The Things you See

We have visited the old grocery store building at Yankee Hill Lock so many times, and gone inside quite often.

I have looked into this room, from the doorway and always thought that it looked a bit bare.

Last time we stopped I stepped into the room to look out all the windows....

And discovered all this.... such a marvelous mural! Does anyone know who painted it?

183

Species of birds seen so far this year in our county...not all by me, alas, although we do keep looking. That surpasses the entire count for last year, which was 182, surely proving that our area sees a lot of serious birding. At the end of last year I had personally seen 152 species; this year I have been stuck at 150 since the 28th of May.

I fail at warblers....can't get out to walk where they are, don't know enough of their songs when I do manage to do so. We get lucky finding the oddballs though, that early season Golden Eagle, Great Egrets on three occasions, and a Common Gallinule that only showed up once, even though we have been back to the pond any number of times.

What a year for Wood Ducks though. We have seen two broods of ducklings in county, and yesterday in Schoharie County we saw three broods in one pond, with a large number of unrelated adults hanging around too. Nice!

Turtles by the ton are being seen as well. So many snappers and Eastern Painted Turtles laying eggs on roadsides and in parks, as to keep half the raccoons on earth well fed and still produce lots of baby turtles for next year.

I love how stoic the big snappers are when laying eggs. We don't disturb them if we can help it, but they don't seem to care who or what goes near them when they are busy on their nests.

Little Things

Your Mission, Should you choose to Accept It

Quick, check up the Sunday horse, then leap into the wagon before it leaves without you. Good thing this boy was pretty agile, as that horse wasn't standing for one second after that check rein was done up. 

Confused Cupid

We were returning from our travels yesterday when we came across a very weird couple fluffing their feathers in the dust at the side of a rural road. They were a pretty good distance from houses and barns, although peafowl can certainly travel if they want to. 

Apparently love will overcome a lot, including that whole species thing, because this Wild Turkey Hen and Indian Peafowl male were clearly a happy couple. They seemed to have little fear of passing cars, or of me jumping out of ours with the camera. I wish them well, although I think they are doomed to disappointment in the end.

A Tale Retold

Back in the day, when the 20 and 30-somethings who live here or visit often were small, easily bored people, who needed portable entertainment, a tradition was started.

Stories. I have always loved stories, loved to read them, loved to make them up and tell them to myself in my head, and had them swirling around in my mind my whole life.

Thus a set of stories was made up around a central character, whose initials were JM. I won't say his real name as he was named after a real person, who happened to have a pretty cool name. JM went everywhere we did, keeping small people in the back seat contented for miles and hours.

Checking out the birds between chapters

He fell into a host of adventures, rescuing his dad from a tractor accident and running the farm while he recuperated, living wild for a while in a canyon, having dogs that found lost kids, finding a wild dog and taming it. 

He was a real cool guy and we liked hiim. However, as his fans grew into bigger and better stories, he languished. Just couldn't compete with Harry Potter.

For years there were no new adventures. No new stories.

Yesterday afternoon a big hay customer came. Liz and the boss had to go load out hay. A certain small person had to stay in the house. She brought her little pink chair out on the new porch, put it next to mine, and we visited for a bit. 

Then she said, "Let's tell stories. You tell one and then I'll tell one......"

Ha, she had no idea what she was in for. Out of the closet came our old buddy JM. He needed to regress a bit in age and detail, as the new audience is a bit younger than his earlier fans, but he was a big hit.

In fact my little pal kept saying, "I don't want to tell one right now. You tell another one."

So I did. JM was a hero and caught Bad Guy Brown several times...dunno who kept letting him out of jail though.....A whole new cast of other characters was born as well. 

There was a big brindle cow with long horns, who was named Belle because she wore a bell on her collar. Belle tossed a wolf that was trying to bite her calf 57 feet in the air. He came down and went splat. Next she tossed him 58 feet with the same result when he tried again. Then she threw him 67 feet, ditto. She finally pitched him up into a tree and ran home with her baby.

A dog named Reba had puppies under the barn. JM and his brother Jerrod each got to keep one.

There were horses and ponies, Cherry Blossom, Buck, and the terrible bucking horse, Devil Dog. JM rode Devil Dog to the 8-second bell to win enough money to pay the taxes and save the ranch.

Later we came inside and did a little illustrating using the Paint program.

Man, did we have fun!

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.