Please click to embiggen. Sure had fun! Alas, I probably should have stayed home and done laundry, as the big fire in town has caused no water pressure up here on the hill. So sorry for the folks involved.
Wait a minute, that's not wood!
What's going on here?
At least it's not something I planted...
Tomatoes made that way are good. They taste fresh and sweet during the garden food deprived winter months.
However, the roasted tomato recipe sounded even better.
It just happened that I had a few tomatoes languishing on the counter from my little container garden by the door and even more on the vine. I was already doing squash for the freezer so I had a go at the tomatoes.
I'm here to tell you, they are amazing! I tasted a little and it was hard to stop. Even the juice is rich, yet sweet.
I am delighted to note that there are a number of maters already orange out on the vines. They will be good to go in a couple of days.
Peggy and I also went down the driveway to pick oregano....or marjoram, depending on who you ask. We have several hefty patches growing there that Peggy's great grandma Peggy and I planted back in the day. It seems to like the stony, scrubby, ground down there better than the lusher, richer soil up here on the flat. I do grow some in a half barrel for summer cookery, but it rarely winters over when grown that way.
They are prepared by simply washing and cutting tomatoes, spreading them on foil on a cookie sheet, drizzling with olive oil and roasting for an hour at 350 degrees. (Ended up cooking them a bit longer as they didn't look as done as I thought they should) I actually added chopped fresh herbs (basil, orange mint and thyme) and a little garlic powder, as I like that mixture.
And, yes, when all done and cooled freeze for winter goodness.
I hope we get enough tomatoes to make lots more....
In the west the lightning's rising, orange, white, no color bright...flickering like a cheap candle in a horror story...
And the wailing wind stirs the clouds into a whirling, angry stew.
Solar lamps blink on as if it were quite PM.
Doors slam untouched by human hands.
Nervous dog whines and wants to stay IN!
Hurricane, himmicane, or just a summer thunderstorm....I don't like this much
And I wish I could sleep late like a normal person...and miss all this madness.
*photos taken a couple of days ago at sunrise.
One of the Great Blue Herons at GRS
Really more like unswamped.
We have for many years birded a couple of bodies of water on Goldman Rd. in Montgomery County. We used to take the kids for picnics and a little bit of mostly futile fishing to the one double pond, which we named Lyker's Pond....no idea what its proper name might be. Later when I went over to the college with them...we often shared cars in those days...we would grab lunch at the Cobleskill Burger King and take it to Lykers to eat and watch birds.
The other spot is a series of beaver impoundments at the other end of the road. I named it Goldman Road Swamp for ease of eBird reporting.
Lyker's has a sweet little pull off where you can park. GRS has a small service road, which appears intended to allow county folks to keep the beaver debris under control. Recently we got brave enough to park on it, offering heretofore unavailable great views. (We used to park up on the road where tall grass and shrubs hide most of the view.)
Lyker's has given us birds both rare (Trumpeter Swan, which I still regret not counting) and common, and in spring is reliable for 35 or more species on one list. Birds that are hard to find, like American Bitterns, show up there with some regularity.
GRS is just fun. We are not exactly a flyway county so five or six Great Blue Herons at once is a treat. Bitterns live there too.
A week or so ago the people who keep beaver ponds from overflowing the highways cleaned up the culvert at GRS. This resulted in the unswamping of about half the water in the lower pool. We stopped the other day just to count herons.
Wilson'st Snipe and Least Sandpiper
lovin' them some mud.
I was surprised to find a plethora of Killdeers, a Greater Yellowlegs, and a couple of Solitary Sandpipers. They do love them some mudflats. Each visit since has resulted in a handful more shorebirds until today we counted six species of shorebirds plus lots of herons and an American Bittern for good measure.
Bonanza!
Today's haul included Least Sandpipers, Wilson's Snipe, Greater Yellowlegs, Solitary and Spotted Sandpipers, plus a fine quantity of screaming Killdeers squabbling over mud rights.
Much to my delight, I discovered that after doing just two lessons in a shorebird ID course I recently purchased from Cornell, I can already differentiate among difficult birds with much greater confidence.
Made seeing such cool birds so much less frustrating.
If you struggle with telling the tiny peeps apart or find the yellowlegs daunting I highly recommend the course. At under thirty bucks it is a steal.
Meanwhile, I cannot wait until the next time we can get out to Goldman Road. Passersby look at us funny, but the joke is not on us...
I still love you as much as always, never meant to seem to step away. If I am not saying or posting much it is because of the overwhelming nature of the challenges facing each and all of us today. Seems as if no one can catch a break....
But please forgive me and if there is anything I can do to make it better, please tell me....
It can't be said enough...I love you and I am sorry.
Seat belts.
Yesterday was church for our plain folk neighbors. There were very many of them, belonging to all the different orders and levels of difference. They were out on the roads in great numbers.
We attempted to count the number of kids in this conveyance but were unable to do so. (Give 'er a click to embiggen and see if you can... There were either two or three little ones in front on laps and between the dads.)
At least they were nice enough to pull over to the side of the road to let us by, while the horse, which was muddling along at a slow walk, caught its breath.
Just as we passed, one of the bigger boys stood up to look at something on the other side of the road and leaned way out into our lane.
Visions danced in my head and they weren't of sugar plums either. There is no way we could have stopped if he had fallen out. Thankfully he didn't.
Just a nice Sunday drive in the country....
*Who says rural life is boring?!
Birds were good though. Finally got a first of the year Red-breasted Nuthatch. One of those common, everybody else has seen one, kind of birds, that I have just missed somehow.
As I walked up to the aqueduct to look into the canal under it, something splashed behind me. I turned to look. A Belted Kingfisher, slammed into the water, then darted away toward the eastern bank in a flash of blue and silver.
But there was a huge wake left behind, rolling lines of moving water....what the heck...no five ounce swallow did that....even if it was carrying a coconut. Something big and brown eeled into the cattails on the other side of the small canal.
River Otters! There were three of them, one of which appeared to be a pup. They never saw me even after I sneaked up onto the aqueduct ramp and wore the camera battery down taking photos.
Snaky grace, all smooth and liquid, so close I could hear their jaws crunching the huge crayfish they were harvesting and the rustle of the cattails when they went in after frogs.
Efficient killing machines, they ate dozens while I watched. Alas, I blinked first. We had to come home to babysit. Many thanks to the kingfisher for pointing them out.
Whooo.... saw the cars and lights and lit a shuck down the driveway willy-nilly?
Expect we'll never know, although they woke me up and gave me a heckin' concern. It's a comfort to know that we subscribe to the country-boy-will-survive cultural norm...
But, then again, maybe they were just lost.
I for one would surely think twice about passing those no trespassing signs and venturing up a dark driveway toward a dimly lit farm house....just sayin'.
Please click to embiggen photos
Google has changed the Blogger posting interface and not for the better. thanks
Update, after the apple tree came down. We are, perhaps unadvisedly, letting the other half stay up until the birds are done with it...there seem to be several nests up there. The boss cleaned up the fallen half for firewood and for apple wood chips for family members who grill and smoke....
Then the washer died so we bought a new one. Came in bent, we unadvisedly accepted it with a small discount for cosmetic damage.
But then it leaked and banged and the edge of the drum seems to get hot.
So we are negotiating with the people from whom we purchased it for either a different one or our money back. They are willing to issue us a refund and pick it up, and although I dread shopping all over again and going without for even longer, that is probably the way we will have to go. I also hate to be forced to go elsewhere as they are good people with whom we have done business since before we were married and the boss's folks before that. I have a Gibson freezer out on the porch that was purchased before we were married and so far..knock wood...it is still reliable. Liz uses it for her stuff.
Meanwhile I squeaked two loads through the new washer before we decided that it was unsafe to use and I quit. At least we have clean towels now.
Update#2 Company sent technician down to inspect machine....verdict, must have tipped over on the truck....it's toast.
Also COVID has invaded a nursing home where we have a family member so we get letters every week that leave us feeling helpless and sad. This is the only really serious thing, and even this I think will be okay in time.
However, all this stuff eats time and attention. At the end of the day you have been busy as a dog with two tails and yet feel as if you have accomplished nothing. The phone rings constantly, texts and messages pour in, yet nothing concrete actually happens.
Nature, birds and farming taking a backseat to modern life. And the laundry piles up along with the worries.
Hope you are all well and as contented as you can manage. Someday the election will be behind us and they will have either figured out how to fight the virus or ....maybe not.
Immature Common Yellowthroat
Maybe what we used to complain about but now seems so deliciously normal will return.
Maybe not. Meanwhile even birding has been pretty dismal but at least we get to go outdoors. Take care.
Immature Tree Swallow...the babies are out and about this week
Posts
All Comments
Posts
All Comments
