Gotta Rush

For the moment I can get online, but who knows how long it will last.... Yesterday right in the middle of writing the Farm Side the internet on just this computer turned itself off. The other ones worked just fine.

Becky and I worked all day trying to fix the problem but no go.

This morning when I woke up my mind had come up with a plan....uninstall my antivirus and reinstall it. So far so good. I love Avast, but it has done this before. Some setting gets changed that we cannot find, thus cannot fix.

But for now, I can get to all my stuff and do all my things, and believe me, that is just what I am doing.

Just as an aside, the roads are atrocious. Snow devils blowing everywhere, ice, and all the stuff that goes with it. Guess it's a good day to stay home.

And the Things That See You

The Things you See

Waiting for dry weather....

A beaver slide between two ponds

Fog on the river

Buoy off station near Yankee Hill Lock

Editorial on wheels

Thank-you

For your service...

Oh, What a Night

Last night was one for the books. Becky got out of work late, but we had to get groceries for two families, so off we went into the wilds of what was supposed to be rain and flurries.

Flurries my foot. Our instinctive inclination to prepare for bad was spot on...a lot more accurate than the weather forecast. A torrential downpour collided with 30 to 31 degree temperatures and Friday evening rush hour to produce a travel nightmare.

Worse still our boy and my brother and his son were all on the road home from their week of work in Connecticut. Many hours and many miles over very bad roads.

Even walking across the parking lot at Wally World was fraught with peril, as the half-frozen slush built up on every surface and melted just enough to get slipperier. It was worse on the roads.

Huge sigh of relief to get home last night and an even bigger one when we received notice that everyone else was home safe as well.

Today it is nearly 40 with a vigorous west wind and dripping but not actively raining. I wonder what the storm blew in by way of birds. I can hear chipping on the feeders already even though it is still pretty dark. All week there have been cute little Buffleheads on the river....they remind me of bathtub toys....and lots of good winter birds on the feeder. However, I am hoping for that Ruddy Duck, maybe a Pied-billed Grebe....or some Evening Grosbeaks would be nice.

Might as well dream, right?

Update, we went up to Herkimer County looking for some Cattle Egrets seen there two days ago. Missed them but got an utterly unexpected Golden Eagle so that was good.

Photos taken before the storm except for the crows

Equation

When you have pigs.

And chickens....

And your neighbors grow pumpkins

And Halloween is over and the patch is closed for the year....waste not, want not...the motto of the rural countryside

Gratuitous son and grandpuppy photo
from this weekend

Winter Business

Pink Lady, Honeycrisp, Northern Spy, and Granny Smith apples combined here

Making applesauce for us and for my mama, who thought some unsweetened style might be just the thing for difficult diet changes. Aunt Sandy taught me to make it years 'n' years ago, along with the process of preparing rhubarb sauce, the finest chuck roast ditto, and to tie my shoes as well. Impressive, huh? They just don't make aunts like that any more.

East wind blows nobody good

Or mamas like my mama either for that matter.

Where we park the car

While I've been cooking and counting finches on the feeder outside the kitchen window, the boss and Liz have been loading out hay for a customer and doing chores. Now the boss is fixing driveways with some gravel he had hauled in and moving firewood, ditto.

It doesn't even feel like work to scurry around preparing for the weekend and for the coming season. It is supposed to storm tonight and you can feel it....Makes you want to run around getting your nest ready for the bad. I think the birds do too, as things have been getting busier and busier as the sky has turned greyer and greyer.

And yet, the grass is still green......

A "drop" under the Winesap tree...not the kind I make the sauce with.
We get them at Bellinger's