typically we would have two-to-four feet of snow at this point. There also is less than half the usual ice thickness on lakes.

None of this guarantees that the 2024 fire season is going to be a doozy but typically less snowfall indicates the ground will be really dry come spring. And the frost in that ground is only inches deep this year, not two feet like normal. 

Forest fire experts have been on radio and TV during the last couple of weeks saying there still is a chance disaster might be averted. We can still get some deep snow and more importantly, heavy rains next spring. Just like when it comes to predicting ice-out, it all depends on the weather in April.

The odds are, however, that April is going to follow the same weather pattern we have seen for about six months which is warm and dry. 

We should be prepared for a record-early ice-out, record-low lake levels and a record-bad fire year.

There still are 150 forest fires burning from last year in Northern British Columbia and Alberta but Northwestern Ontario mostly escaped last summer. There was a bit of a fire flap early in the season in the Lac Seul area but then we got enough rain to keep things quiet.

There are other worrisome factors at play too. We are heading into another spruce-budworm cycle this summer, something that happens every 40 years. That means large areas with balsam fir will begin a four-year countdown to death. Each year the tiny budworm caterpillars will eat the new growth off the trees which also continue shedding their needles from years earlier. After four years, the trees are barren and there will be large areas of Northwestern Ontario covered with dead balsam fir that burn explosively. That situation will get progressively worse for years and will move with the prevailing wind a little eastward each season. It starts in Northwestern Ontario and eventually ends up in the Maritimes.

An early ice-out would lead to a rapid heating of the ground by the sun and with little frost, trees will begin to grow, sucking out what little moisture there is in the soil. You get the picture.

I did hear one expert give a weather-related prediction today. Thunder Bay's entomologist says get ready for a "bumper tick year." Oh, boy.

Two creatures passed by this camera

 

My oh my, a Beautiful Day in Nolalu!

 

 When a guy can go for a walk with his best friend on the bush trails in February and not even wear a hat, that's heaven!

It's so glorious he didn't even think about his sore knees.

Incidentally, we were picking up camera cards and have a couple of interesting videos to post in a few days.

Time to know about wet-bulb temperature

 

I took this photo two years ago as I was building our cabin at Red Lake. It was June 19. I was finding it difficult to continue work. I kept getting dizzy, sick to my stomach and in a brain fog. This wasn't the hottest day in particular. There were many like it.

In the shade over by the dockhouse, it wasn't nearly so hot, probably 32 C or so. But I wasn't working in the shade nor could I. New home construction isn't done under a big tree. You can say the same about farm work, road work, fishing, tree planting or any other outdoor job. You have no choice but to be out in the sun. 

I don't remember the heat index for this particular day but frankly, it didn't matter. That is because the heat index is calculated for the shade. It is derived from the temperature on the thermometer in the shade combined with the relative humidity. The more humid it is, the higher the heat index.

We cool our bodies by sweating and this works best when the air is dry. You can't sweat at all in a bathtub.

By comparison, the wet-bulb temperature is calculated by the temperature on a thermometer (in the sun) wrapped in wet cloth and also takes into account the wind speed. The greater the wind, the better the evaporation that cools off the thermometer (and our bodies).

Research shows that humans will die in six hours with a wet-bulb temperature of 35 C. And that would be for a person laying naked, in the rain, with hurricane-force winds blowing over him. If you were standing up or moving around --activities that generate body heat -- the fatal temperature would be more like 32 C. 

At 37 C wet-bulb a person would die in minutes.

The wet-bulb method of calculating the temperature more accurately reflects the effect of hot weather on the human body.

I have just become aware of wet-bulb temperature from a book I'm reading: Five Times Faster by Simon Sharpe.

 I will undoubtedly have more to report about this book later but in essence, Sharpe says we have all under-estimated the dangers of climate change because we have been looking at it the wrong way. And by we I mean the scientists who study it and the governments they inform. And of course, us, the citizenry.

Our error comes from predicting what will happen rather than doing a risk assessment.  He offers examples of the difference between the two but I'm going to make up my own here.

Let's say I have loose lug nuts on the front wheel of my car and I drive it 50 km to Thunder Bay anyway. I can predict with near 100 per cent certainty that the front end is going to shake. There is about a 50 per cent chance that the wheel will wobble so badly that it enlarges the stud holes in the rim and ruins it. There is a bit less of a chance that this single trip will ruin the tire itself. Finally, there is a  chance that either the wheel falls off completely or the car just becomes unsteerable and leads to a crash. 

What's the worst that can happen? That's what a risk assessment is. Well, the worst is that the vehicle crashes and kills people either in my vehicle or in other vehicles or just standing along the road. Maybe they are kids waiting for the school bus. That is the worst case scenario.

Now that I have done the risk assessment I can figure how to avoid the worst. In this case, I could just tighten the lug nuts. The risk of killing someone isn't worth the probability that the wheel might stay on the whole trip.

We haven't done a risk assessment with climate change. We have been making predictions about what will happen, not what could be the worst. So let's just say it: the worst is that the world becomes too hot for humans to survive or to grow our food.

The wet-bulb temperature information above shows we aren't too far away from the worst.

We have already seen so-called heat waves that have killed people. More than 600 died in British Columbia a couple of years ago. This is Canada! It is one of the coldest-nations on Earth.

Coincidentally I just happened to see a realty company's listing for some property near ours on Red Lake where they inform buyers of the risk of climate change for this spot. They list it to be at Significant Risk. It currently experiences seven days of 29.1 C and that is expected to rise to 28 days of 32.6 C by 2050.

Insurance companies do risk assessments, especially for their own industry. What's the worst that can happen for them and their customers? They become insolvent. That is why they only take a 0.5 per cent chance.

And that is why they have stopped insuring buildings in Florida, California and many other places that are experiencing repeated weather-related catastrophes.

You can find real-time wet-bulb temperatures on the Windy.com website or app. I strongly advise everyone to get this app and learn how to use it. Your life may depend on it.

Another is Zoom Earth. You can set this to show you where the forest fires are, again, in near-real-time. This is the stuff we need to know to survive now.

Can you say Anthropomorphism?

 

Evening grosbeaks are all named Pete. Whenever a new one appears they all call out, "Pete!" Just like "Norm" in Cheers. It's always hilarious.

I knew you could.

Most people don't know many 16-letter words but this is one of them. Its usual definition is the act of giving animals human characteristics and it is most often said when trying to embarrass or belittle the human who is committing the said offence.

Let it be known that I anthropomorphize routinely, almost continuously, in fact. And I do it with no shame. No shame whatsoever. 

As Brenda once told a friend, "At our house, all the animals talk."

Another time Brenda said to me, "The animals, they speak to you."

The typical context of someone belittling people like me who anthropomorphize is "How ignorant and egotistical it is for you to think that animals must have human characteristics!"

My response, at least in my head, is "What an arrogant and ignorant ass you are!

"Are you such a dimwit that you don't know animals communicate, not only with each other, but to every other life form that is capable of receiving that communication?"

Have you ever sat in a deer blind and seen a doe whitetail swivel her head and perk up her ears toward the sound of a bluejay issuing an alarm call? 

Why do duck hunters sometimes put out a heron decoy near their spread? Because the presence of a heron communicates safety to the flock. Ducks trust herons.

The birds sitting on the tree near the house and looking into the window are saying, "Hello! The bird feeder is empty!"

A red fox eating sunflower seeds that have fallen on the snow at night is saying to himself, "I'm completely invisible to that guy standing in the brightly-lit sunroom." And then, "Crap, why didn't someone tell me he had a flashlight!"

Loons are the easiest creatures to communicate with. Loon books often interpret their calls. The so-called yodel is the loon on the water saying hello to another loon that is flying. That flying loon responds with a laugh. 

The mournful "howl" or wolf call sound is the loon saying, "Where are you?" to its mate. 

The "kook" call is, "Are you friendly?"

Loons are very social with humans. They will swim right up to you when you are playing the guitar on the dock or to see the dog. They can also put on water-dancing displays when you get too close to their nests. 

"Go someplace else!"

I have had so many personal moments with loons that it is hard to pick one to talk about but here is one from last summer. I was sitting on my chair casting from the dock after supper when I spotted one of the neighborhood loons way out on the bay. He immediately turned and headed my way,  just poking along.

When he was about 50 feet away he stopped swimming and seemed to say, "Catching anything?"

"Not a bite so far," I said aloud.

"Well, if you don't mind, I'm going to call it a day," I felt the loon said to me. And with that he put his head under his wing and went to sleep.

I made a few more casts in directions away from the loon but then picked up my tackle box and went back to the cabin so I didn't disturb him. It was the polite thing to do.

This trail intersection busy over 48 hours

 

Timber wolf

Whitetail deer

Canada lynx

Snowshoe hare

I had cut a narrow walking trail from one of my "road-size" paths down to our surveyed property line last fall and decided a couple days ago to place a trail camera there. It recorded these predator-prey combinations. The wolf is looking for a deer and the lynx is looking for a bunny.

For hundreds of years lynxes and snowshoe hares (we just call them rabbits) have been documented to follow an approximate 10-year population cycle. When the hare population reaches its max, so does the lynx. I believe that pattern has now stopped. There are lots of rabbits all the time now and also lynxes.

The old 10-year cycle (some say nine years, some 11), coincided with the solar activity cycle. Just about every 10 years there are more solar storms and this resulted in a tiny warming of the Earth. It was miniscule but enough to help rabbits survive and with them, the lynx. Now, with climate change the Earth is warming every year. More warmth -- more bunnies -- more lynx. At least that is how it seems to me.