The NYS Plastic Bag Ban

Is a TAX. People will buy the replacement paper bags for speed and convenience and state government will get most of the money thus generated, to spend on more of their endless folly and waste. Unnamed local government will get the rest....unnamed..... Who do you think will decide where that money goes?

Washing all those reusable bags will have an environmental impact as well. You know....electricity to run the appliances, extra detergent, dirty water that will be produced, time wasted that might be spent doing something productive. 

And all the doggie doo doo that will have to be picked up without them. What? You aren't going to use your reusable cloth bags for that? Nope, you will have to buy bags, defeating the entire purpose...or at least the purported purpose...of the ban. More single use plastic that is REALLY single use will be generated if you get my drift. And people commenting on news stories are EAGER to buy these bags, which they will then throw away. What on earth is the difference?

Plus we will all spend more time getting our groceries because have to mess around with them. Do you drag them through the store and fumble with them at the cash register, driving the people behind you in line nuts? Or do you haul your unbagged groceries out bare nekkid in the cart, in the rain, snow, sleet etc, and bag them at your car?

Eh, we will all be paying for the vast sums of our money our illustrious governor has sent out of state, those grandstanding lawsuits, the gimme programs for criminals and people who can be trusted to vote the right way, and billions in developments that never developed.....again....plus pay sales tax on everything we have to buy to replace the darned things.

Seems like a complete win-win to me. For the government that is. If sheeple put as much effort into noticing why the state has such a huge budget deficit to fill as they do getting all excited about this smoke and mirrors show, maybe they would vote the big spenders out instead of virtue signalling over how they get their groceries home.

There is a lot of really bad junk in the proposed state budget that is being utterly ignored so people can wave their politically correct grocery bags like a flag of environmental superiority and don't have to think about paying more in taxes for everything they touch.

And that is not to mention this.....

And this..."you can train people..." Should we be welcoming the government training us?

Will it make a difference? California did it, and their cities seem to still be hives of filth and pollution a lot worse than a couple of bags here and there. 

A nickle deposit might be somewhat more palatable in the quest to corral our baggies. Or at least it would be for me.

Sharing and Caring

The other day we went over to MacFadden's to take a look at the stuff in tomorrow's sale.

Or at least that's why the boss went. 

I went birding. The yard is surrounded by mixed woods and hay fields and there are always lots of birds. 

We both had fun.

Flashback

If you want to embiggen these, you can right click, open in a new tab, and make that tab big.... 
The details are.....different....lol
 Some of them are all mine
but most are committee efforts. Somebody would draw something...someone else would add a bit
Someone else would vandalize a little. Sure was fun.

I won't bore you with the long story of the boss's TV-over-the-Internet not working and setting up a house call from the cable company and the Godawful mess that our house usually always is.

instead let's fast forward to me finding a Pioneer seed advertising tote bag under the green desk while clearing a path to the modem and router.

'What the heck is this?' I thought.

Oh, my. It's the bag that the state police investigator gleaned from our poor wrecked car when the boss had his terrible accident. The insurance company never even let us see it again......Those were bad times and the bag just got stuffed away without anyone ever looking through it.

Broken binoculars. Little bits of a small box of tackle Alan kept in the car so we could fish if we happened upon a good spot.

Odds. Ends. Maps, which I just stashed in the current car for our upcoming trip. (The B**ch in the Box doesn't always work after all. Sometimes there's no signal.)

And an inch high stack of CDs. I almost pitched them. They were pretty battered and tired looking.

Then I noticed the label on one. Barn Music.

Barn Music 2. OMG, the CD's we used to play in the barn when we were milking cows. We built them to suit everyone. Two songs for this person. Two songs for that one.

From Todd Fritsch to Jimmy Buffet to Trent Tomlinson and everything Emerson Drive had recorded up to that time. The Roosters. Chris LeDoux. Garth. The Grateful Dead, Craig Morgan,. Hours and hours worth.

Barn Music 2 is playing right now and every third song gives me cold chills and takes me back to the crazy fun we had milking back in the day. The barn blackboards where we strove to outdo each other with crazy drawings. Singing along. Some better than others.

The flashbacks just keep coming. Liz is having the same experience. It's like being in the barn again. With the cows and the kids all there. Those days are gone forever, and I try not to ever look back because....well....just because.

I sure am enjoying these CDs though.

Bittersweet. 

Beautiful.

Heartbreaking and wonderful all at the same time. 

Night Owls

We had no car yesterday, as it was in the shop for a check up, so we couldn't go down to the river to look for ducks.

However, when we got it home last evening we took Becky owling in some of our favorite haunts. Right where we found the first Short-eared Owl we found another, flying moth-like across the road and over a field. Late for them to be here, but we'll take it. Then on the way home we found TWO woodcocks.

So a good time was had by all.

Fast Food Fellow

Duck Soup, Redheads, Lesser Scaup, and Ring-necked Ducks

So we found a banded goose the other day, right in front of McDonald's down in town. This one was a younger male, only seven years old, and pretty much a teenager in goose years. (BTW, the female that I wrote about yesterday was the one up in the swamp...got the certificates confused, sorry.)

Guess where this one was hatched......in Quebec, just yards from a Tim Horton's and a pizzeria.

Go figure....a teenager that likes fast food.

Wall Street ducks in pin striped suits
Northern Pintails.

Flock Life

Another Middle-aged Visitor from Canada

I have a lot of photos of Redheads, but somehow I can't resist....

We found another neck band tagged Canada Goose yesterday, this time down on the Mohawk . It was pouring rain and not easy to get a readable photo but we did.

Lesser Scaup as well
I have been struggling to decide whether the birds we see are Greater
or Lesser Scaup. Worrying about bill nails and head notches and feather patterns
Then I read this article that says that male Greater have only green iridescence on their heads
Never purple. Made this guy a lot easier.....Lesser

Turned in a band report and was not surprised to discover that this goose came from the same place in Canada and was banded by the same man as last week's bird. The tag was the same color...white on orange...as the 12-year-old male we found last week...and very close to the same number series.

This bird was a female thirteen years of age, also banded when too young to fly.

How cool is it to see a single bird....or maybe two or even three, although we still haven't heard on the bird with the red or pink tag....among tens of thousands and to know where they were hatched?

There are indeed thousands of geese in the valley this week. Guesstimating counts for eBird reports is an interesting challenge. I imagine many of them are on their way to Canada along with the banded ones. I  don't think I will ever grow tired of hearing their wild cries as they fly overhead or launch into the air when an eagle passes over on the river.

Interesting tourists indeed.

The Things you See

Rough-legged Hawk, probably one of the last of the season
Flew just as I clicked the shutter...lucky me

Sunset

Moonrise

Roadside heifer hazzard

Happy Birthday

To our youngest, but not leastest. Over the past year he has married a wonderful young lady, adding a delightful family to our extended one, purchased a house, albeit four hours away, and also acquired a couple of good doggos.

We miss him and Amber as well, but we are darned proud of them.

So, happy birthday, Alan, hope you have a wonderful day. 

Sometimes a Great Mother

Sheep that is. And sometimes not. Some ewes take wonderful care of their babies, guard them, clean and feed them, and love on them like nobody's business.

Some are just plain horrible.

Yesterday a sheep, which unfortunately belongs to Peggy, lambed with a tiny ewe. She instantly realized that it was the devil incarnate and not only would not feed it, but beat it severely.

Liz brought it into the kitchen where many another infant animal has resided before it. Alas, it was in terrible shape to the point of "pedaling". If you have livestock you know what that means.

Liz managed to get colostrum substitute into her several times, but by mid-afternoon her mouth was cold and she could not raise her head.

Thus we faced the virtually inevitable. However, Liz just kept trying and stayed up until midnight feeding her. Peggy, being her mother's daughter, wanted her to sleep in her bed, but a cardboard box seemed a better choice.

I hated to even ask this morning, but as you can see she is standing up, taking nourishment, and chasing sun spots around the kitchen floor. At one point she and Ren were snuggled up together, but I missed that. 

This does not mean that she will survive for sure. Sheep are not so very hardy alas, and lambs that have been cold don't often thrive. However, she sure looks a lot better than she did yesterday.

Creatures of the Night..or Features, as the Case May Be

FORTY-EIGHT of these in about two miles of road. Driving was
not boring

Not a Youth by any Means

Turns out that goose number Y5Y1 was middle aged for his species, Canada Goose, and hatched in Varennes, Quebec, which is near Montreal. 

He was banded in 2007 on July 6th while still too young to fly, and was discovered at that time to be male. The ubiquitous high-flying honkers average 10-24 years in the wild.

No Cigar
I tried many times to get a photo of geese against the moon
This is as good as it got, even though there were thousands passing through

I love finding neck banded birds and discovering their history from subsequent band reports. Most of the ones we have found so far were banded near Cobleskill, or near Lykers, where we bird extensively, but this guy is a bit more well traveled. 

Can't wait to read the report on the other banded goose we found the same day. We often find two banded birds together.....

Timberdoodle

Sharp-shinned Hawk

I guess I'm kind of a competitive birder. It's fun to treasure hunt. Birds are treasures that are right there for anyone who is interested in seeing...and counting.... them.

Back when we had cows the heifer pasture was home to American Woodcocks. The grass was kept short by grazing and the little pond where the horses were pastured was just what the doctor ordered for timberdoodles..... a bucolic nickname for the American Woodcock, fat little shorebirds that love earthworms. They are famous for their spectacular mating displays. I had never heard of them until I read A Sand County Almanac in college, nor seen one until years later. It sure was fun to have them on the farm.

Nowadays the horses no long use that pasture and only the two old cows, Bama and Moon, graze the heifer pasture. The grass has become too long for tiny woodcock legs so we haven't heard their buzzy peenting or their magical sky dance in years. Hadn't counted one for eBird either, but I sure wanted to.

A little under a week ago someone reported one in a spot where we bird all the time, so last night right after supper and just about nightfall we drove there and parked the car.

And listened.

And listened. Not a peep. Not a twitter. Darn it. The boss moved the car several times hoping to hear the bird.

Then to my utter amazement one flew right past where we were parked, fluttering by about a foot from the windshield. Even at night I got a great look.

Awesome. County bird number 77 for the year.

This morning #78 (see above) landed on the ground by the feeder and let me take several photos before he flew off.

I'd been noticing that no birds were coming in....guess now we know the rest of the story.

Redheads

The Leader of the Band

Obviously orange, right?

Over the past few years we have been fortunate enough to find several Canada Geese wearing neck bands. The bands are used to keep track of the birds' travels and it is a lot of fun to report them to the government and find out where they were banded.

Usually the birds were find are banded locally and wear yellow and black bands.

However, yesterday the birds were really on the move. I'll bet we saw 5000 geese. We found that mass of them in yesterday's post hunkered down in a swamp right down the road from us, hiding out from the nasty wind. By mid-afternoon there were at least 1500 and probably many more...you can't see much of the swamp from the road.

Among them were two banded geese. I got photos. One band was orange but I am not sure what color to call the other.

However, as seems to be the case very often the government band reporting site wasn't working. Guess I'll try again tomorrow. Meanwhile, one band is clearly orange and white, but what would you call the other? Thanks

Really, red, or punky pink?