December 17, 1981 - Winter Arrives and Signs of Cold Are EverywherePage 16
s
r
lZbe *Uffolk Timex December 17, 1981
Winter Arrives and Signs of Cold Are Everywhere
Lately our mornings have been below
freezing. I can tell this without even
getting out of bed or looking at a
thermometer. My temperature gauge is
our rhododendron. Years ago when we
first built our house we planted rhododen-
drons around our place and down the
driveway. They were only small at that
time, but today some are over 10 feet tall.
They love acid soils and can tolerate a
good deal of shade so they fitted into our
scheme of things perfectly. In those days
the pickings were pretty thin because we
had just bought a piece of land for what
seemed like an unheard of amount of
money -- $3,000. Then to top this we decided
to build the following year and go deeper in
debt. So you can see there wasn't much left
over for any fancy landscaping.
Our plan was not to wait but to plant
small trees and bushes and hope for the
best. Believe it or not, the plan worked.
Those early years were busy with kids and
finishing a new house, putting in walks,
and stone walls and not much time allowed
for anything else. Shrubs were picked up
from my Dad's place or Barbara's folks
and little by little our place grew.
But of all our plantings, the rhododen-
drons have proven themselves the best for
our area and it is these that I look out on
each winter morning to tell me the
temperature. There is something that
triggers the leaves to curl up when it gets
cold; and the colder it gets, the tighter the
curl. I'm told the reason for this is that it
cuts down the leaf surface of the shrub and
therefore the water evaporation becomes
less in the plant and the shrub is more
resistant to winter burn.
Just how cold it got during the night I'll
find out later when I go out to feed the
animals. The thickness of ice on the water
bucket tells me that story. A thin skin of
ice tells me it merely got down to freezing
and that's about all. But thick ice I can't
kick a hole in means it's gotten down into
the 20's. Then if I really want a more exact
reading, I check the thickness of the ice
along the inside walls of the bucket.
Subtle Signs of Cold
Of course, there's the signal given off by
U@(�,Mg3 @�]
E�IQME,q
the cracking patio wood as I walk over it
with the buckets of water, headed for the
barn. And then there's the spilled water
that immediately freezes as it splashes on
the deck. These all tell me it's been cold
outside.
Later in the year when the temperature
really plummets and the wind shrieks out
of the north, you can tell it's really getting
to things when we hear the trees crack.
The trees around our place in those early
years were small second growth after the
'38 hurricane. Now they have grown to
eight and 10 inches in diameter, tall and
straight with large umbrella heads. They
grew into beautiful shade trees because
I've thinned around them and given them
room to grow.
This tall mass of wood and branches
naturally sways in the wind when it really
blows. When it's extremely cold the tree
literally freezes and cracks. It's a bit
terrifying to stand beside one as the wind
howls above and all of a sudden as the tree
bends it gives off a sharp snap right along
side of you. Evidentally it does no harm;
the tree shows no ill effects. There must be
a frozen fiber letting go inside, I guess.
I've often put my hand on a tree during
these unusually windy and cold spells and
have actually felt the tree shudder as a
crack is given off, but as I say I've never
seen any trace of damage; being internal,
it must heal itself.
As I lay in bed I can also see clumps of
dry leaves high in our hickories nearby
that seem to be as permanent as the
SNOW'S COMING - -Snow makes good insulation, hiding many of the
small animals from predators. Being an insulator, it also keeps the
plants warm below its cover. Photo by Paul Stoutenburgh
Lantiscape
1151h." _Adventure
Beautiful,
Bountiful Trees
Plentiful
Poinsettias
Centerpieces
y
E
11� 1 '• h: ��'- 7htia,
Corsages
branches themselves for they stay there no
matter how the wind howls. These are the
nests of the grey squirrel. You'll see their
clumps of leafy masses everywhere. Few
people associate squirrels with them. Most
think of squirrels living in hollow trees, but
when you stop to think about it there just
aren't many old hollow trees around and so
the squirrel has devised this leaf nest to
live in. Apparently it works quite well. We
have several of these nests on our
property. After all, with the hickory nuts
we have around it makes pretty good
picking. If it's a moderately cold day the
squirrels will be about, but when the
temperature really drops they stay rolled
up in a ball in their snug tree houses.
Mouse Builds House, Too
Another creature that builds a leafy
nest for the winter is the common deer
mouse. This handsome little fellow is the
one that sneaks out the cracks and holes in
your foundation and comes inside when-
ever he can to spend the winter. Those out
in the woods look for crevices and holes in
old logs or trees or even unused bird nests
to live in. Around our property our bird
houses are sometimes used. The nuts and
cherry pits will vouch this. When I clean
them each spring.
When all these cavities have been used
up, the mouse will build his own nest in the
low shrubs and thickets, using long strips
of bark from the wild grape and leaves
from the forest floor. Then inside the nest
fine plant fibers and fur from some
deceased animal will be used. Here safe
from the fox, owl or hawk, our mouse will
spend his winter sometimes in a half sleep.
The next time you go out walking on a
cold winter's day, I hope you'll look for
some of these interesting signs of winter.
Whether it's the grey squirrel's leafy nest
high in the tree, the mouse's dried leaf nest
in the briers or the curled up rhododen-
drons that tell you it's freezing out -- all
these signs will make your walk a more
interesting one. Once we start to under-
stand these new aspects of our natural
world, we'll marvel all the more at the
wonders about us.
PAUL STOUTENBURGH
J ° ENJOY YOUR
CHRISTMAS BUFFET
AT
Bill Klein's
Restaurant and Lounge
at 1hr
*&&Lk� 44�)NK at Riverhead
CHRISTMAS BUFFET
Fresh Fruit Cup Fresh Onion Soup
Tossed Green Salad with Assorted Dressings
Assorted Salads and Relishes
YoasW Cornish Hen with WiN .Tice
cSauer6raten With .Ted C'a66age
�BaW Virginia Ham
$795 Fresh Whipped Potatoes and Yams f
Cauliflower and Broccoli {
Children Under 12 Coffee and Dessert Extra
$5.50 REGULAR MENU
A VAILABLE O�
Reservations Recommended GN
Call 369 -2222 Lv` ;aay
Bill Klein, Pete Werner and staff
wish you all a Merry Christmas
and a Happy New Year
�`�` our N &�Dtiori Os
F o r cyteo�s yyt 20.3
L V rt�es
s A � ed
pt 'Ae1?,Z
369
Pxv
132 Sound Ave., Riverhead •
UExit.72, C
1.1. Expressway Ft Rt. 25