Red Shirt

Honestly, does this guy look anything like me?

There are any number of meanings attributed to the wearing of red shirts, from sports team support, to promoting beef, to impending doom for media characters.

There is also an actual book out there, Good Birders don't wear White.

You see, if you aspire to be a good birder you dress in colors that tend not to draw notice from the sharp-eyed little beggars.

Thus all summer I have embraced grey and brown and green as my signature morning bird walk colors. However, this weekend my safety-conscious hunter son suggested....well, it was kinda strong for just a suggestion, "Ma, you better get some color on. Wear one of my safety vests, or an orange sweatshirt or at least a red bandanna over your hair."

No he doesn't.... I am neither thin, nor graceful, nor can I turn on a dime

Because, yeah, my fading blonde hair is kinda deer colored.

I was reluctant. I admit it. However, there should probably also be a book entitled, Retired Farmers with Binoculars wear Blaze Orange during Hunting Season.

So I gave in and wore my warm red flannel shirt yesterday when I went out for my morning walk. Amazingly the birding was downright stupendous. One of the first birds I saw was a Golden-Crowned Kinglet, a first for the farm and indeed a first ever for me. The trees were draped with Yellow-rumped Warblers, there were Palm Warblers, and interspersed among them the first Juncos of fall. Lots of fall birds, winter birds, year-round birds and migrants passing through.

It was sweet! Here's my list .

 Why were the birds ignoring me in my bright red shirt? It took me a while to figure it out.

And then I noticed. 

Listen

To the soft rustle as the leaves trickle down...

To the distant barking of the geese as they arrow from river to cornfield and back each day...

To Red-winged Blackbirds chirping overhead, as urgent as the geese and much swifter, bent on much the same destination every day.



Smell.....

The nutty scent of the leaves that are down.

That miserable skunk, skulking around the wood stove every morning.

Crushed apples, seething with Yellow Jackets. Yikes!

And the sugar sweetness of newly cut lawn, as Jade had a few days off and mowed it all up nice.

See 

Each tree as itself as they slowly change colors and drop their leaves, the reds and oranges of maples, the crimson and raspberry of Virginia Creeper and Staghorn Sumac...

Yellow Cottonwood and Riverbank Grape, red and pumpkin-colored rosehips, dew dripping from each one. The last blue Morning Glories, the final zinnias, a few nasturtiums lingering among the green beans....

It's here. 

Fall....it's all around us. 

Just listen.

Flashback

Jack, who firmly believes that he is a Percheron

Walking past the pony barn on my way over to the other barn. A whinny rang out, but I only half paid attention. However, my mind pictured a sharp little chestnut with a flaxen mane and tail with streaks of grey. A bad guy, but a lot of fun.

Richard.

And then I realized, although I can't remember just how long exactly, but it was in the early OOs, Richard has been gone a very long time.

The voice from the stable was Jack, Becky's pony, who thinks quite highly of me, since I feed him every morning and sometimes in the afternoon too if his usual server is late. Jack is getting up there in years himself and we got him after the old boys were gone.

I had not realized, even though I have spent a lot of time with both of them, that Jack's voice is exactly like Richard's.

And yes, some horses have different voices just like some dogs have different barks.

It was weird. 

Richard putting up with the girls

Grandma Peggy

I came across this old Farm Side when I was searching my own blog for photos of an old pony and came across it......

She sure was special....

She was born in the town of Stark in the year fifteen. At first she was so tiny that her daddy, Frank, carried her around the house on a pillow for weeks. Her family wondered if she’d make it at all.

What an illusion that frailness was. She started helping Frank on his farm on Fiery Hill as soon as she could toddle. Milking cows by hand and doing fieldwork were as natural to her as breathing. When I met her she could still push her head into a big Holstein’s flank and make the milk fly with her small but purposeful hands. On Saturdays in spring she had to lead the big buckskin, Dan, pulling the cultivator up and down the rows of corn.

Later she told me how hard it had been to trust the horse not to squash her. She was fearful that his big black hoofs would stomp down on her bare feet and crush them into the hot dust of the cornfield or that he would drag the cultivator through the tender new corn. Still the work had to be done no matter how scary it was. She loved to ride him though, steering him with the driving bridle.

Dan was one of Frank’s fine workhorses, probably more a carriage type animal than a big, heavy horse like you see charging around the show ring today. He was so slow and deliberate in his tread that he never tipped over a stalk of the precious corn. He never did step on her either. She talked about him seventy years later as if he were still waiting out in the barn.

She started school in a one-room schoolhouse, when the teacher came to board at her home when she was three. We have a picture of her, bundled in a thick black coat, much shorter than the other students, but smiling hugely. She always loved to learn. Her education spanned eight decades and encompassed everything from gardening to a knowledge of politics as broad and deep as any scholar of the art. (There are those of us who learned to do our homework before we got into a political discussion with her. It was the only way to avoid walking away muttering and wondering what hit you.)

Frank was a renowned horseman in that area. His teams were called upon when no one else’s horses could get loads of ice or lumber up Fiery Hill. Whereas other farmers had to couple two or three pairs together, Frank could get the job done with one pair of his horses. We have a picture of him driving his yoke of oxen and, so in step are they, that it appears that there is only one ox, the off animal’s legs being totally hidden behind those of the nigh one.

Sadly, Frank was the one who was frail in reality and he died when she was twelve. As often happened in those days, the family was split and she was separated from her mother and sisters. She was sent to live with an old friend of the family who needed extra care, then later found a home with a woman who owned a diner in Booneville. She loved that restaurant and remembered the people who worked with her there very fondly. Roy, the irascible cook dominated the kitchen like a king and kept the girls on a run. She gave him his comeuppance one day when he bent over to check something in the oven as she pared potatoes nearby. She reached out with the razor sharp paring knife and nicked every stitch in the back seam of his trousers. He laughed and gave her hell.

There were some famous patrons among the simple farmers and loggers at the diner. Walter Edmonds, author of Drums Along the Mohawk and Rome Haul, was a regular summer customer. She said that he loved the strawberry shortcake and often stopped in for some during the season.

The loggers came in hungry for fine food after months in logging camp. Hobos were never turned away without a hot meal and a sandwich for the road. There was even a special, substantial dinner that was laid out for any itinerant who called at the back door, with lots of hearty bread and potatoes and gravy to stick to the ribs.

The good cooking she learned at the Brown Derby never left her. She could turn out apple pies with crust as moist and light as the early morning fog at the beginning of a perfect July day. She taught my girls and Alan to cook too. It’s scary. Liz is fifteen and teaches me new recipes. They even inherited her special ability to never use one dish when two would do. When they finish in my kitchen I start looking for the tornado.

She married a local dairy farmer in forty-three and later had two sons. They set to farming with a determination few today could imagine. They raised strawberries and pigs to pay the mortgage. Then they bought a second farm next door. When milking machines came in, her husband milked his string with the new invention while she milked twelve cows by hand-twice a day. Even when her hair was snow white and her steps had slowed enough that toddling grandchildren could keep up with her, she could still send streams of milk drumming onto the floor when she hand-stripped a cow.


At eighty-three, she was still milking cows. Even when she slipped on a grape dropped by an errant grandson and broke her arm; she went to the barn and washed cows with the good one.

She wouldn’t stay in the house in any weather. Snow, ice, it didn’t matter. It was a good thing that the old dog, Beethoven, would let her use his fur to pull herself back up when she fell, because there was no getting her to quit.

Last September, just eighteen months after her husband passed away at ninety, she had a massive heart attack. Nine months later, she died on my birthday, July 4th. It’s pretty empty in the old farm kitchen now. There is nobody to tell me how to grow cannas or cook ham or stuff zucchini. I miss her more than she could ever know.

Amsterdam Bird Walk

Winterberry Holly. I love this stuff!

Yesterday Becky and I attended the year's final bird walk in Amsterdam, from the boat launch near the boccie club to the band shell on the other side of the Gateway Overlook Bridge. The walk was led by George Steel, an area naturalist and educator.

Common Merganser spotted by a sharp-eyed young man on the walk

I love these walks, as I learn something every single time, and get to see great birds that I would almost certainly miss without expert guidance. Even Becky, who is pretty casual about birding, had a lot of fun. Sad to see the series end for the year, but bad weather is hard upon us and walking will soon be enough of a challenge all by itself.

Bald Eagle flyover. Excuse the awful photo

High point birds on a gloomy, humid, grey sort of morning were a Bald Eagle that flew over quite low and a Merlin (!!!) which I dismissed as just another pigeon but our leader recognized as a really cool falcon. 

Ephrata Rural Cemetery

I hope these walks resume in the spring and highly recommend coming along, no matter what the level of your birding experience.

On a kind of a funny side note a photographer from the paper that publishes the Farm Side showed up to take some photos of us. As I peered upward through my binoculars I tried really hard to avoid a certain classic birder pose and kept my mouth shut. I hope. 

The grebe

Other birding adventures later in the day, as we took advantage of what may have been the last nice day of fine fall colors for 2017, included not one, but two neck banded Canada Geese at Bowmaker Pond. I sent them in of course...plus a Pied-billed Grebe in the same body of water. Liz thought she saw one there last spring and we took a hurried trip over then, but no luck. This little guy was comfortably hanging around with the Canadas and gave us a good look and some pretty sorry photos.

Also spotted fourteen Eastern Meadowlarks in one flock! I have never seen more than a couple at once. They have been noticeable by their absence in recent years, but we have seen almost a normal number this year. Good stuff!

Riverbank grapes....

Teeny, Tiny

Sneaky snake. This little guy was about as thick as a Q-tip. He was wriggling quickly across the old cow barnyard probably close to where he was  born. Garter snakes give birth to live young rather than laying eggs.... This one was so tiny it was probably very new.

I have on occasion come upon mothers with litters and they are quite something to see....like snaky spaghetti.

As my mother will quickly attest, I have always liked herptiles, including snakes, so this one kinda tickled me.

Sorry about the lousy photos, but it didn't want to hold still....

Don't you Hate it

When you go to a party and someone else is wearing the same dress?

Trying Hard

Bird of the week...after the Blue-headed Vireo of course.
This is the fifth Lincoln's Sparrow I have seen this year, but none of the others sat still for the camera

To remain cheerful.....but it seems as if "it" never stops. You know what I mean. Disaster after disaster, bad news heaped on more of the same, day after day, week after week.

Liz and I were sitting here at the kitchen table with Peg and heard some odd noises from just west of the house. Mentioned them...thought it was roadwork. 

But no, it was a horrible accident on the Thruway. The boss saw the smoke and flames from Rotterdam and thought it was our house. Then he saw what had actually happened when he got home and came up the barn driveway. This is happening way too often these days....seems as if every week there is another bad accident just in the few miles between Canajoharie and Amsterdam.

Anyhow, I really need to get something done, even if it's wrong, so I will leave you with some things I've seen around the farm this week. Take care of you!

Waiting for the Sun

The Farm Side for the week is done and submitted, a mixed bag of signs of fall, omens for winter, and corn harvest news. 

It is still pretty foggy and not so very light out yet.

However, as soon as the sun clears the fog the least little bit I am out of here. Yesterday, after an early week so busy there was little time to get out and look around, I spent around a half an hour birding as hard as I could.

Oddly, in all seasons, the area right around the house yields the greatest number of species almost every time I go outdoors. That is understandable in winter when the feeders bring the birds in, but seems weird this time of year. What is it about the hedgerow right in front of the house that brings the warblers and fall sparrows in when they are so much less common out on the hill....where there are similar hedgerows everywhere? Nine or ten species in fifty feet or so.

A friendly Eastern Phoebe, one of many that live around our buildings

I don't know but yesterday there were so many small birds in the short stretch directly across the driveway from the house that I literally didn't know where to look. While I was following a Ruby-crowned Kinglet, hoping for a photo, a different bird popped into view. Despite never having seen one before I knew that it was a Blue-headed Vireo, a life bird for me, but one that is quite distinctly marked compared to many fall visitors.

I was happy all day on the strength of it, despite our failure to find Ring-necked Pheasants during a long drive later in the day. After this week's events we all needed some happy.

And so today, as soon as the light makes it feasible, I'll be out there again. Wish me luck.

The only pheasants we found....

Just Because

They were beautiful against the fall colors.

All-County Haircut

Or should I say corn cut? All over our county, and indeed the state, corn is being harvested apace. Hay too. Today we saw many methods, from the most modern to the not so modern.

One thing they all had in common was hurry. The weather is still good, the ground is fairly dry, and a lot of the crop is ready. I wish them all the best whether they are driving a giant self-propelled chopper or a team of mules.

Farmers face many of the same challenges no matter how big or small the scale of their operations.