The Wearing of the Green

Nope. Not.

Just too gloomy and doomy today to bother.

I am one of those silly SAD people and it is snowy (!) and grey and unpleasant and the plague has me staying home providing child care instead of birding.

On top of that the knowledge that I have nothing to complain about, being well-fed, as healthy as I was pre-plague, living in a house with huge windows, maximizing available light, and able to get outdoors even at home, plus having a wonderful child for whom to care, makes me feel guilty about feeling gloomy.

You know, that Irish guilt syndrome and all. My great grandfather, Lawrence McGivern came over from the Ould Sod as a boy and I knew him as a child, so the ties to the green are strong.

Anyhow, instead of the dark green Henley and the green plaid flannel I had saved back for today, I grumpily went with grey Henley and orange plaid flannel.....with a black sweatshirt on top.

Take that plague!

In my defense I long ago gave up on St. Patty's day as far as good times are concerned. When we were kids we ALWAYS missed school because we had measles, mumps or rubella. Or the creeping crud. Or the galloping zook as my old boss at the veterinary clinic where I worked in my youth used to call it. The kids were always home sick too. March is a terrible month for seasonal contagions and always has been.

So here I sat at my computer, thinking about working on the story I started in lieu of my old job, listening to a cardinal wearing his heart on his song, when I happened to glance down.

And by Jove, I am in fact wearing green. Becky did my fingers with nail wraps for the High Kings concert last month, in green, and blue, and white with glitter. Kinda like an ocean wave breaking on pink sand. I liked them so much that they are still there.

Huh, whaddaya know....

Anyhow....

Hope you are all well, and finding what you need, and able to remain as calm as possible under the onslaught of scary information. And that the luck of the Irish smiles upon you whether you are or whether you aren't. 

Betcha can't listen to this without a smile. I sure can't. 

An Unexpected Kindness

In the birding world I am pretty much an outlier; always  been interested, always excited about them, haven't gone anywhere without binoculars since I have been an adult.

Which, as it happens, is quite a while.

However, while we were dairying, which we did together for all of our marriage up until six years ago, and separately on different farms for a good while before that, there wasn't much time to be serious about it.

Kept the bins in the car, stopped at good ponds or tooled through Montezuma, but nothing like the real deal.

In retirement I have making up for lost time. However, between the above history and being more than slightly introverted, I never got to know other birders. Over the past few years that has been changing. We keep running into cool people, particularly at Schoharie Crossing, a popular hot spot, and making their brief but delightful acquaintance. Seems as if I learn something from every single one of them too.

Saturday we were checking out the geese and  ducks there when a gentleman pulled up behind us and introduced himself. We had corresponded online but had never met. It was really nice to put a face to our pleasant virtual conversations.

However, I wanted to check out the local farm ponds and so we took off quite soon.

Way up back of beyond in the southern part of the county, my phone pinged with a text. It was from another birder, from NJ, whom I had met in much the same manner a couple of years ago. He was asking if he could give my phone number to the gentleman we had just met.

Seems he had found a Greater White-fronted Goose down in town.

Yowsa! You betcha!

We headed for Dunkin' as fast as traffic and our ancient conveyance would allow. The nice man who found the goose waited for us so he could get me on it too. Thanks John! Also, thanks David for taking time to relay messages so I got there in time to see the bird.

And a very good thing too, as it left only minutes later.

Wasn't it nice of both of them to make sure we got to see this rare and exciting bird? Made my week, and with all that has been going on recently it was a week that needed it.

Thanks again to all involved, including the boss who transports me to the wild and not so wild places where the cool chicks...and geese....hang out. 

Purple Sky and Plague Perception

This photo is unedited

Tweaked this one a tiny bit, but this is pretty much what we saw at the Crossing

These photos don't do the morning sky yesterday justice. The little temporary pool at Schoharie Crossing was actually purple. It only lasted a minute or so, but it was stunning.

Thanks, God, I needed that.

The Erie Canal at Yankee Hill Lock

We all need a little purple sky, a smile, or a kind word these days.

No matter where you live, no matter what you do, I  imagine that the plague is affecting you. We are somewhat socially isolated at the best of times...color me as introverted as that pool was purple....but this is unprecedented. It has hit us in many assorted ways from empty grocery stores to closing businesses.

Look out below! A Red-tailed Hawk hovers like a kite in the high winds the other day

Peggy's school has closed for at least two weeks; her mom works two jobs. Thus she will be spending a lot of time home with us or with her other grandma. Should be interesting...

As rumors fly and rules multiply, it is hard not to spend all your time worrying....... relentlessly increasing government control of everything we do, and unavoidable fear of both the disease and the unknown.....it's a major challenge to stay calm and normal.

I think we can all help each other with that though without getting close enough to exchange germs. I believe that if everyone who is the least bit creative shares a little of what they do, say photos of your latest project, a pretty sunrise, a good yarn if you are a story teller, and most of us are, a photo of your favorite dog, cat, horse, arachnid or whatever you love....we can help each other approach some semblance of normalcy.

I've encouraged the boss to write and share more of his short stories about his life growing up on a farm and continuing at it all his life. They are funny and uplifting even if I have heard them all a hundred times. Find him on Facebook if you want to read them....he is kind of outspoken politically, but you can skip all that and enjoy tales of riding cows and life on the land.

Best I can do for you is birds, but if we can keep getting out to see them I will keep sharing them.

Meanwhile.....

Female Common Merganser, gettin out of Dodge

Male Hooded Merganser looking all sleek and shiny.

Best wishes and love from Northview Farm and lets see those dogs, cats, memes, and ads for local meat and eggs if you got 'em. 

A Bald Eagle practices social distancing at Yankee Hill Lock yesterday

Schoharie Crossing

Birding tends keep me tilted toward the sane side at the best of times. These are certainly not them. Is it any wonder that this is one of my favorite spots to visit when needing a dose of therapy?

Besides all the amazing birds that is. 

Common Goldeneye, male and females, Wood Duck, and Canada Geese

Not Panic but Plenty of Precaution

How are you all doing? Okay so far? Have what you need? Hanging in there?

We are, at the moment, all right, although it is impossible not to worry.

Of necessity we shop every Friday for my folks and for us.

It is rarely entertaining, mostly because I am uncomfortable in crowds.

Yesterday morning we headed out early, having been deluged with photos of empty shelves and reports of panic.

We did indeed find bare shelves. There was no bathroom tissue to be had at Walmart . There were few disinfecting products, although we scored a bottle of spray cleaner, which we use even when there isn't a pandemic.

Staples like flour were absent or in short supply, perhaps just for the moment, as there were dozens of stockers hard at work all through the store. 

We also found universally pleasant, kind, helpful, cheerful, people, whether they were store employees or early morning customers like ourselves. 

It was a relief from the social media free-for-all that has become the norm.

And we found TP at Hannaford, thankfully, because we were actually out and needed to buy some. One pack for us. One pack for the folks.

Call me crazy but I think whenever this disease outbreak plays out, and however it does, we are going to be profoundly changed. I think if systems are put in place for distance learning and telecommuting for those for whom it is possible, they will not be abandoned even if and when things get better.

I think there may be a lot more preppers than there are now. I hope though that we don't go crazy ceding control of our lives to others, particularly government, and find freedom gone forever in the future. It is easy to let others take care of us, but it tends to come with a cost.

And by way of update we went back in late afternoon to take Becky shopping when she got off work and to pick up prescriptions...what a difference. The store was mobbed and people were miserable. Not one person smiled back or even acknowledged nods and greetings.

Pretty darned grim.

You Can't Make this Stuff Up

I can't believe I ate the whole thing

Free-range pig plus pedometer (to prove that it is a free-range pig) plus depraved appetite and resulting valuable organic fertilizer.....

Equals barn fire!

First of the Year

Dawn Chorus this morning.

After a quick airing of the Jerk Russell Terrier (not my phrase, but so very fitting, second walkies of the morning) I walked outside to photograph the setting of the moon.....

...To the first robin song of the year. Half a dozen Northern Cardinals were boxing the compass in cardinal speak, North-by-Northwest, and all the Souths, Easts, and Wests they could sing.

Song Sparrows were doing their thing from the pear tree by the stove and the heifer pasture fence. And of course the Carolina Wren was shouting his "Judy, Judy, Judy" song from the mulberries by the driveway.

The rising dawn and the setting moon were spectacular.

A fine way to put problems in perspective and a beautiful morning indeed.

***Please excuse the traffic noise in the background. We live on an Interstate....this morning it was really loud. 

All the News

Or maybe not. Have you noticed how few interviews with survivors of the disease du jour are available? I did a search as I was curious what it felt like. They are pretty scarce....

Or that most people who fit the description of "elderly" have "underlying conditions"? Seriously, how many people over sixty aren't on some medication for some age-related impairment, however minor? That description takes in a lot of territory...and a lot of people.

Or that the Iditarod has started? I am going to miss my dear friend, Jan, this year, as it will be the first time in many that she hasn't shared news and generally hilarious commentary on the last great race. You can find good info here from another longtime blog friend: Way up North.

Meanwhile, our car is dead or at least severely incapacitated, and we have no way to go anywhere or do anything. Many thanks to Lisa, our dear sister-in-law for getting the folks' groceries taken care of as we have been grounded since Thursday.....

I sure hope they find the gremlins soon, and get them under control! Things are changing way too fast around here. It would be nice to at least be able to cope with the day to day necessities.

That is all.

Out on the Hill

For the first time in a long while. I've tried, but the lane where the boss unloads hay has been clogged with ice and snow. It is steep and kinda dangerous at the best of times, so even getting out of the barnyard has been impossible.

Then came mud. Or I was babysitting and couldn't go out.

However, this morning the lane was open and the ground was frozen so I could climb the hill behind the barn.

Birding wasn't stellar, but it's always fun, and especially so on our familiar roads and fields.

Best encounter was four deer who meandered out of the field behind the barn, never  figuring out what I was until I took all the photos I wanted and moved a step. I think they would have walked right down to me if I had waited, but I wanted to see the hilltop before the ground melted and turned to slippery mud.

They exited right quickly once they realized that I wasn't just a log or the skid steer.

It's nice up there on the hill although it will be a while before work can begin.

Out in the Night

The Moon

And its shadow

Last dregs of the sun

And down in the barn.....

Somebody wants dinner....

Ein Footinger

Normal Black-capped Chickadee opening a seed

Early in the winter a Black-capped Chickadee showed up at the feeders that just didn't look right. It was always fluffed and ball-shaped and just.....wrong....somehow.

I thought it was sick and considered taking down the feeders for a few days, but I didn't and somehow it persisted.

It would cling, upside down, to the meal worm block for hours, picking slowly at the feed. It rarely flew when I went out to fill feeders or had reason to be out in the yard. It is normal for chickadees to be quite bold and ours even congregate as soon as I am near the feeders to they can grab some seeds when the big birds aren't around. However, this guy was much more so.

One day it got down in fresh inches-deep snow and lay there panting and struggling desperately. When I approached, thinking to pick it up and perhaps deliver it to a rehabber, it managed to flutter off, but it only went a couple of feet before perching.

I laid it to illness.

It was instead desperate and necessary trust.

The other day, despite being kinda, sorta, blind....ish....I finally got a good look at it.

It is not sick.

It only has one functional leg. The other is withered and useless. It holds it up under its body and uses the good one for everything.

Since chickadees open seeds by holding them with their feet while they peck them apart, this bird has a pretty tough time eating on the regular feeders. However, the mealworm block has hulless seeds along with the dried worms. It can just peck them out and eat them.

So it does.

I took a photo the other day when it landed right near my head when I as doing the feeders. Poor valiant little bird. How awesome is it that it got through the whole winter so far with such a great handicap? I named it Ein Footinger. 

The bad leg

Guess Who's Six

Miss Peggy Ann Marie is six.

Happy Birthday, Peggy!

The NY Plastic Bag Ban

Gonna be an endangered species now.

Went into effect a couple of days ago, but today was our first experience with it.

It went exactly as expected. 

It was hard to know how many bags to take into the store. We didn't think we wanted much stuff, so we took two. Of course once you are inside the store you see a dozen things you forgot you needed......

At the checkout there was no place to put items that had been scanned except on top of a tiny little paper bag holder.

Thus while the boss put up stuff I had to bag at full speed just to keep up. Neither of us was able to even glance at the readout to make sure the right price was charged for each item. 

We took the jacket we got for Peggy's upcoming birthday out without a bag...I will not give the state their 3 cents for a paper bag....because when all is said and done this is just a tax. (Somebody ran up a huge budget deficit so somebody else has to pay....)

It is also a massive, pointless, PIA. People behind us in line were grumbling furiously, faced with the same nuisance. It took significantly longer to get out of the store for each and every person in each and every line. There is just no way to do your own bagging in your random, squashy, tippy, kinda useless, politically correct, bags and do it quickly.

Surprise, surprise.

However, I see a great opportunity for some entrepreneur, (which, alas, I am not) to print  "reusable" bags with protest slogans, (The bag ban s**ks for example) political rhetoric, and/or anything that will help us all vent. It might cause rioting at the checkout, but I don't think so. So far Facebook is the only place I have seen or heard anyone happy with the deal. Checkers and shoppers sure aren't.

Personally, I would gladly buy bags that offered an opinion matching mine on our esteemed governor's rules and regulations, including this one. Or maybe they could mention bail reform.

 I've been thinking about this concept since the ban was proposed, and I did see some bags of that sort....may have been photo shopped, but maybe someone is already making them.

If so I would like to invest....

Here is a well-researched article on why the ban is ill-conceived and probably won't work anyhow.

Bag the Ban. 

Well worth a read....

Here's an excerpt, with numbers I have seen quoted in several other places. 

"According to Recyc- Québec, nearly 78% of people reuse their “single-use” plastic bags, most often as a small trash can liner or to pick up pet waste. Research from the University of Sydney found that after California’s plastic bag ban, the sales of thicker, more resource-intensive plastic trash bags skyrocketed.Once plastic bags were banned, Californians started buying trash bags for their everyday use instead of reusing the shopping bags that they were previously getting at no charge. Coupled with an increase in paper bag usage, the research found that California’s plastic bag ban increased in carbon emissions."

In other words, the ban is not just intrusive and annoying, it is counterproductive.

Which has been obvious to anyone who actually thought about it since it was proposed.

March Roars In

A lot like February. Cold, windy, uninviting.

Take a closer look....

However, migration has started, albeit a little sluggishly.

The sun is out...today at least....

Gadwall

Makes you want to get out even though once you do you want to get back indoors just as quickly.

See what I mean?

Adding Insult

Y'all know how I got fired....and they didn't even bother to tell me, just stopped publishing columns that I took the time to write and send....

Well, it appears that even though the Gazette ran two of my columns in the Recorder which they purchased....back the first two weeks in January...nobody is going to pay me.

Nobody is even going to answer my emails.

Am I ticked off? 

Why, yes, yes I am. Don't really need the stress, do really need the money.

That is all.