The Things you See

The majestic American Elk, all decorated for the coming holiday

Add your own caption here

Edwin the Elk studied fashion design online at the Academy of Art.
He specializes in baling twine twisting and macrame.

Rear view, demonstrating the other side of this creature's fine fashion sense

A pair of Great Blue Herons in the old "giant beaver" pond.....

And, yes, that is snow....

To all our Friends and Family

This is...or was....Lucy, a sweet and singularly box-of-rocks silly turkey we were once given.

Destined for the Thanksgiving table of Angelo, who delivered grain to us back in the day, she imprinted on humans.

She loved everybody.

Angelo didn't have the heart to eat her so he passed her off to us, imagining that we might be harder of heart.

Hah, around here, although we hunt and grow our own stock for food, there are still plenty of soft hearts.

Thus this pet bird had the run of the place until some wild varmint celebrated his Thanksgiving a little early and we lost her. We missed her...... In our defense, for weeks someone went out every night to pick her up and carry her into the pony barn. Have you ever been beaten up by a turkey? I have. I carted her in a couple of nights. Those wings! Dayam! She nearly beat me senseless. 

Anyhow, I hope you all have a lovely holiday. We shamelessly cooked and boned our bird yesterday, so all that remains for today is thawing and heating yams and jams and spamalot....no, no, I mean squash and the like...and making gravy and dressing and a couple of casseroles....and then eating and a bit of delivery.

Liz made pies.

And bread.

And lots of cookies......

Love to all, and a very Happy Thanksgiving as well.

Two by Two

In the Mist

When I first went out this morning Orion was so bright he seemed like ice fire in the sky. There was a wall of mist over the river....each car on the Thruway lit it up white, then red, then back to grey.

By dawn the fog had crept up the hill and blotted out the stars, but as the sun came up the icy mist was wonderful...

In the Midst

Probably this guy

Of writing chores and Thanksgiving dinner prep we had to clear off the kitchen table. Seems somebody got their first deer and we will be processing meat this afternoon.

I am STILL making a blueberry pie....

Congratulations, Amber!

The Rock

Just as it came out of the camera

Walking the fields and roads most days....things I pass become landmarks of a sort. 

The round metal washer about half way up the hill that probably fell from some bit of machinery or other. Certain rocks, like the pretty bit of Feldspar almost buried near the old chopper, the potato rock complete with eye, which I finally relented and dragged down here, and any number of other things.

Changes get noticed too. Thus when a big old rock along the road behind the barn split when the boss was bringing the machinery down for the winter it caught my eye.

To me it looked like a dinosaur or a dragon or some other mythical monster, so I took a quick photo in passing.

After a little cosmetic work

This weekend I played with it in Paint, and what do you know...it IS a dinosaur.

Or maybe DinoDog

Upside

Downside

Birding has been slow lately, perhaps because the river is still high. The water is often smooth enough to take photos of birds' reflections though, which is kind of cool.

Red Sky

At Morning....or pink and gold if you prefer....It didn't last long, but it was nice while it did.

The Things you See

Amishman with four mules pulling a bale wrapper

Winterberry Holly.
I would love to plant some of this in one of our wet areas around the house.

As we troll the hidden corners of this and neighboring counties, in pursuit of good birds, groceries, and rabies vaccinations for the pups, we seem to find so many amazing sights....

Oriental Bittersweet, strangling native trees. There were many that had died in its loving embrace

  

A trail we walked this week

Schoharie Crossing SHS, one of our favorite spots to visit

Snow on the Roof

Check out these odd leucistic, or piebald birds we found over the past week or two. Above is an unusual Canada Goose with a white head. Below, an American Robin, ditto. We found the Canada at Lock 12 the other day, and the Robin at Lyker's Pond. Amazingly there was another one that was almost entirely white with just a little red on the sides, but I missed a photo of that one.

We also found a White-winged Scoter and a Pied-billed Grebe for the county, but missed a Cattle Egret, despite driving around for quite a while looking for it.....

If you see this Fine Man Today

Wish him a very Happy Birthday!

From the Useless Trivia Department

Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the first official Thanksgiving in 1863 in response to a campaign by the lady who wrote Mary had a Little Lamb.

Dog Day

We also came across this lot, which is pretty darned cool for Upstate NY

The kids were all home for a bit this weekend, which made for some major fun indeed.

Also included time for our engineering-minded young man to do some work on the furnace blower so the house is actually warm.....which is a fine thing.

However, after everyone went on their way or about their business, the boss and I went birding.

Nothing exciting to report, but we had some delightful doggy encounters. 

First there was a lovely Redbone Hound having an excursion at Yankee Hill. She was a beauty-glossy, dark mahogany-colored, smiling, friendly, and funny. She just loved us when introduced and soaked up pets and admiration as if all was due her as canine royalty. You could tell she had never met a stranger. 

We compared notes with her folks about hounds we had known, photography, bird listing and just enjoying the park. Then we divested birding accouterments and finished up the trip list while they loaded up their car and were off.

As they drove away, she hung her head out the window and bayed at us, hoping I think for more lovely human contact and admiration. Her human chauffeur said that driving with her was an interesting prospect as that big, bell-toned muzzle was right next to his ear. We could hear her still at it as the car vanished around the corner......

Four-letter Words

There were at least three-hundred of these four-letter birds at Schoharie Xing yesterday
There was just enough ice to hold them and they must have enjoyed it as there were another two-hundred not far away. Ring-billed Gulls

Trying hard to wean myself off them....impressionable young person living here, and one who is bright enough to pick up innuendo, let alone outright cussing.

However, this morning, a little-known four-letter-word-type substance is fluttering merrily down to the ground.....the one that starts with S, you know what I mean if you live in the North Country.

Bah humbug.

So Cold

And the laundry is steaming too

It is so cold this bright and sunny morning that I can see the breath of the Blue Jay that is screaming from the Basket-tree next to the feeder.

Ah Poo

I love my family. I love my kitchen too. Where else could you listen to people joking about skunk scat and who else would you find doing so?

Yeah, truly.

See, we are not scatological experts or anything so some of the....stuff...we find remains a mystery. We were pretty sure the little collections of fruitiferous matter in the cow barnyard originated with a skunk. When I discovered that the material was apple, berry, and yellow jacket, we decided that we were right.

And that is when the joking came in, "Burns a little going down, but not bad...not bad at all."

And then there was the bigger fruit flop out on the hills. I debated over that one too. Coyote? Bear?

It was pretty big and consisted almost entirely of apple....hmmm....

Then Becky pointed out that the coyotes have been out in the orchard tuning up every night.

Nuff said.

Fool Hound

My boys sleep indoors at night and come in when the weather is bad. This time of year they like to be outside when they can.

This translates to the cable for Mack and a nice dog kennel we built for the late, great, Mike, for Finn.

In summer the houses...of course there are houses...are filled with shavings. Mack is afraid of his house, but we are working on that. Finn usually hauls his shavings out to jump in them after a couple of days.

Oh, well.

This morning, hoping to offer Finn a bit more comfort, I filled his house with fluffed up hay. 

Should be cozy right?

I even swirled it around a little to make a sort of nest.

And then I brought him out.

I barely got the leash off before he bolted over to investigate.

Ooh, new toys!

When I left he was pulling out all the hay, stem-by-stem, fluff-by-fluff, and shaking each mouthful thoroughly to kill it good and then tossing it aside for more.

Back to the drawing board I guess.

The Ag Canary

In the news coverage coal mine.....

I often see agriculture as something of a canary in a coal mine when assessing the trustworthiness of a news outlet. With less than two percent of the population engaged in farming, it is to be expected that not too many farm kids make it to the news network big time.

So the question is, how well do regular reporters do their homework?

Generally not particularly well. Mainstream stories on ag tend to skim the surface very lightly...and I do mean VERY...or else to sensationalize the most ordinary and time tested of practices, or to just not get it at all. They embrace the cuddly, touchy-feely aspect, or bash those awful farmers. 

There are the big stories like "pink slime" and "mad cow" and there are little ones all the time, slanting and manipulating the views of the non-ag populace, probably more often than not unintentionally. Sometimes just a little homework, just a couple of questions for someone with boots in the barn, would clarify an issue, or bring out the actual facts.

However, sometimes those steps aren't taken.

I figure that the same folks probably treat the other news the same way. Who you gonna call?