Portent

I was out with Jill, dog number 3, yesterday morning when a sharp crack came from the Northwest. A meteor slashed through the sky and vanished over the Adirondacks.

That'll wake you up in a hurry. Sure spooked poor little Jill.

Another portent?

Coming on the heels of a failure to function on the part of the skid steer, upon which we depend for feeding stock and moving wood, thus keeping us from freezing I was just a tad concerned about  what it might portend.

However, the repair guy that came later fixed the machine right quickly, new tires fixed a hellacious wobble in the front end of the car, which had been worrying us mightily, and we found a cute little robin at Lyker's Pond, first of the year.

Wish you could have heard the ice talking on that little pair of ponds out on Goldman Road. Yowsa! As the boss climbed out of the car, a great pressure crack snapped open right next to him and zipped across to the beaver house. Then when we were walking up the road that forms a sort of dam between the ponds a little wind began to move the whole ice shelf. It ground against the land bridge, boom, boom, boom. Sounded like a ten-thousand pound grouse drumming. 

Coming home from the pond we came across these fellows talking out their plans for clearing brush and trees under the power lines. As we slowly pulled up past them a gigantic military cargo plane roared across the road at barely treetop level, completely filling the view through the windshield. Even though I had the camera right in my hand I missed it completely, so quickly did it speed past. Darned near blew their hardhats off!

Recess

Anyhow, I guess the morning excitement was just a bit of something crashing in from space with no rumors or humors attached to it.

Later there was venison stew for supper, with humongous, sweet, carrots from Mary's and some nice little yellow potatoes. A good time was had by all. 

At it Again

I'm writing the Farm Side on Sunday, as we have a busy week ahead and no idea if there will be time on the usual days.

Normally I would share several links to news and informational stories for your perusal.

However, although I have a mess of them bookmarked for the gleaning of facts and figures, just one has enough to say to keep anyone thinking.

The real story behind Australian bush fires.

I am now reading the stories linked at the bottom of the article. What has happened and is happening on our west coast is all too similar.  

Reset Recap

Laughing Gulls on the Outer Banks

Sometime in the middle of last night, eBird statistics reset. All those amazing birds we found over the past 365 days were relegated to last year's old news and it's time to start again.

It is still dark so first bird of the day, year, and decade has yet to be counted.

Winter Wren

What will it be, what will it be? In Florida a few years back I was so excited for the opportunity for first bird to be something incredible and wonderful. Maybe an ibis or a Boat-tailed Grackle. We set out before dawn for the beaches and bays, eager for manatees and magical new birds....

Merliln

Only I wasn't paying enough attention to not looking and got a starling in the pink lights of the predawn parking lot. Last year it was a Canada Goose flyover. This year, who knows? The sun isn't really up yet and there were no owls calling at dog walking time...although I surely was hoping. 

Sandhill Crane at Montezuma

2019 saw us traveling to the Outer Banks for the first, but hopefully not the last time. A couple of runs out to Montezuma, where we lucked out and got the White Pelican, which showed up as a life bird for me, although I have seen them many times on trips to the South. Real honest-to-gosh first time life birds included Lapland Longspurs, an Olive-sided Flycatcher, Winter Wren, and Short-ear Owls....man, did we ever work hard to get the latter!

Common Yellowthroat

Yesterday for the first time in ages the boss and I actually got out and drove around some of our favorite spots and had a high time. Lots of nice raptors!

Anyhow, I am eager for another year of pursuing birds in the county, state and country. Hope we are healthy and wealthy enough to keep playing the game. Wish us luck...and thanks for being patient with our adventures.

***Update: As I was typing this, waiting for the washing machine to jingle the little tune that tells me that it is done, I heard my first bird of the '20s. What are the odds that just as the sun came up on the first day of the new year my favorite bird would begin to shout to all the neighbors that he was up and hitting the ground running or the air flying as the case may be when you are a bird? I do love me those Carolina Wrens.

Good Year to You

If you Bale it they will Come

Matt

Is a wise guy....

Some of our very favorite hay customers stopped by the other day. We always love to see them....at least in part because the crew includes my baby brother, Matthew, his lovely wife Lisa of South View Weaving fame, and their son, Kegan.

As always, a good time was had by all...especially the photographer.

And speaking of wise guys, guess who ducked behind the wall
and waved when I tried to take his picture.....

Food for Thought

Big headlines lately about tariff cuts by China, particularly for US pork....

But is US pork really US pork?

Or is it Chinese pork produced in the US by American farmers?

Will tariff cuts and diversion of resources leave our shelves bare of bacon? (Ack!!!)

Just who is being aided by these cuts as China sells pork to itself?

Read these and decide for yourself....

China cuts tariffs

Smithfield changes a few things

All about Smithfield....

Working on the first Farm Side for 2020 here......

And just for NY interest, Empire Farm Days has been sold!

A Scream in the Night

Many of my adventures occur while walking dogs in the early morning darkness. Although we live right on the edge of town, our wild acres are home to many creatures, as can be ascertained by checking out the morning track trails on the lawn....

Today the red-in-tooth-and-claw aspect of rural life came quite close.

Very close.

I had Finn, the finicky Border Collie, who must carefully peruse a great deal of countryside before choosing his "place".

He was perusin' and choosin' when a bloody murder kill-death-die screech came from right over on the long lawn, maybe thirty yards away. I clutched that leash like it was a lifeline and I was drowning because like many BCs he goes toward danger not away. He was loaded for bear or whatever else was out there.

But I yelled at him to stop and amazingly he did. 

Before my heart even stopped pounding I realized that it was a bunny meeting its maker. Our lawn is practically paved with Eastern Cottontails in the night and somebody "harvested" one for breakfast.

It was most likely a Red Fox. Their catlike tracks lace the snow behind the house each morning when I go out and we see them often in summer....too dark in the winter. I will never forget the first time I heard one yarring out there in the night. Sounded worse than the poor bunny.

Could also have been a Great Horned Owl. We have them, although they rarely come down near the house. I haven't heard them hooting yet this winter.

Anyhow, coffee or not I am awake now. And I cannot lie...it was more interesting than tragic to me as landlord to chickens and tender of gardens. Let the wild things eat the wild things rather than the pet poultry and the green beans. Bon appetite creature of the night.

The Birds you See

My all time favorite Black-capped Chickadee picture
taken today while shopping at Runnings in Gloversville

Canada Geese and a couple of Mallards from Schoharie Crossing

These Wild Turkeys and their pals frequent a bird feeder we often pass.

Detail from the back of one of the statues
on the Mohawk Valley Gateway Bridge

Good Morning All

Snow Angels

Check out the video below. The Snow Buntings were taking snow baths in the bright sunshine...or maybe making SnowBunting angels.

The Best Bird

Yesterday was the annual Johnstown NY Christmas Bird Count. Our family has participated almost since its beginning in 1982, and myself for 26 years. 

It was not the most scintillating year for Mayfield South. Traffic was fierce and birds still dispersed away from the roads, because I guess of our relatively mild....so far...winter.

Red-tailed Hawk, I think Alan took this one

Still we had a lot of fun owling even without any tangible results. Traffic was already pretty busy in the pre-dawn hours and the Barred Owl Mom has been hearing at their house refused to cooperate.

Brr, brr, brr Blue Jay

High points were three Pileated Woodpeckers, high for our personal count, two Cooper's Hawks, six Red-tailed Hawks, a mess of Mallards despite a serious dearth of open water, and two Ruffed Grouse that Alan found hidden away in some trees on a relatively deserted bit of road.

It was, as always, fun.

This spot looks benign and beautiful, but is beside a busy road and kinda scary
You press the shutter and peruse with the bins right smartly or die

However, the best bird of the day was a Common Loon, gavia immer. None of the water left in our bit of territory is large enough for a loon to get moving and get off the water. Thus unless we get a flyover, way, way, way out of season, we aren't going to see one.

This one though was given to me and Ralph by my dad and mom.

It was hand carved by my dad, in 1988, and is a thing of haunting beauty. The golden butternut body tempts fingers to stroke its silken surface....so sleek and smooth and somehow so satisfying to touch. Ruby eyes hold the secrets of the north, just as do the eyes of the real deal that we see at Peck's Lake and other beloved places in the spring and summer.

Nearly Headless Cooper's Hawk

It is a true treasure, was received as such, and will be treated as such as long as I am around to care for it.

Thanks, Dad and Mom for such an amazing and unexpected gift.

And thanks Alan for driving, spotting with those laser eyes, and feeding us well before you had to race off to another state for work today.

Misty Mallard

Thanks Amber for your patience, riding around freezing with the windows down while the loonies looked for loons...or chickadees and finches as the case may be.

Thanks Becky for keeping the paper tally while people shouted over one another, "crow", "downy", "MODO" and other garbled goodies from the front seat.

Thank you all and happy birding....or happy not birding if that is the way you roll. And Merry Christmas too.

Gavia Immer

Don't Touch my Nutz

At least twenty years ago, probably more, the man who started the Farm Side column and later turned it over to me when he got too busy farming to write it, brought us a bunch of Black Walnut seedlings.

We planted them....mostly I did...except for some that we gave to our farrier to plant at his place.

The ones I stomped down into a woodchuck hole because the ground was too hard and tangled with roots to dig in...unless you were a groundhog of course...thrived.

Today they are quite tall and make a lot of nutz, which I happily cede to the squirrels. Birds love those trees though and I get some nice ones there, like my first ever Yellow-throated Vireo a couple of years back.

And every couple of years contractors for the power company come by to trim out under the lines.

Well and good. It needs to be done! However, their definition of "under the power lines" is more than a little generous. 

Thus every couple of years I must defend my nutz.

This year we mentioned them to the advance man. And then we reminded him.

Twice.

And went outside and watched as chainsaws roared through Box Elder trees, which, alas, will spring back up by next fall despite them. 

They were quite nice and stayed well away from the walnuts, which aren't under the lines anyhow. Now I have a nice view from the driveway down to the river except for a few cottonwoods down by the Thruway.

Thanks guys.