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Tuesday, October 18, 2016

S-T-R-O-N-G Coffee


We were innocently drinking our instant coffee just a little bit ago, when Finn decided that we needed something a little stronger.

So he tossed Snoopy up in the air and with utterly perfect aim, landed him in the coffee water.

As you can see, Snoopy is barely recognizable as himself after a couple months of entertaining Finn. I'm afraid that coffee will be a little too strong for me.....

Thunder in Autumn


Last night about bedtime I saw a news report from up west in NY. Lightning strikes at the rate of 200 in a short time!

By the time it got here a bit later it was impressive enough, but nothing like that. Prolly only 199 strikes for us. It was bright enough that when I stopped at the window on the stair landing I was blinded by a flash and had to stand for a bit until I could see again. It was such a humdinger of a storm that poor Peggy had to come upstairs for a hug.


Cape May lighthouse

This morning the Internet was all jumbled up and it took a while to get connected and get the Farm Side off to the paper. Was the UN or our trusty government messing with my connection or was it just the storm? Probably the latter, since I don't have much damaging information under my control.

This week's Farm Side is about a new ballot initiative in Massachusetts, which will ban a number of traditional animal confinement systems.

You can read about it here

And here

And here. Note the sources and amounts of money involved here. Who says you can't buy votes? Even if buying votes is technically illegal, you can buy advertising and sometimes that amounts to the same thing.



Meanwhile, it's foggy and warm and pretty quiet this morning, perhaps because of the fog.....have a good day as you go about your travels. With my writing job done for the week, I'm not sure how I'll spend the day, but no doubt there is something that needs doing.

Beach bling





Monday, October 17, 2016

Running Away to Sea


We've been talking lately about Cape May, NJ.




How the hawk watch is there, and fall migration is supposed to be pretty spectacular.





This tiny, thumbnail-sized crab really made my day


Saturday night, Alan said, "Let's go tomorrow."



So we did. 



The drive down was uneventful if long. Cape May is something pretty unexpected for New Jersey, more like you might expect a small town in Maine to be. Lots of sea food restaurants, wonderful dunes, people on bikes and walking, and the sea......


Green-winged Teal


Yeah, that does it for me. The sea. You could see the light from miles away...

You don't want to know how much sun block, plus hat, flannel shirt, etc. was needed to get me through a day of tromping along sea shell and sand paths, wading down the deep sand to the beach, and staring up at eagles and warblers. Let's just say on the way home the sunblock melted and ran in my eyes.

It hurt.

However, what a beautiful place. The birding didn't really measure up to Montezuma. Maybe the time of day...noon is not the best for birds....




Or the big crowds....there were a lot of people.

But for whatever reason, we saw few species that we don't either see at home or at the swamp. They were tame and close though, all the better for photography,

And it was so pretty...so unexpected....so nice. On the way home we listened to a Harry Potter book on Audible and a good thing too. As nice as the drive down was the return was equally horrendous. Traffic! Terrible, terrible traffic!

Still, it was a day I will remember for a long time to come. Alan is getting pretty good with that camera.....photos are labeled as to which of us took them....



The Camera Bag Saga


I promised you the story of this camera bag for yesterday, but we ended up doing a wild road trip, so here it is today.

We had done most of the big loop around the various impoundments at Montezuma Saturday, when we decided to stop at the new viewing area near the Thruway. It is a great place to look out at some previously hard to see areas around the swamp.  

There, unattended on the deck, was this nice Nikon camera bag. Alan peeked inside but didn't see any ID. We puzzled what to do. We didn't want to just leave it there to be stolen, but we didn't want to look like we were taking it either.

And yes, a guy who pulled up right after us said, "If they were dumb enough to leave it, they deserve whatever they get."

Since we didn't share his opinion, Becky found a phone number for the visitor center and Alan called them while I watched over the bag.

The nice lady at the center said to just bring it down and she would put it in the lost and found.

So we did.

Once there we turned it over and she searched the whole bag. Hidden deep inside were business cards for a photographer, whom she called right away.

The lady who owned the bag hadn't even realized yet that she had left it (with several lenses inside), at the refuge, but she sure was glad that she would be able to come back and pick it up.

And we were kinda glad that we saw it first.

Saturday, October 15, 2016

Swampers


No, no, not those swampers.....just the birdie ones.. We went up to the swamp today to try out the new camera. Alan got some really nice shots with it. I stuck to old faithful and got some that I liked too. We left around 5:30 this morning so we could be there for the early light.



Well worth it. The slanting, low angle, fall light, especially early in the day, made for spectacular colors and sharpness and the array of birds was phenomenal. We pulled into the road to one water meadow where we often see eagles and saw a whole flock of Sandhill Cranes.

Northern Harrier

Ducks were ridiculous. Dozens of American Wigeons, Northern Shoveler, Ring-necked Ducks, Northern Pintails, Mallards, Gadwalls, Canvasbacks, Red Heads, Ruddy Ducks, all three teal (!!! on the Cinnamon) for a total of 36 species. Oh, and geese. There were tons of geese too flying up and down, whirling, twirling, to-ing and fro-ing. I have a video for another day with sound....


Since last week a platform at the end of the loop had a lovely eagle statue added, which can be seen from the Thruway and some of the other ponds. Really nice.



Male Northern Shoveler

Female Northern Shoveler

Tomorrow I will tell you a little story about this.



And about the one-legged Ring-billed Gull.....Photos without labels are usually mine.....

Friday, October 14, 2016

First Official Real Frost



This morning when I first went out it hadn't yet really frozen. The sky in the east was just barely brighter blue than the star-spangled midnight of the zenith. The grass was still wet with just dew, sparkling in the glow of the flashlight.

By the time Alan went to work just a short time later, his car was covered with frost and by the time the sun came up so was the grass.

Brrr......

I am tying this on a Windows 10 computer. He decided we needed one to process photos and mine is still on strike so....the obliging Downy Woodpecker above posed for him for these photos. Not bad huh?

And in big birdie news he got a good, close look at the White-eyed Vireo we have been pursuing since high summer. I have seen it too, but not the eyes, which are pretty much diagnostic. There really isn't much else quite that color, but without seeing the face I wasn't going to call it. Now if only we can get a photo so the eBird moderators will believe us.

Meanwhile, I keep trying with the new camera. It is pretty amazing, but I seem to have an inordinate number of thumbs where it is concerned. I cannot wait until I can go out in the sun and take advantage of good light!


However, here are some stained glass sumacs.

And one from the little camera



Thursday, October 13, 2016

Learning Curve


I waited until Alan came home to take the new camera out of the box yesterday. It seemed to work fine so we took it out for a spin yesterday afternoon.


It takes fantastic photos...at least in his hands. He has always had a knack with cameras and this big one sure shows that. I am kinda blind and slow......

I took it out this morning to start learning it. A pretty steep learning curve after all the years with the S3IS, which is as familiar in my hands as a bar of soap. Thank you Steve for all the years with it. I have had amazing fun taking pictures with it....I don't think a day goes by that I don't take at least a couple.....It is still a great camera, although in need of a good cleaning I guess.



Anyhow, I am excited about the possibilities with the new one, although for a while Alan will probably spend most of the time in the driver's seat. 

Sure does bring the birdies in close though. 

****All photos except the potatoes taken by Alan.


Obviously a Mail Drop




Wednesday, October 12, 2016

National Farmers Day


A day to thank your farmers for all they do.

So, thanks farmers for milk for my coffee and to drink with supper, beef, pork and lamb, and farmed fish and vegetables, and leather, and soap and other items too numerous to mention.

And ice cream. Did I mention ice cream? Thanks farmers!

Guest Tirade

Mad blogger with the older camera

So I'm using Becky's computer, which is really Alan's computer, but he lets her use it, because mine seems to have fan issues......thus no new pictures.

Fan problems were, alas, not solved with canned air. Hopefully a certain nephew will be able to repair that situation. I could get a new computer I suppose, but I am a great fan of Windows 7 and really, really, really don't want to change.

Plus, you know how you get everything all trimmed up and ready to sail after you run a computer for a while....yeah....that's how it is.

Now for a rant. Alan bought me a new camera from Best Buy. A bigger bells and whistles critter, which we can't wait to point at birdies. 

Alas they ship with the brown truck people, who do not do well delivering to us. Every single package we get has to be chased down either at their warehouse or wherever they decide to dump it.

This time I got a notice that it was delivered....yesterday.....but no camera. Called the brown truck guys. The not very helpful lady there said it was delivered to the stump at the bottom of the driveway.

So, you mean to tell me that an expensive electronic device sat outside all night? Unguarded? A tenth of a mile from the house and out of sight?

Color me delighted.

Then the boss went to look for it and found it was at the bottom of the BARN driveway! Yeah, the driveway is overgrown with brush, way down the road from the house with no buildings in sight. Farther away even than I thought. This was no mistake. This was deliberate and perhaps a reaction to our political signs, some of which have been stolen btw.

The box is damp, although the camera seems maybe dry....hard to tell, it's so darned cold.

I will be contacting Best Buy later when there are live people to talk to. The brown truck lady said that her company was not in any way responsible for leaving our package at the wrong address on a stump.

Meanwhile, both the US Postal Service and FedEx deliver our packages and mail with no problems. FedEx brings stuff right to the back door and has never messed us up. So it can be done......

Tuesday, October 11, 2016

First Frost Nope


All day yesterday I watched the weather forecasts and listened to the quieting of the crickets and katydids.

And dragged house plants indoors. There were only a few outside yet, you know, the ones that are too big and gangly and prickly to fit anywhere well. The water cannas. Easter cacti with nasty little hair spines that make life sharper than it needs to be. The rest of the geraniums. I grew most of them from seed and can't quite let go. Every winter they get all thin and sprawly and sad. Every summer I nurse them back to lush and bloomy and all kinds of colors. Then every fall I drag them back in again.

Tweaked my knee filling the twenty-gallon fish tank so one of the big water cannas can winter there in the big window. They will bloom in the winter you know. This one has orange blossoms on big green and yellow stems. Pretty pretty. I have one in the smaller tank in the office where the guppies will (hopefully) winter. I keep that one in and it grows from the tank to the top of the window and waves its orangey flower flags there. It's a biggun.

This morning.....no frost. The fog came in around three AM and cloaked everything in protection....thanks to the river I guess. Weather Underground says 33 degrees. Those last two are most important. They were predicting 27....

I'm glad. Who can resist the last few morning glories, another couple days of zinnias, impatiens in red and orange and pinky-white along the foundation? And tomatoes, still coming in late from the garden? We had some last night with baked bacon, a fine sandwich feast indeed. Looks like we will have at least a few more days of all of the above.....


Monday, October 10, 2016

I Shouldn't Have


But I did. I'm supposed to stay out of the sun. I don't feel the greatest either, thanks to the medicine I'm taking.

Assorted ducks, digiscoped by Alan


However, when Alan wanted someone to go to Montezuma with him yesterday I volunteered. How could I not? I love road trips with him and I love the swamp....such an amazing place.


Sleepy Green-winged Teal, also digiscoped by Alan

Hat, hoodie, sunglasses, four layers of sun block, shirt over the window when we were in the swamp, hat over my face when we were on the road, and we got it done.

Ditto


Worth a bit of burning too. The swamp was full of American Wigeon, Ring necked Ducks, Redheads, Northern Pintails, a few Northern Shovelers, the usual Green and Blue-winged Teal, thousands of Canada Geese, a number of Gadwalls, Ruddy Ducks, a few Yellowlegs, lots and lots of other birds.

Pied-billed Grebe


Northern Harrier


I'll bet we saw a thousand just on the way up. it was a great time and since I've only been out in the car once in the past ten days, even just seeing the fall colors was great.