September 2006

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Rain & the Back 40

September 29, 2006 in Out & About by admin | No comments

Well, this post marks the second gloomy weekend in a row, and the continued back-burnering of a growing list of sunny-day projects. Welcome to north-eastern Ontario’s monsoon season.

A mushroom 1UP

On the plus side, the mushrooms seem to be happy. I came across one particularly beautiful specimen growing on the forest floor, and another more stalwart variety atop an old pile of rotten timber and broken windows. At least something’s finding a use for it.

For something to do, I went looking for a decommissioned quarry that is supposedly not far from here. After a brief excursion, however, all I had found were a few wild apple trees. I’ll have to try and get directions next time. Along the way, I startled a grouse – who in turn startled me as it, in a clatter of wings, burst from beneath a pine only a few feet away.

 

Limerick Forest

Last week we stopped by the 5th Annual Open House at nearby Limerick Forest. One thing I learned from this experience was that if you arrive late to a public barbecue, chances are you’ll get stuck with a veggie-burger. Despite the occasional downpours, the visit was as pleasant as usual. Many folks attended, to enjoy the various activities and horse-drawn wagon tours. It’s nice to see the forest bustle every now and then.

The Old Caboose

September 10, 2006 in Lost & Found by admin | No comments

On the way home from Kemptville the other day we noticed this old CP Rail caboose. It was the only car in sight, sitting on a spur just off the mainline (which is about four or five tracks’ worth). Thinking it might be worth a look, we pulled over and checked it out.

Caboose!

While the doors at either end of the car are boarded up, the windows are easy enough to climb through. As you might expect, it’s in pretty rough shape inside:

Abandoned railway car

There are a number of cabinets in the car, one of which is pretty much torn out of the wall (left side of picture, blocking sunlight from above). Most are empty, though one (labelled “emergency blankets”) contains a rotten-looking pile of rags. Not much trash laying around — the odd candy wrapper, and a torn page from a girly magazine. Broken glass everywhere, though; looks like the tempered stuff, so it couldn’t really cut you up or anything.

Gadget

Not sure what that gauge is for, maybe the pressure for the hydraulic system. On the upper deck, there are two remarkably comfortable swivel-type chairs, which afford a commanding view of the abandoned railway car’s surroundings. Seems to me like a good place to sit and imagine the hobo-life, or just watch the sunset. Plus, from up there you can climb out onto the roof…

Bate Island Picnic

September 4, 2006 in Folk Science, Out & About by admin | 3 comments

How long has it been since you had a picnic? Yeah, I thought so.

Bate Island

As you can see, Bate Island is in the middle of the Ottawa River. You can get to it if you go over the Island Park bridge. It’s a favourite place for kayakers, because of the nearby rapids… we counted an even dozen, as well as two brave lads who were running the rapids in a canoe. Roast beef sandwiches aside, the afternoon’s picnic became a delightful excuse to try out some new toys: a couple of HOBO data loggers, Forrest Mims‘ Photometer/Radiometer, and a neat second-hand GPS…

Bate Island Kayakers We used the HOBOs to track the temperature change in the air and the Ottawa river. There’s a couple hours of useful data, tracking the different speeds at which the water and air cool down in the evening. Of course, it would be really nice to get a full 24 or 48 hour water & air temperature log. Taking one reading per minute, the HOBOs can go for over two days, so that might be suitable. The trouble is finding a place where it’s okay to leave them unattended for the duration, without having to worry about them being stolen, washed downstream, or eaten by wildlife.

Anyhow, once logged, all this wonderful data can then be dumped onto a computer — where it can be manipulated, graphed, and analyzed. While I wasn’t quite sure if HOBOware’s Excel export function would work with OpenOffice, the data seems to be coming through all right (so far)… of course, whether or not I can get a proper chart out of the latter program remains to be seen.

The “Sun & Sky Monitoring Station” is standard RadioShack issue (though it’s been discontinued, making it somewhat more difficult to get your hands on one). Depending on how it’s used, it can be either a photometer or a radiometer. Now, it takes a while to get the hang of using the instrument, as taking accurate measurements of atmospheric haze and water vapor is kind of complex. Forrest Mims gave an interesting talk about the photometer at the SAS conference, describing not only its uses, but also the story of its design and manufacture. Neat stuff.

The GPS unit is old, a Garmin GPS 45. While it took about 10 minutes to get the first location fix (N 45°24′34.2” W 075°45′17.8”), a later attempt only took a minute or two. Like the Photometer/Radiometer, the unit has many features and settings – which means that it could be a while before I get everything figured out. It seems that there are many ways of expressing coordinates… I set the GPS readout to a familiar looking Degrees/Minutes/Seconds format, as opposed to the UTM grid format. There’s a discussion of the different types here.