De-Voted

To voting. Been doing it since I turned 18 and haven't missed many opportunities to make my opinions felt.

This was the first time we enjoyed the company of an actual live pig though. I only wish he had been around the first few times I participated in this scary stuff...or at least it was scary for me back then. Not any more.

Now it's your turn if you haven't already. Get out, getter done. And if you vote here in our district, enjoy the piggy, who seems very sweet, and also enjoy your nice sticker.

It says, "I voted!" and so we did. 

What's up with That?

Looks a lot like work

Matt and Kegan stopped over yesterday and made us six gallons of apple cider from the fruit of the Winesap tree. It is delicious. We froze most of it, but there is a gallon in the fridge awaiting enjoyment.

They used an 1869 cider press Matt bought from the family of an area dairy farmer who was a good friend of ours, which the guys rebuilt a few weeks ago.

I have participated in cider making all my life, starting on our aunt and uncle's farm, and then doing it ourselves for years, making hundreds of gallons each year to sell. However, we always gathered apples to take them to a commercial press and then bottled them there. This was very different...same principal, but more hands on and smaller scale.

I got to play too, turning the crank a bit until I ran out of steam and feeding apples, one at a time, into the hopper. Alas, I have to tell you, I can't feed apples and talk at the same time...

It was great to actually use some of those apples! The poor tree outdid itself this year!
Winter nights will be better with a glass of spicy cider to enhance our dreams and chase away the cold.

Whomp

Jimi 'n' Janis maybe????

Hit by the season. I don't do well with short days. Cloudy, gloomy short days are the worst.

This is a cloudy, gloomy, short day with a time change. Arghhh!

Da chef (Lisa is a chef too, but I didn't get a good pic of her)

Still we had a great party yesterday. Not everyone could come but some folks from very far away made it....even my famous cousin. Another of my many, marvelous cousins brought me a delightful pair of china plates with BIRDS on them! Golden Crowned Kinglets to be exact. Delightful!

Everyone got into the wig....er....act

The party was fun. 

Food was great, (Matt and Lisa keep improving their barbecue until it is a good thing I don't live with them....see personal description below) companionship ditto, and some of the costumes of the season outstanding. Some folks did such a good job that other close family members were asking who they were. I didn't exactly knock myself out.....Alan got me a blaze orange hoodie and I went as a pumpkin. I was already round, so it was just a matter of gilding the gourd so to speak.




Now I will return to my gloomy grump and contemplate dragging myself outside to see what the jays are all about. The other day when the birds were making odd noises and I went outside to check I was treated to a Sharp-shinned Hawk right in the Winesap apple tree.

Grey ghost swift-winging, silent as murder, secret as death. It was able to fly away without me seeing where it went even when I was looking right at the place where it landed.

Talk about spooky.

Portrait

Two 'o' my favorite peeps, piled one atop the other. Can you tell they are buddies?

Earthquake

Many of you would scoff at this baby, centered in the town where I was born.

However, the boom it produced set the windows rattling, the dogs barking, Peggy fussing, and Becky running upstairs to see if the kitties had tipped over her dresser or some other large object.

Nope, just a little 2.5 tremor. Not even one graboid's worth I'm afraid. However, Alan felt a little jiggle in DC a bit before this one, so maybe they are migrating.

Meanwhile, it's foggy and damp and warmer than normal. And the moon is all dressed up for the season.

Why did I not Know about This

ROGL

Until now?????

Thanks Kev........as I sit here snorting coffee, for page upon page.

Eight States

In sixteen hours.....over two time zones.

Alabama
Georgia 
Tennessee
Virginia
West Virginia
Maryland
Pennsylvania
New York

I should surely feel worse than I do....but really, it's just nice to be home to the normal state of chaos around here. I can't wait to see Miss Peggy. Word is she missed me and tried to call me on her toy telephone every day.

I missed her too. And the kids who stayed home. And my pup.... Who went abso-terrieristically-ballistic when we walked in the door last night around ten. I was happy to see him too.

We did nine states on the way down, North Carolina being the extra one, but took two days doing it. I never fail to be astonished by our kid, who can calmly drive through interstate traffic like he does....he has such a way of saving time by driving smoothly instead of rushing. He makes up hours just by being able to handle traffic efficiently.

Anyhow, the guys loved Talladega and I loved seeing new country. Now back to doing stuff.....everybody needs to do stuff...

Not a Job for Amateurs

Cities make me Itchy

This really isn't bad as cities go. Although we are in a motel and commercial district it is dead quiet...at least in the daytime.....

Although there is enough concrete to make the point that this is indeed a city, it is mitigated somewhat by the surrounding hills, just beginning to put on a scarf of fall color.

And of course the Mockingbird.





I wake up stupid early here. Different time zone. Different circumstances. Early riser anyhow. I used to scoff at my maternal grandparents who saw every single sunrise from the dark side....and then I got that job walking hots at the race track...and then I married a dairy farmer.... 




And now I can't sleep late.....not ever.

So I lie awake in the morning waiting for him

 He does not fail me.




Our own mockers up north.... at least the ones on our farm...there is infinite variation in a mockingbird....sing local songs. The one that used to live by the house was a true virtuoso and knew every call from gull to jay to Jake brakes. This fellow does wrens, jays, cardinals and car alarms. 

I wondered as I listened to him singing well before dawn today, if anyone else was enjoying his marvelous performance.

When I went out, having finally become confident that the key card will indeed let me back into the room, so now I can go out and walk around, I found his lovely lady sitting just down the wire taking it all in. 

So yes, he is appreciated even when this parking lot birder is up in New York.

Good to know.

Birding Parking Lots

Alabama rainbow at sunrise for Linda

That's my super power. Oh, and fixing motel toilets, but that's just a farm wife thing. Ours was leaking pretty badly when we arrived. It is no longer doing so and I didn't even use my Swiss Army knife.

The place we are are staying is in a flat area surrounded in the far distance by rocky hills. The sky is spectacular. You don't realize that it can be like this when you live in a valley surrounded by hills and mountains and have trees everywhere you turn. Sunrise is 360 and sunset ditto. I like it!

Anyhow, back to the birds...

Before the sun even thought to come up a Northern Mockingbird was whistling loudly right outside our room. As it happened I had counted him after dark last night....he was sitting on a wire bracing himself for race weekend. What a singer! He was ripping out a mad chorus of Carolina Wren and Northern Cardinal and sounded very happy about it.

Then came a flock of Fish Crows cawing in their nasal, high-pitched manner. They were soon evicted by some American Crows.

Right now though all the birds seem to have followed the myriad, mostly white, mostly extended cab, mostly very large, pickup trucks that filled the parking lot last night, off to the race. Folks were even tail gating last night, which seemed pretty cool to me.

It's just me and the House Sparrows and the motel workers here right now.....

And that is just fine....

Alabama sunset

Sweet Home.....Tennessee.....

We made it to Alabama a short while ago and checked into our motel....where there is lovely, lovely WiFi....

 Alabama is lovely too and I am delighted to be here....

However, today I fell in love with Tennessee. I have only been here once before, more than four decades ago.......at night....we picked up a kid in Virginia and drove him home...but that is another story for another day....

Virginia is oaks and evergreens and corn and soybeans, so pretty it almost seems staged.

Georgia is fascinating. I have always liked it there. We stopped at about the nicest rest area I have ever visited in North Carolina...even the crickets chirped with a sweet southern accent. It was so quiet and green and peaceful...

But Tennessee has everything. We came upon the Great Smokies just at break of day. The mist covered them like a mysterious blanket and offered an almost absurd contrast to the Snowbird Snares that jostled all glitzed and gaudy along the flatlands. It was easy to see where they got their name.

Then we were climbing, bumper to bumper, curve to curve, a 360 once as the road swallowed itself with a tunnel and then spit itself out higher up.

Words cannot describe the beauty, but thankfully there are cameras to take care of that.

Even outside the mountains I found the part of the state we crossed to be utterly enticing, enchanting....and fun. From ruby mines and whitewater rafting places every few yards....I could come back and do that some day, the mining, not the rafting. No zip lines for me either.....to hearing a Carolina Chickadee on top of a mountain...I was entranced and full of joy.

A new favorite state to add to Florida...and of course, NY, which is home, after all.

All photos taken in Great Smokey Mountains National Park

Packing

Been running here and running there, buying this, finding that, laundering something else, thinking, planning, fretting and worrying.

And then it came to me. As long as I'm clean and fed, all I really need are the essentials.

Nat Geo field guide

Binoculars

Camera

Heck, I'm already good to go.

By the way Alan is making one of those lifetime trips and taking his old parents along because he is a really nice guy. I am a little nervous about the back seat of the Camaro for all those miles...and I don't do racing, so I am filling my NOOK up with free books off Bookbub....but I'm sure it will be fine.

We are going HERE

Leaving in a couple of days and I am hoping to blog from there....if not....well, we'll be back soon.

And if I live to tell the tale, next week's Farm Side will feature Alabama.

How Many Cows?

Gathered around the purloined salt block? Look closely now....

And baby makes three.

Chickens can Swim..and other Tales of Autumn

One tends to think of the falling of leaves in autumn as a process. It certainly is with cottonwoods, maples, elms, and oak. A few here. A few there. Until suddenly one day the trees are bare and the view turns dull and grey.

However, when it comes to mulberry trees it is more of an event. At o' dawn thirty this morning you could hear them pattering down so thickly that it was almost like popcorn popping. Jade said they were doing it when he left for work before dawn and it took him a while to figure out what he was hearing.

By noon there were only a few stragglers left, when this morning the trees were in full foliage.

Crazy.

And about that headline. Since we got the pup there has been an ongoing battle to keep him from eating chicken poo.

He loves it like I love maple sugar, but it makes him barf.





The result is singularly unappetizing.

Thus I try to discourage the loose chickens from coming up to the bird feeders.

This morning I thought I would kill two birds...no wait, that is a terrible choice of terms..... 

I thought I would use the dog to remove the chickens. I mean why not? Other than that I probably shouldn't encourage him to go after chickens.

But still....I am sick of the whole poo issue, and he thought it was a great idea. Even better than eating....well, you know.

The chickens were not happy to be assaulted by a Jack Russell Terrier though.

The rooster took to the air and landed in the middle of the garden pond, whereupon he promptly swam to the side...sort off...and flew off.

It made for a rather pretty tableau. An almost maroon Rhode Island Red rooster, his comb brilliant in the late season sun. The pond surface nearly covered with shining golden honey locust leaves like thousands of glittering coins...him splashing around in the middle...it was like poetry in a puddle.

Plus it was really good for a laugh.

Perhaps the last laugh of the season as the boss and I drained the pond this morning, Jade caught all the goldfish for me and I am refilling it for winter......

Salt of the Earth

Salt block map..click for detail

Jade and I conspired to put the cows' salt block way up on the hill, where I could see the cows from the kitchen window when they come down to partake each day.

I never got to see them up there one single time.

The very first night they took their new toy and rolled it down the hill.

And now they just keep shoving it closer and closer to the barnyard even though it is no longer on the hillside where gravity aids in their project.

I don't know what is up with them. Do they want to bring it down to the barn so they can enjoy it this winter?

Do they want to bring the deer real close so we can get lots of ticks?

Are they just perverse and annoying beasts?

Or do they want to make sure I get lots of exercise looking for them?

I dunno, but I do know when I went out to get their picture four deer were partaking with them.

And I do know in the past couple of days we have picked one tick off Daisy and TWO off our tiny itty-bitty puppy who never leaves my personal walking places right next to the house.

Dagnabbit. Venison for dinner this winter, cows.... you might want to give that formula some thought.

First Frost

A strange dark rainbow I saw while birding the other evening

Last night, and late for it. West and north of us there was a noticeable accumulation of the four-letter "S" word.

Horrific photos have been shared all over, making me glad to come downstairs and still see green and gold and brown and not that awful white stuff.

I am going to miss stopping at the garden for a handful of fresh, raw green beans.

And flowers....I'm gonna miss them too.

Crank 'er Up

A surprise awaited us when we visited Bellinger's Orchard for a half peck of apples this morning. 




The parking lot next to the old dairy barn was entirely full of lovely vintage autos. As we watched and took pictures they drove away, a fine parade for a lovely fall day. It would be good to turn up your sound.....