Food on the Farm

Yellow tomato sauce to freeze for winter

Red ditto

Bizzy Lizzie

Birdin' and Jammin'

When the weather radar shows big blue sunbursts of migratory birds taking off early in the morning, right within fifty miles of your home, it's a good time to go birding.

It has been amazing around here this week! I didn't think I was going to crack 80 species this year...so many common, counted-every-year birds have been absent. 

Swamp Sparrow, species #81 for the year

However, now that migration is really moving the yards are full of birds, just full. Picked up three new ones in the past two days, Black-throated Green Warbler, Prairie Warbler, and Swamp Sparrow, to crack 80 and even hit 81. I sure would like to see a record this year so i go out every morning at least for a few minutes.

And, of course, it is also the season of putting by. Three batches of grape jelly the other day and Liz is busy freezing squash and tomato sauce and such. Big pumpkins are forming up in the top garden, the last flowers are blazing. We use fresh herbs with a lavish hand. they are so good and soon will be so gone. I keep a few indoors, but it is a job to keep them growing.

Frost soon, alas. 

Duck, Duck, Goose

First the duck. The white on this duck is actually white, not an artifact of the light in the photo. I have put it up on every bird group I belong to and no one has ventured a suggestion of what it might be. Leucistic something or other or some kind of duck we don't recognize? any ideas?

It was hanging with a bunch of Blue-wined Teal.

And then the goose....er......geese.....as you may guess we went up to Montezuma Sunday, before visiting Sundae on the Farm later in the day.

And finally....swan lake

Something is A Mist

Each morning seems to bring ever-thicker mist, until this morning all was blanketed with fog so dense you could barely see the dog on the lawn. 

Things are different when the air is clogged with water vapor. The other night, just before the moon was full, I paused a moment on the stair landing to look out the window there. It was just beyond midnight, right after the witching hour, deep into the time of spooks and owls and strangeness.

The night's mist was just falling, here and there a faint cloud with rounded edges drifting down between the buildings and blanketing the trees.

 With the light of the moon shining down upon it, it was as if the air was full of silver glitter.

I was struck with awe and stunned to stillness there in the middle of the stairway. How do you store such treasure?

I often think of Kenny in My Friend Flicka when I pause on that stairway to look out the magic window. He often found himself in trouble for lingering on the stair landing daydreaming..... and I spend more time than I should....every single time, up or down...... looking out at sunset or moonset or mistrise or early-birdtime. 

Or at snow piling up around the buildings and shrouding weathered boards and rusty tin roofs in pretty Christmas wrapping, hiding the defects, redrawing it all, postcard pretty.

 I hate it when we have to cover it with plastic once it gets really cold and the winds get to howling.

Meanwhile, as fall moves along toward those painful days.....

Each morning I go out into the mist before the sun is all the way up to walk the dogs and count the morning glories and listen to the Carolina Wren proclaiming ownership of all surveyed.

This morning there was mystery barking until I finally went out again to see what was what, only to come face-to-face with a monstrous-huge grey squirrel striding over to the house.

Yowsa, he's a big 'un!

And then the mist burns off, the day moves on, and it is as if it never happened until midnight comes again.

Happy Birthday, Mama

I'd give you the moon......if I could just reach it......Love you!

Reciprocity

As was expected under USDA changes, Brazil can now send fresh beef to the United States, a move that will probably  open other markets, such as Japan, to them.

Besides concerns about Foot and Mouth disease, which is endemic in that nation, USDA has admitted that at least in the short term, there is little likelihood of reciprocity in markets, as Brazil dumps an expected NINE_HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS worth of beef on our markets.

In return we get....$900 million worth of their meat in competition with our own farmers and ranchers, a chance to share a devastating disease........and not much else.

Hooray..... Do you miss COOL yet?

Another Memory

People here in Upstate New York tend to have strong memories of 911. I remember way too well, the way it was and the days afterward, the horror, the skies without planes and the tracks without trains, the eerie silence of the valley.

I remember emailing back and forth with my then editor...whom I still miss btw...about how one of the planes turned off course over the very city where this memorial stands, on the new bridge from the other night's walk. Thus it's no surprise that we honor our memorials. 

Riverwalk

Family folks invited the boss and me for a moonlit walk across the new Mohawk Valley Gateway bridge in Amsterdam the other evening. Alan and Becky came too, as did our family and their little ones, our Amsterdam grandbabies.

Brotherband....

It was a very nice experience. The moon was nearly full, the river was lightly ruffled by a crisp autumn breeze, and the people we met in passing were cheerful and friendly. The girls were sweet as sugar and good as gold, and the bridge was a pleasant surprise.

It was of course, all shiny-new, but it was.......nice...native plantings, a 911 memorial, installations about the city, and a great deal to see and experience, all watched over by a big, pink and silver sky. Thanks, Scott and Jen, Maddie, and Claire, for a really nice night out.

Ice cream moon

If You See this Guy

Please join me in wishing him a very happy birthday.....

*Just discovered that it is granddaughter Maddie's birthday too! So have a happy!

Just Because

It's Wednesday.......whimsical....
handiful.......prayerful....rudiculous.....
quizzical..... not flatilicious.... puddle-wonderful...

And a prettiful for putting up with me.....

More Memories

People who grew up in the sixties no doubt have many bittersweet memories of high school and college. While school years are exciting and can be fun, young men of the era were faced with the draft upon graduation, with a deadly war ongoing, and the people who loved them had lives long overshadowed by it as well.

I was young enough to not lose anyone in that awful war, but the boss, just a few years older than I, lost his best friend and a number of baseball buddies.

We visited the traveling Memorial Wall yesterday at FMCC, something we have hoped to do for a long time, so he could trace their names and honor them in that particular way. It was very sad and moving for both of us, but especially for him. So many names....so many lost loves and loved ones. On the positive side.....many of the names were very low near the ground and neither of us could get down to trace them. A complete stranger noticed the boss struggling and came over and traced all the names he needed for him.....

Remember

We visited this memorial at FMCC today, along with another, which was also fitting unto the day. We will always remember.....always.....