The Big Reveal

Or....didn't we feel silly! The "owl" we saw in a hay field we were passing the other day was an errant cat....as you can see from the edited photo.

Now every time we pass a cat I say to the boss, "Look, an owl!"

Rare Whiskered Owl

Click for a closer view

Found in the Town of Glen. We actually stopped to photograph this guy before realizing......

Did She or Didn't She?

When this photo was taken one July day three years ago, I think she did. Today, well, it is pretty darned sunny out, so six more weeks of winter.

But wait! In Upstate NY, on the second day of the second month, there are ALWAYS six more weeks of winter for our eager anticipation. 

Always.

Meanwhile, check this out. Turns out the things below may be more accurate than the rodent.

Milestones

It would be great if you could wish dear Rebecca happy birthday today. She is a very special person, as her co-workers, customers, friends and family well know.

And she makes the best darned coffee you can get anywhere in town....heck in both towns....I am having a cup of not-so-superior stuff this morning because she is off work for her birthday, and I miss the good kind.

Happy Birthday, kiddo! We love you!

Good Birds

Ring-necked Pheasant...calling him my nemesis bird
the past couple of years, as we just couldn't find one
until today

Rough-legged Hawk

Northern Harrier...the Grey Ghost

Pileated Woodpecker, a pair, right in the yard today

Been lucky the past couple of days, although we missed the Snowy Owls and the Short-eared Owl we've been chasing.

A Glaucous Gull, right down on the river today
a lifer for me

Great Black-backed Gull, not rare, but he posed nicely

Sneaky

January, the hard, white heart of winter, kinda like a jawbreaker that just won't melt....And yet....a different season is sneaking in unannounced and mostly unheralded. 

Or at least pretty much. 

A friend has shared photos of maple sap flowing, but he is a kidder, so it is hard to know.

However, down at the boat launch yesterday, we saw a big sapcicle, hanging in a maple tree so...guess it is true

And the Carolina Wrens are singing their hearts out after being quiet all winter.

Still, whether the trees or the southern transplant birds believe it or not, there is a lot of winter yet to come.

Alas.

But we did find a fork in the road

Oxygen

Blue Ice

The wind hoots like a Great Horned Owl, hoooo......hooooo....hoooooooo.....howling through the Honey Locust tree just before the break of day. It's cold out here, the ice like glass between the places where the boss has sanded. I am grateful for that I can tell you. Wouldn't be walking without it...and driving down the driveway....oh, my, such peril, without the benefit of grit and rock salt.

Not much fun in darkness with dogs...hurry up boys, fingers getting brittle here...

The Mulberry trees that feed the Mulberry Express in summer must feel the same way, as they rattle and clack in the heavy draft a'blowing. 

One of them is creaking ominously. Finn, let's take care of this business somewhere else, eh?

Still dead dark at 6 AM, not even a glow in the East, the dregs of Orion fading in the West. He can fade into spring anytime he wants to!

A domestic Greylag goose that used to hang out with the Canada Geese
Down by the river. I miss her!

Birding's been barren lately, of anything of much interest. A Hairy Woodpecker on the suet feeder, for a FOY, that's first of year, and a strange little goose down on the river, and that's about it, except for Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks. We see plenty of them.

The goose was DD, diagnosed domestic, by the experts. I knew the head wasn't right for a Snow Goose, but what an odd little bird to find with the Mallards on the ice down there. Funny how you find a few domestic geese and hybrids hanging out with the wild ones. I've seen two of the domestic Greylag sort, and now this one, said to be a Swan Goose.

Anyhow, props to Becky for finding a cold medicine that works. We have tried about everything and even some home remedies, (and a hearty thank you to those who sent the recipe!) which helped for a while, but didn't last long enough.

This stuff....oh, my, I had just about forgotten how it felt to breathe. Oxygen, it is terribly underrated these days! I like it!

A picture Becky took of me when I wasn't looking
Or at least not in her direction

Good Morning to You

But wasn't the Schoharie pretty the other evening when we went down?

So this morning we awaken to tsunami warnings for the left coast where two of my favorite guys are....centered near Anchorage, where a good blog friend lives, and flood watches and warnings for our local area, with one of our girls spending her work day a few yards from the river.

And squirrels on the bird feeders.

Dagnabbit. 

Actually, I haven't even put the feeders out yet, as it is still pretty dark and it's pouring, but there was just a squirrel looking in the kitchen window at me.

***Update, tsunami warning cancelled. And it's not raining anywhere near as hard as it was. 

We were in a traffic jam the other day......

Interesting....

Yesterday was interesting...

I am sure your remember that old curse, "May you live in interesting times...."

Yeah, that kind of interesting. First our boy and my brother were flying from Florida to Washington State for work. All the while I was thinking that they were probably almost to their destination, they were instead sitting in an airport in Dallas most of the day...who knows why.

As a mother it is my job to worry and I am dedicated to motherhood. Thus I wasn't really restful all day long...and most of the night before, truth be told.

Then the rest of the crew took Miss Peggy to the state museum. A good time was had by all. However, on the way home their truck coughed up some kind of bearing that bears on the serpentine belt...or so I understand...right by Albany Airport.

They spent a good many hours alongside the road, calling folks to ferry parts and jury rigging a solution to the problem of getting home. Thus, although the guys were safe on the ground in Washington, I was still in full worried mother mode until quite late in the evening.

Props to the nice police officers who checked to make sure the kids were okay and that Peggy was warm enough in the truck and all. They offered kindly to let her and the girls sit in their car to get warm, or to arrange transportation to a warm place if needed. They even checked back later with two cars in case help was needed, and lighted up the scene for a bit so the guys could see.

However, the kids and Peg were chilly but okay, and she loved watching the planes land and take off. 

Kudos also to the guy who got the parts and took them to Jade and helped him install them. We would have gone down ourselves if we had to but heavy traffic and night time driving made us hope we wouldn't have to. We were grateful that Jade managed to get things going without us.

All's well that ends well, but I gotta tell you, it sure was an interesting day.

Guess Who's going to the State Museum

She believes in being prepared.....This trip is a pretty big deal.

She will see beams from the World Trade Center, some of which her daddy, who drives truck, hauled here from there. 

She will get to meet the Cohoes Mastodon. I still remember the first time I saw it, when I was, I think, in 5th grade. It made quite an impression, and I am sure today will for Peggy too.

And the Native displays. My first visit there was unforgettable as well and I am sure Peggy will be talking about them for weeks. 

There are minerals that her great grandpa found in the mineral section.

After all the educational stuff, there is lots of fun as well.

I hope they all have a great time!

Good Luck

We tried again for the Snowy Owl, and this time it was there...the boss's idea to look again and I thank him.

Bird was utterly unconcerned about cars and sat still for photos, barely looking at us at all. I didn't open the door or get out or anything....

A New Grandpuppy.....Cam

In the Technicolor Twilight

We went out late yesterday afternoon in pursuit of whatever might be around, from Snow Buntings to new ducks for the year.

While traversing snowy winter back roads we received a call about that Snowy Owl we got to see late last year.

We headed off, but didn't find it, alas.

However, we saw scenes that defy description. Not these in the photos...these were earlier.

No, up around Fort Plain, where the hills are high and the hedgerows sparse, there are miles and miles of open snow-covered cropland. The horizon ranged from brilliant pink and blue and orange to magenta as red as the blood of the sun. It was beyond my expertise to get any photos of it......but it was stunning and wonderful.

Maybe we will see the owl this year. Maybe we won't.

But, oh, what skies this cold shoulder of a January has to offer.

Open Water

Just before breakup

I love that the river is open again. It is still too high and too fast for the shallows in front of McDonald's to be active, but the other places....down by the boat launch, the compost place, the river by the state barn.... are all getting busier every day.

Yesterday, in far from friendly weather, we found a single Ring-necked Duck, a Common Goldeneye diving among a mess of Mallards, and a Common Loon. It was pretty exciting, and as an added benefit, the Goldeneye fairly glowed in bright, white and black breeding plumage. What a gorgeous bird!

It is not such a great time of year for cold-blooded outdoor lovers, but it sure is fun going out treasure hunting like we do.

Now if this cold/flu/grippe/disease/plague would just go away. Peggy and Jade seem to be over it...the rest of us, not so much.

Velociraptor

One of at least two Cooper's Hawks that are hunting the place.
The other is immature, and thus more brown than all these fancy colors

Counting birds, when suddenly all goes silent. Birds melt, some tucking up under the edge of the foundation, some in the Christmas trees that form a windbreak for the ground-feeding birds, some flying off as fast as light.

This bird, a flying appetite, sails over to perch on the big elm by the heifer barn, or in the nearby trees, or even on the roof of the house itself.

I haven't seen it take any prey, but he, or more likely she, as this is a big bird, has left some marks.

There is a Mourning Dove with a ruffled neck and only one tail feather and a White-throated Sparrow with no tail at all.

I have only one question...why, does this hungry predator not eat any and all of the 35 Brown-headed Cowbirds that come in to hoover every single seed off the big feeder and scare all the other birds away?

Why?

TB Ward

Check out the Chihuahua with delusions of grandeur. 

This place sounds like one. Every single one of the six of us is still coughing and hacking and sneezing and wheezing. We assume that eventually we will all get over it and things will look better. 

Meanwhile I will leave you with a young Amish fellow we saw racing his horses around and around his barnyard. 

No idea whether he was taking a little spin off them before getting out to work, or just having a good time. There was a second pair with some other folks watching as he went dashing through the snow in a two-horse open bob sleigh. They looked pretty awed, as were we.

I much admire his ability to balance, while standing up on a flipping and flying wagon like that....and to steer around all the stuff in that yard while not hitting any of it. Impressive!

National Milk Day

I am ever so grateful to have grown up in an era when parents and grandparents knew that milk helped build strong bones and healthy bodies, and considered it a necessary part of every meal. Thanks, mom and dad, aunts and uncles, and grandparents in Heaven.....

When we were kids there was always milk in the house, usually Glen and Mohawk, which we called Nelg and Kwahom, because we were just that weird. 

The milk plant where it was bottled was right down in town, and it was readily available in every little store around. When the folks had the antique and book stores in Fonda, the grocery where we bought it was just two doors down the street. Remember Collin's Grocery?

When we moved to the county to the north, where stores were not as handy, we bought milk from an area farmer. I don't recommend drinking raw milk today, unless it is from your own cows and you are confident of its safety and all, but we dipped it right out of the tank in those days and still managed to grow up pretty rugged.

Nowadays, Glen and Mohawk is long gone, but we buy milk from Stewart's two gallons at a time. Since the kids drink milk too, there are usually four gallons in the fridge. Whether it is poured on cereal, sloshed into every single cup of coffee that I drink (and there are many), or served with meals, we drink it every day at pretty much every meal. They look at us funny in restaurants when we order it with meals there too.....

I don't know what we would do without milk, but we sure wouldn't be happy. 

Thank you America's dairy farmers, especially the local folks who supply Stewart's with their award-winning milk. We would get awfully thirsty without you!

Winter Hardy

My mom shared this wonderful photo of our boy and my dad on Facebook
From whence I promptly and shamelessly stole it.
Aren't they sweet?

When you go out to walk the dogs without a coat or vest because it feels plenty warm...maybe 35 or 40 degrees....and come inside to find that it is a whopping 12 instead.

That's what a couple of weeks of single digits and foul winds will do. Gonna be in the 40s by week's end. We'll be wearing shorts and drinking Mai Tais. 

Except that, once I saw the temperature, I had to come back inside and get my hoodie......

Doesn't he look a lot like Grandpa now?

I'll save you some time....

A non-electronic dogging device

Looking up information on the new Electronic Logging Device rules for drivers. Working on the Farm Side today and learning a lot.

Below are some links to information I have found:

How the ELD mandate will affect the horse industry.

Giant Step Backward for Animal Welfare

A spot to comment if you have a dog in the fight..... or a pony in the dog and pony show....

Looking Back

Late with the bird feeders this morning...see yesterday's post....and today is a work day, so I got busy on the Farm Side for Friday.

Looked up from the computer to see a Mourning Dove perched on the windowsill looking in at me, craning his neck, and peering all around the kitchen.

"Where is she? Breakfast is always served at just before daybreak. What's going on here anyhow?"

A Blue Jay topped the arbor and a couple of dozen other birds were arrayed on it, under it, and all over the whole back yard.

I like to look out at the winter birds. Who knew that they were looking back?