Space Aliens of the Northeastern World

This scout for peeps from other planets gives himself away
to the alert human by hiding in an old refrigerator

Space chicken hiding among the real ones, but you can always tell

The mother ship

Pod Children

Pod Children spawning

Successfully 

Tides

A birding hot spot up on the hill

Surfs up! Shoals of birds wash over the land, wave on wave, wild songs and whipping wings.

Dim sky and fading season drain the color from the world, painting trees drab and hillsides dismal. Fog falls. Watercolor light shines a maple here, a cottonwood there, bright red and yellow like a beacon.

A White Tailed Deer barks and snorts behind the cow barn, right next to the Warlock, then bounds north, all flash and flagging. Watch the road you silly thing. It is much more dangerous than an old lady, too slow to even catch you with a camera, and a pair of binoculars that will not shoot.

The Warlock

So many sparrows on this unscheduled bird walk. Song, White-throated, White-crowned abound. Was that a Tree Sparrow? Coulda been but maybe not. The light is so dim today, although it is sunny over on the mountains.

It's sunny over on the mountains

Poplars are companionable trees, gossiping as I pass. The tiniest zephyr sets them singing stories that will soon be silenced. 

Ooh, a House Wren. It announces itself to me, chatter, chatter, chatter, out to branch tip scold. In come a half a dozen Song Sparrows. No wonder you can always pish up a Song Sparrow. They must be friends of wrens.

Somebody's been gossiping around the water cooler

A leaf is as loud as a lark these days, tumbling down, down, down, with a crackle and a ricochet, leaf to leaf to leaf mould.

I think they are all birds and look every time one falls.

And then, as I crest the first set of hills into the Thirty-Acre Lot, a different call. The strident and distinctive song of some large construction machine backing up.

It is very loud and very close.

What the heck? 

And so my little idea to hike up to my favorite little hotspot between barn and first hay field to look for warblers is suddenly extended. Back and back and back to the Old Spreader Field, just to be sure. 

Yep, it's over at the neighbors. They are building a new barn. We took a spin yesterday to take a look. Very nice.  

Then down the hill again to breakfast and a second cup of coffee. So many fine things to see today out here on these north-looking hills. 

I spotted one of these on our Sunday hike...or a fruit of one.
 Thimble Berry, Flowering Raspberry, call it what you will...it always seemed to me to be the very taste of summer and all the better for its scarcity.
Sunday's berry was just a little sour like the fading of the season but delicious all the same.

Birds seen: 
Canada Goose
American Crow
American Kestrel
American Robin
American Goldfinch
Cedar Waxwing
Song Sparrow
White-throated Sparrow
White-crowned Sparrow
Yellow-rumped Warbler
House Wren
House Finch
Northern Cardinal
Blue Jay
Black-capped Chickadee
Red-Winged Blackbird
Birds looked for and maybe heard but their call is so indistinct and insect-like...Palm Warbler. I paused at the spot where I have seen them and played their call on my phone...answers quickly came from several places. Were they? Or were they not? I just don't know.

Update: Second time this has happened in recent weeks. .....You probably think I'm making it up but I'm not..... After all that hiking looking for a Palm Warbler and picking up a tick in the process I was out walking the pups.....Standing next to the garden pond looking up at the place where years ago I once saw a Wilson's Warbler. 

And there's a little warbler. Two white spots under the tail. 
It came down and LANDED ON THE GARDEN POND rim!!!! about ten feet from me and sat there so I could get a good look.

Rusty crown, yellow undertail, flicking tail. Yeah, Palm Warbler. It noodled around me for a while and then got into a battle with another one and off they went...only the second and third ones I have ever seen! I swear my hair stood on end. Just uncanny.

Why the Dachsie Wears no Collar

Normally Miss Daisy sports a little red collar, quite generic but it serves. Mack's is blue and smaller, but of similar ilk.

We have no fear of gender labeling here. Boys is boys and girls is girls and we know it and deal with it. And, hey, our girls fix trucks and drive tractors and the boys is good cooks and do their own laundry when needed, so it works for us.

Anyhow, yesterday, along about the middle, Daisy started snorking and horking and making bad noises. At first I didn't think much of it. Dachshunds are big on unappealing sounds and she is a pro.

Then I looked at her. OMG, she was puffed up like a Shar Pei! Her face was fat and wrinkled to nearly melon-size and her whole body resembled an overstuffed sausage.

Of course, no one was home but Jade, Peggy, and me, and the vehicles were all absent on errands.

Thank goodness for cell phones. Jade called Liz and I called Becky and we sent them both in search of children's Benadryl. Liz found it first.

By the time they made it home I had to remove her collar....she was that swollen.

The medicine did the trick though and in a couple of hours she was able to enthusiastically eat her dinner.

This morning she is still making a few funky noises so I guess I will give her another dose, and I think she will be fine in a couple of days, but dang!!! 

That was not fun.

Judging by the welt on the side of her muzzle after the swelling receded, I think she was stung by a wasp or hornet. There was a live one swilling around in the pups' water bowl earlier and I'll bet she was the culprit. I gave her a swirly in the kitchen sink before I noticed poor Daisy's distress.

We are awash in a tide of them! They come inside on the laundry, creep in through cracks, and are everywhere we look or step. I use a W when I think about the hornets of the clan and despise them roundly.

Old Age is Like a Hangover

Okay, I suppose I'm not that old yet, but I am fast approaching the age mentioned in a certain old Beatles song.

I first worked at anything other than babysitting or selling in my parents' stores when I was fifteen.

I was hired to clean kennels and walk and feed dogs for our local veterinarian. I stayed with the job for a goodly number of years, well up into my twenties.

Those years involved certain behaviors in which I would not indulge today, and indeed have not indulged for decades 'n' decades.

Said activities made Saturday and Sunday mornings spent kneeling on the floor, head in a kennel, cleaning up papers decorated with the results of whatever the occupant did over night, problematic to say the least.

Our patients were sick and scared. Or if they were boarders, very unhappy at not being home with their folks.

They reacted accordingly. The papers were daunting. Weekend mornings were painful.

This morning, straight-laced and sober sided, I picked Mack's papers up off the floor in the kitchen. Though my only indulgence last night was a good dinner and a good night's sleep, I was catapulted back to the days in the dog ward. Headache, yes, queasy, well, not that at least, aching all over? Yup.

 I didn't even have fun getting that way. Oh, well, puppies is worth it....

And I do have a very professional paper piling technique left over from all those kennels...didn't spill a drop.

Or a plop.

Color me Mountain

 I'm a valley person. Grew up in the foothills, but moved to this valley very young....and kept coming back here time after time. Farming is good in river valleys, warmer, moister, better dirt all around.

Mountains are cold and bony, hard and stony, and unforgiving of crop production. Hike the hidden high places and you will see skeletal remains of failed homesteads, foundations drifted over with leaves; vines and trees clawing at chimneys, and pulling them down. The mountains were hard on the folks that settled this area, while the valleys gathered them in and helped them grow..

Mountains are irresistible though.

In my life, there have always been forays closer to the peaks, some lasting longer than others. I lived in a cabin once for a few years...up there....

And to folks who love them, no matter how far from the mountains we move in time or space, they always sing that seductive song every time we see them in the distance.

It grows louder and louder the higher we climb until we can hear it all around us...or see it, because mountain music can be seen, smelled, heard, and felt.

We experienced it strong and fine this past Sunday. Good to know it's always there. 

Turn up your Sound

.....For the full experience of this second short clip of Auger Falls. It was so loud that it was hard to converse even high above the water where we were. 

Alan was here before and he says the water was relatively low yesterday. I guess when the spring runoff is taking place it shoots right to the top of the rock channel and is more than exciting enough for Adrenalin  junkies .

Far as I'm concerned, low water is plenty enough for me. 

Not Moose of the Adirondacks

Notopthalmus viridescens...okay, okay, Eastern Newt

If I Kill it

Then it's mine, right?

Cuz  I brought home dinner!

I'll share!

Moose Hunting in America

Indian Lake overlook

Another one of those days when our son got up and said, "Let's go....Montezuma or the 'Dacks?"

Well, we just did Montezuma and he loves the Dacks, so off we went leaf peeping and hunting for moose. What with the season of love for even-toed ungulates well under way, there have been a number of moose sightings recently, as near by as Broadalbin and Northville.

Long Lake

We were optimistic...well, not really. The odds of actually seeing a moose are extremely thin, but we saw a lot of other good stuff and had a lot of fun. 

We drove to Tupper Lake and checked out the Wild Walk. Way too crowded for our taste so we passed it up and headed back south.

Great Blue Heron Tupper Lake

First we went hunting for the Cedar River Flow. I was taken camping there at least forty years ago and have looked for the place several times since without finding it...no cell service up there so no use trying to look it up. I never remembered to look it up at home...

The road sparkled like magic...or new-fallen fluffy snow

A handful of the fine sand from the road.
You can see the garnet, quartz and other minerals in my hand...do click

This time we drove and drove and drove on a road we had taken once before and given up on. This time after 17 miles of twisting, winding, climbing, falling narrow dirt road we found it.....

So profoundly changed that without the sign I wouldn't have known it.

So we took a short hike and some nice photos and enjoyed the amazing scent of the woods and then....

We headed south again.

Along the way Alan pulled into a little trailhead north of Wells and we hiked a ways up hill and down to Auger Falls.

None of these photos begin to do justice to the wild, whipping, churning water. The ground shook. It was scary, but so worth the hike.

Rainbow over Auger Falls

And then we came home tired, but full of images of red and gold and wonder.

Fiery Skies and Clever Guys

Sunset yesterday was amazing. We were done for the day but when that pink and golden light came shining through the windows I went right back out to see. It was gorgeous!

It faded to pink as the sun set and a skein of geese came honking over. I tried for photos, but by then it was just too dark. Not too dark to see though....so lovely against all that cotton candy pink and blue...and never too dark to hear. There is no sound as evocative as the haunting cry of passing geese.

As you know, we have already seen some heavy rain and more is quite likely. I stepped outside to find this....what you gonna do when your baling twine needs protecting from the weather???? 

Why, put it in the gas grill of course...

What else?

I mean, seriously?

Will Joaquin?

Trying to reason with hurricane season

That is the question. After a dry couple of months we got all the missing rain over a day or two.

Pretty rough on the driveway. 

I have a little straight-sided bucket outdoors that acts as a sort of low tech rain gauge. Just under five inches of water in it right now. I pretty much trust that figure because the water in the garden pond was way below the bottoms of the plant pots and now they are well down into it.

Everyone is speculating wildly on the course of Hurricane Joaquin. They say he's a bad one.

They say he may make landfall here.

Or maybe not. He may bring a lot of rain and beat us up inland or he may go on a pelagic tour and count Jaegers and Petrels off the coast.

Either way we are getting ready. Making the obligatory visit to the grocery store for milk and bread. Getting the hay out of the baler chamber and wrapping it all up in a big hay canvas. BTW Alan, someone made sure that the canvases at the barn are folded up neatly ready to use or put away....I'll bet you can guess who.

One of those tarps is coming over to the house in case of emergency. 

Meanwhile it is the most beautiful day you could imagine. Cool, crisp, breezy, with very clean air. 

While I was hanging up laundry I watched the sky for a bit though, and it was fairly boiling. Ropes of jet trails tangling with whipping cirrus clouds and the whole mess so dizzying I felt like tipping over.

Wow! It may be nice down here but stuff is happening up there.

Guess I will put the brightest face on it I can and hope that our wanderers get home safe and Joaquin feels like an ocean voyage..

And maybe Ol' Joey boy will blow in some interesting birds.

Take care!

Research

This week's Farm Side sources.

World Dairy Expo

Punkin Chuckin

The World's Largest Corn Maze

Agriculture is important work, but it can be fun too.