My favorite road

(Except for the deer.)

Step off the world with me

There can be a car just below the lip of this hill and you cannot see it from the top of the hill even though it seems as if you can see the whole road. In fact there was one there when I took this picture.

Rolling, that is what we call 'em, rolling

This is Corbin Hill Road, our path to the college (and back) each day. These photos were taken on the hurry-up, through the windshield of the car (Liz was driving) so they aren't the greatest, but I think you can catch that driving-off-the-edge-of -the world feeling. I wish each and every one of you could experience the trip past beaver dams and lodges, muskrat houses, swamps burgeoning with newly arrived migrant birds and amazing sweeping views of the foothills around every turn. Today as we passed the field where we saw the bittern last year a rough-legged hawk made war with two ravens and a pair of red-tailed hawks over some carcass that had been flung from the road. The wild winds swooped them around like forgotten newspapers, wings and tails outstretched. Yesterday just a few miles from there a pair of kestrels were busy making little kestrels while perched on the telephone wire (not an every day sight). There is always something exciting to see (including some things more exciting than others, such as deer). Wish you could ride along is all...just sayin'. You would come away with a whole different picture of New York State.

A milestone

Tree sparrow cussing out a junco

With the new camera. I can pick it up off the desk before the sun comes up, take pictures of the moon and its little star and the dawn and load them onto the computer without ever turning on the light or looking for buttons. It took so long to get to that point with the little camera, perhaps because it was the first digital. With the big one...it is such a darned delight to take pictures with it, that in no time I have found the easier buttons....still have to learn the more complicated things but....wow!

East ...the sun is rising a little more to the north every day even if it is still freezing cold

South..click for the star

And because I have the big camera to play with the guys took the little camera to the auction with them yesterday. (They have been taking it along everywhere they go....Alan is pretty good at taking pictures and is bringing home some great ones.) Spring is auction time in the farm world and there are usually several every weekend. The boss loves them enough to have gone to Missouri Auction School (with me in tow) and the boy is fast becoming a BIG fan. They went to McFadden's famous spring auction yesterday and nearly froze but enjoyed the socializing as always.

Here is a road picture Alan took with the little camera.

Road trip

Just a short one...over to Altamont yesterday to pick up a beef we had processed. (Came out surprisingly good too, for an unfattened Holstein heifer).Roads were pretty bad, as it is really cold for so early in the year and spitting snow all the time.

We saw these Canada geese on the way home and stopped to take pictures. The silly things just walked away down the cornfield, even though I was quite close to them. Sure are a lot of them around for so late in the year. I see hundreds almost every day.




On the way home we ran along the river for a while. What a melting pot of water fowl lined the banks, littered the rocks and crowded every little left-over pool. Great black backed gulls, ring bills and herrings, millions of mallards, Canada geese, mergansers, plus hordes of crows. There were literally thousands of them.

Road trip

A little hazy riding south ....

Sometimes a road trip can be a wild ride to Pennsylvania to see Emerson Drive in concert because once just isn't enough.

Nicely framed

Other times it is just the weekly Friday run down to Cobleskill to take Becky to college and run over to Wally World for dog food and boots for our farm boy.

Russet oaks carpet this hill

The former is wildly exciting, off-the-charts-different for me and the girls. The second can be a pretty nice journey as well, what with dozens of migrating red tailed hawks perched on trees along the roadsides everywhere. I have never seen so many in one day before. There was even one on a telephone wire (yes wire, not pole, I don't know how he did it), and great blue herons, golden poplars, fox-red oaks and stunning mountain and valley views that change every mile.

One of my favorite swamps on Corbin Hill Road

Either way, we love our road trips (except that they are getting obscenely expensive, causing me to eagerly anticipate December when they get out of college for winter break.)



The piece de resistance for me...a good quarter mile of winterberry holly, lining the road on both sides. I wish it wasn't out in such deep swamp water, because I would snag a couple of branches for the house if I didn't have to swim to get it.