To the far Mountains

 

This guy was just creepy...

No elbows!

The kids had planned to stop down to see us on the weekend and then travel up to Lake Placid on Sunday to sneak in some Christmas shopping.

I made sad puppy eyes at Alan (over the phone, and not on video chat either...no mean feat..) and he invited me along.

(I am in the wrong line of work!)

Lake Placid

What a nice time. I love seeing them and getting to talk without miles between us and the shopping was interesting as well....although there is nothing in any store that can compare with the mighty mountains. The air alone will wake you up as if you were an ent and had been sleeping long and deep.

Thanks for a great day guys....it was a lot of fun.

Ninja Heron

 Huntie Boi Green Heron yesterday at Goldman Road Swamp. He is not afraid of me anymore and doesn't fly when I walk down by the water. Nice catch, huh?

Bam!

Fixing the "new" Facebook

 

Sometimes metamorphosis is not all it's cracked up to be

Like else everyone I hate the new format. Saw several articles on this and gave it a try.

Long story short, I love it.

Takes a few minutes to customize, but notifications are now in order with new ones highlighted in color. Timeline now STAYS on "most recent".

No ads.

I could go on and on, but the bottom line is, goodbye to the update from Hell and hello to Facebook Purity.

Freezing Winter Squash the Lazy Way

 

There are many ways to put up winter squash, some of which involve peeling, cubing, boiling and all manner of pains in the neck.

However, many moons ago I stumbled upon an easier way to do it, which requires minutes of prep and very little final work.

First I give the squash a nice scrub. We like butternuts best and acorn second best so that is what we use. Then I place the squashes on a foil lined oven sheet and poke several holes in them with a fork so as to let the steam escape.

Next step is to stick them in the oven at either 325 or 350 and cook until tender.

Let them cool enough to handle comfortably, slice in half, scoop out and discard the innards (if we have pigs they get them and love them or else into the compost bin they go).

Then scoop out the good part with a spoon, mash, and freeze in plastic freezer bags or containers.

It's that easy. I used to dread doing squash. Now I do an oven full every few days and soon have enough for the whole winter.

Later, when the cold winter winds are howling and a hot, fragrant, nutty-sweet dish of squash is desired.... I just put it in an oven safe bowl, add butter and a little maple syrup, cuz we love it, and either bake or microwave. 

It is so good!

Sixty-nine Years!

 

Happy Anniversary, Mom and Dad!

Love you!

The Things you See

 

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.

How much Wood

 

Could a woodchuck.....

Wait a minute, that's not wood!

What's going on here?

At least it's not something I planted...

Roasted Tomatoes

 A kind friend shared a recipe for them yesterday on Facebook. Other years Liz and I have cut up tomatoes, heated them in a pot with herbs, run the result through the food processor, and frozen it for soups in the winter.

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....

Omens

 

Sun tries to rise and leaves a bleeding bruise on the horizon to the east.

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.

Swamped

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...

Solitary Sandpiper