Rustic

The seat of the sea....er....C.......

Or maybe I should just say rusty.....

Puppets

Some of the lower mountains from the Indian Lake overlook

With his snowmobiles lined upvacant in the old heifer yard, some on the trailer, some on the ground, all facing north, but all forlorn at the bare ground, Alan wanted to see at least a little snow.....

So he invited me to go to the Dacks yesterday. I do not say no to such requests.

We are puppets of the mountains. When they pull our strings we dance without complaint....we danced on up to Tupper Lake looking for the turnoff to Sabattis Bog. We found it on the way back and went looking for the good birding that is said to exist there. That we didn't find. We did pick up a few Blue Jays, a large flock of American Goldfinches, and a single pair of Red Crossbills....but it was pretty quiet. In fact the quiet was astonishing. Now and then we heard a snowmobile far in the distance and there was sometimes the sound of moving water, but that was all. It was delicious, better than the half time show at that ball game everyone was all excited about yesterday. 

Bird

Snowshoe Hare with Alan's big foot for comparison

Foxy Loxy

The tale of the tracks in the fresh-fallen, delicate, powder (see, we did find snow) was a fine script to read. Here a Snowshoe Hare doodled back and forth across the road and into the swamp. There a large bird strode back and forth, every detail of its feet clear as as a well-printed program, listing the cast of characters in the snow. His vote was turkey..I wondered about Ruffed Grouse. After looking up tracks, he is probably right, but expert opinions are always welcome.





After our little side jaunt down the long and lovely road to Sabattis, (the video above shows a part of the road there on the way back out. It is amazing to drive such a nice road back into the wilderness, but there is a big camp and a Boy Scout camp back there) we headed for the real High Peaks. What a backdrop they form for the puppet stage, poking their lofty noses right through the clouds, unwilling to associate with the gaudily patterned tourist puppets taking in the ice house at Saranac Lake and all that Lake Placid has to offer. I prefer the wilder side of the mountains for the solitude, but the busy High Peaks display astounding scenery....which alas is nearly impossible to photograph around all the buildings and cars and people.

Raquette River at Tupper Lake

A little beaver dam we found

A large beaver house just across the way....see it right there in the center?

And later, home again, home again, to hit backstage early in order for him to get off to work at 2:30.....AM that is......Decades of dairy farming have not prepared me to hit the stage that early, no, no, no....

Still I wouldn't miss the mountains and a day with my favorite chauffeur and birder for a dozen good naps and a box of cookies. 

Quest

Male Norther Harrier

Keeping a list, and trying to expand it each year, of all the birds we see on the farm means looking constantly for year birds. This month has pretty much been a desert in that respect. We got the eagle the other day, but that's about it.

What with on thing and another, mostly foul weather, and ice, and mud, I haven't been able to get out and walk pursuit much this year.

However, today was perfect. Cold enough so there was no mud. No wind. Lovely frost flowers everywhere.

I started up through the heifer pasture.

Cardinals followed. Only one or two come into the feeders, but there were many out in the woods. A dozen? More? A lot anyhow. They trailed along behind me all the way from the buildings behind the house to the farthest corner of the Heifer Pasture.

Once there I crawled under the fence, no mean feat, but I could trust the electric fence not to bite me, because the deer had torn it all down. Big job there come spring. As soon as I ventured into the open hay fields the birds all stayed behind.

All the way up through the heifer pasture I looked for year birds. I think I saw and heard a pair of Bluebirds, but they just wouldn't let me see them well enough to be sure. I wasn't disappointed though...it was amazing to be out on the land.

A little corner where the Savannah Sparrows and Bobolinks love to nest

By the time I made it to the 30-Acre Lot I was ready to sit down, and the tongue of the blue hay wagon was perfectly positioned for same. The metal was cold, but the peace was profoundly pleasant and more than made up for it.

See him there in the left hand corner?

I stayed there...and stayed....and stayed....watching geese fly over, listening to crows, just soaking up the alone of it all.

Then, a flash, white, like a car in the distance, only it was over the brush in the 60-Acre Lot. No cars there.

I trained the binoculars on the field, but nothing appeared.

Suddenly, over the very field where I perched out of sight on the wagon tongue, flew a wonderful year bird. A male Northern Harrier. He obligingly tilted and teetered back and forth across the grass with crows screaming all around. It took a while but I finally got him in the viewfinder.

And then he vanished. I took down the binoculars and there he was. He had landed right in the field. I watched and watched until he finally flew and then walked on down from the fields, full of the delight of such an exciting bird, and the water burbling under the ice everywhere, and all the peace and interest of outside.



Back at the house I was training the camera on a Carolina Wren that was singing from the Winesap Apple tree...and right over my head, flying low and loud, came a Common Raven....year bird number two in just one walk. How cool is that? 

Solitude

Sometimes you need some. And despite the constant furor that reigns indoors here, you don't have to go far to find it. 

Farm Side

The Schoharie, doing its mirror thing

If by chance you like to read the Farm Side on the Friday editorial page of the Amsterdam Recorder, where it has resided since 1998......

For some reason that was not revealed to me, it is moving to Saturday.......so, if you want to read it, you will have to grab the weekend paper.

This week it is about WOTUS....not for the first time, but this is a huge, ongoing issue for anyone who has land and wants to use it for anything.

Here are some of the pages I used for research:

NASDA letter to the House Committee on Agriculture

The House Committee on Agriculture 

The Week that Was

Head 'em up, move 'em out.....er.....in.....

How did we end up being busier in retirement than we were when we had sixty cows and forty or fifty heifers?

Or at least as busy? maybe we are just older and slower so we seem busier......

I dunno, but it feels as if we are going every minute. 

The excitement for the week included an eagle swooping down to take a hen right by the barn. The birds are normally safe inside the stone and wood building and their coop, but they were outside while the coop was getting cleaned.

An evening head count, or beak count if you prefer, seemed to show that at least most of the birds were still there, so maybe he didn't get any, but he was sure after them. They were scattered all over all the buildings, when normally they just hang around in front of the barn. It was a big job to round them all up.

I stood down at the barn while the kids finished up the cleaning, and recapturing, watching him sail back and forth in front of the barn looking to come in for lunch. Pretty exciting way to get a year bird.

And then there were mundane jobs like keeping the stove going, helping get a canvas on the new load of sand, and all the ordinary things we do.

Like answering the phone. I'll tell you what..hay is getting scarce out there. We are getting down to where we have to be careful to keep enough to feed our cows and sheep and horses until spring, so we took all our hay ads down. We have enough to sell a bit, but we are getting enough business from repeat customers for that.

Anyhow, until we took the ads down we were getting nine or ten calls or more right in a row, from all over several states and a big chunk of NY.

 The worst of it was that I kept answering the phone when Rachel from Cardholder Services called, because the phone numbers "she" uses look just like cell phones from other states. I sure do make the guy who answers when you press "1" mad when I tell him I'm turning him over to the FTC. He has called me some downright unpleasant names.

The boss got a pretty flattering comment on the hay the guys put up though. One of our regular buyers has a brother with horses on the race track and he is going to buy some. That is the gold standard around here....hay that is good enough for race horses.

It is important to have good help

Cat Person

All things at high speed except....

This morning I was wondering why the Good Lord, in his infinite wisdom, made me a dog person. Normally I am quite happy being a dog person. I like dogs. They tend to like me.

However.....

While the head cat person in the family slept soundly, kitty cats snuggled around her, I shivered miserably in the rain waiting for my dog.

Flannel shirt over my head, shoulders hunched, dripping,and muttering, cold, unhappy, getting cranky real fast, with a cute little doggy at the end of a drooping leash....waiting.

And waiting.

And waiting. 

Of course he's is a bird dog too. Not that Jack Russell Terriers are noted for such, but this one finds birds entrancing. He's my dog. Of course he does.

This was not a help this morning.

"Nope, not here...
nor here.....
Not here either......."

First, just as he settled tentatively into that tell-tale hunch, a Carolina Wren yodeled from the honey locust. Normally this is one of my favorite sounds. But loud. There is a thriving pair visiting the feeders every day and I enjoy them so much.

Except....today..... not so much. The pup instantly stopped what he was almost doing and  froze into a point, listening intently to the bird.

Which sang, and sang, and sang. "Glad you are so happy with the rain and all, but do you wanna shut up a minute?' I thought to myself.

Eventually the mutt grew bored  or accustomed or whatever and settled down to tend to business....again...

And CHEEP!!! a House Sparrow, also known around here as a %$@&** Sassenach, chirped about three feet behind him. He shot skyward, swapped ends, and turned his attention to that bird.

And then he spotted the flock under the feeders. Bark, bark, barkbarkbarkbark.

'Enough of this', I muttered. 'This is why they invented newspapers.'

So I hauled him away from his storm of invective and the Lord's storm of precipitation and went inside to get busy on my own newspaper job. I was finishing up the Farm Side, which hopefully contains more palatable information than his newspaper jobs.

Although someone, somewhere, is no doubt using the editorial page where my prose resides, as a puppy paper.....or maybe to line a litter box. 



***Hey Alan, mine is all in and done, so if you get bored......

"Steal Clementines, you ask?"
"Why, thanks, yes I will."

Chinook

Sunset a couple nights ago, just as it came off the camera.
Thank you Liz for calling it to my attention, as it only lasted a minute or two.

We are a long way from the Rockies, so I guess technically you couldn't call this a Chinook wind. However, it is warm and soft and weird out and I think whatever we have going will be followed by a storm. It feels impending so to speak.

And noisy.

The trains across the river sound as if they are going to join me right here in the kitchen. I can hear the individual rattle of every cross tie and join in the tracks. Clackity, clackity, clackity, clack. Normally they are just a dull roar in the background. Today one must notice.

Everything that hasn't blown away in previous storms is banging and clanging and crashing around out there. The last twigs of the morning glory vines are lashing and slashing across the kitchen window and a draft is sneaking in from somewhere.

If it were March I would just settle down and enjoy it, or maybe go out and slosh around in the mud. However, this is kinda strange for February and I am more inclined to watch it go by outside the windows and wait and see what follows.

Sunrise the day the big snows hit to the south
Those bands of clouds are as close as it got to us

The Best

Got cattitude? (Or when Peggy wants the kitties, Peggy gets the kitties

Birthday ever, to the best Becky ever. Hope you have a great one! Love you.

Working for the Government

They tax us at play

Everyone around here has been largely working for the government lately. I've been doing hours and hours and days of bookkeeping, which is why I haven't been writing much.

The boss has been selling hay that he made last summer to pay the county property tax and the school taxes. It takes most of what he makes. I've been struggling over the health insurance penalty and decided just to pay it.

They tax us at work

The girls worked hard doing their taxes over the past week too. We also paid taxes on Alan's snowmobiles and fees to register them. Dog licenses. Tolls on the highway. And that's besides working to know how much we need to pay.

I checked when Tax Freedom Day, the day when the average working stiff has paid their share for the year, will occur for 2016. Last year it was April 24th for the nation as a whole. NY with its high tax rate is usually even later. 

Over the past several years the day has come later each year, so I expect that this year it will occur after the 24th.

In contrast Food Check Out Day, the day when the average American has worked long enough to pay for their food for the year, generally falls in February, generally during the third week. 

Kinda makes you think. All you can eat paid for in under two months, yet the government bite takes nearly twice as long.

Dang.

If they have to reach that deep into our pockets, I wish they would at least do their own bookwork.

Even the sheep has an opinion

Crafting Love

Aunt Bee crocheted a little blue bear for Peggy...it was love at first hug.

A Chance of Magic

The one we grew last year

Last summer I grew morning glories.........finally ....I know, I know....they are easy, almost pests, etc. etc.

Well, that wasn't quite how it worked out for me, but last year marked a very happy success. The flowers were a beautiful shade of faded denim blue and the size of saucers. The boss and I counted the blooms every morning and rejoiced in their amazingness.

Then, come fall, as frost claimed the last of them and the winds began to whittle away even the tangled vines, I found some spectacular varieties with online searches. We planned to order this one, and that one, and maybe another one come spring and then I forgot all about them.

The other day the boss took me to Runnings to get orange-flavored suet balls to fill Jonna's feeder for the Carolina Wrens...Ohio has been important to our birds you see....

The seed racks were full and pulled out across some aisles so you couldn't miss them when you walked into the front door. Like a blaze of summer promises laid out to tantalize even the hardiest.

The boss, who is very kind to me in that way, asked, "Is there anything you need?"

And as I was replying, "No, we are pretty well supplied and we will make an order with Pinetree a little later, and get some Slendrette beans over at Sunnycrest come spring...."

 I saw these! They were right there front and center like bears that might just bite us. And they  jumped right off the rack and into the cart.

They are the exact ones we found online last fall and have never seen for sale anywhere else.

Magic? Maybe.....and now we have just one more reason to hurry spring....