How did I do on my 2015 goals

New Hampshire, Oct 2015
Middle Sugarloaf
Big George just over my rightt shoulder, or
just to the left of me in the picture

At the beginning of the year I set many goals for myself. They change from year to year. I don't reach all of them. Sometimes values change, and I could care less. Other times I realize something just isn't worth the money (like paying $90 to go on a wintertime cod trip, which was a goal of mine last year. Do you know how many pounds of cod you can buy for $90!).

For the most part though, I don't really make excuses. I try to reach my goals as best I can 




1. Run a 5k.

I ran over 3.1 miles many, many times. I did not sign up for a race though. As the year was drawing to a close, I almost signed up for a race Thanksgiving morning, but ended up having to work.

2. Go to New Hampshire as many times as I can.

Only got to New Hampshire four times. I worked a lot of six day weeks over the summer. Still I went as often as I could, so goal accomplished

3. Fish for albies the second week of September.

Yes, yes I did. As many times as I could until the offshore hurricane fowled up the water. I had my best albie day ever

4. When the weather is hot in mid summer and fishing slows down, do a few of the hikes I did this winter to see those areas with green leaves.

I did this. I did a bunch of mid-summer local hikes. I went to places like Trustom Pond, Rocky Woods, Gilbert Hills, and Broadmor to name a few

5. Smoke some trout.

Mission accomplished. I kept a couple limits and had  fillets of smoked trout a day after work for a couple weeks in May.

6. If possible, fish for golden trout in May.

I went. Caught eleven trout before it got to crowded to enjoy the fishing

( I'm not going to write anything about
ice fishing or carp fishing. These are things I do anyway)

7. Go to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

I didn't go. I thought it would be fun to do this with my son. We had a great time at the Baseball HoF last year. But he did not want to go, so neither did I.

8. Go to a drive in movie

No, never really remembered to do this the few Friday's Laurie was over 

9.Do a better job of keeping records. I did a good job of keeping records in 2013, but by the middle of 14, I slipped in my record keeping.

I did a great job writing bird reports, daytrips, and hikes in New Hampshire. I didn't keep as good records of my after work fishing trips. 

All in all, not bad. Not counting the record keeping, I went six for eight. Since I did many four mile runs, I don't need to pay someone an entrance fee to say I did a 5k. Here's to a productive 2016!

End of the year Review

I didn't let the cold and snow keep me inside
last winter

I love doing my end of the year posts. I enjoy looking back at the memories I made in the last three
hundred and sixty or so days. I found a website that will print 4x6 photos for nine cents each. I just finished putting together an album of my favorite photos of the year. This will be my first "year album" since I went digital in 2009. I am pretty excited to have made an album of my favorite pictures of the year. I spent the better part of last night going through pictures in my 2015 folder. I consider it time well spent.

As I have previously stated, every year takes on its own theme. It happens organically. The year I caught my first legal sized striper, it was love at first sight. I pretty much lived at the Cape Cod Canal and Narragansett all summer. Another year my son and I went to New Hampshire almost every single summer weekend. One year I spent 250 plus days fishing.

Many of you would guess that my theme this year based on my posts would be"birding" but the truth is, it was really daytrips. Of course, many of those daytrips were spent with binoculars around my neck. However, many days were spent doing an absolute variety of things.

This spring, one of our managers left the company. Because of this, I had less free time ( but a larger check because of overtime). Because I worked six days a week a lot, I took advantage of every single day off from work I had. Whether I had one or two days off a week,  I did adventures every single day off from April until December 11. The only exception was Friday July 31. It was almost 100 degrees that day. I fished close to home in the morning until about noon, then went to an air conditioned movie .Friday December 18, I had to stop putting off Christmas shopping, so I bought presents and finally put up a Christmas tree, ending my streak of day off from work fun.

View from Lonesome Lake Hut

My friend Dave, who is retired, fishes almost every single day of the year. When it is really cold, he skis. Without exaggeration, he is outside 350 days a year. The only time he isn't fishing or skiing are blizzards and when he has family obligations. Because I have to work, I certainly can not match him day to day. I'm out most every day, but I don't count local fishing trips or short hikes after work as day trips.

I ended the year taking a total of 67 day trips. Yes, I keep track. I write down my experiences so I do not forget them. By far that is the most I have ever taken in a year. I broke them into categories. If you add up all the categories it adds up to more than 67. That is because some days I did more than one thing. An example would be on May 1 I went birding up at  Plum Island all morning, on my way home I fished at Wachusett Reservoir for four hours. So that day I did two different things.

Birding                              21
      Plum Island                  6

I love albies

      Charlestown Mudflat     3

Fishing                               18
         Eric's boat                  2
Concerts/ Plays                   4
New Hampshire                   4
Prudence Island (snorkeling) 2
Outdoor Shows                    2
Exploration Hikes                6
Old Sturbridge Village          2

All others below once

Wareham Baseball        
Museum of Fine Art
Outer Cape overnight
        including a whale watch, P Town
          and bike ride in the dunes
Rockport/ Gloucester Exploration

Shorebirds at Plum

So, needless to say, I did a lot of different things this year. The funnest thing I did this year was the Outer Cape Trip. We did something fun every waking minute that weekend. The craziest thing I did was go snowshoeing in March up in New Hampshire. The temperature was about ten degrees. The night time low was -4, that does not even include the wind chill of the forty mph winds. And I, yes I, thought sleeping in my car would be a good idea. Lets just say it wasn't.

I wish I would have gotten more consecutive days off from work during the summer. I would have gone to New Hampshire more often. That is also the reason I got to Plum Island so many times. Only having one day off during the week, I considered Plum to be my best option many times.

Many of the fishing trips were during the fall chasing albies. I caught them on a couple of occasions and had a great September fishing. Other memorable fishing trips include a rainy day down the Cape where I caught about 20 trout. This year I caught my first American Shad in ten years on two enjoyable fishing trips to the Merrimack River. I caught eleven golden trout the first Saturday in May. I think they are probably the prettiest fish in New England.

The craziest fishing has to be when I went with Eric on his boat in Buzzards Bay in June. Both times we caught hundreds of black sea bass. We also caught many giant scup. The action was non stop for the entire five hours we fished. In the mix of sea bass were at least a hundred keepers. We started throwing back fish under seventeen inches.

I got to do four overnight trips to New Hampshire (plus a daytrip to hike Monadnock)
Places that I hiked included
Mt. Tripyramid (two 4000 footers)
Welch Dickey Loop

Jennings Peak, Sandwich Range, NH

Tunnel Brook Ponds
Boulder Loop
Middle Sugarloaf (twice)
East Pond
Jennings Peak
Bridal Veil Falls (snowshoeing)
Lonesome Lake (snowshoeing)
Monadnock







Animal sightings

Spending so much time birding, I saw a lot of  species. I broke my previous mark set in 2010. I am not including species from that year that I saw out west.

Here are how my numbers compare

                                                 2015               2010

Birds                                         143                  127
Mamamals                                   16                    13
Reptiles/Amphibians                      9                      9
Fish                                              25                  14
Total                                           192                  163

Lifebirds                                      16                      13

So, this year, I saw way more species. Honestly, seeing 143 species of birds is a very low number. The leader in Rhode Island has seen 302 species in his state alone. The average expert in MA seems to be between 240-260. So I have a long way to go. This was the first year I seriously birded since 2010, so it is good that I improved on those numbers. Seeing 16 lifebirds is exciting for me. Lifebirds get harder by the year, because it is only a lifebird once. The rarest bird I saw was a Northern Wheatear, a bird that winters in Africa.

I spent much more time this year trying to learn. When I saw a bird I tried to identify field marks.

Red Tailed Hawk

That way next time I see it I won't have to consult my book. If I didn't get a positive ID I didn't count it. Even if someone told me what I just saw. I was mildly successful at learning new things. I hope to be a better birder next year because of it.

The two species that I put a lot of time in for that I did not get are long tailed duck and golden crowned kinglet. I just missed them every time.

I did not see any moose or black bears this year in my limited time in New Hampshire. So to beat my 2010 numbers is surprising. My favorite memories of mammals were two coyotes that I saw. One was at Plum Island, the other on a golf course in Barrington.

I only counted fish I caught in my list (more on that below). I could have counted some baitfish, but chose not to. I would count seeing a salmon swim upstream, but did not take the run to the Chu to see it.  


Fishing

I clearly could not have fished as much as normal if I spent time doing other daytrips. That is obvious. Normally I would do a totally separate post for a breakdown. I didn't fish enough to make that worthwhile and to be honest, I slacked on my record keeping. However, the days I got onto the water were great. On my "all day fishing trips" I truly had some great days. I had at least one day for each of these species that was non stop- bluefish, albies(yes, albies!), trout (including a dozen tigers), black sea bass and scup, and golden trout, and hickory shad.

I also had many memorable days fishing for American shad, carp, and among other things sea robins.

I caught a total of 25 species. I considered trying to catch thirty species again, but my heart wasn't into it. I could not walk away from albies and blues in Narragansett to fish for golden shiners or white catfish.

I feel like I had another great year. I know a lot of crazy stuff happened in the world this year, but for me personally, I had a lot of fun and made a lot of memories. I hope 2016 works out just as well for me and to all of you. I say all the time that we only have one life. We do not get a do over. It is too short. I firmly believe that we owe it to ourselves to enjoy as much of it as we can. 

Happy New Year

Merry Christmas, Deer

The last couple of years, I have made it a point to do something outdoors on Christmas afternoon. It didn't hurt that it was sixty five degrees last Christmas and even warmer this year. A couple of years ago I went fishing on a frosty morning at Lincoln Woods. I ended up catching a few brown trout. Last year, I walked around Rocky Narrows in shorts and a T-shirt.

I left later this afternoon than I did those years because we had an early dinner. I really didn't have a plan. I are too much food, so I probably should have gone for a hike to burn it off. However, I was in the mood to do some photography.

I decided to go to Sachuest National Wildlife Refuge. Sachuest is in Middletown, RI. Almost every time I have ever gone there, I have seen multiple white tailed deer. I hoped to get some good pictures of some like I did last month. The thought of the hour drive, made me put off going until later than I should have. Then I remembered, (and I admit this is bird nerd speak), I have not seen a purple sandpiper yet this year so I could metaphorically kill two birds with one stone (or literally a deer and a bird).

Sachuest did not disappoint. I walked about a mile and a half of trail. All told I saw at least twenty

The shoreline looked cold and barren with the dead
tree and clouds. However the reality is it was almost
seventy degrees and people were walking in T-shirts

different deer and as many as 24. When I pulled into the lot, I saw some deer right away, When I walked back to my car,  there were some deer in the same general area, so I did not count those in case they were the same ones. There was one herd of eleven, and another with seven.

What made the deer watching even better, is since there is no hunting, they are not afraid of people. They do not spook when you get close. However, today I had an all time amazing experience. As I was walking north towards my car at sunset, I saw some deer right next to the trail. There were three people within feet of the deer. As I got closer, the people headed toward the parking lot. This left me to get pictures of them. The deer were literally within five feet of the trail, and consequently within five feet of me. I had to step back to get photos. They did not come out great because the light was pretty bad.  Still for ten minutes it was pretty cool to be within arm's length of deer that could care less that I was there.

I watched and photographed them for a little while and decided to walk up the trail and watch them from afar. Coming towards the deer were another group of people. I was interested to see if the deer would care if people walking at normal speed, and talking at normal volume would at least change their behavior. The whole time I was near them, they kept munching on grass. They almost never looked up to look at me. They certainly did not feel threatened. When the couple got to within feet of the deer, who were practically on the trail at this point, they started taking pictures. Again the deer did

These people moved to the far side of the trail
so they wouldn't spook the deer, but they
ended up standing right next to the rope
and neither deer stopped feeding

not even notice. About the only time the deer would look up was when they wanted to place there next step around a rock, or look for the tallest grass within reach.

At about that point it was almost dark. It was pointless to try to get any more photos. The deer in the field were becoming harder to see so I left. I have not been that close to a large animal since I was in Yellowstone in 2010. It was a really cool last Christmas present for the day.  

I also did see a flock of Purple Sandpipers. They were feeding almost directly below me while I was getting a photo of the shoreline

Purple Sandpiper

Advice for enjoying the holidays

Last year Laurie and I went to Jordan's
Furniture in Avon. They have an Enchanted
 Village, Laser Light Show, Skating Rink,
and a Motion Odyssey Movie Ride  

I love Christmas time. I have spent more than half of the days the last two weeks doing holiday things. I know so many people that say this "I can't wait for the holidays to be over" or "it's so stressful" I don't understand these people.

I know there are plenty of people out there that are having a tough time during the holidays. I'm friendly with a twenty year old girl whose dad died this week. No matter what, she is going to have a shitty holiday and my heart goes out to her.

I know how expensive the holidays can be. I had a son that wanted the expensive electronics just like everyone else. No matter what, we all want to buy our kids everything we can. Money is a stress that is real. No amount of anything you read below will change the fact an Iphone costs a few hundred dollars. But if the holiday season hinges on a four hundred dollar PS4 then we are probably all missing the point anyway

The people that I don't understand are those that worry about unimportant things and give themselves needless stress. So for those people I give you this free advice.

1. Do as much shopping as you can online. I know a lot of people are doing this. I live near Emerald Square Mall. When I was younger, I couldn't get near Route 1 on Black Friday. This year I went over Route 1 on the I-295  bridge three times and never once was there back up traffic.

2. Do your shopping during non-peak hours. Why the hell do so many of you go Christmas shopping the last Saturday before Christmas at noon time?

3. Try to go to Lasalette during weekdays. For those of you that don't live in this area, Lasalette Shrine is one of the largest Christmas displays in the world. It is on a two lane road many miles from the highway. Traffic can back up for miles. The only people that should be going on weekends are those that live 45 minutes away or locals that work second shift during the week. Laurie and I went at 7 pm on Tuesday (it closes at 9). There wasn't any traffic at all.

4.This is important so read up! If you don't like doing something and you can get away without doing it, then don't do it. I hate wrapping presents more than just about anything in the world. I can't get out of that. However, if there are traditions or obligations you don't want to do because of undo stress than stop doing them.

Take Lasalette for example. If it is your tradition to go there the last weekend before Christmas, my guess is you probably despise the thought of going more than you look forward to it. What fun is that?

If you make candies, pies, fudge, or cookies for people but hate doing it, then stop. Give them a card instead. Why put yourself through hell baking if you don't enjoy doing it. I make about 12 chocolate creme pies for the managers at work. I don't mind "pie day" but if I start hating it, then I'm going to stop making them.

The same is true about any other obligation. If you get invited to a Christmas party that you don't want to go to, then don't.You don't owe it to anyone to be there. I'm not saying to be a hermit, but if you really don't want to go, no one is probably going to miss you anyway, because they will be having their own fun.If you enjoy decorating your yard, then please keep doing so, but if you hate setting everything up and it isn't worth it to you, then why the hell are you doing it?

 I went to a play last Friday "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause" that said, I don't really like "A Christmas Carol" so I don't go. I went to a Holiday Pops concert last night. I bought tickets because I thought it would be fun. I was excited to go.

The holidays should be fun. Set your priorities to do the things you really enjoy. Try to eliminate the things you don't enjoy.

5. Christmas time is fun for kids,so look through it through there eyes. One thing I learned raising my son, Christmas is more fun as a parent than a kid. I loved making my kid happy. When we did fun holiday things, I tried not to be in a bad mood. I loved my dad, and don't have anything negative to say about him, but he had a short fuse. If we got stuck in traffic or parking lots were full, he would start yelling and swearing. Needless to say, that can ruin the night for everyone. If you take your kids to look at lights, shopping, or any other  Christmas themed event, try to stay calm even if things don't go your way. For the kids sake.


6. Try to help others have a fun Christmas. You will enjoy it more. Now that DJ is grown up and chasing girls, I don't have him as my hang around buddy as much. When I went to the play, I took his little sisters. They had fun (the older one liked the play more) and I got to see the kids enjoy their night.

When I bought 15 boxes of pudding, milk, and fifteen pie crusts at Walmart with Laurie (who bought all her ingredients for making oatmeal-cranberry-white chocolate chip cookies), the cashier jokingly said she is working Christmas Eve so she expected a pie or cookies. So Laurie and I are going to drop some off on Christmas Eve when she is working. What's it going to hurt to make an extra 6 cookies, so why the hell not?

So that is my advice, enjoy the holidays to the fullest. If you don't like turkey, then don't make it every year just because your parents did. Do whatever makes you and your family happy and try to make the season fun. Try to eliminate the things you don't enjoy and add or try new things that you will. Also, if you have any desire to wrap my presents for me, there will be all you can drink eggnog for you!

Merry Christmas

Old Sturbridge Village Christmas by Candlelight

Yesterday Laurie and I went to Sturbridge Village where they do a "Christmas by Candlelight" event during Decemember. For those that don't know, Old Sturbridge Village is a living history museum. It is similar to Colonial Williamsburg but on a much smaller scale. OSV is set up like a town in the 1830's. There is a sawmill, blacksmith shop, potter, school, and many other original buildings from that time period. I went there for the first time in ten years this June

http://www.southernnewenglandoutdoors.blogspot.com/2015/06/old-sturbridge-village.html

The walkways were lit by these lanterns
after dark. The light is produced by
real candles

I had read that the village is closed during normal daylight hours during December and open on weekends (Fri-Sun) evenings. I was intrigued about going to see the old timey traditions. OSV opens at 3 pm during this event and closes at 9. Cost is eighteen dollars whether you are a member or not.

We got to the village just after 3 pm. We wanted to experience it as long as we could. One thing I was hoping to do, was eat, or buy some "chestnuts roasted on an open fire". In the very first building we went into, sure enough, they were roasting chestnuts on an open fire and giving out samples. So needless to say my bucket list for the day was complete in the first five minutes.

There are events going on each half hour. You can either preview and print a copy of the events online. The link to each day's activities are provided in this link https://www.osv.org/event/christmas-by-candlelight. Or if you prefer, you can pick up a copy for that day when you pay your admission. Each half hour usually had two or three things going on. There were concerts of carolers in the meetinghouse, holiday poetry readings in the school house, a tree lighting, and a host of other things. Laurie and I would choose the thing we most wanted to do from the list. Some things like the tree lighting took five minutes, giving us time to walk the grounds. Others like a five piece brass band played for an hour (we stayed about 45 minutes).

In the town square, a fire was burning the whole six hours. There are benches surrounding the fire ring for people to sit around and warm up. We enjoyed the fire for a few minutes, but had no reason to warm up. It was almost sixty degrees when we pulled into the lot. When we left just before 9 pm, it was still warm enough my hands never got cold.



We made very good use of our time. We saw carolers singing traditional songs. Laurie and I really enjoyed a poetry reading in the schoolhouse. There was a magic show in the visitor center that was pretty impressive. We stopped and voted for the best gingerbread houses, that were truly works of art. We bought supper, I ate a chicken finger basket, but Laurie got a full turkey dinner for ten dollars. As I mentioned we listened to the brass band play holiday favorites.
Many of the shops were open. We watched the potter make four or five mugs. One building and some

These guys were awesome

really detailed model trains. Another building had a mini town set up. The "bakery" sold us a couple cookies, and they also sold hot cider. One of the more popular activities was taking a ride on the horse drawn wagon. It was full most of the night. It would take a loop around town. More often than not, patrons were singing Christmas carols on their trip.

 I suppose if the air would have been colder, the"romance" of Christmas time would have been stronger. Still, I was more than happy to walk around in khakis and a sweatshirt. If it would have been colder, I'm sure I would have gotten hot chocolate or cider instead of my soda.

All in all, we had a great time. It seemed as though time was moving much too fast. Before we knew it, it was 8:30 and we had seen all we could. Going to Christmas by Candlelight definitely put me in the Christmas spirit

This guy was sitting near us at the concert.
Shouldn't he be extremely busy this
time of year?

Gingerbread church

Carolers

Holiday decoration

Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus

The Main Stage

Tonight I went to the Attleboro Community Theater (ACT) and saw the play "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus". The Theater is an old Masonic Lodge in downtown Attleboro right next to the YMCA. The tickets are 18 for an adult and 16 for a student. The play starts at 8 pm.

I went with DJ's little sisters Amber and Kirsten. Amber is 13 years old while Kirsten is nine. I only tell you there ages in case you have kids and are interested in going. Amber really enjoyed herself. Although Kirsten was well behaved and polite, I could tell it wasn't for her.

The play is based on a letter written to the editor of a newspaper by an eight year old girl asking if there is a Santa. One of the writers at the paper is going through tough times due to the loss of his wife and unborn child. The little girl's (Virginia) family is also going through a tough time as the father is out of work. The story is narrated by the editor of the newspaper.

Here is the thing about my "review". This is only the third play I have been to. I'm no expert on plays or musicals. What I can tell you, is that I have the utmost respect for anyone that stands on that stage in front of people they do not know and act.

So maybe I am a little biased, but I had an absolutely great time. I think my eighteen dollars spent could not have gone to a better place. I really liked the characters a lot. In my opinion all of the main characters were very believable and could act. Truthfully, even though this was a community play, I was just as happy as I would have been going to PPAC or Trinity Rep. Obviously the price tag was a whole lot more bearable. Even taking the money out of the equation, this play was out of this world.

Amber and Kirsten

The play is going on the rest of this weekend and next weekend also. If you want to go to a reasonably priced play that tells the true meaning of Christmas AND also shows real life and how not all of us are blessed with happiness, I highly recommend going to  "Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus"

If the sentences are choppy, I apologize, I wrote this really quick before bed. Also I could not take pics during the show so all I could get were shots of the theater.