Creepy

American Goldfinch

I've been getting out each day to do an eBird list, as well as looking for new birds for this year's farm census of species. I did two lists yesterday, as the walking wasn't terrible...a little sticky snow on top of the treachery that is ice made it possible to walk if very carefully.

I was no more than out the door when I saw a Red-tailed Hawk. Not at all unusual as they have nested on our land since I met the boss and probably long before that. However, a new bird for both year counts.

Got all the way to the cow barn and back without slipping, which is a big deal in our frozen world, and was standing by the spruce in the driveway, reluctant to go in, because even at 13 degrees it was good be out.

Suddenly a tiny bird rocketed from the overgrowth in the front field to land at the base of the spruce right at my feet. It caught my eye because it was so very small and fast.

Tufted Titmouse

It quickly began hitching up the tree, probing for insects as it went. A Brown Creeper! Right in the yard! I know Alan sees them up in the woods in back all the time but I rarely get out in those woods. To have one right in the yard, right next to me, was a real delight.

Good birds, you gotta love 'em.

What birds do you see in this admittedly lousy photo? I see five species and eight birds

Treasure Chest

I am such a treasure hunter...can never resist looking for cool stuff, whether it be shells, or stones, or interesting plants and animals. I think that is why I like birding so much....never know what you might find next.

Anyhow, my mama and dad gave me this box for Christmas. The box itself is treasure enough, but it was full of my grandmother's correspondence...... letters, Christmas and birthday cards, my aunt's 1953 Social Studies homework and tons of other items of interest. Even old phone bills for six dollars.....

I discovered that my late Godmother, my mother's college roommate, carried on an extensive correspondence with my maternal grandmother, long after college was over. She was such a dear and much missed. It was nice to read of her student teaching days and nice things said about my mama and aunt and uncles.

It made me feel better about those stacks of old Christmas cards and stray birthday cards and old newspaper articles and other odds and ends that occupy various spots in our domicile. I keep thinking I should throw them out...but maybe someday, someone, will find them and think they are amazing and awesome. You never know.

Passwords

This guy is more patient than his wife

Is anyone else having trouble with websites failing to recognize passwords and having to change them every month when paying bills? This is driving me nuts. I write them down, plus ask the browser to remember them. They are always forgotten and never right.

This is only with utilities. Everything else works fine and as expected. Since we got this new computer I have had to change my pw every month on both the power and cable company. Sometimes more than once. Dang it is aggravating.

As Alan says, why do you make it so hard for me to give you money? I think they make it hard so people will just give up and sign on for autopay. Not happening.

When taking down the Christmas tree

Saving the Mugo

We had a nice little Mugo pine down in the village. Alan bought it for me, and it grew quite nicely. We missed it when we came here, so he planted this one fifteen years ago when we made the Long Lawn.

It has grown and grown and gotten nice and fat. Catbirds, Song Sparrows, and the Willow Flycatchers love it in summer....it makes a fine staging area.

It was thriving....

Until yesterday when it underwent a severe pruning. You could throw a cat through it now if you were so inclined.

You know you have married well when your significant other not only takes a bar of Irish Spring out to hang it for you, but also shaves his head...in the middle of the winter...... and donates all his hair to the deer repellent effort.

Now we wait and see if it all works. If not Jade has a couple of ideas......

Resolutions

The Sanderling Three-step by Alan at the beach in Destin

I don't do them. I have never succeeded, so why set myself up to fail?

However, I do have goals for the coming year. They pretty much all relate to chasing birds so......

First, ten-thousand steps a day. To keep fit enough to keep birding. I was doing pretty well until I hurt my knee last July. Getting back there slowly, but I am going to keep working at it. I sure was frustrated when my phone battery died in Alabama, where we were doing a really long walk looking for gators on our gator quest (we did see tracks at least). Sure would have racked up some steps that day...but for the battery....

90 species of birds on our annual farm census. We found 88 in 2016, with the highlight for me being the Cerulean Warbler in the Cottonwood Tree by the driveway on Big Day, but they are all fun. I was out of commission with the knee and Lyme Disease for the best part of three months last year. Hopefully I can stay healthy and get er done this year.

I had too much tequila last night

Birding is so weird. I never got a Great Black-backed Gull for our count last year. This year I got one on New Year's Day. The new binoculars might have had something to do with that....

And this....this is new....I have been eBirding for a while now, doing checklists fairly regularly, but can I do it every day? Maybe.......Becky just bought me a membership to the ABA, which may spur me to keep at it. So far so good. 

Coquinas

Whenever I find coquina shells I think of my father's mother. She liked them too. Vague memories have my grandparents shelling, maybe on Sanibel, when they retired to Florida. Tragic events sent them back north before too many years passed, but they were happy there for a while, and I loved hearing their stories when they visited home. 

They were so intrepid, traveling to Florida and Mexico and bringing back amazing treasures....but somehow the tiny, humble, yet colorful, clams remind me of them.

Thus the pockets of all my shorts are full of sand from stuffing pretty coquinas from every beach we visited into them. I have a whole bag full of memories of grandma.

Reptiles

We called our trip to Florida Gator Quest. We even saw a couple. However, we were more likely to see critters like the one(s) above. Hoping someone will be kind enough to ID it or them for us. 

The tree was full of activity!

First Bird

Last year it was a Northern Flicker......in 2014 a Jacksonville Beach European Starling.... 

This morning my first bird was a Black-capped Chickadee, flipping down to the feeder at dawn in search of a sunflower seed. One of my two favorite birds..... Liz says my other favorites, the Carolina Wrens were much in evidence when we were down south. Hope we don't get a cold snap in February that wipes them out as is too often the case. 

Happy New Year to all....I am just waiting for the rest of the birds to get out of bed...er...roost....so I can do the first eBird list of the year.

Drunk Drivers

Now, this....this is my favorite!

Not the best folks are they? We were trying to get to a hotel on a four-way in a little city in Virginia, around 2:30 this morning. Sidewalks all rolled up, not a car for miles....we'd been on the move since around 8:30 AM, including a couple of hours walking in Mobile and Blue Mountain Beach Florida, and a lot of driving.

Suddenly some yahoo appeared from the other side of the four-way and sailed up the street on the wrong side, weaving all over, right for the Camaro.

I screamed. Alan reacted. Fast. Had he not, Mr. or Ms. DUI would have taken us out. As it was we kissed mirrors with a bang and the culprit took off like a streak.

It took a very long time to file a police report. Alas, the police in that particular town were belligerent and unpleasant to us.

"Were you drinking?"

"We can't find any debris except animal tracks, are you sure it was a car?"

"Were you drinking?"

"Where were you going? What were you doing? Where did you come from?"

"Were you drinking?"

It went on and on until we all got pretty ticked off. I finally told the guys, "Look, I'm his mother. He's traveling with his mother and his sister, not exactly party animals. What he said happened, happened."

Eventually they handed us an accident report, which accurately detailed just what we told them, so I guess they actually did believe us. However, we drove back to where the cars impacted (we had had to move up the road a bit to find a safe place to pull off the road.)

There were the parts of both mirrors and a mess of plastic off the other car lying in plain sight in the road. If they really cared at all they could have seen it. Alan picked up the insert from his mirror and stuck it back in place...the glass was broken but it reflected cars coming up behind us, albeit in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a disco ball (perfect for New Years right?)

We skipped the whole stopping thing and just came on home. We were lucky to get off so lightly, and I don't mean to whine. Had things gone down even the least bit differently a lot more than mirrors would have been broken, but geez, get somebody to drive you home if you are too drunk to find your way.

Unreal how people drive these days. We saw at least fifty accidents and hundreds of incidents, probably more than that, from a tractor trailer full of pallets lying on its side in a rain storm to dozens of fender benders, cars off the road in darned near every ditch south of Pennsylvania, three dead bears, a couple hundred flat raccoons, several finished off foxes, piles of possums, one dead Turkey Vulture, which smelled far worse than the many deceased skunks he joined on the road, and one lady who passed us going at least 95 MPH. Yowsa!

We next saw her a couple miles up the road on the far side of the other side of the four-lane, her car nosed into the woods and swamp. How she got across all that traffic without being injured is beyond me, but she was standing by the road holding her baby and being comforted by passersby when we went past. Yes, a baby.

Scary huh? We had an amazing time, but the Interstate system and the byways that lead onto it are not for the faint of heart or slow of reaction. It is good to be home where everything is standing still and staying in its own lane. Hopefully everyone will be wise and careful tonight and make it home safe. Happy New Year!

Pelicans and Scavengers

We drove down to Cedar Key and Manatee Springs today, retracing our trip from two Brown Pelicans down in town and hundreds of Turkey and Black Vultures at the springs. 

Hey Mom

Safe in Florida. By way of Tennessee....and Alabama....Georgia....not necessarily in that order. Love you

A Gift to Myself

After Christmas with a toddler...a very good little toddler, who when given a gift and being told it was from...say, Aunt Becky....tried to give it to that person, being hard pressed to understand that it was all for her.....and saying "thank you" faithfully and often....

Some quiet time was in order. Most of the family was out in-lawing, all was reasonably calm here...

So I took myself out to do an eBird checklist.




It is sunny, warm for December, too icy to go far, and the wrong time of day for many birds. However, it was a great pleasure, indeed a gift, to just be able to be outdoors for an hour, alone with the birds. My kinda Christmas!

And tomorrow is the Johnstown Christmas Bird Count. The weather is supposed to be nasty, but we have some good wooded places where the birds will be sheltering from the weather. It's always fun.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Corn snow and snowmobile tracks make for pretty good walking

Not for Nothing

I sure hope Santa can run.

Or that he has some sugar cubes. 

Liz was at the sink washing bowls from making cookies and rolls, and I was waiting to get water to mix dog food, when across the heifer hill, tails blazing whiter than the snow, ran a pair of does.

I don't want to rain on any parades or harm your cornflakes in any way, but I am pretty sure that it was Cupid and Vixen.

And they were already flying low if you know what I mean. Didn't see any sled either, other than the Firecats on the trailer and lawn.

I sure hope he catches them before tonight.....

Hmmm.....Liz has two quarts of molasses here....nah.....better not.....

Kicking over the Traces

Tomorrow the family Christmas get together.

Sunday the holiday itself. With a two-year-old. She is so excited.

Monday Johnstown CBC. 

Monday night. If all goes well, and the good Lord willing, and the crick don't rise, and all of the ifs ands and buts fall into line.

Heading south. Where the birds and the sunshine live.

Even if

You don't have an iPhone, you can still have fun on a snowy winter day. A couple of sleds, some snowballs, a little time off from school and you are good to go.

If Only

Humans could hibernate. I have said it many times before.....

Imagine...... . Pigging out all summer to get ready to eat everything in sight in the fall when all is delicious. Being glad to find your jeans getting tighter and your elbows starting to sag.

Imagine.....at the first sign of a snowflake or a temperature below fifty, finding a warm, snug comfy spot. My bedroom would work for me, although it is often not all that warm. Failing that a lovely cave lined with wool gleaned from sheep or milkweed fluff or some other warm and cozy substance.

Imagine....

Sleeping. ALL WINTER. 

Waking up in the spring, shaking out the wrinkles in your newly skinny self and basking in the glory of longer days and warmer sunshine.

And then doing it all over again.

No dieting.

Ever.

No slipping and sliding on ice or fighting frostbite...sometimes indoors....or being all grumpy from the clouds and short days. No struggling through the "holiday" season, which is a misery from some of us Gloomy Gusses.

The only downside I can see is that bears are among the most iconic hibernators and although I do like fish I prefer it cooked.