About that Hay

Our two big mows look much like the one in the video

A reader shared this nice video of how baled hay is made in the comments the other day. It is so well done that I want to make sure it is out here where everyone can see it. Well worth the three minutes it will take to watch it. 

Hand-hewn beams in the cow barn mow.

The Heifer Mow

Bull

We were driving along up on Fiery Hill when the boss exclaimed, "I don't believe it, that's a dead cow in the ditch!"

"What? Really......I didn't see it."

We turned around to check it out. When we got there though its tail was flapping.

It was a Jersey bull, chained to the guard rail with no food or water anywhere nearby. It was also quite some distance from any barn or building, just down the road from his late grandfather's old farm, but all by its loneself.

Liz noticed that he had injured his leg on the chain, which is probably why he was lying flat out when the boss saw him. Cows usually don't.

He thought about turning it in to somebody, but didn't really know if it is illegal to tie a bull to the guard rail and leave it. We still could I guess. I am sure he hasn't been moved in a while and probably isn't going to be.

This is a lot of bull any way you look at it.. .There was certainly nothing to stop the animal from hopping over the rail, which wasn't very high at all, so he could be a danger to passersby. He doesn't look too awfully comfortable either.

Encore

Since the rain just won't quit and it's still too wet to even get on the fields to mow more to get rained on and too wet to get the gravel back up the hill and onto the driveway we went birding.

It was plumb rewarding. Got a Great Egret right up the road a couple of miles. We saw dozens up at Montezuma Sunday, but they are scarce on the ground down here.

Good Folks and Good Birds

Teddy is a pretty boy

And good food too. We ventured about four hours west yesterday to meet Amber's folks. That was pretty amazing in itself. Really nice people, incredible food, pretty horses, fat cattle, and a lot of fun. We got to meet and see everybody and everything Alan has been telling us about for months.

Caspian Terns

We had an easy drive out there and got to bring home that spectacular homemade sherbet that we love. 

Trumpeter Swans

After an enjoyable visit we headed home because....see 4-hour drive above.....

I had hoped to visit Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, but we traveled a road that was easy to drive but took us well south of it. Oh, well, there is always another day....but then again they have been seeing a White Pelican in Benson Pool. Pelican....Upstate NY....amazing.

Great Egret in the pool where the pelican has been being seen

As we pulled out of the driveway the boss said, "See if you can get directions to the swamp on that phone of yours..."

"Really? But it's so far!"

"Nah, it isn't that far and I don't want you to miss it when we are already all the way out here."

So I spoke into the phone as Alan had showed me, "Take me to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge."

And the Genie in the Box, who is usually referred to in considerably less flattering terms, did so. As usual she took us on twisted back roads rather than handy-dandy interstates, but that allowed us to see some fantastic farms and farmland. The crops out there are about three times as nice as here. Tall corn just tasseling out, rows upon rows of soy beans, fat and thick and dark green, wheat all golden brown and ready for the combine, with some fields already stubble and big, bright, bales headed for the barns. It was a treat for farmers from the eastern part of the state where crops are not looking so hot just now...too much rain and a cruddy spring have set things back quite badly.

Great Blue Heron

Once there we stopped to count the Purple Martins at the visitors center and then we were off. What a day! 27 Caspian Terns within the first ten minutes. Black Terns. Trumpeter Swans. A Dowitcher of some sort, which shall remain uncounted because my photo is so bad, but still...dowitcher! And lots and lots of other goodies.... No pelican, but that was kind of a lot to expect after all.

We didn't get home until nine to find the water heating complex the guys built was down, but I say again, what a day! I am still grinning.

Anybody care to venture an ID for the little guy in the foreground?

Notabear

But close enough for government work. I've been fighting the good fight over my little garden all summer. I gave the kids the big plots to plant and reserved a few square feet by the driveway for my own enjoyment and productivity.

There are several containers of herbs, chard, tomatoes, and such, and we've already finished off one crop of lettuce.

The main bit we covered with landscape fabric to try to control the weeds, which burgeon outrageously in the fertile soil. Beans, flowers and summer squash grow over there, and we're starting work on a new herb garden.

It is pretty and pleasant and nice to work in....

But full of bunnies eating the beans. They don't care about expensive repellents. Fabric softener sheets worked for about a week and then they came back. Several feet were leveled last night....

Tonight after our trip to the far, far west, I am going to try putting up a little bit of fencing I have. It isn't very tall but a couple of pieces of it deterred them from gobbling up the Swiss Chard earlier in the summer.

I hope it works. We love fresh beans.

However, this morning the ultimate garden outrage met me when I ventured out with my pups. The biggest, fattest, blackest, woodchuck I have ever seen trotted nonchalantly away as we walked across the drive. He was so fat that his butt jiggled like a great big jelly.

He was so bold he utterly ignored my little Jack Russell buddy, Mack! He wouldn't be so brave if it wasn't for the bull. I can't let Macky loose because he goes after the bull rather than the rodents he is supposed to chase. 

The darned thing looks just like a miniature bear! We think there is a real bear hanging around over by the old cow barn. Wouldn't it be perfect if he ate that darned marmot and then had a couple of bunnies for dessert?

Farming

Sometimes you're the windshield...

Summertime

And the living is.....frantic....so here are a few tranquil photos to tide you over until sanity resumes....if it ever does. 

Good Omens

If you found these structures clustered around your kitchen floor, what would you think?

Rusticating Rednecks Return

Moving fast as striking cobras, they skim along the crowded sidewalks. All skinny, all toned, all tanned and prettily polished.....except for the fashionably pale ones that is.

They are relentless in pursuit of the fastest path down the sidewalk, but seem to see little else. Every single one of them is skinnier than I am, fitter, swifter, and a whole lot shinier.

Like thousands of freshly groomed Standard Poodles compared with a shaggy dog like Finn. They were not impressed with the contrast....

Not quite A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but
A Weed Grows in Manhattan....

..... home never looked so good. 

See, Alan needed to go to the Big Apple yesterday to take refresher training in how to act when working in the dangerous climate of the city subway. He didn't want to make the many-hours-long trip alone and wanted his lovely girlfriend, Amber, to accompany him. However, he had to stash her somewhere during the class.

34th Street and 6th Avenue was the chosen location. As an afterthought he suggested that I might join her so there would be two innocents abroad rather than one...perhaps not the worst idea in the world.

So picture two women, one of whom was walking the earth when early hominids were pounding rocks into little bits to make dirt, pretty much utterly unfamiliar with the area, not inclined toward city life, accustomed to the relatively slow pace of a rural locale,being  turned loose at at quarter to six on a weekday morning a few yards from the Empire State building.

Scary, huh?

We decided to find a Dunkin' Donuts and sit inside reading until somebody besides street sweepers and homeless people were awake.

But oops, the local Dunkin' was just a window on the street, through which sugary fat bombs were passed. No seating.

So we rented space in a Starbucks. I paid for a spot at a table with a caramel frapucchino, she had water and a muffin.

In the city where no one notices anything people stared at us....all the other patrons gave us a good ogling. Eh, it bought us half an hour of a place to sit that was off the streets. Well worth it.

We wandered some more and found a little two-story McDonald's with air conditioning and sanitary facilities. Amber rented us a booth with the purchase of a couple of parfaits, which we consumed at the speed of Galapagos tortoises at the zoo when confronted with heads of lettuce....slow, sleepy, turtles with sloppy dentures.....

Another hour went by. We began to attract glares from a manager, and so returned to the streets, which had awakened during our furlough.

We toured assorted stores just to get off the street and out of the heat. I was personally accosted by one of these guys, who had a placard in my hand and a bracelet on my wrist faster than I could say, "shoo." Little creep.

We spent an hour or so walking faster than is natural and avoiding being trampled before we almost literally stumbled onto a little square near Macy's with CHAIRS!!!

We nabbed a couple. They were razor-thin instruments of posterior pain, but never has a sight been so welcome.

Guess what I did while we sat......Yes, you are right, of course..... I made an eBird list on my phone. 90 Rock Pigeons. 1 Herring Gull....which was flying around and around the block terrorizing the pigeons on each pass. 1 European Starling. 2 House Sparrows, which hopped eagerly around our feet looking for crumbs. They had to be quick, because with all the passing people feet any crumb was obliviated in seconds.

And two, yes, two, Peregrine Falcons, flying up and down the city canyon. I only had my phone camera so no photos, but I had not left my enthusiasm at home. I pointed them out to Amber, watched them land on a window ledge near Macy's, and decided it was worth all the madness. Not that I have never seen peregrines before or anything, but these were the first of the year for the state. It was cool to watch them using buildings as cliffs and city streets as canyons.

Eventually Alan finished his class and we returned to the relative sanity of home. Ahhh.....

Bad

This is the view from our porch. A business right by our library is on fire.

Becky was supposed to go to a library board meeting there tonight....

A Gripping Surprise

Packages arrived today for Becky.....Books for friends and relatives with whom she would like to share the wonders of favorite authors. (I have read both of the ones she received and can vouch for their sheer amazingness.)

Among the collection of stuff delivered by the boss after a trip to town to the Post Office was an envelope with my name on it. I was so surprised! I hadn't ordered anything.

However, my dear friend Linda from Colorado had sent me a truly thoughtful surprise gift.

Clothespins! Real, spring-loaded, two-part, wooden clothespins of the sort that is very hard to find these days, although the arrival of Amish has made it a little easier.....sometimes.....

Anyone who has a clothesline knows how eagerly wasps chew the clothespins up for wood for their paper nests. And weather is hard on them too.

I am so delighted to have a share in this wonderful garage sale find from my very kind friend from the west.

Thanks, Linda!

All the Birds and Little Fishes

As a born nature girl, there are few things as much fun as spending a week at camp.... catching and releasing exciting fishes, looking and listening for new birds, finding cool plants, and living right with the weather. When I was a kid I had to find and catch all the frogs, toads, and salamanders. Now it is enough to look and listen and know a bull frog from a green, a Green Heron from a Black-throated Blue Warbler, Heal-all from Partridge Berry.

 It is always hard to come home....not that we aren't surrounded by nature here, but home is all about chaos and work and dealing with....stuff.....up at camp, all my time is my own. Guess I'm just greedy....

Odd duck, an apparent American Black Duck, but with those odd, white feathers
We saw him last year too, but this year the white is even more extensive.

At least this year, the hideous weather late week made the idea of being home and warm and dry downright appealing. Each year I force myself to pack warm clothes, even if it is ninety down here. There is always mental debate...do I need this flannel? Nah. Sweatshirt....no....

Oh, heck, I  put 'em in anyhow...plus my warmest hoodie...but no sweat pants. Big mistake that.

With the flannel shirt AND the hoodie I still about froze on Friday. Had to wrap up in all my inadequate blankets and shiver for a while...got wet moving the boat to the lee of the dock. Wet and cold wind are a recipe for discomfort.

I have lots of warm, dry clothes here at home. However, the birds do not include such exotic wonders as Barred Owls and there are no Black Bass or Fall Fish to wonder over.

There were however, bunnies in my beans last week, despite a liberal dose of repellent before I left. Laundry in epic proportions. Dog number two, Finnbar, whom I missed, although Mack and I had a fine time walking the woods roads, and chaos. Lots and lots of chaos.

I was kind of gloomy yesterday when I went over to the cow barn to deal with some cleanup. I know we have to be grownups and can't play ALL the time, but that doesn't mean I don't want to. 

However, there in the lane was a Carolina Wren...kind of my most special breed of special birds. He was accompanied by a whole litter of fledglings, cheeping and peeping all over the place. 

Nice. 

Welcome home...

My buddy in woods walks, Mack

The Song Sparrows had kids too...everywhere....here a sparrow, there a sparrow, everywhere a lot of sparrows.

However, the crowning delight came when I was taking out yet another clothesline full of towels to hang them up...mostly not from camp either. I am easily distracted so.....While we were gone my pond pump took a dive. Something in the impeller I think, but it is not in good health. I started taking it apart and noticed a single Rosy Minnow swimming among much dimpling of the water.

Not only had the minnows survived the grackles, they had spawned. Dozens of little pink or grey babies. I was so excited. Going to bring some of them into my little 10 gallon tank just for Peggy's and my entertainment. And no worries about them out competing native fish. My "pond" is a Rubbermaid watering trough, well isolated from natural waters.

As an added bonus the many plants have cleared the water up nicely and the water lilies are in bloom. All righty then. I will put away thoughts of big, wild, water, and wilderness wildlife and birds and get back to life on a small family farm in Upstate NY, home, sweet, home.

A very rare bird, rarely found either in the mountains or the valleys, the Red-crested Chef Bird
If you were one of us you would know just how amazing this photo really is

National Ice Cream Day

This is an American Black Duck.
It has nothing to do with National Ice Cream Day
But it is a cool duck just the same.

...is a holiday I can get on board with. Seeing the date pop up in my Facebook feed reminded me that we have some that Alan brought to camp and then got called away and didn't finish. We could take care of that for him.

Or we could go over to Sammonsville for a cone.

Either way, I'm not fussy. You can't go wrong with ice cream!

And if you download the McDonald's App and get the coupon, you can go pester Becky for a free cone. She will love you for it.