Graduation

Almost ready for the cap and gown

Tall and proud out on the stage

Going, going, gone

Hi Ma.
I didn't like college. The room was too small and algebra was too hard.
The worms were too squishy and the berries too mushy.
Can I move back home?
Can I? Can I?
Oh, and here's my laundry.

The Magic of Apples

As you probably know, there was a ridiculous apple crop last year. Our Winesap tree made so many that I fell behind on clean up in the fall....I try to get the drops out from under it to help control pests...and the ground is covered with old apples. 

And as you know we saw a big flight of robins last week coming in from the neighbor's fields and landing on our old horse pasture, which is quite grown up to brush.

They stayed around. We saw them every morning over by the barn. I wondered what they were eating. At least part of that question was soon answered. Bird poo on the driveway was full of riverbank grape seeds...thanks, guys, I really needed lots more little grapes planted everywhere. There were sumac berries here and there too, dotting the snow like drops of blood.

Then this morning, Alan looked out the window over the sink and exclaimed, "Robins!"

And so there were. Apparently the whole flock, and there truly are at least a hundred, had stopped by for applesauce. I guess I'm glad I didn't get the apples cleaned up after all. It was funny to watch them surfing over the fruit, beaks dripping apple mush and chirping so melodically. Plumb made my day.

Hairy woodpecker taking the sun and banging on the dead boxelder behind the house

Resident red-tailed hawk in a cottonwood down by the river

Farming

Is that puppy tied up?

We still are. Or at least the boss is. He mowed the first hay yesterday in the Old Spreader field and we are hoping for enough heat and wind to dry it so he can bale it. If not he will chop it. We've been buying feed for months and although the cows are at pasture the heifers still need to be fed. It would be nice to have our own.


The robins fledged this morning. Must have been very early as they were gone when I went out to sit on the porch and talk on the phone with my boy who is working in the city today. It sure is interesting to hear his tales of life and construction in the Big Apple. Whole nother world down there.


I guess I will keep this rural, bright green paradise of a world for now, despite the money to be made in the city. Our tire guy (who is a real nice fella, as is his whole family) stopped by to pick up a forgotten tool yesterday and remarked on how peaceful it was out among the green trees and fields and how much he would like to live here. Sometimes it is easy to forget all that when the snow is blowing and stuff is breaking down right and left. Takes somebody else's eyes to remind us.

Robin Song

 Nobody knows....

 The trouble I've seen....

 Nobody knows..the trouble I've seen....

 Glory hallelujah! Nobody knows....

 Oops, oh, hi dad....

And you call yourselves thrushes! I'm hiring a music tutor today!

Hey You

Yes, you!

You grumpy old, frumpy old, mean old lady in the bright yellow sweatshirt!

Yeah, you're the one I'm talking to.

Get offa our porch and get inside so we can sit on our egglings. It's cold out here you know....

 Now getchu gone!

Working Wednesday

What with that BSE case in California (the fourth EVER in the US) and the nearly non-existent presidential primary here in NY, I am hard at it on the Farm Side. So until noon, when I hope to be done, here are a couple of photos, just to keep this space from echoing empty all day.


***If you right click on little Mrs. Robin and then click the magnifier, you can see that she was glaring at me for daring to walk around the yard.

A Robin in Your Ear

Yesterday I opened the sitting porch door, which is sealed with plastic and blankets all winter, because it hit nearly ninety here. However, just as I was doing so the cows got away from Alan and had to be rounded up and I never got around to spending more than a minute out there.


This morning though I indulged in one of the nicest things about spring and summer, sitting in my red metal chair out there, with the camera and the sunrise......ah....


The birds were busy shuttling back and forth across the long lawn and I was just settling in comfortably, when whir-buzz-bizz-a robin flew up over the railing beside me and darned near ended up in my ear. I don't know which one of us was more surprised, but I can tell you that I sure ducked and covered. 


As you can see he is up to important business and once again I will be sharing the porch this summer...half pleasure, half pain...as it is nice to be close to the birds, but I hate to disturb them and feel guilty about using "my" porch. I was going to put a few sunflower seeds out there to see if I could have "cardinal in a box" again, but maybe I shouldn't. 


And I have a question...if you get a robin in your ear, how do you get it out?

A Robin a Day

Keeps the gloom goblins away....

From the Weekend

A Wee Guest who spent some time on the sitting porch...sitting...and chirping VERY loudly

My Aunt's fabulous water garden

Cousin Mark at the book signing, which was lots of fun, with cookies, punch, hugs and the signing of books.

Robin, Robin, Robin, Robin

The triple-decker nest atop the front porch pillar is overflowing with robin chicks, crowded shoulder to feathery shoulder. The non-stop bug-in-beak stuffing marathon goes on all day, whether I walk through the hall way with laundry or not. They are delightful. Even their cries for food are melodious and pleasant to the ear. No mistaking that our favorite spring bird is a thrush in a gaudy vest.

This is the second brood to be reared there this spring. The first bunch fledged and were gone a few weeks ago. These three...or maybe four if someone is keeping his head down...have already cast off their fledgling down and gaping beaks and are sporting streaked chins instead and spotty breasts and bright, sharp, yellow, beaks.

I hope when they come off the nest they can avoid the cats and grackles and sharp shinned hawks that patrol the lawn to join the other patrol...the worm and grub patrol.

Or maybe they will take after their dad, the fly catcher robin that I wrote about in the Farm Side. He catches bees and bugs n the wing like a really big, awkward phoebe and is quite a sight to see.

Anyhow, I sure do like the robins. Whether they are singing at dawn and dusk and rain time or sitting on the handles of the boss's dad's old plow, announcing ownership of the back lawn in loud cheeps, they keep me company all day long. (Someone should tell the male that the catbird and the mockingbird like to sit on the plow too....really he doesn't own it at all.)

Fight

In this corner, weighing at not very much, Robin Redbreast

And in this corner, weighing in at about the same, Harry the Harbinger of Spring

And the winner is......Robin Redbreast (click for a better view of the action)

Hooray for robins

(File under "finally".) Seems as if everyone has seen robins but me and I have been feeling kind of left out. Usually making the run down to Cobleskill this time of year will provide one or two, but Liz and I took Becky down to school this morning and didn't see a one on the way in. Then we did a little grocery shopping as this weeks midriff is going to feature yet another winter storm and we were worse than overdue for stocking up. On the way up the mountains back to our colder and more wintry home we saw one...then two...then thirty...then at least a hundred.

Yay robins! That's all I gotta say.

Good morning

First coffee, sharply fragrant, (although just now it is all about the caffeine). Second coffee is never as good no matter what you do to it. First rooster crowing at something even though there isn't one single glimmer of light in the east...except what comes from the lights at the county jail. (Speaking of which, the penny just now dropped as I was writing, why we see UFO's down there all the time. Those weird lights in the sky are either helicopters searching for escapees they don't tell us about or dropping off or picking up. I can't believe it took me so long to figure it out-lousy sense of direction I guess...always thought the lights were the city.)
I also used to think that roosters had some special connection to the sun and crowed because they felt it coming up. Now I know that they crow at lights on the Thruway, the moon, flashlights and fireflies. Guess they just like to crow.

Even though it is pitch dark I can tell it is going to be sunny today, at least early on. On cloudy days I can barely drag myself out of bed in the morning, but this day I am wide awake already. We had a little sunshine yesterday (and by little I mean in thirty-second increments) and it was wildly invigorating. Whenever it peeked out I felt like cleaning the house from attic to cellar, starting my whole garden, and writing War and Peace (fortunately it only slipped out from between the clouds a couple of times). Guess that is why they call it spring...it makes you feel springy.

Still no robins although I thank the folks who have written or called to share theirs. There were a couple of pale Canadian birds about four miles down the road (right near the jail in fact) on Sunday. Wish they would take a tiny detour in their Northward journey and fly down here for a minute. It is Northview after all....they COULD stop by if they wanted to.