Coquinas

Whenever I find coquina shells I think of my father's mother. She liked them too. Vague memories have my grandparents shelling, maybe on Sanibel, when they retired to Florida. Tragic events sent them back north before too many years passed, but they were happy there for a while, and I loved hearing their stories when they visited home. 

They were so intrepid, traveling to Florida and Mexico and bringing back amazing treasures....but somehow the tiny, humble, yet colorful, clams remind me of them.

Thus the pockets of all my shorts are full of sand from stuffing pretty coquinas from every beach we visited into them. I have a whole bag full of memories of grandma.

Reptiles

We called our trip to Florida Gator Quest. We even saw a couple. However, we were more likely to see critters like the one(s) above. Hoping someone will be kind enough to ID it or them for us. 

The tree was full of activity!

First Bird

Last year it was a Northern Flicker......in 2014 a Jacksonville Beach European Starling.... 

This morning my first bird was a Black-capped Chickadee, flipping down to the feeder at dawn in search of a sunflower seed. One of my two favorite birds..... Liz says my other favorites, the Carolina Wrens were much in evidence when we were down south. Hope we don't get a cold snap in February that wipes them out as is too often the case. 

Happy New Year to all....I am just waiting for the rest of the birds to get out of bed...er...roost....so I can do the first eBird list of the year.

Drunk Drivers

Now, this....this is my favorite!

Not the best folks are they? We were trying to get to a hotel on a four-way in a little city in Virginia, around 2:30 this morning. Sidewalks all rolled up, not a car for miles....we'd been on the move since around 8:30 AM, including a couple of hours walking in Mobile and Blue Mountain Beach Florida, and a lot of driving.

Suddenly some yahoo appeared from the other side of the four-way and sailed up the street on the wrong side, weaving all over, right for the Camaro.

I screamed. Alan reacted. Fast. Had he not, Mr. or Ms. DUI would have taken us out. As it was we kissed mirrors with a bang and the culprit took off like a streak.

It took a very long time to file a police report. Alas, the police in that particular town were belligerent and unpleasant to us.

"Were you drinking?"

"We can't find any debris except animal tracks, are you sure it was a car?"

"Were you drinking?"

"Where were you going? What were you doing? Where did you come from?"

"Were you drinking?"

It went on and on until we all got pretty ticked off. I finally told the guys, "Look, I'm his mother. He's traveling with his mother and his sister, not exactly party animals. What he said happened, happened."

Eventually they handed us an accident report, which accurately detailed just what we told them, so I guess they actually did believe us. However, we drove back to where the cars impacted (we had had to move up the road a bit to find a safe place to pull off the road.)

There were the parts of both mirrors and a mess of plastic off the other car lying in plain sight in the road. If they really cared at all they could have seen it. Alan picked up the insert from his mirror and stuck it back in place...the glass was broken but it reflected cars coming up behind us, albeit in a manner somewhat reminiscent of a disco ball (perfect for New Years right?)

We skipped the whole stopping thing and just came on home. We were lucky to get off so lightly, and I don't mean to whine. Had things gone down even the least bit differently a lot more than mirrors would have been broken, but geez, get somebody to drive you home if you are too drunk to find your way.

Unreal how people drive these days. We saw at least fifty accidents and hundreds of incidents, probably more than that, from a tractor trailer full of pallets lying on its side in a rain storm to dozens of fender benders, cars off the road in darned near every ditch south of Pennsylvania, three dead bears, a couple hundred flat raccoons, several finished off foxes, piles of possums, one dead Turkey Vulture, which smelled far worse than the many deceased skunks he joined on the road, and one lady who passed us going at least 95 MPH. Yowsa!

We next saw her a couple miles up the road on the far side of the other side of the four-lane, her car nosed into the woods and swamp. How she got across all that traffic without being injured is beyond me, but she was standing by the road holding her baby and being comforted by passersby when we went past. Yes, a baby.

Scary huh? We had an amazing time, but the Interstate system and the byways that lead onto it are not for the faint of heart or slow of reaction. It is good to be home where everything is standing still and staying in its own lane. Hopefully everyone will be wise and careful tonight and make it home safe. Happy New Year!

Pelicans and Scavengers

We drove down to Cedar Key and Manatee Springs today, retracing our trip from two Brown Pelicans down in town and hundreds of Turkey and Black Vultures at the springs. 

Hey Mom

Safe in Florida. By way of Tennessee....and Alabama....Georgia....not necessarily in that order. Love you

A Gift to Myself

After Christmas with a toddler...a very good little toddler, who when given a gift and being told it was from...say, Aunt Becky....tried to give it to that person, being hard pressed to understand that it was all for her.....and saying "thank you" faithfully and often....

Some quiet time was in order. Most of the family was out in-lawing, all was reasonably calm here...

So I took myself out to do an eBird checklist.




It is sunny, warm for December, too icy to go far, and the wrong time of day for many birds. However, it was a great pleasure, indeed a gift, to just be able to be outdoors for an hour, alone with the birds. My kinda Christmas!

And tomorrow is the Johnstown Christmas Bird Count. The weather is supposed to be nasty, but we have some good wooded places where the birds will be sheltering from the weather. It's always fun.

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Corn snow and snowmobile tracks make for pretty good walking

Not for Nothing

I sure hope Santa can run.

Or that he has some sugar cubes. 

Liz was at the sink washing bowls from making cookies and rolls, and I was waiting to get water to mix dog food, when across the heifer hill, tails blazing whiter than the snow, ran a pair of does.

I don't want to rain on any parades or harm your cornflakes in any way, but I am pretty sure that it was Cupid and Vixen.

And they were already flying low if you know what I mean. Didn't see any sled either, other than the Firecats on the trailer and lawn.

I sure hope he catches them before tonight.....

Hmmm.....Liz has two quarts of molasses here....nah.....better not.....

Kicking over the Traces

Tomorrow the family Christmas get together.

Sunday the holiday itself. With a two-year-old. She is so excited.

Monday Johnstown CBC. 

Monday night. If all goes well, and the good Lord willing, and the crick don't rise, and all of the ifs ands and buts fall into line.

Heading south. Where the birds and the sunshine live.

Even if

You don't have an iPhone, you can still have fun on a snowy winter day. A couple of sleds, some snowballs, a little time off from school and you are good to go.

If Only

Humans could hibernate. I have said it many times before.....

Imagine...... . Pigging out all summer to get ready to eat everything in sight in the fall when all is delicious. Being glad to find your jeans getting tighter and your elbows starting to sag.

Imagine.....at the first sign of a snowflake or a temperature below fifty, finding a warm, snug comfy spot. My bedroom would work for me, although it is often not all that warm. Failing that a lovely cave lined with wool gleaned from sheep or milkweed fluff or some other warm and cozy substance.

Imagine....

Sleeping. ALL WINTER. 

Waking up in the spring, shaking out the wrinkles in your newly skinny self and basking in the glory of longer days and warmer sunshine.

And then doing it all over again.

No dieting.

Ever.

No slipping and sliding on ice or fighting frostbite...sometimes indoors....or being all grumpy from the clouds and short days. No struggling through the "holiday" season, which is a misery from some of us Gloomy Gusses.

The only downside I can see is that bears are among the most iconic hibernators and although I do like fish I prefer it cooked.

I'm gonna miss Yahoo

What with all the outrageous data breaches that Yahoo has experienced lately, experts are suggesting that users terminate their accounts. 

What a pain in the neck.

Actually killing your account isn't all that hard, but migrating everything you use it for to another address is a real nuisance. I have had that Yahoo address for years and years and years. A lot of the stuff that comes to it is junk. I will be glad to get rid of that without a hundred dozen unsubscribes. 

But a lot is not.

So that's what I have been doing instead of blogging and taking pictures and keeping the house under control...finding passwords for old sites that I still need to use...trying to organize the account I am going to be using so that I am not overwhelmed....getting situated to use one account instead of two.

Bah humbug!

A Strange Story

The boss had to run up to Hand's yesterday for a new lead cord for the fencer and the skid steer heater.

I asked if he minded taking me down to the river to see the ducks and geese. Alan has been seeing Brants down there and I wanted to try to find them and get some pics. (No luck, alas.)

He is always willing for such adventures, so we checked out the birds, did his shopping (and I went inside the newly done over store to see the incredible Christmas display and all the new merchandise. I have always loved Hand's. Who would imagine that it could actually get better but it has.)

Then we took a little jaunt down to another favorite birding venue to see if there were any birds. I once saw a Long-tailed Duck there and a few other goodies over the years. Nothing yesterday though. However, the sunset was pretty and the ice on the water looked like hundreds of floating mirrors. And there were hundreds of crows going home...talk about a murder!

Anyhow, as we started down the little road we spotted a hunter in winter camo, carrying a rifle and other hunting equipment. Nothing too  odd about that....

Since there were no birds, we paused instead for sunset on snow photos....it is sure pretty down there.

As we started to leave a car and truck came barreling around the circle. The car pulled right up beside us and the driver, who seemed to be of the female persuasion, offered us a good view of the finger next to her ring finger through the windshield.

What the heck is this heckin' stuff? We weren't doing anything wrong. Although our car was momentarily blocking the road, we were moving, having finished with our errands and wanting to get home.. And anyhow, as soon as we were out of the way she spun around and joined the hunter guy in the truck in parking down there.

But for the finger, I would have thought nothing of the whole encounter. Lots of people meet up down there for no doubt many interesting reasons. But that was just weird.

Murder

Under the Winter

No, not sick. This is just an unpleasant time of year for me. I don't enjoy the holidays much....just call me hermit....and I hate the.....

Short days. Hideous weather. Ice and wind and ice and wind. Snow. Ick.

Uncle Alan got Peggy some Lincoln Logs and they had a lot of fun with them

The Schoharie was full of mirrors yesterday

However, there is beauty and fun and a toddler too.

Goodbye sun

And better days are coming, it says here in fine print.

Myriad Mallards

Song for a Minus One Friday

Finnbar the hairy sheepdog

Had a very curly coat

And if you ever saw him

You would think he was a goat.

All of the other sheepdogs

Used to laugh and call him names

They never let poor Finnbar

Join in any sheepdog games

Then one foggy Christmas Eve

The shepherd came to say

Finnbar with your hair so tight

Won't you find my ewes tonight?

Then all the sheepdogs loved him

As they shouted out with glee

Finnbar the hairy sheepdog

You'll go out instead of me!

Chaos

Not a recent photo, alas....

Look on the bright side, Liz, the pickle didn't fall in your boot.....

About chaos.....Not the ones in Sonic the Hedgehog, although we had great fun with those back in the day. (I was terrible at the game, but loved the sounds.)

Nope, the chaos of hay customers who call mega-early wanting a load, and the driveway is plowed and sanded, gates open, all in readiness, and no one ever shows. And no one answers the phone at the number they called from either.

Frozen water lines in the too-lightly populated heifer barn, so water must be hauled from the kitchen for very many animals. Not by me btw, but it sure ties up the sink... Bringing the cows down to the barn. There's a bit of chaos for you. We would have liked to bring them inside sooner, but with the warm weather there was every likelihood they would get pneumonia in the old, stone-walled, bank barn.

They are such dorks.

We brought them down in a white-out with the temperature hovering at twelve and a howling wind. Windchill down to 4. I could feel my cheeks freezing, as in actual frostbite, and had to keep thawing them with my hands. 


Of course the fools...nine years old except for the heifer!!....couldn't remember the barn. OMG, scary, scary, scary....the same cow lane they negotiated since they were calves. OMG scary, scary, scary. OMG a DOOR!!!! NO!!!

It took much longer than it needed to, but they are in now.

The birds emptied the feeders three times today, even though we filled them fuller than usual. Back to the big feeder tomorrow I guess. We take it down in summer because of chipmunks.

Sorry but I am not making that pie today....maybe tomorrow....I went so far as to get the apples out, but a sink full of animal water, three stubborn bovines, and absentee hay buyers put the kibosh on that.

It is a good feeling to have all the animals in with the night we are expecting though.

And about that pickle. The boss dropped one while making a sammich and it just missed Liz's boot. That makes up for a lot.

All I want for Christmas

Is NOT website updates. Facebook is bad enough. Every time they roll out something new, we all hate it. Then we all learn to deal with it. Then we forget it and move on.

Facebook is just for fun and all and if we don't like it we don't have to use it. Although changing things around almost randomly, such as the youngsters who manage it like to do, is annoying, it is not of any real importance.

However, the bank website is a horse of a different color. I manage a number of accounts for farm and family and use our bank's website frequently. Been doing so for years.

Just this week the company rolled out a fancy new site intended apparently for people who are too financially challenged to understand the difference between pending items and those which have cleared.

Thus the pending items are greyed out, making it ever so difficult for older folks such as myself to read the nearly invisible print. Oh, and they don't post totals for anything that is pending either....How very helpful of them to require me to use the calculator or do actual math....horrors.....

They also put lots of pretty pictures in the background and ads for pointless services right in the list of transactions. Just what everyone needs for Christmas, right?

They send me surveys on how well I like their services and such almost weekly...... I simply can't wait for the next one. This keyboard is gonna be smokin'.