And puddle-wonderful. The woodcock is back. I had been staying out after chores every night, leaning on the car hood and listening. It is so sweet out there when it finally warms up enough to BE out there...to listen, smell, savor the arrival of spring with all it brings. Ducks shuttle by unseen, but clearly heard, and geese are back on the river. No woodcock though.
No peent.
No wingy whistle turning the empty night into a whirl of wonderful music.
Then yesterday morning, just as I stepped onto the back porch in the still dark, not morning yet except by government time change standards , I heard him.....close too. I wonder if he moved his peenting grounds or if it was just so quiet that he sounded closer than other years.
He usually starts his sky dance up by the horse pasture pond. This year it sounds as if he is right down under the apple trees by the garden. He showed up on the 15th last year and the 27th in 08
March 29th in 07 but not until April in 06
Another waited for event had taken place as well. When I got to the barn in reindeer bathrobe, barn coat. and high rubber boots, Armada had finally had her first calf, another amazing red surprise, but, alas a bull. She was feeling sorry for herself and wouldn't even try to stand up so I came back to the house to get the boss to give her a bottle of calcium, which perked her right up. I CAN give bottles if I have to, but she was lying half under another heifer and I thought that someone bigger, stronger and with longer arms was called for. Both baby and mama are fine btw...
I am so grateful she finally got around to having him. She was due the 13th. We started doing barn checks a couple times a night about a week before she was due to calve....which adds up to a lot of 0-dark-thirty walks to the barn...in the mud...which is actually drying up just a tad.
Although E. E. Cummings found mud to to be a source of inspiration and delight, I personally find it to require me to sweep the kitchen floor about fifteen times a day in a cycle of endless futility, unquenched by ceaseless boot scraping..the outdoors just wants to come indoors during mud season.
**The photos above are an update of things at the pond in Lykers...still pretty frosty and not much around but a few chickadees. Just a few weeks and that will change.
Neat on the woodcocks!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny to think of mud season, since we just don't have it down here.
Our house plans had a "mud room" and I remember us both looking at each other and going ..."huh?".
It's our too tiny laundry room since we don't have a mud season in FL.
Great collage! Mud-lucious is the perfect word! I feel sorry for the poor animals that have to muck around in it:) You have a good day!
ReplyDeleteWe had woodcocks in West Virginia---I miss them here in NC! Lovely post, full of evocative images. Glad your calf came, even if it is a bull!
ReplyDeleteLove the pictures!! They're so pretty.
ReplyDeleteI remember that sound from when I was little growing up in the hollow. For some odd reason it always made me think of Dads record of Hank Williams singing "I'm so Lonesome".
Just when our mud was drying up, T-storms, sleet, and snow is heading for us today. OH BOY!!! *she said sarcastically in the post dawn morning that is soggy and drippy*
ReplyDeleteI wish I knew the songs of the different birds... I know for sure I've never heard a woodcock though... makes me jealous :)
...sweep the kitchen floor about fifteen times a day...
ReplyDeleteOne word: pallets.
We have them everywhere.
" . . the outdoors just wants to come indoors during mud season."
ReplyDeleteNow 'that' is a poem all on its own.
Lovely, TC. And a good reminder that I've got to get me hence to the edge of the city and have a listen.
If mud is an inspiration and delight then my back yard would give enough delight to the whole town. If you want to see ducks and not just hear them, I will give you mine(ha ha). Glad the calf is well and momma too. I am wondering if we will get many red milking shorthorns from using Poker like I had told you before. A lot of the cows that were AI are coming back into heat (too many). This is the first time so many didn't take, I am a little discouraged. I am going to check and see how many were Poker's.
ReplyDeleteI heard a meadow lark yesterday afternoon....usually I see a robin before that so I've at least got some hope spring is around the corner. Maybe he just read the date wrong. We're drying up somewhat here too. Congrats on the new calf, too bad it wasn't a heifer. I'd trade, we'd rather have bulls;)
ReplyDeleteI here you girl it seems like I can never keep my kitchen floor clean. I just get it swept and here they come for coffee or snack. It is starting to dry up here a little though thankfully. Have a great day. Rebekah
ReplyDeleteAaahh! The joys of mud season! When everyone's truck is suddenly the same color from the door handle down.
ReplyDeleteGood to hear that your woodcock is back. I've missed hearing mine for a few days now so maybe that's where he went!
Still waiting on the spring peepers to start their nightly chorus.
FC, oh, you are so fortunate! Mud season lasts for months up here and springs up anew whenever it takes the urge....I don't think I would miss it, although it is better than snow. lol
ReplyDeleteLisa, thanks, it is from an ee cummings poem, which I learned in grade school. I hate the mud, but what can you do?
RM, do you have whippoorwills? They are gone here, alas
Dani, that is so perfectly fitting. It is one of my favorite things, to just not go in for supper and to listen to the woodcock instead
Sara, I am so sorry about your weather. We have all had just about enough this winter I think, and we need something to enjoy....like maybe spring. Guess we are in for some bad stuff too.
June, thanks...you just reminded me that I have a board I put in the walkway that kinda, sorta, cuts down on the tracking
Cathy, thanks! We wish the box elder bugs and lady bugs were "outsects" cause they all want to come inside too...and now they are waking up and crawling all over the place. lol
TMM, I am looking forward to hearing how you make out with him. I hate to say it, but although this is a nice calf, she is nowhere near as much to my taste as the ones from our own bull, which we bought at the Holstein sale in Syracuse some years back. I had to stomp my feet a bit to get them to draw him and we didn't get anywhere near enough! He stamps calves like a cookie cutter! Fantastic feet and legs and very dairy
Linda, thanks! No meadow larks for me yet, but we will be watching
GM, thanks, when it gets so you can't go barefoot in the kitchen......lol....and it has reached that point
Joated, I like that about the trucks...so funny and so true!
but... i like playing in the mud!
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