Must Celebrate

Song Sparrow in the snow

Mallards

Rock Pigeons

Common Mergansers

Merlin

Long-tailed Duck

The continued resurrection of computer and photo archive.

Alan, you got your wish

Happy Birthday to my Dad

I hope the day is kind, with your boys so far away and only me close enough to notice....

Love you

Tears of Joy

Last night a Windows 10 update completely and utterly crashed my computer. Becky worked for hours to get a reinstall that saved at least some of my settings.

Alas, all my photos were gone. My own fault. There is a hard drive she gave me sitting right on the table next to me. We kept meaning to clear it and back up at least some of my material. But we didn't.

I was happy to at least have a functional computer without going out and spending a lot of money, but I was heartsick about the photos. Since I have had the new camera I have taken some that I really like. And they were gone.

And then Google would not let me get to a site that would let me redownload Picasa. It is my very favorite photo-editing program, simple to use and yet capable of doing most of what I need. Google photos is lame...won't do anything, so very dumbed down you know. And the bigger deals are either stupidly expensive or more complicated than I have time for...or both.

So I was very, very, very sad. Then I remembered that wonderful Margaret from the library, who passed away several years ago, much to all of our sadness, as we really loved her, suggested I use Duckduckgo instead of Google when doing some kinds of searches.

Found a download there immediately and had the program installed in about thirty seconds.

And somehow...all my photos were there.

Guess who is getting that hard drive working this very afternoon and who has backup to the Google cloud turned on right now....yeah me.  Eh, Google won't let me upload to the cloud from Picasa, but we can probably figure that out later. For now, I am just happy to have not lost all those pictures. 

The little Camera that Could

Other than the arrow, which indicates where the bird below was located,
this photo of a grey, cold, gloomy afternoon is
unedited

I've been fortunate to own several amazing cameras over my lifetime, from the Kodak Instamatic my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Earl gave me for Christmas one year....and thank you from the bottom of my heart for instigating my interest in taking pictures of things...

To a Cannon AE 1 Program film camera the boss bought me for our honeymoon. Egads, it was hard to get the film to connect with the dogs on the drive wheel. Missed shots of Brookview Tony Charity being sold for a million bucks or so in the middle of a horrendous thunderstorm on above mentioned honeymoon, way up in Port Perry Ontario.....

To a tiny Cannon point and shoot that is still around somewhere.

And the amazing Cannon S3 IS sent to me by a complete stranger from far away that I used for years and years and loved so much....Thank you a thousand-thousand times over for that! Liz is using it now, as she joins us in birding and photographing fun things in our life.

To this one the boss bought me. A Cannon Powershot SX 530 HS.

It may not take the sharpest pictures in existence, but the 200X zoom brings birds that are so far away that I cannot see them without bins and can't identify them even with them, into good enough focus to identify them.

I love taking photos and always have. I love it even more with this little under $300 camera. Wouldn't trade it for one of those boat anchor sized ones with a 400-pound lens hanging on the front on a bet. 

Bonaparte's Gull sitting on the bottom of the mud bank in the photo above
Heavily cropped....

Wanna have some Fun?

Shhh.....artists at work

Check out this week's Farm Side research. I'll bet a lot of you could participate in this contest if you wanted to.

The contest

A story about the contest.

The rules of the contest.

Another story about the contest.

Thank You to our Veterans

Family, friends, neighbors and strangers....we honor you all.

Here is a short history of the day we celebrate.

Nuts

Afterwards

River mud before the storm

The wind and rain of last week did staggering damage. Towns were wrecked and roads destroyed. People lost their houses and things. One person was killed.

The day after the dervish we had to go to Walmart to shop for ourselves and for my folks. We like to park over against the fence where we may have to walk farther but we can walk safer, being away from the heaviest traffic areas.

Not that day.

All the rows were lined with power company trucks, from far away states and even Canada.

Between the aisles of vehicles perhaps thirty people, I think most were men, but it looked like a couple of women too, were lined in a neat circle of day-glo orange jackets and pants listening to a briefing before they went to work fixing NY.

I took a couple of quick photos of the solemn group before we hurried in to do the job we normally would have done the day before, but my phone lost them. Dagnabbit.

I wish I could thank every one of those people, from the man explaining the correct protocol for transformers and guard rails and everything they would to face after the flood and wind, to each and every one of the people far from home but ready to do what was needed. And every other person who has been and is working to restore power and transportation to our friends and neighbors across the area. I heard 30 is already open north of Northville, which is incredible considering the damage. I wonder how Route 8 is coming...

Anyhow, this is the best I can do....so thanks!

Rocky Top

No, we don't live in Tennessee, but there has been some discussion....or North Carolina....I like NC a lot.

However, we do live on top of a large hill with an even bigger one rising to the south behind us. 

Ever since I met the boss he has lamented that hill....which I quite understand. It was always a problem getting the milk truck in. He used to rise at 2 or 3 AM to come up and plow out on tanker day when we lived in town. Sometimes he had to plow over and over again all day just to keep things cleared out.

I got stuck in the house driveway many, many times, until we finally bought a 4-wheel drive. Not that I can't drive...it's just that steep.

However, on mornings like this, as I sit here listening to the wind and reading flood warnings from local authorities, I am glad of the hill.

I am worried about what sunup is going to show about that driveway though. We spent a buncha bucks putting down good surface last year, but we have had some terrible rain. The TOP (!!!!) has a big ditch through it this morning. The top never washes.

 I hate to think what the bottom looks like. We got some stone in yesterday to fix a hole up by the stove. It could be that some of that may have to be put down at the bottom of the drive instead. 

Anyhow, I have been grateful for the hill a number of times over the years and I still am this morning.

That is all.

Stay safe out there friends.

Update, the flooding around the region is horrific and ongoing. We are fine but there are a lot of places that aren't. 

Happy Halloween

From the scary Zombie Prom Queen.

And all of us at Northview Farm 

Credit where Credit is Due

I'm not much of a fan of government meddling in agriculture, but these stories deserve notice.

The Real MEAT Act

Text of the Bill

Investigate!

The Things you See

After receiving a new set of spark plugs the car was raring to go, so we headed out today. We came upon this Amishman trotting merrily home from the field with this team and forecart. We followed him a while because we weren't in any big hurry. 





Then we went to Beardsley Reservoir, where we found a cute little Pied-billed Grebe, a few other birds and most of the rodent population of the county. We saw Grey and Red Squirrels and so many chipmunks it was mind boggling, sometimes five or six at a time.

The squirrels were trying to drop acorns on us but thankfully they missed. One was dropping them in the water at the edge of the lake and what a plonk that made.

Then we headed on home, but were forced to detour as one of the roads we normally take was closed for some reason. That turned out to be serendipitous, as that is when we came upon the Amishman on inline skates, swooping up the road like a cross country skier. He had on a backpack and in one hand a pair of rubber boots held by the top, straight up in the air. In the other hand he had a compound hunting bow.

I feel that I can honestly say that I have seen everything under the sun now....alas, I tried to grab a video but didn't push the right button.

It sure was a fine day for so late in October....like a bit of Indian Summer with all the oaks and a few late maples flaunting their finest colors before the bell rings for the end of this round and winter sets in for real.

Rustling

...is illegal....

Unless of course it's just the corn.

 

The Thang

Since we saw that unidentifiable swan out at a place we call Lykers Pond because it is a pond and it is near Lykers, we have been going out there often.

It is, I know, a futile hope that we will find that swan again, but we sure won't ever find it if we don't look.

Thus yesterday we stopped for a bit, although it was too late to see much. Birdies like the early hours as a rule.

What I did see was this thang floating among the cattails near a beaver house. At first I thought it was a bedraggled children's toy. Kinda looked as if it had legs and a head. Or maybe arms.

Then I thought possibly a defunct pillow. I mean there are people who have things that ugly sitting on their couches right?

I took a bunch of photos and upon looking closer through the camera (which has more zoom than my binoculars) I realized that it was a naturally occurring object. Or substance. Or something.

 I came to the conclusion that this may be the root of a large water lily. We once lost a big one in the garden pond...winters get cold here...and the roots looked somewhat like this when we removed them. I think maybe a beaver got this, which is a shame, as there are some gorgeous bright pink ones growing halfway up the pond. Darned rodents anyhow.

"He" even has a feather tucked behind his ear

Or it could be a Hobbit that tried to capture a beaver and lost.

Who knows? 

Do you?

To My Friends in Canada

I am so sorry.....

I know you Love

All those wonderful research links....or maybe not, but I do like to share them. This week's Farm Side is about farmers in several countries, including our own, getting irritated, and those silly "extinction rebellion" kiddies and their misguided protests.

Without further ado....

Dutch Tractor Protest and the worst rush hour ever.

Pics of thousands of tractors filling highways.

Angry Farmers

The French are flaming mad ticked off too.

Rally to Stop the Stealin'.

Even if you don't love research links, there is some interesting reading at these links as I can attest, having been perusing them since long before that faint light, now staining the eastern horizon, made its appearance. 

Going Out with a Bow

We have had an unprecedented run of fine weather so far this month. However, it looks as if tomorrow will bring the beginning of the gloomy fall weather we expect at this time of year.

The wild things know it too. After waiting and waiting and waiting for migrating ducks to show up we found them everywhere this morning. 24 Common Mergansers at Schoharie Crossing alone, and flocks of puddle ducks hanging out with the Canada Geese in the cornfields. I am a little under the weather with a kindergarten cold and the boss is even worse off so we didn't do too much today.

However, we certainly saw some fine sights in our pursuit of all things agricultural or avian.

Zingers

This is a Winesap apple, but I don't think they meant it that way

Bumbling wasps stagger over fallen apples, drunk on the cold of the mornings and fermented apple juice.

But are they happy drunks? No they are not. 

There is no gratitude for the bounty left behind by gravity and moth grub.

Instead should a dog's paw or a human ankle inadvertently brush their personal cider spheres, they emerge from their stupor to zip to the offender and sting and sting and sting. 

So far this year we have been careful and unscathed, but last year one got poor Mack in the neighborhood of the nethers and made him more than a little miserable.

And speaking of miserable....

Here, for your personal misery....without the benefit of alcohol,...are a couple of zingers of the news story variety. These didn't make me terribly happy, but then what from the news media does these days....

Fifty Shades of Not so Green

The inmates are running.....but not the prison....

Thanks to a couple of friends, from both near and far, for finding these. 

Fruit 'o the vine
Just wait until frost.