Lots of deliveries! Our earliest deliveries occurred on 1/4/18, as we reported on in the first blog of the new year. On the 10th, Dan "Rudi" Ruddell, of the White River Partnership, picked up and delivered eggs for Greater Upper Valley TIC schools. The GUVTU-WRP eggs all got delivered yesterday; thankful for a day of good traveling weather and a friendly, competent and helpful crew at the hatchery as well as all the work that has gone into paving the way to this point. Fingers crossed from here. Thursday, Shawn and Gloria Nailor brought more than a thousand eggs to schools in the Mad Dog Chapter region. Yesterday Peder Rude did the same for the schools of the Connecticut River Valley Chapter area. Also yesterday, a team of nine of us delivered the eggs of most (23 of 26) schools of the Southwestern Vermont Chapter region. Our chapter's delivery day was often very wet, but the temperatures never got below 36 degrees (in Roxbury, of course) and were often well above 50 degrees, so Gary Saunders and I, who made the trip to the hatchery, encountered no ice. While there was the threat of rivers flooding, we never encountered anything more than big puddles. After I pulled into our driveway at the end of delivery day, I found that my 4Runner's odometer revealed that I'd put 191 miles on our car. Well worth it! Here are some pictures from our day. Thanks to all our SWVTTU helpers: Kathy Ehlers, Joe Kraus, Erin Lyons, Nancy Mark, Barry Mayer, Gary Saunders, Deb Squires, and Trip Westcott. Thanks too to Jeremy and Nate at the Roxbury hatchery. When we arrived at 9:30, all our eggs were already packed in their containers and the food was boxed up. So what do we do now?
We spend a lot of time trying to predict and control process like egg hatching and alevin swim-up. But most of what we have to say about that is based on summary data that apply to most cases. Get that? Most cases, not all cases. Here's a report from Central Vermont TU's volunteer Chuck Goller: Sarah Stebbins at Cold Hollow Career Center in Enosburg Falls may have the first early hatch! It appears her batch of eggs has one fish anxious to get an early jump on its peers. See the small tail emerging from the egg circled in the photo below. This might be an indicator for you to start looking for your own signs of activity. It is a bit early but there are always a few early birds looking to get the worm. Sorry, couldn’t help using that expression! Chuck Here's the photo Chuck sent. So, be on the look-out. Nature is full of aberrations. Some good looking southwestern Vermont tank set-ups (waiting for eggs). Village School of North Bennington, teacher Kathleen Backus Mount Anthony Union Middle School, teacher Emily Hunter How many Vermont TIC/SIC schools this year? Every year more schools join the Trout in the Classroom program. So how many are we up to? That's right, 86 schools; but, because two of our schools, one in the GUV area and the other in Mad Dog's region, each have two tanks, we're actually up to 88 tanks. Not bad for a program that started with five schools in 2012! Here's the current list.
Local stream conditions Every so often I like to inspect our local streams. When I got back from our very rainy "the big egg run" yesterday, I drove down to the Castleton River, where I was also able to observe the condition of one of the Castleton's tributaries, Pond Hill Brook. Both were very swollen to say the least.
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Joe Mark is Lead Facilitator of Vermont's Trout in the Classroom program.In June 2012, I retired after 40 years in higher education, having spent the last 32 years of my career as dean at Castleton. One of the first things I volunteered to do in retirement was to work with a parent-friend to help the Dorset School, where his kids and my Vermont grandkids attend, start a TIC program. Gradually that commitment grew into my current role, which is both demanding and highly rewarding. Archives
December 2019
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