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....

Hey Mom

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

Please come to Boston

In the ongoing tradition of Alan cooking up cool stuff on weekends, all of us but the boss, who felt that his injured legs and feet wouldn't hold up to being cramped in the car and walking all day, went to the New England Aquarium and Quincy Market yesterday.

Everybody loves penguins

Yes, we did have fun.

You might think that lugging a two-year-old through all that stuff might prove challenging, but our Miss Peggy was an angel. She slept all the way over, sang all the way back, and had a ball in between. What a trouper that kid is.

Myrtle, the Green Sea Turtle

She loved petting the cownose rays.....as did everyone..... How cool to have fish that want to be touched and swim right up to your hand like trapezoidal puppies. They feel amazing! Squooshy and yet velvety at the same time. I only left the side of the tank because there were a lot of other people who wanted to touch them too and I felt that I should make room.

Cownose Ray

We did the whole tourist thing too...walked through Faneuil Hall, ate at Dick's Last Resort and were duly insulted....as it happened we had one of the funnier servers and since sarcasm is a favorite font around here, we had a good time. Food was good...you can't beat seafood within blocks of the ocean....well, harbor, but close enough.

I've been to Boston to visit the market and aquarium twice before and passed around the edges once on the way to Gloucester. Both other aquarium experiences involved school trips and chaperoning other peoples' kids. I won't go into detail, but it sure was a lot more fun with just family.

A nasty accident on the way in yesterday reminded me of something I had long forgotten. A couple of miles ahead of us, twenty-odd miles or so before we got to Boston, someone had a bad crash. We sat for half an hour in gridlocked traffic....which triggered a memory of that very long ago Gloucester trip. We sat in traffic even longer then....waited and waited and waited ....only to find that the reason for the prolonged delay was a man.....running around in the stalled traffic....with an ax. You cannot make that stuff up.

In both Gloucester well over thirty years ago, and Boston less than twenty-four hours ago, I enjoyed clam chowder. Boy, I love that stuff.....

Anyhow, a good time was had by all; memories were made and photos taken. Thanks Liz for loaning me camera batteries. Mine were charged but died suddenly and my spares were in the car....in the parking garage....several blocks away. 

And thanks Al. I have done more good stuff in the past three years than in the past forty....and here I thought I was over the hill and looking at the long decline.

Road Trip

Loved this ad!
Every farm dog we have ever had has loved the old milker liners as toys.
We call them doo dahs. 

To the Central NY Farm Progress Show. This is kind of our annual get away close to home. The drive over is always spectacular and we never fail to run into favorite friends and neighbors.

This year the weather was truly the best we have ever experienced for the show. We walked around, met a good friend and talked a while, picked up some pens and apples...always a big attraction at farm shows...and just enjoyed ourselves immensely.

We saw a drone for the first time...almost got a photo but I wasn't quite quick enough. There were a few Turkey Vultures sailing over the grounds and the drone passed very close to one. It didn't seem too impressed.

A corny Mohawk

There is another whole day's worth tomorrow if you missed it today. We had to rush home to see if the boss could bale second cutting.

***A special thanks to Alan who got the parts and fixed the brakes on the car so we could go. Thanks guy! As you can see, this is not a trip for the faint of brake.

Sunday Stills...on the Road

Found this nearby

I rarely go much of anywhere so this week's challenge required a special trip. The boss took me over to Evergreen Cemetery where his parents are at rest. It is always a beautiful place and was all the more so in the late in the day, hazy autumn sunlight. We saw pileated woodpeckers, blue jays and great big grey squirrels, plus we found a cannon neither of us have happened upon before. Such tranquility. Such peace.....

For more Sunday Stills.....

Murphy Was Here

Our dairy supplier was due Thursday and didn't show. We were out of the powerful liquid cleaner we use for the pipeline and bulk tank. Not good...or wait, maybe it was....

You see, there are no substitutes, and the equipment must be cleaned and sanitized every time it is used, so we made a road trip up west to get a small jug to tide us over.

While we were at it we shopped.

I don't get out much. Kind of need to be here most of the time...so when I do, watch out.

People were looking at us funny in Price Chopper I can tell you, as we perused the ham and jam and spam and bought...well. a lot....

But the cupboards were pretty bare and now they are not so much and that is always a wonderful feeling. Plus I bought some goodies at the bakery outlet for the boy to take back south with him.....yeah...if that big bundle of blankets is any indication, he is home for a couple of days. He was out with that certain special and very sweet young lady so we didn't get to see him last night....

And, of course, while we were gone, the dairy supplier stopped....of course he did. So we won't run out of pipeline soap any time soon. I wonder if his name is Murphy.

But, it's all good...

Washing Down a Mountain

Quick run to Fort Plain yesterday for parts for the milkers (inflations for you who milk cows). We took Route 5 because they just announced that it had reopened after the flood and we wanted to see what had happened that the clean up took so long. Liz drove home that way one night and called me on the phone later. She was incoherent about what she saw.

Once we got to Big Nose, so were we.

Gratuitous mild profanity erupted in its own little flood, mile after mile. (Holy S**t was the most common epithet.) Ordinary words just couldn't capture our astonishment at what had happened. The vicious flood waters carved huge channels down the flanks of that whole mountain...just scored the earth like the claws of some great beast, many feet back into the mountainside, right down to the bone and even into it..

These photos do not do justice to the vigorous new streams and water falls that splash merrily down the sides of Big Nose Mountain now. They look as if they have always been there.

I wish my Grandpa Lachmayer, who took us on many road trips down the valley on the road that curves around its steep green sides, could be alive to see. He would have enjoyed the astonishment.

Nature is powerful beyond imagination and erosion apparently does not take centuries, just a lot of water.

The boss thought he counted seven or so of these gigantic gashes in the mountainside. They went many, many feet into its sides and stretched out of sight toward the top. Can you imagine all that rock and dirt and trees and debris dumped on the roadway below? I am impressed that they got it all cleared up before freeze up.


****Just a few weeks ago this whole area was smoothly rounded and covered with forest.....

Rural Grove State Forest

Alan and I made a speedy trip to our veterinarian's office yesterday for some medicine for Rosie



On the way home he took me on a half-hour detour through the Rural Grove State Forest where we stopped at a spot where beavers had dammed the road, rendering it impassable. It was a marvelous place. Dragon flies of half a dozen sorts zig-zagged around us, red ones that darted like flaming arrows, huge olive-green and light blue ones that flew in perfectly straight lines like the Black Hawks that fly up the valley....Black and white ones....dozens of fragile damsel flies mating like crazy.

***Alan had to take this dragonfly photo as he had boots and I didn't. The rest are mine.

There were frogs galore, the shoreline sounded like a shooting gallery as bull frogs plummeted into the water ahead of us. A great blue heron lumbered away in slowly pulsating flight. Cedar waxwings, some kind of fly catcher...probably an Eastern Kingbird, whirling in circles high in the sky..the whistling wings of some rapidly departing mallards. Lots of tadpoles and something big that was swimming just under the water, shaking the heck out of the bushes and plants. Could have been a beaver, maybe a muskrat, or just possibly a really large fish. It was too far out to be sure.

The road, after the beavers worked their construction miracles upon it

So peaceful.....

***Click for collage detail

There were interesting plants and herbs. See the boneset and the swamp milk weed? Rushes are round and sedges have edges, or so Alan's college teacher used to tell him. We saw lots!

It was an interlude of wonder and delight that I won't soon forget....just a few miles from home, yet I didn't even know it was there. It would be fun someday to put the canoe in from the road and cruise out to see what we could see.

Franklinton Vlaie

Goose fight! Look at the lady goose egging the fellas on

And stay out!

Click for details on the bout

A few of the many swallows hunting the water

Vlaie is a Dutch word for swamp. Franklinton Vlaie is located in Schoharie County NY right along Route 145. Alan and I took one of our now and again birding and picture taking trips down there Easter Sunday. For a gloomy, grey, almost raining day it was not bad at all. We saw:

Red winged black birds by the dozens

Flocks and flocks of tree swallows with one cliff swallow thrown in

Canada geese

Robins

Song sparrows

Common crows

an Osprey

Great Blue herons

Blue jays

Common grackle

Northern Flicker

Turkey Vulture