November..a Concerto in Brown

I went walking last night for just a little while....

You Say Potato

And so does Peggy

The kids finished digging potatoes yesterday...a really nice crop too, and they are so delicious! Peggy went along to help...her mama buried some little ones in soft dirt so she could dig her own.

When they came back to the house she had to show me every single one of them, one at a time. I made a big deal out of sniffing each one..they just smell like dirt...and saying "foo" and making a face.

She thought that was hilarious, so she brought me more and more and more of them. Then she moved them from box to box and then hauled them in the living room. 

By bedtime last night she was still bringing me taters and laughing uproariously at "foo!".

How could you not love her?

This Magic Moment

Fall is hanging on like a stubborn sloth clinging to a dying tree. I am loving it though. Warm, sunny days, clear bright nights, one after the other. If only the government would stop screwing around with our biological timers so we don't know when to sleep or wake.....did you ever think that the timing...just before election day...was no coincidence?

I wonder how many people stay home from the polls because they are too pooped to participate.

Yeah, if only I wasn't feeling the after effects of that Mack truck that bowled through Saturday night, I might be able to stay up late enough to look for the Aurora, which is supposed to be shining us on here south of the border....the Canadian border that is.

Even getting up is an unexpected challenge, when your humble correspondent normally has no trouble winning the race against sunrise. 

And of only local interest, but what the heck, I am local...... Of the population of the city of Amsterdam in 2013, which totaled 18, 206 folks, only 2250 voted for one mayoral candidate yesterday, and 1304 for the other. I would imagine that perhaps an awful lot of people have nothing important to say about who is running their city. Of course many of those included in the population are not eligible to vote, being children, or not yet citizens, etc. but still......

18,206
- 3554
______
14,652

Or maybe it was the time change.......

De-Voted

To voting. Been doing it since I turned 18 and haven't missed many opportunities to make my opinions felt.

This was the first time we enjoyed the company of an actual live pig though. I only wish he had been around the first few times I participated in this scary stuff...or at least it was scary for me back then. Not any more.

Now it's your turn if you haven't already. Get out, getter done. And if you vote here in our district, enjoy the piggy, who seems very sweet, and also enjoy your nice sticker.

It says, "I voted!" and so we did. 

What's up with That?

Looks a lot like work

Matt and Kegan stopped over yesterday and made us six gallons of apple cider from the fruit of the Winesap tree. It is delicious. We froze most of it, but there is a gallon in the fridge awaiting enjoyment.

They used an 1869 cider press Matt bought from the family of an area dairy farmer who was a good friend of ours, which the guys rebuilt a few weeks ago.

I have participated in cider making all my life, starting on our aunt and uncle's farm, and then doing it ourselves for years, making hundreds of gallons each year to sell. However, we always gathered apples to take them to a commercial press and then bottled them there. This was very different...same principal, but more hands on and smaller scale.

I got to play too, turning the crank a bit until I ran out of steam and feeding apples, one at a time, into the hopper. Alas, I have to tell you, I can't feed apples and talk at the same time...

It was great to actually use some of those apples! The poor tree outdid itself this year!
Winter nights will be better with a glass of spicy cider to enhance our dreams and chase away the cold.

Whomp

Jimi 'n' Janis maybe????

Hit by the season. I don't do well with short days. Cloudy, gloomy short days are the worst.

This is a cloudy, gloomy, short day with a time change. Arghhh!

Da chef (Lisa is a chef too, but I didn't get a good pic of her)

Still we had a great party yesterday. Not everyone could come but some folks from very far away made it....even my famous cousin. Another of my many, marvelous cousins brought me a delightful pair of china plates with BIRDS on them! Golden Crowned Kinglets to be exact. Delightful!

Everyone got into the wig....er....act

The party was fun. 

Food was great, (Matt and Lisa keep improving their barbecue until it is a good thing I don't live with them....see personal description below) companionship ditto, and some of the costumes of the season outstanding. Some folks did such a good job that other close family members were asking who they were. I didn't exactly knock myself out.....Alan got me a blaze orange hoodie and I went as a pumpkin. I was already round, so it was just a matter of gilding the gourd so to speak.




Now I will return to my gloomy grump and contemplate dragging myself outside to see what the jays are all about. The other day when the birds were making odd noises and I went outside to check I was treated to a Sharp-shinned Hawk right in the Winesap apple tree.

Grey ghost swift-winging, silent as murder, secret as death. It was able to fly away without me seeing where it went even when I was looking right at the place where it landed.

Talk about spooky.

Portrait

Two 'o' my favorite peeps, piled one atop the other. Can you tell they are buddies?

Earthquake

Many of you would scoff at this baby, centered in the town where I was born.

However, the boom it produced set the windows rattling, the dogs barking, Peggy fussing, and Becky running upstairs to see if the kitties had tipped over her dresser or some other large object.

Nope, just a little 2.5 tremor. Not even one graboid's worth I'm afraid. However, Alan felt a little jiggle in DC a bit before this one, so maybe they are migrating.

Meanwhile, it's foggy and damp and warmer than normal. And the moon is all dressed up for the season.

Why did I not Know about This

ROGL

Until now?????

Thanks Kev........as I sit here snorting coffee, for page upon page.

Eight States

In sixteen hours.....over two time zones.

Alabama
Georgia 
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
New York

I should surely feel worse than I do....but really, it's just nice to be home to the normal state of chaos around here. I can't wait to see Miss Peggy. Word is she missed me and tried to call me on her toy telephone every day.

I missed her too. And the kids who stayed home. And my pup.... Who went abso-terrieristically-ballistic when we walked in the door last night around ten. I was happy to see him too.

We did nine states on the way down, North Carolina being the extra one, but took two days doing it. I never fail to be astonished by our kid, who can calmly drive through interstate traffic like he does....he has such a way of saving time by driving smoothly instead of rushing. He makes up hours just by being able to handle traffic efficiently.

Anyhow, the guys loved Talladega and I loved seeing new country. Now back to doing stuff.....everybody needs to do stuff...

Not a Job for Amateurs

Cities make me Itchy

This really isn't bad as cities go. Although we are in a motel and commercial district it is dead quiet...at least in the daytime.....

Although there is enough concrete to make the point that this is indeed a city, it is mitigated somewhat by the surrounding hills, just beginning to put on a scarf of fall color.

And of course the Mockingbird.





I wake up stupid early here. Different time zone. Different circumstances. Early riser anyhow. I used to scoff at my maternal grandparents who saw every single sunrise from the dark side....and then I got that job walking hots at the race track...and then I married a dairy farmer.... 




And now I can't sleep late.....not ever.

So I lie awake in the morning waiting for him

 He does not fail me.




Our own mockers up north.... at least the ones on our farm...there is infinite variation in a mockingbird....sing local songs. The one that used to live by the house was a true virtuoso and knew every call from gull to jay to Jake brakes. This fellow does wrens, jays, cardinals and car alarms. 

I wondered as I listened to him singing well before dawn today, if anyone else was enjoying his marvelous performance.

When I went out, having finally become confident that the key card will indeed let me back into the room, so now I can go out and walk around, I found his lovely lady sitting just down the wire taking it all in. 

So yes, he is appreciated even when this parking lot birder is up in New York.

Good to know.

Birding Parking Lots

Alabama rainbow at sunrise for Linda

That's my super power. Oh, and fixing motel toilets, but that's just a farm wife thing. Ours was leaking pretty badly when we arrived. It is no longer doing so and I didn't even use my Swiss Army knife.

The place we are are staying is in a flat area surrounded in the far distance by rocky hills. The sky is spectacular. You don't realize that it can be like this when you live in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains and have trees everywhere you turn. Sunrise is 360 and sunset ditto. I like it!

Anyhow, back to the birds...

Before the sun even thought to come up a Northern Mockingbird was whistling loudly right outside our room. As it happened I had counted him after dark last night....he was sitting on a wire bracing himself for race weekend. What a singer! He was ripping out a mad chorus of Carolina Wren and Northern Cardinal and sounded very happy about it.

Then came a flock of Fish Crows cawing in their nasal, high-pitched manner. They were soon evicted by some American Crows.

Right now though all the birds seem to have followed the myriad, mostly white, mostly extended cab, mostly very large, pickup trucks that filled the parking lot last night, off to the race. Folks were even tail gating last night, which seemed pretty cool to me.

It's just me and the House Sparrows and the motel workers here right now.....

And that is just fine....

Alabama sunset

Sweet Home.....Tennessee.....

We made it to Alabama a short while ago and checked into our motel....where there is lovely, lovely WiFi....

 Alabama is lovely too and I am delighted to be here....

However, today I fell in love with Tennessee. I have only been here once before, more than four decades ago.......at night....we picked up a kid in Virginia and drove him home...but that is another story for another day....

Virginia is oaks and evergreens and corn and soybeans, so pretty it almost seems staged.

Georgia is fascinating. I have always liked it there. We stopped at about the nicest rest area I have ever visited in North Carolina...even the crickets chirped with a sweet southern accent. It was so quiet and green and peaceful...

But Tennessee has everything. We came upon the Great Smokies just at break of day. The mist covered them like a mysterious blanket and offered an almost absurd contrast to the Snowbird Snares that jostled all glitzed and gaudy along the flatlands. It was easy to see where they got their name.

Then we were climbing, bumper to bumper, curve to curve, a 360 once as the road swallowed itself with a tunnel and then spit itself out higher up.

Words cannot describe the beauty, but thankfully there are cameras to take care of that.

Even outside the mountains I found the part of the state we crossed to be utterly enticing, enchanting....and fun. From ruby mines and whitewater rafting places every few yards....I could come back and do that some day, the mining, not the rafting. No zip lines for me either.....to hearing a Carolina Chickadee on top of a mountain...I was entranced and full of joy.

A new favorite state to add to Florida...and of course, NY, which is home, after all.

All photos taken in Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Packing

Been running here and running there, buying this, finding that, laundering something else, thinking, planning, fretting and worrying.

And then it came to me. As long as I'm clean and fed, all I really need are the essentials.

Nat Geo field guide

Binoculars

Camera

Heck, I'm already good to go.

By the way Alan is making one of those lifetime trips and taking his old parents along because he is a really nice guy. I am a little nervous about the back seat of the Camaro for all those miles...and I don't do racing, so I am filling my NOOK up with free books off Bookbub....but I'm sure it will be fine.

We are going HERE

Leaving in a couple of days and I am hoping to blog from there....if not....well, we'll be back soon.

And if I live to tell the tale, next week's Farm Side will feature Alabama.

How Many Cows?

Gathered around the purloined salt block? Look closely now....

And baby makes three.