All the news....

I humbly apologize for prolonged absence. We have all been so sick as to seem unfamiliar....who is that grey blob in the mirror anyhow? Cheeks like cherries, lips like lizards? Nope, nobody I know.

And scheduling's been hard. When you have to pencil three-hour blocks of time for coughing into your dance card, there's not much room for waltzing....or typing.

Flu shots were futile. Some got 'em some didn't; none benefited. Jade went straight to the doctor and got good drugs, and may have gotten better quicker than the rest of us...but maybe not too. He was the first with it and he's still pale enough that his dark lashes make him look as if he's wearing kohl. 

However, this morning I felt a faint burst of pleasure at rising to find the sun shining on a cold, but cheerful morning. Optimism....I had nearly forgotten it, but there it was, tapping me on the shoulder.

Bout time. I have fed the birds faithfully....but have not unscrewed the big feeder to load it up since last week. I knew I'd never get it back together again. I'm still not up to it today, but maybe tomorrow. Meanwhile they can eat off the trays and the ground and the oak log the boss topped with the bottom of a barrel for a feeder.Had to feed the doggies over the sink, as I had a hard time hitting the bowl.What is is with canned dog food anyhow? It goes everywhere but where you point it.

During our illness interim Mother Nature went plumb off her meds. We went from pretty decent weather to at least 22 below overnight. With howling gales strong enough to pick up the metal lawn chairs and give 'em a whoflung. Not a big deal normally, but they were FROZEN INTO THE GROUND!!!

Thankfully, something made the boss suggest that the next time we sold a load of hay we spend the money buying a load of wood from our logger. I said, "Why wait?" (and wondered why I hadn't thought of that myself. The weather makes getting up to the woods really hard and being sick doesn't improve things any...and of course getting wood in a few seasons ahead is simply not done around here.)

So Friday, a faithful friend brought us in a load of logs. Good thing because even with them, we could barely get the house above freezing.

Two days later it was fifty. Nothing like a seventy-degree temperature variation in as many hours.

Then we, and a goodly percentage of the other landowners around here (judging from chatter at the Post Office) received a Priority mailing from a solar farm building company wanting to make non-binding agreements on people's land.

I dunno know about you, but when somebody starts talking about doing things on our land I get nervous. This ain't just real estate. It's HOME!

So I ask for your help.....

I have come to realize over the years of writing this that the people who read it share a collective knowledge of thousands of topics that would rival an encyclopedia.....

So, do any of you know anything about Cypress Creek? I have been able to discover that they are huge and have fingers in many pies, all over the country, but not much else. Their folder on the table by my computer makes me nervous.

Meanwhile, if you see anyone doubled over coughing, stay away from them....you do not want this bug.

Still the best strategy with flu

Plague

We have the flu

It's sad but true.

Our throats are raw

Our lungs like glue.....

Each day we feel a little better

We really hope that you don't getter

Meanwhile....

We have the flu

And are quite blue

And, yes, after two days of the girls taking care of me, I can at least get up and type silly stuff. Thankfully

Cardinal Sin

Sharp-shinned Hawk

There have been hunters here all winter..... A Cooper's Hawk hit the big window a couple weeks ago. Our fledgling birder, little Peggy, goes to that window every single day now and asks where the bird went.

"It flew away," I tell her, but she always asks again. 

I thought that was who was sending all the birds on all the feeders up in a whirl every little while and bouncing them out of the trees and hedgerows willy-nilly.

However, when I was at the sink this morning I saw a small hawk chasing a cardinal around the fence between the backyard and the horse yard. I grabbed the camera to see if I could find the fray and hurried up through the snow.

To my astonishment the hawk had a female Northern Cardinal trapped up against the snow fence that surrounds my old round pen where I started the Border Collies on sheep. And he was utterly unafraid of me. 

He wanted that hen cardinal and he wanted her bad. I took a bunch of photos, waited for the cardinal to get brave and leave, and then left him to it.

I know, I know, you are not supposed to interfere with nature and all that, but dagnabbit, those are MY cardinals. Let the hawk eat starlings. Or House Sparrows! He could feast on fifty or sixty of them and I wouldn't complain.

Seriously though, much as I find it disconcerting to see the feeder birds on the menu, hawks have to eat too. This little sharpie will keep our local fliers honest as well as adding another bird to the year list.

Over the past few years we have seen many more Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks around here, whether because the population is increasing or our habitat is appealing I don't know. For whatever reason it is nice to see them. 

Saw this guy and an immature down by the river the other day

Eye of Newt?

Eye of the Tiger?

Well, actually it's not an eye at all. It's a baby chick inside an egg being set upon by a fluffy blue Cochin hen. She is one of several that Liz has brooding down in the heifer barn. We went a'candling last night and got to see this tiny Belgian Bearded Danver embryo flipping and blipping around inside its shelly chamber...like a little nautilus without the curves.

There are quite a few eggs in a similar state down there, just waiting for the days to pass until hatching time.

There are also a couple-few eggs up here at the house, waiting to be sold to hungry customers. No chickies inside these, I promise. That's for you, Joe. lol

Men

Turning this.....

We're manly men.....

Into this

Imagine splitting logs that large, some of them with grain like this, with an ax

Ingenuity

Farmers are known for it...making something from nothing, finding a new way to do  a thing, or getting by without buying. These photos show a tandem hay rake setup the boss built  many moons ago.

It is beyond simple, but it does most of the same jobs an expensive commercial model could. Of course there are no hydraulics involved, but that is generally a good thing from my point of view. He got the idea from a couple of older farmers he knew, modified it a bit to suit his circumstances. we still use it, at least twenty years later.

Many a windrow has been rolled into another one to save trips over the field and thus time and fuel with me or one of the guys at the wheel.

 Raking hay was probably my favorite job back when I drove tractor every day. It is undemanding enough to allow the mind to wander.....but not so much so that you fall asleep counting Barn Swallows. Still I was grateful to have the dual rakes and for the time they saved us.

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