More.
11) From what direction do storms generally come? From the west.
12) Where does your garbage go? We put it in the compactor for our apartment complex, and it’s picked up by WM, but I have no idea where they take it.
13) How many people live in your watershed? I guessed 60,000. It’s more like half of that. Newmarket, Newfields, Epping, Nottingham, and Deerfield are almost entirely within the Lamprey River watershed, as well as parts of Durham, Lee, Candia, Barrington, and Raymond.
14) Who uses the paper/plastic you recycle from your neighborhood? No clue. The Newmarket recycling center is out on Ash Swamp Rd, but I don’t even know if the materials that are picked up from our apartment complex go there or elsewhere.
15) Point to where the sun sets on the equinox. How about sunrise on the summer solstice? Nope and nope. According to NOAA’s solar position calculator, it’s pretty much due west at sunset on the equinox, and about east north east on the solstice. I think my mental diagram of how this works is wrong, cause those aren’t what I would’ve guessed.
16) Where is the nearest earthquake fault? When did it last move? Hm, well, something made the Appalachians, but those are old mountains. And there’s small earthquakes around here every couple of years. The nearest true plate boundary, though, is the mid-Atlantic one. USGA has some information, and links to a very interesting discussion of why we get “intraplate” earthquakes.
17) Right here, how deep do you have to drill before you reach water? A guess? Fifty feet. Maybe less. USGS groundwater data has two measurement sites in this area, one with water 29 ft below ground level, and the other 36 below. Those measurements are from a couple of months ago (remember May?), so it may be lower now.
18) Which (if any) geological features in your watershed are, or were, especially respected by your community, or considered sacred, now or in the past? Well, the Lamprey is a big important river, powering a mill industry in several of these towns. I can’t really think of anything else that I know is important.
19) How many days is the growing season here (from frost to frost)? Late April to mid-October. Roughly 170 days.
20) Name five birds that live here. Which are migratory and which stay put? Blue jays, goldfinches, mallard ducks, chickadees, cardinals. The ducks migrate - all the others stick around.