Gooses

Tame Blue Jay landed right next to the boss's elbow

Missed that shot, but he did hang around for a while

Sun and Snow and Creatures Large and Small

Neon Moon

Bama Breeze

Summer Snow

From the Ashes

Photo by Town of Mohawk Fire District

There was a massive fire at an Amish sawmill the day before yesterday. We saw the smoke from several miles away when we were out and about, and soon a speeding parade of fire and emergency vehicles from two counties was racing past us.

It was a big un. From what I have read, very, very hot, as you might expect with all that lumber around.

Last night we passed that way in our travels.....

Today we passed that way again....

What are these.....

....Beautiful flowers?

Farmers will know......answer in comments....

Summer Love in the Valley

A sweet little grape flower...or rather a whole stem of them.
They smell so good, but oh, such pollen

Plant love that is. First the cottonwoods released uncountable millions upon millions of fluffy seeds, coating the river with white stuff and making us sneeze when they floated into the car.

Next came the grape pollen. While everyone blames any number of other plants, I know that I am sneezing again today, and I don't even have allergies. However, something has to happen when there is so much greenish-yellow pollen in the air that every single cove and eddy on the river is clogged with it.

It looks like some kind of noxious algae, cozying up to the shore and flopping up on the rocks in the waves, but it is just pollen from the Riverbank Grapes, vitis riparia, that festoon anything they can climb on everywhere you look. Come fall the little orange-seed-sized black-purple fruits will be on a lot of mammal and avian menus.

It boggles my mind to think of all the seeds and fruits being formed and distributed by plants all around us in this season.

Second Winter

Eastern Meadowlark

It's June, but it is finding it hard to make it out of the fifties......brr....the wind is blowing too and even with the furnace plenum open the house is cold. It rains every little while.

It is so cold that there are moose being seen in Gloversville and Mayfield.

Moose!!

This is not Alaska no matter what the weather might have you think.

Meanwhile, it is so cold and wet and windy that I had to force myself to plant even half of the new flowers and tomatoes we bought yesterday over at Sunnycrest Orchard. We went over for a couple of petunias and a tomato for a container, but ended up bringing home just a little more than that....just a "little"....they have so many pretty things....

I will get it all planted I promise...maybe manana.

Stand-off at the OK  Corral Rain Puddle.
Robin and Baltimore Oriole were really getting it on over who had splashing rights
Better them than me. I was cold enough without getting wet.

Bucolic

Kind of a motley seven-horse hitch we saw

Note the spanking on that big pinto.
We see this fellow working his horses all the time...since winter...and he is
always, always, having trouble with that one.

Go Out

I never can resist this arch...cottonwood fluff on the water there too

Go out young man! Or young woman! And old fogy as well.

Go out!

Take in all that is offered by this, one of the finest weeks of the year, outdoors-wise.

Riverbank Grapes came into bloom yesterday. Each breath of soft valley air is perfumed by their sweet magic. How such a tiny, plain, greenish blossom, the very definition of nondescript, can smell so amazing is a mystery to me, but it is a happy one.

Cottonwood trees are flinging fluff willy-nilly. It's like a snow storm of warm and fuzzy wafting gently down the valley. We crossed the river just eastof here last night and there were floating rafts half-a-mile long or more of seeds upon seeds and more seeds. It almost looked like winter when the ice is just beginning to form.

It is garden time, go, go, go. I love to grow things, but oh, my word, how quickly new work appears. The wind lifts the landscape fabric off the bean garden. More stones needed.

Pond gets low. More water needed. Green things that are not beans pop up in the bean rows, more weeding needed.

I was desirous of empty hanging baskets to fill with all the good things I started from seed this spring..(Thanks Linda Brown I am so excited about having Moon Flowers galore to plant for late summer blossoms.) However, I was plumb out of baskets and it seems you can't buy them anywhere anymore.

Then we took Mom and Dad some rhubarb yesterday. While we were there Dad gave me a nice bunch of them that he doesn't need anymore. Soon as I get a couple of other things done I'm gonna get planting.

Got to go out there! Hope you can too.

Slightly soggy Tree Swallow. Must have been dipping in the river

Ta Da

Birding yesterday, standing very still, and this girl walked right up to me

It is June. 

The cows went to pasture yesterday with much fanfare and foolishness on their parts. They are both 11 this year, fairly elderly for cows, and you might expect a certain level of decorum on that account.

Ha! 

Bama found a mound of dirt and after proinking  around like an antelope fell to her knees and dug in with her head. Grind grind grind. If she had horns they would be polished mighty  I'll tell you. 

Thankfully she doesn't so she got up, shook off the dust, and slalomed up the lane, slamming into things and bounding up and down like a fool. 

Moon is clumsier and not as silly, but she put on a nice show of a level trot, head held high and nostrils flared.

I haven't seen them yet this morning, but with the whole heifer pasture to graze and the bugs kinda bad, they are probably down in the heifer woods among the cherry trees. The wind always blows there, down in the fence corner, and the cows have always chosen that spot for a nice lie-in in summer time.

There is a salt block out where I can see it from the kitchen window, so they should come into view fairly often.

Hopefully.....

The Robins fledged yesterday too. You would think that would mean I could start to enjoy the sitting porch without feeling guilty. Alas, the House Wrens are incubating eggs now in the little decorative bird house, so my presence is most unwelcome still.

Battered shell notwithstanding...

This painted lady was laying eggs beside the road at Lykers Pond yesterday
Judging by the many roughly covered holes in the sand there, she is not alone
Eastern Painted Turtle

Slither In

Birding at the historic site boat launch, tip-toeing down to the river's edge through creepers, vines, and thistles....

Something moving a few feet out in the water....ripples shifting near a tiny stump....what is making that water move?

A thick, striped, body rolls over the stump and back into the water.

Oh, my word. These photos don't do its size justice, but this is a really big Northern Water Snake.

It swims right over to me, takes one look, then hastens away.

Maybe it likes polliwogs....

Little Lawn Zombie

The Common Grackle parents didn't seem too concerned with him though, no matter how he begged. They flew off and left him shortly after this.




The sound you hear in the background is Peggy playing with some glass discs on the table next to me.

Gobsmacked

Big bird of the day yesterday for the boss and me
A Common Gallinule.
They are just that up at Montezuma...common as cattails, but I had never seen one here in our county before

I was crazy excited to find a single Blackburnian Warbler down along our driveway a couple weeks ago...a life bird for me, a first for the farm, and a general big deal here at Northview.

"My" Blackburnian

Then this morning I read about some folks who went birding yesterday in Quebec....they saw over 28,000 of them! 

In one day.

You can see why Yellow-rumped Warblers are sometimes called
"Butterbutts".

Plus staggering thousands of other warblers and various migrants, passing by and landing around them. 72,000 Butterbutts, or Yellow-rumped Warblers!!! How can I type enough exclamation marks for such as that?!? We sometimes see 20 or 30 of them, and maybe saw a hundred at Cape May last year.....

Our other good find yesterday, an Orchard Oriole...not rare either, but
not always easy to come upon

This is the stuff dreams are made of...if you are a birder that is...and I do dream of birds all the time, although even in my dreams numbers like these would be unlikely....however, I am contemplating getting an enhanced driver's license so I can cross borders and get on planes. Both are highly unlikely for this farm girl hermit, but a sight like that might just tempt me.....

An Eastern Kingbird from yesterday. Not rare either, but so obliging about posing