Class Mammalia

I was grumpy this morning, stumping up to the stove. I went along with Liz yesterday on a trip to the auction barn and to meet a couple of chicken and hatching egg customers....she needed a Peggy watcher.... and for some reason it plumb wore me out. 

And then I was greeted, right at the stove, by one of my favorite critters. It appears that the Carolina Wrens are setting up housekeeping in the eaves of the horse barn, right next to the stove. It was fun to watch them noodling around in there and to listen to their friendly chatter.

Geese are still at it by the legions and all the other birds as well. On the trip yesterday, besides the sweet pair of people, we saw two Red-tailed Hawks sheltering side-by-side on a tree branch, only inches between them. They were gently touching beaks as they sat there in the rain....such devotion in such simple creatures.

Mammals are much in evidence as well. The yard is like a 101 level course in what lives here.

Something took a cottontail on the path from the house to the stove last night, right in front of the dog yard. There was nothing left but a thin smear of fluffy fur, from the old chicken house to the Winesap apple tree. I wonder what it was.....I am not particularly possessive of the bunnies....there are many....but if it was a canid it was closer to house, pets, and hens than it needed to be.

Then as I stood at the sink filling dog dishes a mini-bear gallumphed across the lawn from the sheep pen garden to the old hen house foundation. You could tell it has been an easy winter, because it was still fat enough to ripple and flow like water as it made plans to attack the leafy vegetables and eat all the beets. Marmota Monax, a great big woodchuck, already out and about. Yippie skippy. I suppose I should be glad that it's not a real bear.

There is a small brown mouse under the arbor eating bird seed.

The chipmunks are back. 

Alas. 

I have so enjoyed NOT having them on the bird feeders.  Hibernation is one of the few aspects of winter that I like. At least they are smaller than grey squirrels.

We have had deer all winter....they never went south to the yards, but just stayed here on the farm. Not too many of them, but there have been tracks all along. I imagine we will soon have them on the lawn again. They are beautiful, except for the ticks and the garden eating part.

It is nice out though.

 I am sure there will be more cold weather, as is always the case, but the birds and animals are ready for their annual fresh start.

Thus I am not allowed to be grumpy, no matter how sleepy the morning finds me. Suck it up, buttercup, spring is here.

Heart

Saw the sweetest thing today. A man in rustic barn clothes much like we wear most of the time, holding the hand of a tiny, very elderly lady....she barely reached his shoulder, and was stooped and bent with the weight of her years....as he helped her up the steps into their barn. She was dressed in clean work clothes too......

It moved me. I nearly cried as we drove past. How beautiful.

No Woodcock

If we had one I wouldn't be able to hear him over the cardinal chorus, the Carolina Wren, and the chicken clucking of the Red-Bellied Woodpecker anyhow. But I keep listening.

There is a warm spring rain, so light that when I went up to the stove, I didn't really get wet, but I could smell its soft goodness and feel it if I turned up my face.

Caring for the stove. So easy. There is split wood right up next to it. I walk right up in the weather, which has been extraordinary, listen to the birds, thousands, and love being out. There are so many geese down along the river they are like a waving curtain when they get up to fly.

Then I open the door. Carefully, because that is the right way to open a boiler. Let the hot gasses escape before I fling it wide and fling in wood. Ten pieces or so mornings. The same at night. The men split them big enough to hold a fire for eight or  ten hours if I put in a goodly pile, yet small enough that if I am careful I can toss them. You were right, Alan, I am getting biceps. I have always been willing to do this job, but there was never wood....

We all, except the boss, who is housebound for obvious reasons, took the baby up to the horse pond yesterday. So sweet to watch this little flower bloom. She is all farm girl, striding along in her boots, chattering about the trains across the river, "Choo-choo train, choo-choo train!"

And the geese. We were looking at a big skein waving in, but she stomped her boot and pointed straight up, not off at the horizon where we were watching. (Oh, yeah, she has a temper.) "Goose! Goose! Goose!" Sure enough there was a pair right over our heads that we hadn't seen. She knows.

We are doing okay and thank you, every one of you, for the phone calls, visits, and kind words here. By noon I will probably be snarling at insurance companies and their ilk, but for now, peace and plenty. Plenty of firewood, plenty of good food, plenty of good people, and plenty of cardinals, enough for any feast of comfort. 

When only grandma's hand will do

Two Birthday

Princess Thistledown

In and among all the other excitement was Peggy's second birthday. She understands the whole present thing now and is a strong advocate of cake. In fact, she has been promised cake for breakfast this morning.

Even Uncle Alan liked it and he's no fan of cake

There is one piece left.....it is even tastier than it looks....and she earned it more or less. Story about THAT in the comments.

Anyhow, thanks to her other grandpeeps, her mommy and daddy, and her aunts and uncles on all sides of the family, she is well supplied with Paw Patrol stuff and toy horses and a new bike helmet and all. 

She got to experience the library in all its glory yesterday...went right to the shelves and started checking out all the books with animals...."Cow-cow. Pig, pig, pig. Cow-cow."

She knows what she likes!

Man Glitter

These guys came down on Sunday

And helped these guys

Turn all the logs that were left into this

And they all got covered with man glitter

Can't thank any of them enough. Now we can be warm and have hot water.  We had birthday cake after and it was delicious.

Awash in a Sea of Gratitude

While tides of despair tug me to and fro.

There was a terrible accident Friday morning. Ralph had just left to take Becky to work when the fire whistles began to wail and we could hear sirens, many, many sirens. I always worry when I hear them, especially when loved ones are out and about.

And then the phone rang and everything as we knew it changed. Someone had crossed into oncoming traffic and although Ralph evaded as best he could, there are guard rails and there were other cars....nowhere to go

He was coming home to cut wood, meet a hay customer, and work on the floor so we could get a new washing machine. The laundry was piling up. Still is, as far as that goes.

Instantly none of that mattered any more. I thought Becky was with him and was incoherently begging the man who called to tell me if she was all right. Thank God he had already dropped her off. Thank God Jade just happened to have come home from work early. He raced down....this happened maybe two-tenths of a mile from the house. He helped get the boss out of the car, which was jammed and mangled and steaming and smoking.

He got them to let me walk down to be there and got me into the ambulance for the ride, and he and Liz ran crazy getting phone calls made and Becky home and hay customers fended, fires tended, and all that stuff. And for Scott and Jen who came and held my hand which unexpectedly needed it. I am tough, but not that tough.

Alan raced home from NY as did my brother. Everyone, everyone, rallied around and was good to us in more ways than I could list. Yesterday the kids cut wood, and car shopped, and brought food home and tended and cared for everything. And cleaned house too, because there will be people who need to come here and we are an untidy lot, with so many things to do that are more interesting than sweeping and dusting.

Thank you to all of them and to anyone I forgot. We know we have good friends and the best family any one could ask for, and we celebrate them and are grateful every day. However, something like this is a strong, if harsh, reminder of just exactly how fortunate we are.

Ralph also wants to thank the many kind friends and strangers who offered help and strength and comfort and so do I. Neighbors on the fire company who called family to come. EMTs who were gentle and good drivers and so kind. The sweet doctor at the hospital who kept coming in and out of the room exclaiming, "You are a lucky, lucky man."

And nurses, row upon row, who did what nurses do. The police investigator who called after it ended and offered much needed words of kindness and comfort. He was so gentle, and I so needed gentleness. Friends who called and texted and offered to do anything they could to help. So many good people....so much better than the network news would make you think.

So thank you all, and thank you kids and step kids and in-law kids....all good kids, good people, whom I am grateful to know and love......and be loved by too....you guys are the best. 

Prayers for the family of the other gentleman. In time perhaps we will know why and how but for now, just prayers from the heart.

Ralph is home, and can get around with a walker, a far cry from the man who makes hay and firewood and does all our driving, but he is here. That is all anyone could ask for.

Today is Peggy's two birthday, as we call them around here. I am thankful for her other grandma and grandpa, who will be making it a big day for her, and for Aunt Becky, who already made sure she is well supplied with Paw Patrol fun. The best we have to offer is her Pa Pa, who is still here to get hugs and put Nickelodeon on his TV when she comes out to see him.

Bones

Coyotes dragged this set of vertebrae and ribs out in the field, whence I removed them, so they wouldn't end up in the hay machinery. This was a large doe, the one Jade got last fall....and yet all these bones only took two fingers to pick up. It was a surprise to find them to be so light.

The same critters found this Mountain Dew bottle somewhere and played with it
 just like Mack does and then left it in the middle of the hay field too.

Living at the Edge of a River

Crunching along on the river bottom, revealed by the winter draw down of the water
There are millions and billions of Zebra mussel shells covering the entire area...crunch, crunch, crunch
Like walking on popcorn.

Means that if you want to get out of the house for a bit it's about a five minute drive to hundreds of Canada Geese and Mallard Ducks, a few Common Mergansers, sometimes a Scaup, or a Hoodie,  and to bits of amazing American history....the Irish built the Erie you know.... a general good time for all. 

From the North

The boss and I went down last week. You can't imagine how bright the green heads of the mallard drakes are this time of year. They are like little green beacons all over the water and shoreline at sunset. My photos came out kind of blurry, so I didn't share, but the colors were spectacular.

Or South

The aqueduct is always worth a few shots. 

Sunset on the cornfields on the river flats down by the Schoharie is so much more than up here on the hill.

The Schoharie itself boiling over the rocks after recent rains was sure different than its usual flat, grey self.

I love to visit the river.

Whole Lotta Shakin'

This is MY tractor

Wow, the wind got me up earlier than I wanted to be and woke me up long before that. My room felt like the deck of a ship at sea.

Sunday sunrise just as it came from the camera. Only lasted about a minute, but wow!

 The laundry I optimistically left on the line overnight had taken a powder. I think I found it all.

Thanks to the washing machine throwing up its agitator in defeat yesterday, there will be no need to put any more out there, alas.

For a while at least. Oh, well, I did laundry at the laundromat until 2001. Don't suppose I have forgotten how.

Meanwhile, March is doing the lion thing. The weather is dramatically miserable; everyone is grumpy and ready for spring. We really shouldn't complain though...it was such an easy winter.

Because I Could

The bottom

I went out for a weekend walk today, just planning on going around looking for birds. Eastern Bluebirds were the goal of the day.....and of course I found a pair fighting with a Robin before I even made it to the Heifer Pasture.

I could backdate them a couple weeks or more, because I've been hearing them, but I didn't trust that I recognized their call well enough.

Looking back down from half-way up.

Anyhow, as I walked across the bottom of Seven-County Hill, a Blue Jay called from the top.

Down from the top

Other directions

It has been years and years and years since I walked up, but it felt like a challenge and so....don't listen to the people who denigrate trying to walk 10,000 steps a day. A very short time ago I would have been hard pressed to make this walk. Today i enjoyed it.

Wanna see a video?

The Peggy Channel....Mystery Package

The box.
Looks innocent enough, right?
But when I saw the flaps were closed, I realized that something was missing.....

An important part of the new recliner saga was the box. There wasn't a soul in this house too old to see its magical potential. Lucky is the family that has a toddler as an excuse.......

Or should I saw somebody?
As I looked at the closed flaps a tiny hand poked out and pulled them tighter closed.
And then a small person popped them open with a huge laugh. hHaha, grandma, I fooled you.

The box is so big that I didn't see that she wasn't the only one in there until her daddy started laughing too.

What a fine place to watch Paw Patrol.

After all, what a shame to waste a good box.......

You can Tell

When they really have something... crows that is. Normally their calls are just a casual neighborhood report. Look, look, can you see? Hey, look.

When they are on a raptor, however, their caws ring like swords, slash, hack, bang, crash. Touche, take that. And that. And that. You can tell when they mean it.

They were on something this morning when I came downstairs. It sounded like a riot out there. I didn't get outdoors fast enough to see what it was. Prolly just the local Red-tailed Hawk pair though. They are here almost all the time, and the crows bedevil them endlessly. 

I keep hoping for an owl. Any owl. We have Great Horned Owls in the back, but I only see errant feathers stuck in bushes where they took out rabbits and mice.....maybe some day.

Anyhow, where Alan works they are near the sea and so they frequently see the big raptors of the watery places. Not long ago he was watching a crow bombing an Osprey, acting all that and a bucket of rice, as Liz would say.

The big bird took just so much of the little fellow stabbing at his back feathers. Then he flipped over, flew upside down for a second, nabbed the crow....pinch....with his big, sharp talons. 

And dropped him. Boom shakalaka. No more crow. 

I wish I'd seen that.