Morning in the Bird Park

I took advantage of the new paths to walk out over the orchard and pasture just after daybreak this morning....and took some more photos as well. I suspect that I am going to be spending as much time as I can creeping around out there. It is really pretty and there are birds everywhere.

Also finally got a video of the song of the Willow Flycatcher, so I could get a positive ID...and he is....a Willow Flycatcher that is. 

I was kind of embarrassed though. I have worked hard over the past few years to learn the calls and appearance of as many of our local birds as I could. This morning I heard at least six about which I have no clue whatsoever....not even enough to narrow them down to start looking....

My Own Private Park

Jade has been mowing paths up through the old horse pasture, which was once an apple orchard. I took a hike out there last night before supper....and by the way guys....don't wait for me, just save me some.

It is breathtakingly lovely out there over the river.....really nice. 

C'mon, we'll take a walk.......

And, by the way, thanks, guy, nice job. 

Crow Carousel

Also seen from the big windows, but nowhere near as lovely

Monday, Alan, his fiance, the boss, and I were talking in the living room...the big windows were playing my favorite show...the great outdoors.

The creeper crew, come by to clean up some well-aged venison

Up flew a crowd of crows, maybe half-a-dozen or seven or so. They were a tight-knit little flock, not at all what you usually see with corvids.

There was a crow's nest up in the hedgerow this spring...it was fun to watch the crows drive herds of turkey vultures away from the meadow...there is a flat Bambi down on the Thruway and they often stop by to dine..... while grackles dive-bombed the crows.

 I'll bet these were the fledglings, just out for first flight.

The wind was gusty and blustery, whipping around the house in a whirl. The great black birds used the spot where the winds come back together, not quite a lee, but more  an invisible whirlpool of spinning air, to perform a crow ballet.

I know crows CAN be beautiful, the shine of the sun on a wing, the whisper of pumping feather edges as they row by...but this was stunning. 

They tumbled and twirled and danced and swirled, one over the other and then under, like a great big merry-go-round, crow ballet. A veritable spinning ball of birds.

Then they lifted over the edge of the yard and were gone.

Crows as poets....who knew?

Dairy Farming..an Interesting Story

A few links that tell an interesting tale.

NY Dairy Farmer Profile

Two of the top three dairy states, not ag-friendly

More from the source (Lookit all them Fs!)

Reclaiming the Meaning of Abuse from the Activists

A Day to Remember

A powerful day, full of family and contemplation.

First, Alan took me off for some groceries, both for his life in the South and ours here in Spring-washed Upstate.



Then he drove me near the tornado's devastating path. That storm was much worse than news stories would have you think,  and it barely missed his fiance's family's farm and those of other dear friends of ours.

What we saw was pretty awful, huge trees uprooted or scrambled to splinters by the wind. Buildings damaged or utterly destroyed. A swath of devastation that stretched for miles, jumping hills and rolling down streams like a juggernaut. Horrible.

But everywhere we looked people had joined together to help and fix and reforge lives and structures. Chainsaws roared, bonfires broiled, people in gloves and hard hats hurried from place to place, tidying, rebuilding, repairing. 

 It was at once sobering and heartening.....we have plenty to be grateful for, don't we, whether it be friends and neighbors who step up in a crisis, or lives that the storm passed untouched, at least this time.

On a more cheerful note, our boy put into action an idea we had been kicking around, but not attacking. He turned the defunct gas grill into a handy-dandy charcoal cooker. Not many modifications later, he was preparing beer brats by his Aunt Lisa's recipe.

Yeah, they were a hit. I was glad not to have to junk that old grill and pay for another one. Figure if we don't want to mess with charcoal we can just dig some coals out of the wood stove...all that good maple should make a nice cooking fire.

Jade mowed some paths up into the old horse pasture. Can't wait to get out and do some birding out there.....

Then in the evening a gleeful Miss Peggy discovered that she could reach up and bat the stuffed cow that serves as a decoration on her car seat handle. Oh, my, if only you could have heard her chortle and laugh and giggle and gurgle. 

And then whack the thing again.

And again. Grinning from ear to ear.

 She can do something now and she is delighted about it. Must be boring to just lie there and yell for service.  Now, there isn't going to be any holding her back. Can you imagine what child-proofing this place is going to entail?

What with new birds, good weather, everyone in and out all day, busy and contented....it was all good.  Al made it back to DC safely, although he and I sure had a close call with a pick up truck that came careening at us, barely on two wheels on a bad corner, when we were coming home from our Odyssey. That was scary!

Today, back to business, but we enjoyed the holiday. Hope you had a good one too.


 

Happy Birthday, Liz

The kind of girl who fixes fence with a chicken tucked under her arm (hey, women invented multitasking).

 Hope you have a great day, kiddo!

Memorial Day

Some gave all.........

Sunday Stills....Dangerous Things

For more Sunday Stills

Bama Breeze, plotting revenge

Besides the head and hooves, that appendage on the back end is deadly!
 Had my nose broken by one once.

Yep, believe it or not cows are among the most dangerous animals in America.

Bulls too, although at this age Bruce isn't too likely to hurt you

Cows, Kids, and Baltimore Orioles

Female Baltimore Oriole

My friend, Linda, from Colorado sent me some bird feeders, including oriole feeders. So far the orioles haven't seemed interested though, even though I hung one right near their jelly dish. They and the catbirds visit that all day.

Is there anything I should do to get them to use it? 


And do you fill it with the same food as the hummingbird feeders? Curious minds would like to know.

Never saw the orchard orioles again, although I really am pretty sure I DID see them...you know how that is, right?

No meteor shower for our area either. Instead it appears that it rained most of the night and it is still soggy out there, and grey, and gloomy. I SHOULD  go birding for a few minutes today. I am pretty sure the Black-throated Green Warblers are back in the cow lane. Think I heard them yesterday, but the call of our male is just a little different from the one on iBird, so I want visual verification.

Alas, this weather is not terribly tempting....but I probably will go anyhow...or at least take the binocs to the barn... you get sick of rain after a while.

 Kids are all home, which is nice, if hectic. Always great to have Alan in our area code, even if we only see him passing through. I dreaded having them move away....

This young lady keeps things interesting

Moon is giving a lot of milk on the new grass.  Wondering if we should ship a couple big, weaned, bulls, and buy a pair or two of little ones to drink it all. The four that are still on milk now are getting pretty fat, the boss and the kitties get all they can drink, and with Bama due to calve....

Daisy, deciding whether to wash Tangerine....or EAT her

Bama is starting to bag up for that coming calf. Hope she comes through okay. She has a number of breeding dates...wish we knew which one she caught to, as she needs an injection of selenium.

 Our area is very deficient in that mineral, and we customarily give it a couple of weeks before a calf is due. Seems to help them to pass the placenta in a timely fashion and in general post calving health.

One of the best nutritionists we ever worked with, who served the herd back in the day, once gave me a bottle of a "people" selenium supplement made by the company that supplied the selenium we put in the feed then...which meant that we didn't have to inject the stuff. After a while I worked up my courage to actually take it...and I felt great. I've tried to find it commercially available since then, since feeling great is high on my agenda, but I never have.

I am very nervous about Bama's coming baby. She is such a pet...and she in part belongs to friends....

Bama and Moon, who like the silly cows they are, spend their days next to Sunny, the horse, rather than grazing all the acres they have to themselves. You can't see it, but Sunny's yard is just north of them. Must be they think he is handsome or something. so despite having a pasture that kept fifty-plus, they are chewing on short grass.

Storm!

Just before the screaming started

I was Peggy sitting so I didn't get any storm pictures, but there was wind and hail and there are tornadoes off to the east.

Gettin' ready to tune up

Dunno if it's over, but I sure hope so. Also hope you are all safe. 

Did you see that hail in Amsterdam?!? We had nickel-sized and a lot of it, but I saw pics on Facebook of lumps the size of small lemons! Yow!

And the wind... I was sitting in the chair with Peggy and the trees next to the driveway started to bend 1/4 of their height and to lash and whip, so I got up and took her to the center of the house away from all the windows. When you have four-by-eight foot windows you stay away from them during storms.

She never even woke up. Now her mommy and daddy are home so she is happy as a clam at high tide.

Gramma, you funny lookin'

A Sea of Lilacs

Sends a tide of sweetness, washing over the beaches of our lives. They bloom for such a short time, but they are such a joy while they do.

I'm glad we moved the dwarf pink one up from town. Wish I could remember its name. I bought it years ago with money I made taking care of a neighbor's horse for a while and it is a favorite. Hope the shoot from it we planted for Jeffro does well and blooms true.

Tangerine and Kiwi

Yesterday was packed with doings....cows out, cows in....all two of them. Sick calf doctored on. New kittens fussed and fooled with. My middle name is "sucker" now, as Becky has two of them up in her room. Oh, well, she works hard, but if I smell cat, there will be two new occupants in the barn.

Liz planted some garden while I watched little miss cranky pants. She didn't have a real good day yesterday. Something was hurting, tummy ache or some such thing, and she was not a happy camper. Poor little girl.

Then there was the voting. School budget and board. Glad to see that a local farmer and the father of Alan's best friend was elected. Common sense and business experience is a fine thing in politics and we see way too little of it.

Came home to a good dinner, monster burgers, a Northview recipe and family favorite, and then got to talk to my boy for a while....always a good way to end the day.

His pic was in an area paper, during the tractor cavalcade in the Duanesburg Memorial Day Parade. He is the guy in the orange hat, and the lovely lady behind him is his fiance. Of course we are delighted that he is engaged to a girl who can drive a tractor.....

There it is, all the news that's fit to print......enjoy this lovely, sunny day, for I fear the rains are making a comeback.

Oh, yeah, I forgot...this happened too, right behind my folks' house!

Clean Water Confusion

Pink lilacs have nothing at all to do with this story......

Been researching EPA proposed changes to the Clean Water Act. 

Yow! 


Talk about confusing. And dangerous to property rights and national commerce, and especially to farming.

Seems that whenever the government sticks its oar in, the waters get muddy.

I admit to not having read every single word of some of these pages, but even a quick skim will scare you.

Except perhaps that they require water to grow

Or it should.

Some links:

Rapanos v. United States

Update on a National Shame

The Grey Lady weighs in

Fox has its say

Google Books too

The Daily News

American Farm Bureau

I have many more if you are not bored yet. This week I am earning my stipend......

And these clouds contain water...but don't worry...the EPA regulates that too.

Update: Here is another ridiculous overreach the boss brought to my attention.

Congratulations are in Order

For my amazing sister-in-law who just graduated college with honors, while keeping their small family farm running, and taking care of her family, watching over our folks, weaving and many other interesting things.

Congratulations, Lisa! We are all proud of you!

Schooled

Clinging to the screen. I think if I had opened the door they would have come right inside

Right offa my own porch! The little wrens fledged yesterday. I missed the show, as they were pretty quiet about it, but at almost dusk, when I was sitting in my Sunday chair, eating stir fry cooked by Liz, they brought the party right to me.

My chair is right opposite the door to the sitting porch. The babies came right to the door and clung to the screen. We are quite accustomed to tame hummingbirds visiting the doors and windows, but this was amazing. I think there are three babies, but it seemed as if they were everywhere, beeping and cheeping and fluttering.

Just about dusk last night

And the anxious parents, which have totally ignored us through the whole saga of nest building, incubating, and brooding, inches from our heads on the back porch, went nuts!

What an uproar. Screeching and screaming and carrying on!

This morning, thinking that they were probably gone, I dared to step out on that little sanctuary in hopes of conducting my normal new species scan and taking some shots of the sunrise.

OMG! Wrens scattering in every direction. I sat down for a minute in my little red chair, but the parents came right to me and scolded me loud and roundly.  Pretty funny to see one peeking up over the edge of Grandma Peggy's little yellow fernery, inches away from my face, and cussing like a sailor.

'All right, all right, it's too darned cold to sit out here anyhow.'

I came back into the warmth and left them alone....as the babies seemed to be coming right back after fluttering down across the driveway for a minute. Between the freezing temps...we brought all the geraniums back inside last night...and the birds...I wonder if I am ever going to get to enjoy that porch this spring.

Maybe I should call this the tale of two porches.

Waiting for me to leave so they could come back on the porch this morning

Weekenders

What a weekend. Flooding...inside the kitchen no less, from a leaky thingumabob under the sink. I think I have that mopped up and the boss has stalled it, but whoever plumbed this place was not a pro or very foresighted. No shutoffs where you need them....

A funeral, for Jade's cousin. Long day for them. Lots of wren noise. Lots of rain. Today the sun is doing its thing, but it is cold for May...way, way cold.

Days with my boy, which mean a lot to me, btw. There are few things more delightful than sitting on a porch with someone you love. And we have lots of love and a pretty darned good porch for it too.

He scored a long weekend at home, before a long, nasty spell away, and we took full advantage. Talking of potential property acquisitions, trying on futures, and watching the birds come in. Slowing down the woodchuck onslaught, one pellet at a time....why is it that all the herds of coyotes that trammel the lawn each night and day never eat them?    Fixing windows, moving things too heavy for mom and not of interest to others, general home improvement, enhanced by good company and warm talk. He is off today for two months far away and lonesome and we will miss him. At least he will be a little closer than Virginia, which was way too far. But, first, driving a tractor in a parade today...I hope there will be pictures.

Chicken dinner. Steak dinner. Vanilla ice cream with homemade strawberry jam from last summer. There is almost always good food and companionship in this house. People coming in and out to eat and talking and talking and talking. Big dogs. Little dogs. Big horses. Little horses....not in the house, of course, but you can see them from the kitchen window.  Feeding cows and calves, heating milk, hanging buckets. Grass that is slow to grow where we want it and all too quick where it has to be mowed.

It is quite a thing to have everyone home at once...But this is a big house and can hold them all quite well, and a good thing too. It seems to like the noise and bustle and gets its glow on when everybody is home....well, except for that blasted flood in the kitchen. I think it likes to have its rooms full and busy.

Sunday Stills....One Subject

Ruby-throated hummingbird drying off in the early morning sun

Ed's challenge for this week was to choose the one subject we would photograph if it was the only one we could use for the rest of our lives.

Carolina wren with a beak full of bugs, feeding the babies on the back porch

As you would probably guess, although i love taking pictures of our little one and farm animals and trees and frogs and all, the birds are first on the list of what I like to picture.

These are from Saturday morning.

For more Sunday Stills.....