Come and Go with Me

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Spare tire

See the dog?

Birding and road farming this lovely county in Upstate NY. Some music for your trip.

Tragedy Remembered

The Eugene Ferrin in this story was my great grandfather:

THE ALFRED SUN, WEDNESDAY, March 21, 1900

A Terrible Fire.

Eugene Ferrin’s Home Burned To the Ground Early Sunday
Morning and Two of His
Children Perish in The Flames

Last Sunday morning the inhabitants of this community received a shock,

Which, while it excited the sensibilities, at the same time touched the

Inmost hearts and sympathetic natures of all, when it was learned that the home

Of Eugene Ferrin, who lives in a house belonging to Wm Ostrander, situated almost three miles from this village on the McHenry Valley road, was burned to the ground together with the entire contents, and two of Mr. Ferrin’s children had perished in the flames.

About twelve o’clock Saturday night Mrs. Ferrin arose and put a chunk

Of wood in the stove to keep the fire until morning. She then retired again and her attention was soon attracted by a reflection of light which proved to be a fire which had started around the stove pipe hole down stairs. Mrs. Ferrin gave her husband the alarm and went to the stair door and called the three older children who were sleeping overhead, two boys in one room and a little girl in another. They answered and the little girl came down. The fire was at first apparently not very serious and Mr. Ferrin, endeavored to extinguish the flames with two pails of water which were handy; but this amount being insufficient and the water privileges being very inconvenient, he was obliged to abandon the effort.

When it became apparent that the house would be destroyed, Mrs. Ferrin rushed out of the house with her baby and little girl.

Seeing that the boys did not come down stairs in response to the call, Mr. Ferrin became alarmed for their safety and started up the stairs to rescue them but was met by a wall of seething flame which caused him to retreat. He then rushed out of the house and after procuring a ladder, climbed tot he chamber window which was located near the bed in which the boys had been sleeping. We are informed that when Mr. Ferrin broke through the window he found that the children had left their bed and were in the opposite corner of the room cut off from him by the flames so that it was impossible to effect their rescue. In his efforts to save the children he was very badly burned, the hair being burned from his head and his hands and one side of his face being entirely blistered. 

 The two boys who were cremated were aged 9 and 3 years. Mr. and Mrs. Ferrin and the other
two children escaped with nothing save their night clothes and walked on third of a mile to Mr. Ostrander’s in their bare feet. 

 The night was severely cold, the thermometer standing at eight below zero, and their feet were badly frozen from the exposure. They are at present at the home of Mrs. Ferrin’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Henry McIntosh, and it will be some time before they recover from the burns and effects of exposure. 

 Mr. and Mrs. Ferrin have the sincere sympathy of the entire community in their great calamity and bereavement, and several parties are busily engaged in collecting effects to aid them in their time of need. Surely this is a Christian duty, and we trust that all will join in bearing these heavy burdens that they may be made as light as possible for those on whom they will fall with crushing weight. The remains of the little ones were placed in a casket “together” and interred in Woodlawn Cemetery Monday afternoon.

A Theory

At least there is now water in our river
The dragonflies are celebrating
with an orgy of epic proportions

It's mid-July and so far the year has unwound like a Tasmanian Devil on crack.

Nothing has gone well. Nothing resembles normal. Nobody is having fun yet.

Besides the plague, food and supply shortages, rioting, and being cut off from most of the people and things and activities we love, there is a movement afoot to do away with our money in favor of turning complete control of our lives over to banks and government.

To me that is the worst thing yet. You have all read the reasons why so I won't repeat them.

However, I figured out yesterday WHY all this is happening.

2020 is the year of the rat!

 Sneaky, destructive of all things whether it needs them or not, tireless, relentless, and riddled with disease. 

Yep, it's all about the rat.

Am I wrong? 

I don't think so.

Factors

The eastern sky is a fire opal, molten sun rising from the depths of its midnight mine to burn away the fog by nine.

Will hay be baled by five?

A yesterday's worth of repairs, in the furnace of the season, spell we hope so in bold type.

Wish us luck and thank you. 

Ladies of the Summer Shrubbery

"Seriously, Mabel, did you hear about the Wood Duck down the canal? Dumped her
eggs in a Hoodie's nest. No better than she should be."

Grey Catbird, grumpy old dowager, all hump and rump.

Ruby-throated Hummingbird like a needle, embroiders the air over the rudbeckia....stitching up some bugs, then darting to the feeder to wash them all down.

As she turns this way and that her little motor sounds like the rumbling drum of summer.

Catbirds chatter from the ditch and goldfinches shriek about potato chips all day long.

Gossiping, gossiping, gossiping, needlework, and rocking babies in an oriole cradle. Singing about it all season long. "Swing me the cradle, cradle, cradle," calls the male from the top of the old spruce.

It's almost like a ladies' sewing circle only with feathers and flowers and all outdoors. With bugs, berries and grass seeds in place of the cakes and the cookies.

And then comes the Eastern Towhee, "Drink yer tea. Drink yer tea."

I feel so welcome out there with them all.

Actually these are hungry baby Green Herons.

I think they were clattering beaks together as if begging parents for food.
I knew there had to be a nest in the tree above, as a sheet of birdlime covered whole branches all
summer long.

However, it was another birder who first found these cute fledglings. I was happy to see them
a couple of days later. 

Gotta Love 'em

Be careful about taking that tempting bait.
 Sometimes the barbs are not visible at first

Bureaucrats that is. It appears that if one is in NY and has a business...any business, including selling a few bales of hay in the barnyard...one must certify, testify, and codify what one is doing to prevent the spread of the Asian Plague. File a plan and all....

Being a law abiding citizen I have started several times to pursue this process. Suffice to say it is absolutely asinine  not what anyone would call simple. In an effort to squeeze everybody into the same compliance box the above mentioned demons have created an apparently endless and certainly intrusive web of pages that have absolutely no relevance to tossing hay out of the mow and throwing it onto trucks. Each page takes you to another and another and another, until you feel as if you are filling out a tax return. And not on Turbo Tax either. 

This is just one page....and to add insult to injury if you pause in the completion of any of the many tasks your session expires and you have to fill it out all over again.

Almost none of it applies to anything we do....beyond the obvious meeting of the mask requirement if getting up close and personal.

In the course of selling hay, no one goes indoors ever except the boss and sometimes Liz, who get the bales and toss them down from the haymow. We don't allow anyone in our buildings anyhow.

There is no close contact with customers beyond the handing over of money, which would appear to require masks under the guidelines...and that's easy peasy; we all have them and wear them when required just to avoid pointless conflict. 

No employees except us. I suppose I could advise myself not to carpool, but since the boss drives me everywhere that seems like overkill. I wonder if the state hands out free signage to remind everyone who has been living under a rock for the past three months to stay six feet apart.

No place to wash hands.  The only things that are touched by more than one person are the hay and the cash. Can't think of any way or any reason to disinfect the hay. They can wear gloves for the cash if they want to. A lot of people wear gloves to handle hay anyhow. Personally we keep wipey things in the car to clean hands after indoor visits. Seems as if others could do the same.

There is none of this other stuff that needs to be wiped down either: "• Shared equipment; • Counters, tables and chairs; • Door handles and push plates; • Levers and steering wheels; • Handrails; • Kitchen and bathroom faucets; • Equipment surfaces; • Equipment buttons; • Light switches; • Remote controls; • Shared phones, keyboards and electronics; • Shared sleeping areas."

Wonder what will be required if somebody pets old Moon....

I will probably figure this out eventually or we will simply quit selling hay, which would probably please the powers that be no end.

Update, Scott had the county exec give me a call and he was able to suggest just how many of the regulations we actually need to worry about...so thanks to both of them. 

Meanwhile, speaking of cash. Has anyone realized that if we turn to digital currency, every single transaction of any kind or any value can and will be tracked....and TAXED? 

Not to mention the perfectly legitimate commerce that will be stifled. How ya gonna sell a dozen eggs or a couple of tomatoes on the side of the road? How ya gonna give a homeless person a buck for a sammich?

BTW, we report every dime's worth of hay that we sell, but the whole concept is as insane as mail-in voting. Ripe for corruption, a wide open door to hackers and cheats, and not needed to please anyone but the government.

Anyhow, be careful what you wish for in the name of this disease. There are things that have the potential to be a whole lot worse than it is and that will last a lot longer too.

The whole thing was too much for this frog to swallow

Puddles

It's rained a bucket or five thousand lately, pretty much every day.

There are all kinds of puddles in the driveway and the yard.

More rain is forecast for tonight to the point that the races are already cancelled.

However, some puddles are more equal than others.

Check out these puddling butterflies at the edge of the garden the other day.

Like flying flowers right in the yard. 

High Summer

 

 The stress is higher than the heat index....but still....

Mappy

Happy Birthday, baby brother. Sorry you have to spend it so far from home. 

The chicken was incredible!

Love you!

Chick-fil....A Prime!

You can't beat locally grown chicken that goes from coop to cuisine in less than 24 hours.

My dear brother's family raised chickens this year and he and my nephew processed a few this weekend. They gave us one. (Many thanks!)

What a chicken! Eight weeks old, but it looked like a small turkey. I stuffed in some herbs from the yard, added a little garlic and the top off a walking onion, a little butter and roasted it until it was almost falling off the bone.

Delicious!

Chicken casserole with the leftovers tonight, the Good Lord willing....

Contrasts

The other day we found that the Schoharie Crossing State Historical Site had been vandalized since we had last visited, albeit in a fairly minor way. The mess was promptly cleaned up and many more signs warning visitors against everything from COVID to Zebra Mussels appeared.

Yesterday there was a big pile of empty (and incidentally illegal as heck) fireworks boxes to greet us. However, they were neatly piled for pickup by the crew. There have not been very many backyard displays this year, whether because the governor has troopers at the border to stop folks from importing them or people are afraid to travel out of state...might not be able to get back in and all...I just don't know.

However there was something else on a rock out in the river that was very different.

A bit of red and green caught my eye from some distance away and I put the bins on it. Weird.... but It was very birdy just then and I wanted to keep hunting. We had a short amount of time so I almost ignored it.

However curiosity got the better of me...I am one of those people who just HAS to know...so I moseyed on over.

What I found is pictured above, a small pack of plants, a bouquet of flowers, and two candles in glasses. My first thought was a memorial for someone's loss, so I said a small prayer for the deceased and left quickly.

Killdeer

However, as soon as Liz saw the photos she said, "Somebody is romantic! I'll betcha someone is going to get a really sweet proposal today, maybe in a kayak."

And it all made sense.

I surely do like her version a lot better. Everybody loves a romance.

Nice and tidy 

Even Here

In this majestic rural park........I feel bad for the maintenance crew, really nice fellows, who have enough to do with the mowing and trimming and picking up of all the lazy people's garbage. Now a little dose of vandalism too. Not nice.

Imagine

Growing up where you never find a black raspberry overlooked by foraging birds and pop it in your mouth to savor the wild, tart flavor.

Never being able to ramble at will, wandering aimlessly, lost in imagination, immersed in passive education, learning from living. Letting your mind run unfettered and free.

No mud puddles. No tire swings.

No secret rays of sun slanting down to reveal some hidden delight, deep in the wild jungles of the backyard or the edge of the hay field.

Missing out on that first wild deer staring back at you from a dew-soaked hedgerow, and the thunder of a Ruffed Grouse winging away through the pines.

Never climbing a real tree, skinning your legs on the sharp bark as you shinny and shove your way to a mysterious vantage point looking down on a different world.

Never hiding in a grass fort with a magical book that spirits you away to places no one has ever seen except among its pages.

Imagine a world without the Internet and never missing it.  Dewey Decimal anyone? I have since embraced it with great glee. It's kinda nice to be able to know almost anything you want to learn but freedom was better.

 I feel sorry for kids who are missing out on the joy of running wild in the world and trusting yourself to find your way home.

It's kinda sad. 

A Pretty Lily

A Fun Game

This is the most inclusive shot I took.
Note that there are birds all the way to the edges. I think
there were some outside the photo as well.

Called "Count the Commons".

Mergansers that is, Common Mergansers.

A portion of the frantic raft o' ducks

This little flow of water around the edge of an island at Yankee Hill Lock was crammed with them. It was impossible to count through the bins so I took photos.

A lot of them.

However, between the rocks among them and the number with their heads under water a rough count is the best I could do.

*Hint-there are more then 20. 

Let me know what you think, as I have to finish my eBird checklist for the location.

Thanks.

But wait, there's more!

Or should I say there were more. At least 14 additional birds were resting on rocks downriver a bit.

It was a fish duck extravaganza. 

Full o' smiles, taking my turn to wait in the car. Cheery eh?

Osprey

We found something neat the other day.

While waiting at a stop sign over in Fonda, I looked down at the county building. There was a bird on the cell tower there. A closer look through binoculars revealed an Osprey nest complete with adult Osprey.

I think that may be the first time I have ever been glad of a long line of down-the-hill traffic. I snapped a few shots, the traffic let up and we were off. Once home I realized that the nest is in the atlas priority block we live in. We have found a number of breeding species here, as mentioned the other day, but there sure haven't been any this exciting.

Ospreys not only nesting in our county but right across the river from us. I wonder how long the nest has been there and if others have noticed it and I just haven't heard. I'll bet they have.

Anyhow, we go that way often so it will be easy to keep an eye on the nest to see what we may see. I think, by the manner in which the adult was tending the nest, that there may even be babies.

Meanwhile our county is getting hit with an uptick in Covid cases, which is of no small concern. I can't lie. We have been getting a little lax in our vigilance. Back to the drawing board on that. Ugh.

And just to add to the 2020 fun, as I was walking across the living room this morning there was a big bang down by the road that sounded like a truck tire on the Thruway. Except that the power went out instantly. Thankfully Nat Grid came in and fixed what turned out to be a thrown fuse on the pole, but we were plenty worried about the freezers wherein there are months worth of food for both families. We do have a generator, but it isn't exactly handy to hook up.

Just another day in paradise.