Hammer and Tongs

Well, chainsaw and log splitter really. Yesterday the stove was pretty much out and the house was an iceberg. (Except in the Peggy space where there is extra heat.) 
 
See there is this thing where I would tend the darned stove if I could  lift the logs, but if they are the size of my torso I cannot put them in the stove. I started tending a wood and coal stove the winter I turned EIGHT, and lived many years with only a wood fire as a source of heat in very cold domiciles where it was build a fire or freeze.

 The stove is supposed to run at 184-6 degrees and it was languishing at 126. I went out to deal.

Broke up tiny dry box elder twigs. And then bigger ones. A broken bird feeder....my how lovely that cedar smells when burning. An old lilac bush that fell in the horse yard..... Dang, that stuff is stringy. After I went at it for a while Liz sent Jade out with the little chainsaw to cut up some apple, bigger box elder...too big to stomp on to break....and sundry other odds and ends.

Farm Show Fox

Then the boss brought down some excellent hickory...best firewood in the world...and the fellas brought the tractor over and split it. Splitting the firewood so the womens can lift it is a tradition not much honored around here.

Then there was some actual dry box elder brought in too. I tended stove all day and even oversaw the night time stuffing of same. 

This morning I got up to a warm house! Actually had to take my down vest off when I came in from filling it again. I now have it topped up for the day and the place is toasty.

I have explained to the boss that this is what he can look forward to if he makes the wood small enough for me to lift and toss......all he has to do is bring it and split it and throw it in a pile. .

The Big Bang

Small blessings...my two favorite birds in the same photo

I was upstairs hanging up laundry when Liz hollered to me.

"Ma, we have an injured hawk down here."

Say what?!?

But yeah, a bird had hit one of the big 4' x 8' windows in the living room and was grounded on the lawn. We very rarely get bird strike on them, fortunately. It is probably because of all the shotgun pellet holes....

However, sure enough there was a large, immature Coopers Hawk on the lawn under the window. It wasn't much hurt because before I could run and get the camera it flew off to the mulberry trees for a bit of a rest and then was gone. I guess it made quite a crash though.

Peggy was fascinated. Long after the sun went down and the windows showed nothing but darkness, she kept calling us over  to look out for the bird.

A fledgling birder? Wouldn't that be nice.....

Farm Show

Went to the Pennsylvania Farm Show Sunday for a while, but ended up at Cabela's because the show was so crowded we couldn't even get to any of the booths or take any  photos.

It was the boss's first trip

I think he was impressed

Cabela's was fun though and Alan bought me a buffalo burger so I can cross that off my life list. You should have seen how busy the firearms department was.

Frosty

Out Around Town

Every single building at the fairgrounds was lined with gulls at sunset, mostly Great Black Backed
I thought they kind of captioned this photo themselves

I was trying to get the binoculars on a large flock of Snow Geese down over the river when the pup practically ripped my arm off. So much for birding and dog walking as a cooperative venture.

Mostly Canada Geese and Mallards but there were other birds mixed in

So I ran in and asked the boss to drive me downtown to the bustling metropolis of the twin...non-cities....villages actually...of Fonda and Fultonville.

We needed to go to the store to....gulp....buy milk.....anyhow.

The Snows were gone, but there was no shortage of other waterfowl. Lots of them.

I wonder....why isn't this area better known for the birding? 

Yesterday there was nothing more exotic than a single female Hooded Merganser, a small flock of Common Mergansers, and a plethora of Great Black Backed Gulls among the Herring and Ring-billed Gulls and Mallards and Canada Geese. 

However, for sheer volume our little bit of river is hard to beat. And I would not be surprised that a better birder might spot better birds. Liz saw a Bald Eagle eating a goose on the fairgrounds the other day.....

Anyhow, the proximity of the shallow, teeming water is why we get so many waterfowl on a dry land farm. They may not live up here, but they sure do fly over.

Tell Tale

If you lived here in this kitchen and looked out the window to the old heifer pasture a thousand times a day, you might think that not much happens there.

Oh, deer and turkeys are spotted now and then, crows, Red-tailed Hawks, sometimes even a Bald Eagle. However, it usually seems pretty quiet and dull.

A frosty bit of dampness and a little leftover snow tells a far different tale.

I took a short walk yesterday, just up past the old trucks (this was made possible by the cows being in the barn now. I don't like to go out alone in the field with them. Sometimes the friendly attention of a creature that weights three-quarters of a ton can be a bit overwhelming and all).

 I saw the tracks of mice and shrews and foxes, coyotes, deer, rabbits, red and grey squirrels, an opossum, and birds of many sizes. Stories were written in the white and blue and grey....here a coyote slipped and slid down the hill...interrupted in his trotting by ice.

There a fox took the easiest way down to the  frozen stream probably hunting the tiny creatures who left tracks smaller than a pencil might make if you poked it in the snow.

In another spot a bit of drama, large deer tracks skidding down the hill, overlaid by coyote tracks the whole way. Did the deer escape? Who knows? At least it made it over the creek and up into the field behind the barn. Someone has forgotten to turn the electric fencer off...I can hear it clicking from the hop house....so there is no way I am crossing the trail to track the tale any farther.

I didn't see a single actual mammal and only two birds, a Downy Woodpecker and a White-breasted Nuthatch. However, it was easy to see that the woods and field are busy places when no one is looking. If the snow stays crusty like it is now...not too likely with warm weather and freezing rain coming in, I will be walking out there often.

Oh, and I did see a Ram.

These Boots are Made for...

Somebody else.....

And she gets a huge laugh out of stealing my chair in the living room. If she is just too busy to sit there herself she takes it by proxy. It is always full of dollies, or babies, or ponies.
Now she has started on the kitchen chair too. Wish you could hear her when I discover that my seat is occupied.

Eight

I'll bet this guy is cold this morning down there in the big city and working outdoors.
I miss the beard

Below zero this fine January morning. They promised us four above, but didn't quite get it right. There will be a lot of farmers fixing and thawing and muttering this morning I fear. Even the goldfish from the pond, which are wintering in a ten-gallon tank in the office are cold.

I really shouldn't have fed them this morning....

Perfect Timing

I shamelessly stole this photo from Liz's FB page....thanks, Liz
Both Moon and Moonshine are behind Bama, but she is a fat old girl and has them
mostly hidden.

The two old cows and the heifer have been out on pasture right up until now. They have been getting all the baled hay they could eat for several weeks, but with the temperatures mostly above freezing, and sometimes even above summertime, they were better off out.

They are both going to turn 9 this year and that means old arthur...itis, that is....can make it difficult for them to get up and down on a hard barn floor.

However, tomorrow night it is supposed to go down around four degrees, so the kids got a nice pen built for them down in the old heifer barn and we brought them in.

We are pretty sure Bama has been in there before when she was a heifer, but Moon was a show calf and stayed in the cow barn. The little heifer has only been in a barn for a couple of days, and she had never been in this one.

Thus when all went smoothly we were glad. I think they were happy to be in. Old Bama pawed shavings like a mad bull and danced around kicking up her heels like a clumsy fool. She is pretty seriously too darned fat and looked pretty silly. 

Hopefully they will do okay in there....it isn't a particularly cow-friendly barn, having been built long before concepts like proper ventilation were on the horizon. However, with just three cattle, three sheep, a big old horse, some bunnies and a mess of poultry, it should be okay.

Hopefully..... 

Winter

It just got here, albeit with a hiss rather than a roar.

However, I am over it already and it can leave at any time.

Meanwhile, I will be getting out there to get year birds for my list, and maybe submitting lists to eBird. I did one the other day and although it was a bit difficult I think I may have done it right.

And gardening. I picked these little beauties yesterday. And ate them.

Promptly.

There will be a few more it looks like, although the little 2-year-old volunteer tomato plant in the big geranium pot is looking a bit the worse for wear. However, I am going to drag one of the wooden plant boxes Alan had a coworker make for me out to the kitchen, trim off the oddities it still contains, and plant it to lettuce. I love growing lettuce in the big windows, and as I said, I am so over winter.

Nothing like a little fresh greenery to take the curse off.

Clean Slate

Really every day gives us one, to use as we will, and to think of as we choose to think.

However, today marks the official one.

This morning at 1:30 AM I was greeted by this little horse on the dining room table when I came downstairs. Last crochet project for Becky for 2015, and boy has she come a long way since she started this craft. Isn't he a cutie?

First bird for 2016 was a Northern Flicker, which is at least a little more glamorous than last year's starling.

We managed as a family to tally 84 species on the farm this year, four over the goal I set myself. No goal yet for this year, but already several species, including American Robins, are listed, and I have only gone outside to walk the pups.

Guess my most exciting bird for last year was actually a pair, Upland Sandpipers, and by all evidence they nested here, which is a nice bonus.

Anyhow, enjoy your day, and Happy New Year from Northview. I'm going to get out and click up some birds.

Happy New Year

Last year at this time we were sleep deprived, destroyed by so many hours in the car, and excited half to death, hanging out in Orange Park Florida. We welcomed the new year in listening to fireworks and noisy parties at a motel not far from the St. Johns River. Over the next two days we raced back and forth across the Sunshine State, picking up life birds and experiencing more cool stuff than I normally see in ten years. On New Year's Day I dabbled my toes in both the Atlantic and the Gulf and have been sustained all year by the memory of that feat....

This year Alan's dear friend is getting married, so he will be staying here at home. Congratulations to the happy couple and to the delightful farm family that raised the fine young groom. They are just plain good folks....

Last year my year bird was a parking lot starling. I was trying to keep my eyes off the skies, as we were on the way to Walmart for some fruit and road food and I knew there were Boat-tailed Grackles over there. However, that bird-every-minute-habit struck, and I looked up as we exited the motel parking lot. Bam! European Starling. How thrilling......

What will this year bring? Perhaps a Carolina Wren or a Canada Goose....or maybe just another starling...there are plenty of those around. Anyhow, it will be a NY bird.

I need to tabulate the farm list and add on the several species seen only by Alan, as he spends more time in the fields than I do, between hunting, riding his quad and snowmobile, and making hay. He saw a Red-headed Woodpecker up there this year....I haven't seen one in at least twenty years and probably more like thirty, although I used to see them all the time back in the days when I rode Magnum everywhere I went....or at least almost everywhere... He also got the Ruffed Grouse, Green and Blue Herons and a couple or so others.

Anyhow, 2015 was wonderful.....we had a lot of fun with Peggy, and birding, and visiting Florida, Talladega and Gettysburg. The boss made a bunch of hay, we had a good garden, chickens were raised from baby chicks, with the result that every flat surface in the kitchen and some in other rooms is covered with cartons full of eggs.

If 2016 is half as much fun I won't have any complaints.

Happy New Year.