Back Yard Recipe

First: take one disgruntled, elderly barn cat visiting the house (where she doesn't belong).

Add: two nesting mockingbirds with a strong sense of territory.

Stand back: with the camera and click like crazy

Vanquished

Going, going, gone.

The winners

Happy Birthday, Baby Brother

Birthday barter

Matt, Thanks for the chickens both warm and breathing and frozen solid. Hope all the plants grow and thrive, especially Grandpa Lachmayer's rhubarb....

For reference, they are snow in summer, borage, pink and/or white sedum, bee balm, wall pepper, ultra-sweet tomato, cobweb hens and chicks, water lettuce, hornwort and, of course, the rhubarb. Love you kid



****Update, my mama just sent me this lovely old photo of the bouncing baby boy himself. Can you guess what he is doing?

Welcoming the birds

Robin at the bottom of the wren porch steps (through the screen door)

There was a wren here just a second ago!

This morning on the sitting porch

The boss's folks were farming one of these two farms when he was born just a couple months shy of sixty years ago. I have been helping him for well over a third of that. However, we have only lived here as a couple since his lovely mother passed away on my birthday seven years ago. We moved up from town then.

She always fed the birds and had a nice array, including red-bellied woodpeckers back before they were known to range here and a goshawk that liked to kill pigeons in the heifer barn yard.

However, I have never seen anything like the assortment we have begun to have in the last three or four years. There are probably a lot of factors in play. We have let some areas grow up to brush and wild plants, not so much to attract birds as because of lack of time and energy to keep it down. Alan has mowed out a number of paths that wind among mullberrries and old plantations of flowers. We have also planted some things for birds...lots of sunflowers, bee balm, rudbeckia (Peg had it, but we have encouraged it). We let the black caps flourish (mostly because WE like to eat them). We put in the garden pond, so there is the sound of splashing water....bird baths...feeders....

On the way over to Coby last week...our favorite swamp with pileated woodpecker holes

Anyhow, what a summer this has been for birds... If I was faster and he was slower, my early morning sitting porch photo would have included one of the mockingbirds. He wanted to get onto that porch for some reason this morning and gave an irritate chack!! whenever he tried to land on the railing and found me there first. Meanwhile the wren was singing his heart out on the other porch. A short list of what we have seen over the past week (not all of them right in the yard or very welcome either, but visible from the house or yard) pigeons, sassenachs (English *^&%$$ sparrows) starlings, mallard ducks, grackles, chickadees, gold finches, turkey vultures (sharing something nasty with a coyote out on the hill) red-tailed hawk, red-winged black birds, barn swallows, chimney swifts, kestrels, robins, savanna sparrows, song sparrows, chipping sparrows, several catbirds (the mockingbird is cussing on the wren's porch as I type this) indigo buntings, cedar waxwings, a mother Baltimore oriole and family, ruby-throated hummingbirds, blue jays, crows, killdeers, pileated woodpecker, cowbirds, phoebe, common yellow throat warblers, downy woodpecker family with lots of demanding kids, at least four families of cat birds, house wrens (two families), song sparrows, cardinals, great blue heron and more...these are just what I can think of off the top of my head, and just what we have seen in the past week.

It is unfailingly entertaining just to hang out in the yard. The birds figure that it belongs to them and make their feelings known. When they are not nesting, the chickadees come right to the back door to demand seeds. The mockers fly down at our feet for some reason known only to them and flash their wings at us. They are the most companionable of birds and seem to like us.

Taken a little while ago right next to the house

The wren sings to us every time we go to the front door to drive away the starlings and sassenachs that want to steal their nest.
The hummingbirds pitch a fit if the feeder gets empty.

I like having them around.
(It is part of why I never go anywhere if I don't have to.)

Lykers pond...see that thing swimming in the water? Liz and I think it was a young otter. It certainly swam like one. Some middle-aged idiot, during one of those miserable senior moments, forgot that there is a perfectly serviceable, if slightly battered, pair of Bushnell binoculars in the car. ...so we will never be sure...but it sure looked like an otter

No Pie

The fox didn't leave enough black caps in the whole yard....it did leave a calling card right behind the car though. Dag nab it.

***Sorry about the kinda blurry photo. As soon as I took it we ate them, so there was no possibility of a retake.

Happy Birthday America

And I WILL get even*****....that is all I am saying (today is mine too)
Please excuse the boss commenting very rudely in the background. He didn't know Alan was making me this video and it was about the fifth attempt and he just wouldn't make me another one so.......If you turn the volume up loud enough to hear his reaction...well it is pretty understandable as the movie making was going on about three feet from his chair, and he was inspired by the music and all.....





*****with the senders of this card that is....

Grey fox surprise

I was picking up the living room, not my favorite job, but necessary, when I glanced out those bullet pocked windows. There on the lawn was what I saw as the tom cat we successfully sloughed off on the neighbors. He isn't a favorite either and I started to go out to yell at him to take it on down the road.



I couldn't make him look right though. Then in an instant he resolved himself into this unexpected creature (actually it looked like a she). They have passed through before, but they are normally shy and not something you see every day.




We have been blaming the birds for the dearth of ripe black caps but this critter was hoovering them up at an amazing rate (sorry birds). While I took stills through the window, Liz crept out on the sitting porch to take some video. This bold little fox went right on sucking down berries while Mike blundered blindly by not forty feet away from her. I suspect like the deer, she lives out in the hedgerow and is used to our noise and dogs and commotion. Anyway it was pretty neat to be able to get pictures of her.







Video by Liz

Yesterday was just such a busy day

For birds and wild things. This little sparrow showed up on the sitting porch and obligingly sat for his portrait, while occasionally cheeping very musically for his folks.

When they refused to come in he flew away on his own.

I think he may be a savanna sparrow, .
I am not strong on juvenile sparrows.
Anybody?

When I was hanging out laundry today

I felt someone watching me. I looked around but didn't see anyone............except a red-tailed hawk circling lazily over the heifer barn.
The mockingbird tilting back and forth on the telephone wire.
Two gold finches spiraling ever higher as they fought furiously.
The wren singing from another wire.
And this guy.....lurking in the rhubarb leaf bird bath....

Another show girl

Potential summer yearling class heifer, Maqua-kil Blitz Neon Moon, sister to Blitz, daughter of Mandy. For her first birthday yesterday she got her first bath of the 2008 show season. She isn't looking too pulled together yet, but some practice leading will bring that along.
Summer yearling is an awkward class. Heifers rarely look their best at just that age. Moon herself has looked better than this in the past and probably will again in the future. At least she isn't dragging Liz around. Any time she has gotten loose in the barn she has towed the boss or me around like a barge with a dingy.

Red sky at morning

Farmer, get out of the house and go get your cows.....

For rent

Upstairs apartment. Downstairs is occupied by noisy wrens so bring your earplugs. I was taking this shot of the robin (I think, since no one lives there any more) nest atop the pillar where our house wrens nest when the mockingbird stopped by for a short serenade. He landed right on this old chair, but he saw me and flew quicker than I could click.




I think I have seen a major benefit from the occupancy of the wren family. (Besides the delightful all day serenade that is.)
Wrens makes nests of assorted short sticks.
They nest in cavities.
They don't like company.
Thus they fill all the cavities in the area with sticks to keep out riffraff neighbors. Although this shifted our favorite chickadees from the sitting porch to the honey locust I think it also shifted all the starlings out of the eaves. Before the wrens they found every little crack or crevice and built their messy nests and raised their raucous babies there. This year there are none for which I am very grateful.





How about this thing on my sitting porch? It popped up over a very short time...like one day it wasn't there and about three days later it was. It is right over my lake chair where I like to sit when I get time. Liz is allergic to various vespids so it has got to go. I am going to bring the garden hose down from the calf pens and get it taken care of soon.


Here is a video from last year of the wrens feeding the kids. Liz took it and I posted it then, but I think it is worth a revisit...and the little ones haven't hatched yet this year.....

The graduate

Can you guess whose truck this is? He drove himself so we could arrive later.

Yep, this guy

Impromptu music stand

Ditto ....an interesting stand for the cymbals in the cramped space allotted to the band

Laughing at an honor student's speech


Singing in the chorus





Done! Turning the tassel

Graduation day

The youngest Northview kid comes to the end of his public school career today. In August he will be moving on to SUNY Cobleskill to begin studies in fisheries and wildlife. I am pretty excited about that and can't wait to learn vicariously about fish and snakes and deer and such. It has been that way with both the girls. They learn amazing and interesting stuff and they share....as someone who dropped out of college I treasure all that vicarious knowledge. Fisheries and wildlife is going to be icing on the cake.

Anyhow, I have been much asked over the past week or two how I feel about the graduation of our baby.... Melancholy? Sad and depressed? Really proud? Getting old in a hurry?

To the first couple I have to say, not so much. The end of high school in itself is actually going to be something of a relief. The boss was on the school board when it voted not to reinstate the infamous bottle bombers to the football team. It was not a popular decision and we always felt that the girls suffered for it. By the time this kid came along it wasn't so pronounced, but it was there in the background for years....a sad commentary, but there it is. There were and are many fine teachers who disagreed but rose above it and I salute them....like them in fact and will miss them. And there are some pretty silly things going on in schools today, such as making the kids drive around to places like the welfare office so they can learn how to sign up....I don't hold much esteem for that nonsense either and won't be missing it.

As for the real proud part, we are sort of equal opportunity, real proud of all the kids, pretty much all the time, type parents. Along with loving the kids as expected, we like them. They are fun to be around, interesting people. Growing up has made them more fun and more interesting then ever. They all, each and every one of them, have much to teach me, both what they have picked up in school and how to live better. As another blogger said last week, they are truly much better, more finished, mature and thinking people than I was at their age (or at many ages later too). Graduating is rather just another expected step in life. I am more likely to feel real proud when the kid comes home and tells me one of his friends came to him for advice on some thorny, adulthood-approaching-in-a-hurry problem, and he offered a truly helpful and mature answer than about being done with school.....or when he takes a hold and gets things done unexpectedly and well (thanks for chopping out those paths, buddy). Or when he comes home from driving with his newly-minted driver's license and tells me about some wise driving decision he made. Everybody pretty much graduates from high school. Not everybody grows up to be somebody you like to be around and want to spend more time with.

I will miss hearing about the hilarious antics of the Spring Sports Club though. That is a pick-up sports league some of the boys invented in order to play sports, mostly hockey, without the hoopla that goes with the parents and coaches getting involved. They played every night after school, policed themselves and each other and had a heck of a time. That makes me real proud indeed, as well as reminding me of some of the things my next younger brother and I got up to....we were an independent pair too. There was that underground newspaper we ran off on the mimeograph machine in the parents' cellar....and playing the fish cheer when our rock and roll band was invited to perform for a school assembly (quite an honor that, and WE sang it right....can't say the same for our classmates in the audience.) Inevitably I will see less of the kid pretty soon and I will miss him like only a parent can imagine. He claims to be my favorite, and although parents aren't allowed favorites, and darned well better not have any, he certainly is my favorite son....and he can claim to be one of my favorite kids...one of three can't be that bad can it?

As for the getting older fast...been there, done that, and got three tee shirts. I can still hobble around though so I guess it's not too bad.
I hope he has a great time in the either way-too-hot or way-too-cold auditorium today.
And that college is all he wants it to be.
That he is ready to take life by the horns and make what he wants from that too.
Good luck Alan
Your mama loves you!

Strawberry rhubarb 3.14159

Another good thing about June...
(It's Dairy Month, but it is also berry month)

And....does anyone have any idea what this flower is? Alan's best friend's mom gave me one years ago and I shared with my folks. Mine died a long time ago but I liberated this one from their lawn last fall. It is finally in bloom and I am hoping you can help me with an identification. Otherwise I am going to have to keep calling it **their last name** flower...which confuses folks mightily.
Thanks in advance.

Spelunking for linkers

Been splunking around lately trying to find the nice folks who link to me so I can add them to the blogroll. If I missed you and you would like to be added, please drop a note in the comments.
Thanks

Recipe for

Summer

Wish we were here...but we were just at the station pumping gas
when this pretty boat went by on the river

We were going here instead...the three Northview girls can pick like crazy. Eight quarts in under an hour.....just four miles down the road with three left turns . I was gonna make jam, but ran out of time, so I froze most of them.....except the ones for strawberry shortcake. We couldn't get any whipped cream over in town, they were out.
So we had Philadelphia vanilla ice cream instead....oh, and we didn't have the ingredients for the sweetened biscuits that go so well with the berries...so Becky made these little shortbread cookie things......wish you were here.

Happy Birthday Brother

I really, really, really, really LOVE it when you catch up and are the same age as I am for a few days every year.
Love,
Sis


PS, Hope your day is filled with love and fun and music....personally I am going to go picking strawberries

Fuel prices and futures trading

Just received this press release....

Agriculture Committee Reviews Trading in Energy Markets

WASHINGTON - Yesterday, the House Agriculture Committee held a hearing to review trading in energy markets. The Committee has
jurisdiction over the federal agency responsible for preventing fraud and manipulation in oil and gas futures markets.

"A growing number of people believe a flood of speculative money into energy futures is driving oil and gas prices higher and
creating instability," said Committee Chairman Collin C. Peterson. "The Agriculture Committee has legislative jurisdiction over the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and futures markets, and we intend to examine the issue of energy market trading
thoughtfully and carefully next month, separating the facts from the rhetoric. I look forward to future hearings in July to examine
the legislation that has been introduced and to get all points of view in order to address possible manipulation or excessive
speculation in the energy markets."

"Yesterday's hearing was an important step in addressing our nation's energy crisis," said Committee Ranking Member Bob Goodlatte.
"The Committee needs to continue to rigorously investigate the impact of futures trading on energy prices and we need to do so
quickly. I believe increasing domestic supplies holds the greatest prospect for relief from high prices. America's farmers and
ranchers are hit disproportionally hard by high energy cost and they need relief now."

The Committee heard testimony on trading in energy markets from Walter Lukken, CFTC's Acting Chairman. CFTC is the chief regulator
of commodity futures and options markets. The conference report on the Farm Bill, now signed into law, reauthorizes CFTC through
2013.

The opening statement of Chairman Lukken is available on the Committee website at http://agriculture.house.gov/hearings/index.html.
A full transcript of the hearing will be posted on the Committee website at a later date.