The Color of the Cold

The sun is sliding slowly nearer, floating up from below the horizon and slicing the sky like an orange......or maybe a really cold, frozen, peach. 

These very cold days are events of great beauty, if equally intense discomfort.

Such colors! Especially at the bookends of the days.

Lyker's Pond, good birding in all seasons

Raw blue and turquoise. Oranges and golden lights that defy description.

The evenings are equal to the dawns, like a rewind of the emerging beauty, folding the flaming tents and tucking them below the rim of the earth. 

We went out early yesterday, as Liz didn't need our car...no school, the bus does not seem to be exactly Peggy-friendly..... and although we saw few birds, every single vista of frost rimed farms and steaming chimneys, cows' breath pluming, snow sparkling, made the trip amazing. Like a slide show spectacle of wonder. 

Same pond, different day, facing in the other direction

A short run for owls in the late afternoon was similarly fruitless, but at least equally gorgeous.

I am ever so thankful for birding even when we don't find birds. It gets me out. It keeps me watching. It gives me a reason to go, when my entire instinct in winter is to hibernate like a good, fat bear, and wait for seasons a bit more to my liking weather-wise.
 

Blue Jay soaking up the morning sun.
There were 22 in one tree and more flying in as we watched

Good Morning Bird Day

Blue Jay

Mourning Dove

White-throated Sparrow

Downy Woodpecker

Seen out and around the yard this morning. 

There's a Storm a'comin'

Not taken today, alas

Train horns mellow as old cheese resonate across the valley in the cold morning light.

Jays sound strident as a squawkboard with sharp fingernails applied.

Urgent hustle in the traffic, whether birds on the feeders or travelers on the interstate.

It's coming, says the East wind.

Almost here, call the cardinals.

Dee, dee, dee, oh dear chirp the racing chickadees, pecking open seeds as fast as they can find them.

In case you wondered.... Winter's back and it's bringing its friends...snow, sleet and wind. 

Somebody had better run out for toilet paper, bread, and milk and hurry!

It's getting pretty shiverish.

Hurry, hurry, hurry

Hey, who's that Walking

1

2

3 (Fox no doubt)

...All over our place? Here are some tracks found on my most recent walk up behind the barn, except for the great big one, which is from Yankee Hill Lock. I actually know that that one is, but it might not be what you would expect.

Looking for expert opinions here. Thanks

Da BIG track

Illustrations

8-mule hitch up in Fordsbush

Drying corn

For this week's Farm Side....I keep thinking each week that this one will be the last one, but so far I have not heard one way or the other from the new owners of the paper.

Combining corn

Even though it is January people, both English and Amish
are plowing all around the county

So I keep writing them....You will be able to read the story on Friday at the Recorder, but it is behind a paywall. 

Portent

I was out with Jill, dog number 3, yesterday morning when a sharp crack came from the Northwest. A meteor slashed through the sky and vanished over the Adirondacks.

That'll wake you up in a hurry. Sure spooked poor little Jill.

Another portent?

Coming on the heels of a failure to function on the part of the skid steer, upon which we depend for feeding stock and moving wood, thus keeping us from freezing I was just a tad concerned about  what it might portend.

However, the repair guy that came later fixed the machine right quickly, new tires fixed a hellacious wobble in the front end of the car, which had been worrying us mightily, and we found a cute little robin at Lyker's Pond, first of the year.

Wish you could have heard the ice talking on that little pair of ponds out on Goldman Road. Yowsa! As the boss climbed out of the car, a great pressure crack snapped open right next to him and zipped across to the beaver house. Then when we were walking up the road that forms a sort of dam between the ponds a little wind began to move the whole ice shelf. It ground against the land bridge, boom, boom, boom. Sounded like a ten-thousand pound grouse drumming. 

Coming home from the pond we came across these fellows talking out their plans for clearing brush and trees under the power lines. As we slowly pulled up past them a gigantic military cargo plane roared across the road at barely treetop level, completely filling the view through the windshield. Even though I had the camera right in my hand I missed it completely, so quickly did it speed past. Darned near blew their hardhats off!

Recess

Anyhow, I guess the morning excitement was just a bit of something crashing in from space with no rumors or humors attached to it.

Later there was venison stew for supper, with humongous, sweet, carrots from Mary's and some nice little yellow potatoes. A good time was had by all. 

At it Again

I'm writing the Farm Side on Sunday, as we have a busy week ahead and no idea if there will be time on the usual days.

Normally I would share several links to news and informational stories for your perusal.

However, although I have a mess of them bookmarked for the gleaning of facts and figures, just one has enough to say to keep anyone thinking.

The real story behind Australian bush fires.

I am now reading the stories linked at the bottom of the article. What has happened and is happening on our west coast is all too similar.  

Reset Recap

Laughing Gulls on the Outer Banks

Sometime in the middle of last night, eBird statistics reset. All those amazing birds we found over the past 365 days were relegated to last year's old news and it's time to start again.

It is still dark so first bird of the day, year, and decade has yet to be counted.

Winter Wren

What will it be, what will it be? In Florida a few years back I was so excited for the opportunity for first bird to be something incredible and wonderful. Maybe an ibis or a Boat-tailed Grackle. We set out before dawn for the beaches and bays, eager for manatees and magical new birds....

Merliln

Only I wasn't paying enough attention to not looking and got a starling in the pink lights of the predawn parking lot. Last year it was a Canada Goose flyover. This year, who knows? The sun isn't really up yet and there were no owls calling at dog walking time...although I surely was hoping. 

Sandhill Crane at Montezuma

2019 saw us traveling to the Outer Banks for the first, but hopefully not the last time. A couple of runs out to Montezuma, where we lucked out and got the White Pelican, which showed up as a life bird for me, although I have seen them many times on trips to the South. Real honest-to-gosh first time life birds included Lapland Longspurs, an Olive-sided Flycatcher, Winter Wren, and Short-ear Owls....man, did we ever work hard to get the latter!

Common Yellowthroat

Yesterday for the first time in ages the boss and I actually got out and drove around some of our favorite spots and had a high time. Lots of nice raptors!

Anyhow, I am eager for another year of pursuing birds in the county, state and country. Hope we are healthy and wealthy enough to keep playing the game. Wish us luck...and thanks for being patient with our adventures.

***Update: As I was typing this, waiting for the washing machine to jingle the little tune that tells me that it is done, I heard my first bird of the '20s. What are the odds that just as the sun came up on the first day of the new year my favorite bird would begin to shout to all the neighbors that he was up and hitting the ground running or the air flying as the case may be when you are a bird? I do love me those Carolina Wrens.

Good Year to You

If you Bale it they will Come

Matt

Is a wise guy....

Some of our very favorite hay customers stopped by the other day. We always love to see them....at least in part because the crew includes my baby brother, Matthew, his lovely wife Lisa of South View Weaving fame, and their son, Kegan.

As always, a good time was had by all...especially the photographer.

And speaking of wise guys, guess who ducked behind the wall
and waved when I tried to take his picture.....

Food for Thought

Big headlines lately about tariff cuts by China, particularly for US pork....

But is US pork really US pork?

Or is it Chinese pork produced in the US by American farmers?

Will tariff cuts and diversion of resources leave our shelves bare of bacon? (Ack!!!)

Just who is being aided by these cuts as China sells pork to itself?

Read these and decide for yourself....

China cuts tariffs

Smithfield changes a few things

All about Smithfield....

Working on the first Farm Side for 2020 here......

And just for NY interest, Empire Farm Days has been sold!

A Scream in the Night

Many of my adventures occur while walking dogs in the early morning darkness. Although we live right on the edge of town, our wild acres are home to many creatures, as can be ascertained by checking out the morning track trails on the lawn....

Today the red-in-tooth-and-claw aspect of rural life came quite close.

Very close.

I had Finn, the finicky Border Collie, who must carefully peruse a great deal of countryside before choosing his "place".

He was perusin' and choosin' when a bloody murder kill-death-die screech came from right over on the long lawn, maybe thirty yards away. I clutched that leash like it was a lifeline and I was drowning because like many BCs he goes toward danger not away. He was loaded for bear or whatever else was out there.

But I yelled at him to stop and amazingly he did. 

Before my heart even stopped pounding I realized that it was a bunny meeting its maker. Our lawn is practically paved with Eastern Cottontails in the night and somebody "harvested" one for breakfast.

It was most likely a Red Fox. Their catlike tracks lace the snow behind the house each morning when I go out and we see them often in summer....too dark in the winter. I will never forget the first time I heard one yarring out there in the night. Sounded worse than the poor bunny.

Could also have been a Great Horned Owl. We have them, although they rarely come down near the house. I haven't heard them hooting yet this winter.

Anyhow, coffee or not I am awake now. And I cannot lie...it was more interesting than tragic to me as landlord to chickens and tender of gardens. Let the wild things eat the wild things rather than the pet poultry and the green beans. Bon appetite creature of the night.