Will She or Won't She?

Freeze that is. Only the One who controls it all knows for sure. 

Thus decisions must be made. Many of the tender house plants have been brought indoors already. Most of the heirlooms, many of the prettier geraniums, especially Grandma Peggy's old doubles and the ones I've grown from seed over the years. The big jade has been sacrificed, beheaded, uprooted, all in and all done. I was sick of it tipping over its pot and taking up half the living room. I can get a new one going in case I feel like I need a plant with fifty pounds of greenery.

Maybe we skate by at 33 as we already have a couple of times. Hard to say, but there is a frost advisory for tonight, then a stretch of nicer weather to come. Guess I will be hauling plants in and covering the big tomato and the sprawling little purple ones, and whatever else can't come indoors.

I sure hope we don't lose the Heavenly Blue morning glories. No way to protect them and there were EIGHTEEN blossoms yesterday. 18! So pretty.

By way of our little almanac, I spotted the first two winter sparrow species yesterday. In the morning a White-throated Sparrow was hanging out with a bunch of Song Sparrows over behind the barn. Late in the afternoon, a White-crowned Sparrow bopped into the bushes with another little flock of same right in front of the house.

Seems as if Song Sparrows form nuclei, around which less common sparrows gather. All through late summer a single Field Sparrow hung around with the same little SOSP flock behind the barn. Before they left, the very loud chirping Indigo Buntings seemed to serve in same manner, particularly attracting migrating warblers to the good eating spots. 

It is quite a thing to be outdoors these days, what with the colors changing, fall flowers blooming, insects racing to be ready for the silence, and the magical flux of passing migratory birds. I love it. 

Cold Enough

Common Yellowthroat, a favorite warbler, so confiding and friendly

To charm the feathers off the crickets. If you don't believe me, go out and check your yard. I'll bet not one single cricket has any feathers left. They are quiet too, stilled by the chill, or perhaps just embarrassed to be featherless and all.

First ripe tomato yesterday, with BLTs for the supper the result of that. Second crop of lettuce is ready as well, in a window box on the sitting porch, so that worked out pretty nicely.

Enough string beans to fill a shopping bag to overflowing have been frozen. Hopefully the frost will hold off so I can get a few more. Pulled out all the squash yesterday though. Squash mosaic virus doesn't affect the edibility of the fruit, but, my word they are ugly. It's a disease that is hard to avoid. It comes in on infected seed and lingers long in the soil Oh, well, I didn't really want to freeze squash anyhow.

Cold enough that I am washing and airing blankets for winter....

You should see the Black Walnut tree our friend gave me as a seedling that is planted down below the driveway. Just hanging with enough nuts to fill a hundred squirrels.

Every Box Elder tree is hung with enough samaras to bury a small car. The Winesap apple is burdened down with fruit, small, but in wild quantities. This may be its last year as it is splitting badly. Hey, Mappy, do you want to make cider again this fall? Any time after first frost those apples will be getting juicy.

One of my self-appointed daily tasks is to kick all the fallen fruit down the hill to the lower driveway where the chickens will find it and gobble it up. The hard, green and pink orbs are a menace to old fogies walking down the hill on the walkway under the tree, so I get rid of them. 

The kids did good at the fair with birds and crafts. Liz won both grand and reserve grand champion with the Call Ducks. I do love those silly birds and miss them now that they are over at the show. They are all noisy, Mallardy, splashy in their pool, and bathtub-toy-cute all at the same time. I get a giggle every time I walk past their coop and they announce my presence to the world.

Becky got blues with both the crochet projects she entered, a mermaid and a little Teddy horse, both cute and well done. She has come a long way for a woman who taught herself using YouTube videos. 

Cape May Observatory's migration radar photo. Wow!

Good birds of the week: Common Nighthawk right outside the living room window. Pair of Red-Shouldered Hawks soaring almost beyond reach of the naked eye over the old horse pasture. With binoculars I would see the white crescents in their wing tips that told me what they were. Magnolia Warbler on the feeder arbor eating spiders I think. Gave me a great view as it picked over an old deer skull hanging there. Another first for the farm.

Almanac

Weeds along the farm road, far higher than my head

The tornado warned storm the other night ushered in some clear, pleasant weather. Of course the tractor has been broken down and is getting some more work done today...so not much haying going on. (There was a tornado in one area, but we just got a little wind, a lot of rain, and some minor lightning, thankfully.)

I will surely use landscape fabric for my tiny garden again next year. I only kept the smallest garden for myself, but it has kept both families in snap beans and summer squash so far, with some to give away too. Yesterday I picked about half of what we hadn't eaten and froze them. Might do more today if I have time.

Oh, oh, who's this coming up the driveway with the chickens all out in the yard!

!!!!!

Yesterday morning I tried walking back in the fields, as the boss has made a new gateway and I wanted to check it out. However, up top in the 30-Acre Lot, the clay mud was so slick I literally could not walk on it.

 I went back up last night, but darkness and skeeters sent me back down the hill. Sure enjoyed the peachy sunset though.

I think I heard a Great Horned Owl! Not hooting but screeching!

It was odd. I had just turned behind the barn to head up the hill when I heard a scream right  behind me. Not unusual as the resident Red-tailed Hawks love to fly behind me and screech and make me jump. 

However, this didn't sound quite right. I would never have thought what it might be, but I was playing GHOW sounds on iBird Pro when I got to the top of the hill....we have them and I was hoping for a response...and there it was! The exact sound. Didn't count it, but I will be going over there in the evening again soon....

Everyone is talking early fall. I surely hope not. A lot of farmer hopes are pinned on corn making ears and there was an awful lot of late planting this year. We have seen some decent corn around, playing catch up you might say, but only a couple of fields with well-developed ears so far. Lots of pink corn silk out there yet.

Almanac the August Blues

Indigo Bunting, blue boy of summer

Summer is winding down, even though the outdoors is still beautiful, wonderful, downright delicious......and there are blueberries. It is impossible to miss the shortening days and the south-trending sunrises and sunsets though. However, the weather is phenomenal right now. It just doesn't get any better than this....

"Sunken Horse"...or, Amish on the bike path

This morning at five a bat was fluttering around my head while I walked dogs and counted the dawn chorus. (Four Northern Cardinals, Six American Robins, two Carolina Wrens and a Song Sparrow.) It got friendly enough that I went back indoors. I had writing chores anyhow and, although I am not afraid of bats, it didn't need to get THAT close. I could hear it flappy, flappy, flapping, wings all slapping, and twittery-chirping like mad.

Yeah.....too close.

After being among the missing for weeks, the Rose Breasted Grosbeaks have appeared in the apple tree again. There are so many Indigo Buntings singing it takes some careful listening to count them. Saw the first House Wren of the year for the farm yesterday when I walked up back to check on the boss who was baling. We have seen them other places, but not here for some reason.

Meanwhile, haying season has been accompanied by the usual plague of breakdowns. The bale thrower has been causing problems, a universal on the mower met its match, and last night, as the boss was unloading the next-to-last load of hay of the day, the elevator clogged. It was too dark to see to fix it so that is a job for this morning.

This pale touch-me-not is nearly twice as tall as I am!

Almanac

The constant rain has spawned an infinite number of mosquitoes, large and small. I forgot to apply insect repellent to myself and the pups this morning with regrettable consequences. Sure makes things grow though. The yard is a jungle even with Jade mowing whenever the rain lets up.

The Carolina Wrens that nested at the cow barn have found the feeders and have brought their collective sense of humor along for the show. Several scolded frantically as I changed Finn's water and cleaned his run.

Then one dive bombed a chipmunk and drove it right across the yard. That cheering you heard was me....little beggars, tramps and thieves, that tamias clan. The wrens are nearly as bold around me as the chickadees are and the latter barely fly from me. In fact if the feeders aren't full they don't fly at all, preferring to let me know in no uncertain terms that I have work to do. The wrens cuss me out every time I set foot outdoors but they don't fly far.

Alas, the local baseball season is winding down, but those among us with the patience to sit among the mosquitoes under the lights have enjoyed a good number of ball games this season. (Although I love baseball I am not included in that number. ) Peggy took in her very first game last night courtesy of Uncle Scott. I can't wait to hear the deets.

Meanwhile, although it is still high summer, migration is beginning. Alegedly only shorebirds so far, but with the spreading out of young from their families we are seeing a lot of birds....that is if I am willing to brave the ticks and skeeters. Sometimes I am....

All summer long, we in the not-as-Great-as-usual Northeast have sought a way to send rain to our dear friends in western drought and fire stricken regions. Last week a Facebook friend from South Dakota shared the video below. It is one of my favorite songs anyhow, and has been since Toto released it in 82. In fact I have it on my other computer which is out for repair. It is going back on my phone as soon as I can access all those files.....

Anyhow, this version is phenomenal all on its own, and thank you Carolyn for giving me something amazing to play on the endless juke box in the back of my head. I have played this video every day since you shared it, often more than once.....and it provides something much more tasteful than hearing jingles from kids' shows in my head day and night.

But the best part is that it contains lots and lots and lots of rain. I am sending it out in hopes that it works for all of you who are suffering the lack of water. Do turn up your sound to capture all of the rain.....

Almanac

So inviting...we kept saying, just a little bit farther.....

Peepers started their strident song this past weekend. We first heard them at the river one evening. They were a couple of days later here at the farm....they didn't call it Northview for nothing....but you can hear them even in the daytime now.

The boss and I essayed a roughly five-mile round-trip walk on the Erie Canal towpath yesterday and kept thinking we were hearing good birds when they called. A chorus is obvious, but a single frog tuning up is very birdlike. 

How about that big dude on the left! That is some turtle for a painted

The temperature reached 88 degrees, which made our walk a bit of a challenge....as in when we were done I was done....done for that is. Toast. You could certainly have stuck a fork in and all.

However, hitting ten thousand steps nearly every day is a good deal....mornings feel pretty frisky...at least for a couple of hours.

The old canal was full of turtles, soaking up sun after a long cold winter. The Eastern Painted Turtles perched on logs, while snappers, looking pretty much like moss-covered logs themselves, oozed slowly through the mossy water. You could only tell that they were alive by their movement and the occasional appearance of spooky dinosaur heads above the surface as they grabbed a breath.

Saw the first Coltsfoot yesterday too, down near the canal road. As above, we will see ours at least a few days, if not a couple of weeks later than this. Our north facing slope is kinda chilly.

However, along the towpath we saw something delightful. I heard the classic "killy-killy-killy" call of American Kestrels and a pair zoomed in right over our heads and began interacting in and out of a nest hole in a nearby tree. Fluttering, screaming, lots of ingress and egress of the hole. I tried for a photo, but the sun was so bright I couldn't find them in the viewfinder. It seems as if there are far more of them around this year than in recent years....much like it was before their recent decline. Out in the country you can find a pair every few miles on the power wires and yesterday I found one hunting the heifer pasture right behind the house.

That should be interesting as there is a mockingbird setting up housekeeping in a rose bush there.

The first crocus bloomed on Monday and by yesterday there were a dozen in a cheerful purple carpet. Squill is  waving tiny blue flags by the garden pond. There are buds on the daffodils! 

Jade and Liz dug out the limestone steps in front of the house and discovered a wide, slate walkway leading to the house. It is about a foot deep in soil, but Jade has been digging it out.

Things are hatching in the dining room incubator. It is getting so I don't even go look when I hear peeping....getting to be old hat.

It was a treat to hang laundry outdoors for two days and do some serious catching up.

Today we are back to normal for Upstate April, 50 or so degrees, cool, wet, and gloomy. No denying that it is spring though.

Fallmanac

Been pushing the walking envelope the past few days. Made it all the way to the 30-acre Lot yesterday, although it took a very long time. Took a shorter walk this morning, but by golly I took one. Pedometer still doesn't register my careful little steps.

Preening

Everywhere you look there are signs that this is going to be a very short summer. Blue Jays are back in loud mode, yelling all day long. Haven't seen a Yellow Warbler or Redstart in a week or more....nor heard them either. Plenty of Common Yellowthroats around though. There were two cuddled up very cutely in a desiccated little shrub, preening in the early sun, right next to a House Wren doing the same.

Mixed flocks seem to be the norm now, another sign of impending change. While the boss and I talked next to the wood pile yesterday we saw that Dark-eyed Junco that is back early, more Common Yellowthroats, a couple of House Wrens and at least eight Carolina Wrens, all in one little feeding flock.

If you stand still you can hear yellow leaves falling all around anywhere there are trees. I suspect this may be a feature of the weather as much as the season, but it is a bit disconcerting. I am never ready....

It is threatening rain today and the boss has a load of hay ready to bale. Sure hope he gets it.

This impish little person is planning a tooth brush raid.
Found mine behind the toilet
and the boss's in the garbage wrapped up in noxious paper stuff.
Time for new ones I guess
And a functional gate for that door.

Almanac

It has rained.

A lot. 

Will it break the drought? Maybe. For sure there is no need to water the gardens.

The pup has caught his tail and is lying on the floor holding the wiggly white tip and looking at me as if to ask, "What do I do now?"

He has also decided to bring all the locust pods in the yard into the house. Do you know how many pods fall off an 80-ish foot tree in a high wind? A lot.

Other than that it is just August. Hazy, hot, and humid. Laundry won't dry, nor will hay. No sense even mowing because it is just going to get rained on.

Wal*Mart is sold out of fans...the guy said 178 went out the door in just a short time.

August has a schedule for us here at Northview that would drive some folks off cliffs. People go to work at three AM while other people come home from work at three AM. Or four. Or five. 

People come home in early afternoon, others leave a couple hours later...sometimes they pass each other in the driveway. People work in Massachusetts, in NYC and Washington DC, or just down the road in Fultonville. Or in the barn or up in the fields in the back of the land. There are people working every single day of the week, Sunday to Sunday, and all the days in between. It's like an anthill around here.

Somebody is always sleeping so they can go to work, or awake working, or getting ready to work. Instead of a pocket door in the bathroom, we need a revolving door.

I guess the common theme around here is that everybody works at something, be it building America, delivering the goods that keep her running, managing a restaurant, feeding critters, making hay, or if you are me, just watching them all whirl by like a carousel of hard workers, off to their various jobs. And doing laundry and housework and gardening....the easy stuff that is....oh, and bookkeeping too...the nasty stuff.

Almanac

This is how it was birding this morning. This is a power wire in the cow barnyard.
Note: two Mourning Doves, one Indigo Bunting, and a very ticked off Robin
 that was trying to feed honeysuckle berries to nestlings somewhere

While the cat's away.....

The boss is off to Empire Farm Days today. I hope he is having a good time and not suffering too badly from the heat. Meanwhile, this mouse is having a fine time.

From the unusual phone call department comes one from his orthodontic surgeon, who is repairing the damage from the car accident. Early this morning the doctor's receptionist called. Visions of missed appointments flashed through my head, but no, the doctor's cows were out on the road and she was looking for someone with a horse trailer to haul them home. I truly wished I could help her, but there was not much I could do. Alas, I don't drive, and by the time he made it home from Seneca Falls the cows could have walked back to the farm...

And that's not all.....

Despite being the last full month of summer, August has plenty to show us.

Gold finches flutter all day in the rudbeckia like so many flying flowers. They are the exact same color. There are so many that it is a challenge to get a remotely accurate count when I want to do an eBird checklist. They are simply everywhere.

For every bird that has taken to the airwaves and headed south there is some other species still busily rearing young. Two sets of robin parents were still feeding nestlings this morning and a young Northern Flicker was following its parents around begging vociferously. Catbirds appear to have kids as well.

There are advantages to being a gimp for a while. It took me a very long time to walk over to the barn and up to the crossroad to the T-field this morning, but what a lot of birds I saw.... 28 species in all. (It takes me a long time to walk anywhere btw.)

Then, as I was standing dead still, listening and watching for movement right behind the barn, I heard a sharp cracking from the bushes. There is a deer trail there....maybe about four feet from where I was waiting....

Sure enough after a few seconds a doe thrust her head out of the bushes right in front of me. I stood frozen waiting to see what she would do. Had the wind been different I might have even gotten a photo, but it was almost exactly from me to her.

With a loud WOOF! and a lot more crackling, she was gone back down the hill. I think she was an old one, as her face was pretty grizzled. Deer, by the way, are not always the quiet, wily things their reputation would have you believe.

The highlight of the trip was a Black-and-White Warbler busily feeding right next to the barn gate. Although they are not terribly rare, the last one I saw was on our blacksmith's garage roof before Magnum was born. Anyone who knew him can figure about how long ago that was. (Hint...I was still thin and blonde, and he's been gone over a decade...oh, and he lived to be 32.)

It was an amazingly crisply-marked and tidy little bird, and obligingly gave both its song and chip call so I could have a good listen.

I have really missed walking out and although this was a short, and really, really slow walk, it was a lot of fun.

Flicker family

Almanac

Not from today

Anvil clouds are piling up, ready for the hammer. It is dry, dry, dry, and the east wind is tugging at everything not nailed down, billowing the laundry like the sails of a ship, and intriguing the pup with strange smells.

There is a frog in the garden pond again, just a little feller. There were several, including a big one that appeared to have wintered over, earlier in the season, but they left for better venues. The kids bought a few more goldfish and some guppies. What fun it is when they feed them and the ones I had from last year.

The water fairly boils. 

While I was hanging out the laundry...yes, on crutches....Liz carried it out for me, but I hung it up....a mayfly plopped some eggs into the pond. Dab. Dab. Dab.

Flop. She bumped over to the oak log that is a feeder in winter and rested there a moment, just about spent. Without a functional mouth, and having fulfilled her purpose after a year under water, she is done and will no doubt die now, having laid those precious eggs. I wonder if they will hatch and grow and winter in the pond. Or will the guppies polish them off before they even sink to the bottom. 

When we were kids and staying at the lake there were mornings we couldn't swim because there was so much detritus left from the mayfly hatch. Who wants bug shells all over them? Not I.

I have so many beans that need to be picked, but I guess they will have to wait a bit. Don't think I can manage that job yet. I only planted a few squash plants and they are feeding us well, although if it doesn't rain in the next hour or so I am going to have to water. Did I mention that it is dry?

It is hard to get used to after all the soggy years in a row we have experienced.

Found out something interesting this year that I had never thought about. One of the morning glory seed packets I planted suggested growing them in a hanging basket. I gave it a go and the ones in the basket are blooming way before the ones in the ground are showing any sign of same. Very nice pink frilled ones with white edges. Even the vines are pretty, climbing out of the basket and down the hummingbird perching strings.

It was good to get outdoors even if only at a hobble. I hate being cooped up inside.

Just as it came from the camera last week