Happy Birthday

If you see this guy, please wish him a very happy birthday. Alas, I won't see him unless he video chats me, because he is 3000 or so miles away.

Still, we think of him all the time and miss him and Amber a lot.

Hope you have a great day, Alan. 

Love, mom

We may get a cake and eat it in your honor.....being as you don't like cake and all. lol

Got Snows?

As you saw yesterday, we are awash in a sea of snow. It reminds me of winters when we were kids, when you didn't even think of spring until at least the middle of April, and many years even later. You really can't expect the last frost until at least the end of May.

However, we did go back where we saw the big flocks of Snow Geese the other day and found a small flock floating down to forage in some leftover corn in an Amish field.

They made our day.

Got Snow?

Why, yes, yes we do......

Photo Bomb

We were down at Schoharie Crossing SHS boat launch looking for good ducks, when we spotted a crow carrying something large and tan.

I couldn't see what it was with the binoculars, so I turned the camera on it...more zoom.... when, WHAM! a Ring-billed Gull nailed him right in the back....just as I clicked the shutter.

Some roads were drifted nearly shut.
However, the towns around us were doing a pretty good job of keeping them open

Kinda blurry but fun. BTW we think it's bread.

The wind was buffeting me so hard that I couldn't get this skein of Snow Geese in the frame
There were a couple of hundred flying east and north and we were excited to see them
The past couple of years we have been lucky to find one at a time.

It has been a long week of dealing with unpleasant stuff that eats up all of everybody's time every single day.

Big and Little Nose Mountains in yesterday's fine sunset

However, we have stolen a couple of hours here and there to go birding and just get away and have been well-rewarded with the beginning of migration excitement.

Happy

Think of a Song Title

Birbs

Merlin

The funeral was small but beautiful with a few old friends and at least one new one....the sweet pastor who performed the service. We were very taken with her words of spiritual comfort and kind demeanor.

Then we took a short birding run to clear our minds and feel normal for a few...

Canada Geese foraging in an Amish stack yard

Along the way we found the beautiful Merlin Falcon above, shuddering in the wind at the top of a tree, as he hunted a cloud of Snow Buntings. Merlins are little guys, midway between Kestrels...Sparrow Hawks in the vernacular...and Peregrine Falcons. I only saw two last year, both at great distance, so this one was a thrill.

Alan sent me this Western Grebe

It's been a hard week for all concerned. Ralph and I have found comfort in these short birding runs. Kinda took our minds off things, you know. Through driving snow and howling winds we watched an immature Bald Eagle pursuing a Ring-billed Gull one evening. 

You would not imagine that so gigantic a bird could swoop and spin and duck and dive as he did....and still miss.

And this Scrub Jay

What a show!

Snowy Bald Eagle after defeat at the wings of a Ring-billed Gull

The birds of the far north are still here. Hundreds of Slate-colored Juncos. Snow Buntings flashing white-and-black like winter traffic signals. Horned Larks, drab as the Buntings are bright, but still cool to see along the shoulders of the back roads.

To add to all this the kids on the left coast sent me 51 photos of lovely western birds I may never see in person. Gratitude abounds! Such beauty and all free for the enjoying.

There is Never

A good day for a funeral...there are fitting days though I guess, and I suppose this one will do well enough.

It's cold and windy; the trees are coated with frozen snow that makes them clack and clatter almost threateningly. The sun appears not to intend to grace us with much of its benevolence either.

The little lamb is a Dorper ewe the kids got from friends. One day last week when the rest of the family was caught up in the many things that follow the loss of a family member she managed to get out of her pen and find the wettest place in the barn to lie down.

When Liz brought her inside in a little cardboard box, she was nearly gone, even the inside of her mouth was ice cold...and Liz had to leave right then and there for a meeting...

For a few hours she was mine to hold or lose.

All afternoon I heated soda bottles of water and tucked them around her, put her in one of Mack's doggy coats, put one of my warmest hats on her head, and toweled and rubbed and scrubbed her and dried her ears over and over....

To no avail. Even sips of really warm water from her lamb bottle didn't seem to help.

Then I thought of the product folks used to put in their shoes when they are not warm enough, the time-honored covering for suffering bench sleepers, and solace for cold people who haven't anything better....

Newspaper.

I raided the boss's stack of old Country Folks and Lancaster Farmers and piled them under her and made her a thick tent of them.

It worked. By evening she was lively...and noisy...enough to return to the barn, after disrupting the poor dogs beyond reason. Finn was afraid of her. Mack wanted to eat her, and Ren thought she should be allowed to get right in with her to snuggle.

She is nameless yet, as far as I know, but I think they should name her Hope, or Joy, or maybe Little Lambie Blessing Pie.

Update: And look what Liz just traded for some eggs.......

Not New York

California Redwoods

And NY kids

We do have trees though...

Not the Iditarod

But we have plenty of winter. Some folks and their dogs make the best of it.

So Close

With Peggy Ann Marie,
who is named after her and her sister, and another lovely lady we know

To making it to 100 years old. Only a couple of months more. 

Still, we are grateful for every month that was given, indeed every day and hour. She was sharp right up to the end and knew Ralph when he visited yesterday and wished us all her love. As I hunted through the office for the inevitable necessary paperwork this morning, I came across birthday cards from her over the years. She always remembered everyone's birthday and sent a card with a sweet little note. I have many of them stashed away here and there.

You see, we lost Ralph's aunt yesterday, quite fittingly on International Women's Day, because she was an amazing woman. 

I used to ply her for stories when we talked on the phone after his mom died.

She was missing her sister...they were very close and talked on the phone for hours every day. So was I, and I thought that as much family history as could be saved should be. So we used to talk a lot back in day when we were lonesome.

They saw so much. Their father was a farmer up on Fiery Hill, their grandparents ran a barge on the Erie Canal. Imagine that? To be so close to history like that? I love those stories and treasure them as much as I do the ones from my own family.

And they were both so strong in the face of adversities that would break many of us in an instant.

Peggy and Ann

Peggy and Ann, sisters, together again now, and not to be forgotten, as their little namesake thunders through our lives on imaginary horses, hunting invisible lions and crocodiles under the dining room table.

Here is a story I wrote when Peg passed. It goes for both of them.

Hiatus

Herring Gulls yesterday. Looks as if they're getting out of town
Do they know something we don't?

Or the calm between the storm....

We are under apocalypse warnings at this time, with a strong chance of zombies. It's already kinda ugly.

Snow, snow, and more snow. 

With wind. 

It is as if ma nature has dandruff and is flatulent. Guess she's getting old like the rest of us.

The ground was white this morning, and wires and twigs and limbs adorned with fluff aplenty. However, the sky was fairly bright by seven or so and you could even...faintly...see the sun.

Hmmm, didn't look too bad and I wondered about the Thruway being closed to trucks and schools letting out early. If this was all we were going to get.....

However, that lasted about and hour, and now the dandruff is coming down hard. Birds are plentiful at the feeders and restless, as am I....restless that is, not plentiful, being one of a kind and all.....so I guess we are in for it.

Again.

Even the birds are screaming, BAH HUMBUG

Four

It's a big birthday, but someone's got to have it!

Happy Birthday, Peggy!

I am Stopping for Now

Working on the Farm Side. I must concentrate to write and the house is getting busy. Wish I could work in a hectic atmosphere, but I can't and that is that. I'll finish it tomorrow when everyone else is sleeping.

However, here are some of the links I'm using in writing about the madness governmental plans in South Africa.

The peeps in power there have decided to forcibly take land from current farmers without compensation and give it away to others. Although this might sound fair and proper in the funny papers, it hasn't worked before and it is a lot more complicated than you might think.

Land reform without compensation does not have a great track record. 

Soviet Union

USSR AG Update

What they're doing

It's Impossible

Imaginary issues, real problems

Update Zimbabwe

Bad publicity and disputed death toll

Trusted experts and their opinions on the topic (this one's a little skeevy, which is why it is last.)

Speaking of the BeforeMath

Sugaring Off

Hauling wood

Adding valuable organic fertilizer to the land

Parked at the Dollar General in town

This was last week. 

In the Aftermath

Just as they came out of the camera

Have you ever wondered what happens during the beforemath?

No? 

Around here it's cleanup. The boss plowed and plowed yesterday, got the house drive opened up. Now we have a hay customer coming so he is working on the barn drive. 

There is still a LOT of snow out there. Many people were without power, some all night. Some still aren't up and running.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the sunrise was.....well, it was indescribable. Good thing there are cameras. These are exactly what the camera saw...no editing.