For the Win

Slightly broken storage tote planted to green beans,
and an accidental canna, which must have been in the dirt

 

Container gardening.....

About Last Night

 

The first inkling we had was Matt calling me to see if we were all okay. He had seen a post on Facebook about a bad accident down on the corner.

Quick roll call...everybody accounted for, although Liz had just gotten back a couple of minutes before.

We talked about how that Godawful power pole has obscured the view up the hill ever since the road was done over many years ago and how the job engineer didn't want it there, but the powers that be said it had to be placed so. You always had to creepy creep to see around it , with the nose of your car almost sticking into the intersection.

We saw photos online soon after. That pole was toast. It was a very bad crash and we can only pray for those involved. Not good.

Then the lights...and the fans...went out.

We ate the last of supper in the dark and hot, and sat around substituting phones for laptops until it became clear that power wasn't coming back anytime soon.

Off to bed, perchance to not sleep at all. We have no air conditioning in this place, but fans do a pretty decent job of making the hot days bearable. Except when they don't 

All night I kept getting texts pushing the restoration time back more and more. It was easy to understand as the photos showed a terrible mess, but too hot to sleep. Then the thunderstorm rolled in. Cooled things off enough for sleep, but I still worried about the freezers. They are all running full out now, and hopefully everything is okay. I am not going to check until later. We depend on them to keep our food in edible condition. Things we grow, beef from Alan's steer, things that we really couldn't replace.

Anyhow, 16 minutes before four my little fan stuttered to life and the clock started blinking. It was a long night. I wish the best for the people in the crash and wish with all my heart that the state would fix that terrible intersection. It has been the scene of more crashes than I can count, many of them serious and dozens of close calls every single day.

Like little Minnows

 

All green and silver, hummingbirds swim through the bee balm.

This Dog

 

I was boiling brine for refrigerator dills. Found some nice cukes at an Amish farm in Otsego County yesterday and I wanted to get the dill before the caterpillars did.

The girls were swapping yarns and nibbling French fries

Suddenly there were lambs on the lawn.

The three big lambs have what amounts to a gigantic, three-hundred acre, creep feeder at their disposal. They found a bent bar on a six-bar gate and they can just squeeze through. The ewes don't fit, or at least don't try, but the lambs are out every day. They don't seem to wander far so we let it go on.

I don't begrudge them a single nettle, all the burdocks on the place, or the all-you-can-eat weed buffet they have been sampling since the sheep went out in the spring. In fact I welcome their attention to things I would otherwise have to address with the string trimmer.

However...and it's a big however...the garden, especially the beautiful potted navy blue lobelia on my garden table is off limits.

Guess what they tasted first the last time they came to the house...

Thus Liz headed for the door, Jill at heel. However she had just gotten off a challenging shift at work, and hey, working a Border Collie and all, so I chimed in, "I'll go."

When Jill saw the sheep she looked at me for the okay then immediately swept off, Away to Me, which seems to be her favorite side.

That was not what I needed, so I told her, "Walk up".

That's when I realized that she probably has not been trained to drive, or if she was there hasn't been a lot of practice. Driving is when the dog is moving the sheep away from the handler rather than gathering them in, which is quite against their instinct.

She did it though. By a combination of her name, a few corrective sounds, and a couple of nos when she tried to bring them to me, she got them moving toward the barnyard.

Then the guy pictured above decided to choose things up with her. Up on his tippy toes, chin tucked, horns all spikey, he went. I thought she was a timid dog, especially when I said, "Get 'im" and she didn't. A lot of dogs love an excuse to dive at a sheep. Heck, Mike loved to swing off the nose of a recalcitrant cow...or even a bull on the prod once...and never had to be asked twice.

However, once again, she just didn't know what I wanted. As soon as I went Sshh, sshh, sshh at her in she dove, all bristle and sass. She never laid a tooth on him, but I do believe that as of today he should qualify for "dog broke".

Shamelessly stolen from Liz's Facebook page.
Like most BCs she hates the camera so I don't have any good 
ones of her.

Most fun I've had all week. What a sweet, biddable, lovely little dog Jill is.

Shadows

 

A long, long time ago some wanna be friends ditched the boss at a ball game. It was way below zero and he was a long way from home. His best friend was on a date and had his girl along, but he still came to the rescue and brought him to the bottom of the driveway.

They talked for an hour down there in the cold. Bob was headed for Viet Nam and was leaving right away.

He predicted that they would never meet again.

They didn't.

Two weeks later Bob was another casualty on the terrible lists that were printed every day in local and national newspapers.

Fast forward through a long lifetime here in the states, a family, a farm, plenty of heartbreak and beaucoup de joie..we had the life that Bob was denied and are grateful for it.

We try to visit Bob's grave up in Ephrata at least once every summer. It is a beautiful and solemn place and it means a lot to Ralph to go there.

Knowing this, two young people spent two whole years making a memorial to give Ralph for Father's Day this year. They went to The Wall in Washington, found Bob's name, made rubbings, took photos and saved them all. It took a lot of rubbings to get it right.

They acquired a special flag and had family members fold it appropriately. They got Bob's photo off the Internet, plus the correct badges and patches to honor his sacrifice.

Then they put it all together in a tasteful and beautiful shadow box, which now resides on our mantel.

It moved the boss to helpless tears when they presented it to him, and even though I knew about it all along and followed their progress with my heart, I can say the same right now as I type this. What kind and caring young folks they are!

So thank-you Alan and Amber for the memorial.

And thank-you Robert Smith for your service...you are not forgotten.

And also many thanks for that long ago ride home in the awful cold of a northern winter. It was never forgotten either.

Don't try this at Home, Part Two

Somewhere near the closing of a busy day yesterday my younger brother contacted me looking for a little company. His wife is away and he was lonesome.

I would have gone anyhow, as we are close and always have been, but the carrot-on-a-stick of a little birding was thrown in, so I was downright eager.

We had intended to perhaps head into the 'Dacks, but time got short so we opted instead to look for Cline Road Marsh, a Fulton County hotspot of which I had been unaware until recently. Folks have been finding REALLY good birds there so I was ready.

First we indulged in a bit of navigational failure. I had looked at maps, but not paid a lot of attention, as I didn't think I was likely to get to go anytime soon....and there is no service out there. However we wandered down into St. Johnsville, got the GPS running and soon found one half of the place. 

It more than lived up to expectations. We had no more than stopped the truck when Marsh Wrens started chattering from the cattails. A Great Blue Heron perched above. Wandering watery leads led off into the grasses like temptation itself.

I birded my heart out for a bit until Toad started getting hot (canine companion of the French Bulldog persuasion.) With the air conditioning improving his comfort level we went looking for the other half.

I mistakenly (no navigational devices functioning) thought we were in the western part. Nope, eastern. However we set out looking for the other part...to the east...

And ended up off-roading up and down on the fateful and always to be remembered Schulenberg Road.

Schulenberg Road is not actually a road. It is a mountain moose path. It somewhat reminded me of Tom's Tiny Torture Trails of years gone by, although this was done in a big ol' Ford and not on horseback. At least the thousands of voracious deerflies were limited to only trying to eat the mirrors off the truck and couldn't get to us.

Said road is a genuine corduroy road, with gnarled and lumpy logs making up much of its creeping path through swamps and over (large!) rocks and ridges.

I soon discovered what popcorn feels like as we traversed much of its ever-narrowing, ever-wilder, and ever-rockier length. I hereby apologize to every single kernel that has ever bounced around a red-hot pan on my behalf.

I shot a few seconds of video of the ordeal adventure but had to stop for fear of breaking my camera on the dashboard or wresting my head from my neck if I didn't hang on.

But we made it. And now I know where the marsh is and can perhaps coerce coax the boss into an early morning run up that way someday soon. 

Swamp Thang, photo by Matt

It was well worth the headache, whiplash, and general leftover malaise from the trip to have experienced such a journey...put me in mind of both the Golden Road in Maine ("Where does this road lead?" "Canada") or field cars with the Aesch boys BITD. (As a mere girl I always had to ride in the backseat and always came away wrecked, but delighted that the boys let me join the mayhem.)

Anyhow, enjoy the little video...

***Also, a very Happy Birthday to my other brother, Michael, who is back in the 518 for a little bit of Upstate summer. Love you, big guy, hope you have a wonderful day!

Wow, Two Thou

 

I was amazed today when I went into My eBird to upload audio from some Downy Woodpecker fledglings and a singing Warbling Vireo.

Today is day two thousand of a checklist every consecutive day.

Recently fledged Downy Woodpecker
Every year the parents bring them in to the
suet feeder and try to leave them there.
Kinda like droppin' 'em off at college I guess.

There were days when the only checklist was a couple of Blue Jays seen from the window on the stair landing as I staggered back to bed while suffering from COVID or adenovirus and there were days of over fifty lists when chasing Christmas Bird Counts and Century Runs, but one way or another there were always lists.

This birding thing is a whole lot of fun and I just can't seem to leave it alone.

I want ALL the birds

And there are always more birds....

Brand new fledgling House Wren,
Minutes out of the nestbox

Happy Father's Day

 

Whether this is your fiftieth Father's Day or your first.

Whether you are trying to be dad, or need to be a dad, or if you wish you were a dad and are waiting.

This day's for you.

Happy Father's Day Ralph, Alan, Scott, Michael, Matthew, Uncle Larry, and all you dads out there and wannabes and all.

And Happy Father's Day to my dad, Roger, up in Heaven I am certain....you must know how we miss you. And both the grandpas and all the missing and much-missed uncles too....

Blessings to all.

Moth Pros

 

Can you tell me what these two are? I figured out for myself that the butterfly is a Viceroy rather than a Monarch, based on the dark line on the hindwing, and the date of its appearance. Have seen several of same up in the fields.

Thanks!

Viceroy Butterfly

Suddenly I found Myself

 ...unexpectedly working a Border Collie.

My three dogs are all gone, those little black collies of long-ago fame. Now, all I have is my tiny terrorist, er, terrier, Mack. His idea of work is to ignore me until he knows he has no choice.

But, hey, you never know...

The rain had finally ended, the sky had settled down.

Out to the backyard line I thought I'd go.

The table cloth was wrinkled, you could tell it at a glance.

The breeze would prolly fix that, don't cha know?

Because of doggie daycare, I had a pup along.

She likes to travel with me close in tow.

But then.....without warning....

Chickens and ducks under the bird feeder, oh, my!!!!!!

She was off in a trice, crouched low and showing lots of "eye". I hollered, "That'll do."

Hah! She paused for a second, just to let me know she'd heard, 

Then headed out again to really herd.

"Lie down!"

Nope, she was trained before we got her, but there isn't any lie down on her atall, atall.

"That'll do!"

Another pause, but she swung off, come bye, as if I'd meant that all along.

She has a nice, wide outrun anyhow. 

She knew she was wrong, and enough vocal authority brought her back to my feet, where she propped on her hinders peering over the flowerbed to see where the birdies went.

Man, did that ever take me back. I haven't worked a dog in years, and I never was terribly elegant at it. I had good dogs though, so I sometimes looked better than I was, but the credit for bulls moved and critters gathered goes entirely to them, with yours truly just along for the ride.

I have to say I loved it, that little bit of time travel. If that was my pup we'd go out and play gather up the poultry, but she's not, so I will just throw her ball for her and tell her she's a good girl.

That'll do, Jill, that'll do.

Mike, Nick, and Gael, BITD

Roadside Story

 

Saw these under a tree by the side of the road the other day.

No Sunday sales.

I do not need a puppy.

However, I cajoled Ralph into turning around to go back...just to ask ya know...

"How much for your puppies?"

"Tree hunderd dollars."

"Are they Jack Russells?"

Mama seemed unconcerned about the two breed thing
and was enjoying perhaps the first uninterrupted bone in a long time

"No, terriers. Tha mother is two breeds, some Toy Fox Terrier and another breed."

O...kay.....

"They are awful cute...thanks for your time..."

Nope I do not need a puppy, at least not at this time.

As I said, cute though....we went by again yesterday and they seemed to all be still there. Kids were snuggling them and they appeared pretty happy about it.

To the far Blue Mountain

 

....Lake Museum that is. 

The kids and Baby Bailey took me along with them on a visit Saturday and what a great time we had.

Passenger Pigeon
Quite a pretty bird~

Northern Goshawk
Having only ever seen one, I had to guess
Checked online...guessed right this time.

From continuing a longstanding tradition of enjoying the hamburger platter at King of the Frosties in Speculator (ate there for the first time back when we were playing in the band and driving around the 'Dacks on frigid winter nights, listening to the trees explode as the temperature dropped) to marveling over the incredible collection of awesome wooden watercraft, it was just plain fun.

And Bailey is simply the best baby, bar none. She took in the whole museum, utterly entranced by all there was to see, without a whimper, until she needed a run to get the kinks out.

 

Thanks kids! And thanks for the gas card, which made it possible for us to visit Dingman Road for the Clay-colored Sparrows AND (!!!) Sara Lib Road quarry.