Water Closet for February 6, 2015

[pullquote]”The inhabitants of the lodge had valiantly kept it open during three weeks of hard January cold”[/pullquote]Aunt Betts Pond is round. Although near Middleton Square, this one acre pond nestled in 26 acres of beaver flooded wetland, is little known. It looks as if Mother Nature used a compass, radius set at 40 yards, to scribe the pond’s perimeter. Geologists would say she used a left-behind-block of ice from the retreating Wisconsin continental glacier and then surrounded it with debris flowing out from the melting front. Gravel and sand settled around such chunks sometimes even covering them. When the ice melted the sediment slumped producing a crater-like pond called a “kettle”. Walden Pond is our most famous Yankee kettle. Aunt Betts lies just west and below another glacial remnant glaciologists call a drumlin. The Colonists dubbed it Will’s Hill. We don’t know who Bett was; Will was probably a lazy English nickname for a 17^th century Indian who lived at the base of the hill, or so the story goes. Aunt Betts is “bottomless” according to Red Caulfield who hunted and fished in the area long ago as a boy. As children many of us were kiddingly told by wags that certain ponds

Stream Teamer John (“Jack”, “Red”) Caulfield on the ice around Aunt Betts Pond. Red has roamed the wilds of Middleton for seven decades. – Judy Schneider photo

were without bottoms. A couple of us keep meaning to get over there with an ice chisel and lead line to prove them wrong, but like so many such chores we never get around to it. And do we really want to know? Stream Teamer Francis Masse tells of ice fishing there decades past. The old Closeteer skated on it alone 30 winters ago without worry of water below connected to China. The drumlin rises 170 feet above the surface of the kettle’s surface, 260 above sea level. Another kettle in the north of town called Pond Meadow Pond is about 14 feet deep as measured several years ago with a sapling poked through the thin ice of a fisherman’s abandoned hole. So if we give Red another generous ten feet the summit of Will’s Hill is 94 feet above the bottom of Aunt Betts. Women often accuse men of an obsession with numbers, maybe they have a point. Men will not change. The hierarchy of land, while higher or lower, not better or worse, is important to water flow and weather.

Last week before the blizzard, the thick ice on Aunt Betts and surrounding beaver impoundment and other beaver ponds and lakes throughout the watershed allowed us easy access. Now with the ice under two-feet of insulating snow and floating on warmer water we can’t be 100% sure of safety when exploring despite very cold air. It is zero degrees Fahrenheit this January 28th morning.

The following morning the glass reads 32 degrees as a gentle snow falls adding to the blizzard’s one to three feet. Snow at this temperature is wet. Severe cold is predicted to follow. Maybe we’ll get a rare hard crust we can hike on. For us old timers snow shoes and skis are not as easily handled as they once were.

Before the blizzard’s thick fluff, which fell in cold air, four of us visitedAunt Betts and surrounds on smooth hard ice. Translucent in

Good ice on Aunt Betts Pond, Middleton, before January 2015’s blizzard. Note beaver lodge to left on edge of pond and strip of water kept open by the inhabitants. Dead Atlantic white cedars drowned by the beavers surround the pond. – Judy Schneider

places, almost transparent, we could see from the white of vertical cracks how safely thick it was. Other sections were filled with tell-tale bubbles; the impoundment’s ice was 26 acres of three dimensional Jackson Frost Pollock art. Long ago as young skaters skimming over we didn’t appreciate the endless variations in ice. We were after a puck or on starlit nights a girl to skate with. Now cautious, eyes downcast checking around our feet, the ice world comes alive with beauty and a tinge of danger. We moved slowly on our steel cleats, Stream Team photographer Judy pausing with camera to catch scenes to share, some only inches across. The beavers had drowned the Atlantic white cedars and the red maples, their dead trunks stood around us. Without shade, the sunny afternoon was bright as we turned east into a stand of dead cedars circling the kettle. Ahead of us was a beaver lodge perched on the edge of the “bottomless” pond.

Aunt Betts Pond nestled in cedar swamp west of Middleton Center. The beavers from the lodge valiantly kept the water to and above their entrances open during the very cold days of January. Photographer and friends are standing on six inches of good ice. – Judy Schneider photo

Stretching out from it both north and south was a black strip of open water 150 feet long, about ten wide. The inhabitants of the lodge had valiantly kept it open during three weeks of hard January cold. These open areas above the entrances to beaver lodges had often been admired before. They allow access from lodge and under ice to air. And then we saw a beaver! He, large, was swimming north. Judy’s camera pointing between blocking trees went click, click, click . . . until it dove. We rarely see beavers even while walking among their many signs. The old Closeteer hadn’t seen one in winter for years. They are usually in their lodges or under the ice except when visiting the openings along their dams where water overflows. The human visitors walked clear of the trees to get a good view of the open water hoping the beaver would emerge. It soon did and continued swimming toward a floating debarked stick. He grabbed it with his jaws and turned back toward us and lodge and then suddenly let go of the stick and slapped its tail before submerging. The slap was quite impressive and had its effect. We stood silently for a couple minutes and then moved excitedly on. We had entered a much admired animal’s territory and had been duly warned; or was the warning for its family back in the lodge?

One of several muskrat lodges in beaver impoundment around Aunt Betts Pond. – Judy Schneider photo

After an hour’s circumnavigation on the impounded acres surrounded by upland woods we returned despite the warning. There to our surprise was the beaver or another swimming in the 32 degree water. The scene previously experienced was repeated but too far away across the pond for good photos. We didn’t really need them; the encounters are clearly in our minds.

Judy and daughter Rachel plan a return trip on snowshoes with cameras to see if the liquid window to a fraction of beaver life is still open.

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WATER RESOURCE AND CONSERVATION INFORMATION

FOR MIDDLETON, BOXFORD AND TOPSFIELD`

Ipswich R. Flow Rate (S. Middleton USGS Gage) in Cubic Feet/ Second (CFS):

For Feb 3, 2015  Normal . . . 66 CFS       Current Rate . . . Unavailable

*Danvers Water Filtration Plant, Lake Street, Middleton is the source for actual precipitation data thru Dec.

**Middleton Stream Team is source of actual precipitation data for Jan and Feb.

Normals data is from the National Climatic Data Center.

THE WATER CLOSET is provided by the Middleton Stream Team: www.middletonstreamteam.org or <MSTMiddletonMA@gmail.com> or (978) 777-4584