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August 08, 1997 - Musings from a Backyard HammockGA t The Suffolktrn`ds •tAugust 7;'1997` Musings From a Backyard Hammock Everyone has left and I'm lying in a hammock in the back yard. My only companion is a friendly catbird that has landed on the hammock support. It looks around, then there's eye contact and it flies away. We have only a hint of a breeze, just enough to move the leaves in the trees above me. The sky is a typical Long Island one, no clouds, just blue. This hammock is one of the interwoven rope type that continually sinks under you until you are sure you are going to hit bottom, but it was stretched to its limit and I'm enjoying that wonderful relaxed position one falls into in a hammock. There was a time — way, way back — when I slept night after night in Focus a hammock. It was the time when the world was fighting for on its life. We were all issued ham- Nature mocks as part of our gear. We usually slept in bunks down by Paul below but then there were those Stoutenburgh wonderful clear tropical nights in the Pacific when the stars lured us and cast a spell. Then we'd take our canvas sacks topside and hang them between the stanchions to sleep the night away. The best part was.when there was a gentle roll to the ship, for then you'd be rocked ever so gently to sleep. Perhaps that gentle rocking took us unconsciously back to our childhood when our mothers rocked us to sleep. At any rate, it was a grand and glorious sleep with the stars above and our blacked -out ship silently slipping through the water. Often we'd hear the flopping of flying fish after they crashed into the bulkhead. The only good thing about the flying'fish coming aboard and losing their lives was that in the morning we'd go about the decks collecting them and have them for breakfast. A real treat in contrast with the GI food we'd been served while at sea. Squirrels Prepare Winter Home Searching the treetops above I spot a newly made squirrel's nest of leaves and twigs. You can usually tell where these nests are being built by the extra fallen leaves on the ground below. It looks as if some insect had been at work in your treetops, but no, they are the extra leaves that were misplaced by the squirrel and then fall- en. We have two such telltale acts of building going on right now in our yard. It's surprising how many clusters of unused leaves they let fall. These nests will be the squirrels' protected quarters when winter winds, snow and ice come down from the north. Then our squirrels will be curled up, snug in their warm, well - insulated leafy nests. From my hammock I can see the back pasture in its brittle brown, dried -out condition. The only green I see are a few deep- rooted plants of the common milkweed. It's the one with the cluster of dull pink flowers that later will develop a large, thick, warty seed pod. Upon V —a9— —a– M-2– unt a UUUA =Olin 75 Years Ago ripening they'll contain a wondrous trea- sure of tightly packed, silvery silken seeds. As winter approaches the then -dried burst- ing seed pods will release their precious cargoes to the wind. Far and wide they'll be blown. Some will be found and eaten by mice and voles, etc. Others will serve as subsis- tence food for the ground feeders like spar- rows, larks and others, while a few will somehow escape that ever - consuming world and find a place to settle. Then through snows, rain and sleet their silky down will be washed away and the seed they carried will be taken up by Mother Earth to start anew when springtime returns. We have many kinds of milkweeds. There's a swamp milkweed with long nar- row leaves and seed pods in sharp contrast to our common milkweed with its broad wide leaves and seed pod. It likes to have its feet in moist and wet places, so look for it in our freshwater open bogs and swamps. Really a Milkweed The plant most people don't even realize is a milkweed is the one we see along the roadside, now flowering in its clusters of blazing orange. It's called butterfly weed. It is so colorful and easy to grow that it is often planted in gardens to add that much - needed extra summer color. It likes dry sandy soil but will do well almost any- where that has lots of sun. The best way to grow this most showy of all our milkweeds is to collect the seeds in the fall and then plant them in your garden in the spring- time. The lovely monarch butterfly, whose life depends exclusively on milkweed and its closely related families, is known to all. It's the most readily recognized but- terfly throughout the country. This hand- some orange- and -black dancer on the wind is native to all North America, but in this age of travel and commerce, it has now been introduced into Europe, Java, Sumatra, the Philippines and even the isolated islands of Hawaii. it is interesting to note it was absent in Hawaii until milkweed- related plants were introduced, then with a good supply of food, the monarch was able to survive. Most of us only recognize the monarch in its final stages of life as a butterfly. Missed and seldom seen are the pale green eggs deposited by the female on leaves of the milkweed plant. With their favorite food supply at their doorsteps, the small black caterpillars Suffolk Times photo by Paul Stoutenburgh COMMON MILKWEED —This wayside wildflower and its close relatives are the only food the young monarch butterflies will feed on. Without the milkweeds, we'd have no dancing orange- and -black monarch butterflies. Aug. 4, 1922 Severe Storm Sweeps Sound Wednesday: Reports from along the shore of Long Island Sound indicate that several lives may have been lost during the gale that fol- lowed the record heat of Wednesday. The wind that accom- panied the rain that night damaged many towns along the Connecticut shorefront. Many parties in canoes are known to have been caught in the storm, and it is feared are lost as searchers in motorboats have been unable to find them. Large hailstones bombarded the beach, spoiling hats and bruising persons. Lightning struck and caused several fires. Although the clouds were very threatening, Greenport and vicinity escaped the heavy part of the storm. 50 Years Ago Aug. 1, 1947 New A &P Supermarket on front Street: The largest food market on eastern Long Island houses six complete departments. This mammoth new store with an unobstructed floor space of 120 x 76 feet, with convenient entrances on two streets in close proximity to the municipal parking site, affords shoppers all of the most modern facilities. The interior of the emerge from the eggs and start their ravenous journey toward adulthood. They grow in stages during which they shed their outer skeletons each time they grow a little larger. Continuous feeders, they grow rapidly until once again they must shed their hard outer skeletons. They do this three or four times during their caterpillar stage. During this time they change from a black caterpillar into one of stripes of yellow, black and green. When fully grown the next stage is spinning a chrysalis, which is like a hardened cover. It's in this chamber that the miracle of transformation from cater- pillar to butterfly takes place. The normal number of days this takes is 12, but it can store is arranged so that food is most attractively displayed. In this completely modern store there are six distinct up -to -date departments including groceries, dairy, bakery, frosted foods, meats, fish, poultry and an up -to the - minute refrigerated fresh fruit and vegetable department. This gigantic new store is a great addition to Greenport's modern business center. 25 Years Ago Aug. 10, 1972 News In Brief: The Peconic Avenue traffic circle in Riverhead, designed 41 years ago and now badly in need of a face -lift, is to be drastically redesigned. At present the cir- cle, rated for 1,600 cars an hour, is candling twice that num- ber and is costing Riverhead $220,000 a year in extra police, traffic accidents, and time lost by local motorists. Traffic is often backed up for miles, especially during rush hours and weekends, on the six roads that enter the circle. The new configuration will cut off two of the roads that enter the circle: Route 113 and Woodhull Avenue. Traffic on the roads will be rerouted to the circle via the other roads that enter it. The project will come up for a formal hearing at the County Legislature's Sept. 26 meeting when the legislature is scheduled to approve right -of -way maps prepared by the Public Works Department. vary from two to 22 days depending on the weather conditions. Once the butterfly has completely emerged from its chrysalis, there's a peri- od of drying out and hardening. Then it's off to explore its new -found world. Being as colorful and visible, one would think it would be the target of hungry birds but no, through evolution the monarch butter- fly has developed a bad - tasting anatomy, so much so that birds leave it alone to dance on the wind without fear of cap- ture. Another butterfly that does not have this protective bad taste, but because of its similar color and shape is able to take advantage of the protection given the monarch, is the slightly smaller viceroy butterfly. My afternoon of hammock lounging has been most rewarding. It brought back memories of long -ago hammock adven- tures under the stars aboard ship in the Pacific, while today, in another world and another type of hammock, I played anoth- er part. As Shakespeare said, "All the world's a stage and all the men and women mere players."