Missing Birds

 

This has been the year for missing birds. We keep seeing huge raptors spiraling over the mountains, and they vanish just as I get the bins on them.

Over and over again. Then yesterday we went down to the river late in the afternoon. There were sixty or so ducks out where the Schoharie meets the Mohawk. Probably ninety percent of them were American Black Ducks, plus there were a few Mallards and a sprinkling of Common Mergansers. 

And something else. Six diving ducks that spent mere seconds on the surface before disappearing below the ice-strewn water. I could not focus the camera on them before they vanished. I finally got the one terrible photo, which you can see above.

Next we went owling out on Lynk Street and environs. We probably saw two Short-eared Owls. One was perched in a distant elm. I just got him in the camera view when my glasses (distance, can't see through the camera with them on) thumped off my head over my eyes. By the time I shoved them up he was gone.

Within half a mile another bird flew up off the edge of the road right over the windshield. Right size, seemed the right color, couldn't focus fast enough to be sure. Close, but no cigar.

Fast forward to this morning just at the edge of daylight. I was out with the dog. Traffic was heavy already so it was hard to hear, but I swear I heard an owl. Trouble is it was so darned noisy that it could have been a distant dog barking, and there was no way to discern the pattern of the call. "Whoo cooks for you" or "Two Two twoo twoo"? Hard telling, not knowing.

Curses, foiled again!

There is a consensus between what I think and what a birder on the ABA ID site thinks that the ducks were Surf Scoters,  but I don't think the photo is good enough to call it. Dagnabbit.

Thus, I remain skunked for the past couple of weeks alas. At least it appears that the ducks are finally starting to move through our area. Better luck next time.

 

Owling

From December 2019

Another old Farm Side. We are looking at another incoming snow storm right now....photos are from yesterday.

Two days before the storm. At least one college had already canceled classes.

Out in the unmown horse pasture, ungrazed since Magnum died, the frozen grass was the color of a sunburned fox’s pelt, tawny, tangled, tipped with cold rolled gold, waving in the frigid wind.

The day had dawned bright and icy. Thought was given that maybe, just maybe, it might could, possibly, be time to put up plastic on the windows that are always last. Time to get the staple gun back out.

I’m always reluctant to let go of autumn, to take that long, cold, slide down to the doldrums of winter. I try to hold it back by leaving the calendar in the office set on September, but alas, that tends to fail abysmally.

I shouldn’t be so negative. Winter is actually a great time for birding. However, in winter you have to pay to play, and the season’s coin is often painful. Frozen toes, frigid fingers, frosted, fogged-over binoculars, and other uncomfortable and annoying miseries.

It appears that the pair of Red Squirrels that has taken up residence in the honey locust tree outside the back door have neither staple gun nor rolls of plastic.

However, they seem to have a large measure of rodent ingenuity. I keep a mesh turkey bag full of wool from pretty little Echo the pet sheep, hanging next to the orange board the boss made me to feed Baltimore Orioles and Grey Catbirds in summer.

It’s a delight to photograph tiny warblers tugging earnestly at single threads of natural insulation for their nests each year.

It was not quite as delightful that cold, pre-storm day, to watch the squirrels stuffing great wads into their toothy mouths to hustle up the tree looking like furry orange Santas.

On the other hand squirrels are great planters of trees, as evidenced by the black walnut tree growing where the milk house used to stand, back when the heifer barn was full of Jerseys and the land owned by someone else.

It’s half as thick as a telephone pole and nearly up to the barn roof, but we didn’t plant it. Some enterprising rodent carried a fat nut there, probably headed for the cow barn or the old hop house, where grey squirrels love to mingle. The original trees, given to me by the first author of this column and planted a decade or several ago, are north of the driveway, a goodly distance from the barnyard. I’m not sure we need a walnut tree in that exact spot, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Then it came. Like a sheer silver sheet, spreading relentlessly horizon-to-horizon, first a few mealy dots, then more and more, until that tawny brown grass was shrouded in white and the trees hidden from view. Within an hour the accident reports started to fly. It was really slippery stuff and the cold ground made it worse.

As the weekend progressed and inches and feet of snow fell and dozens of schools closed, we spoke among ourselves of farmers facing their work in such awful weather. I am rarely glad not to be milking cows, as our life’s work was something we both loved.

However, semi-retirement looks real good when you realize that there are no frozen water lines to thaw. No tanker to get up the hill, requiring constant plowing all through the day, sometimes starting in the wee hours just after midnight if we had an early truck.

Fast forward three days, though school closings, and road closings, and accumulations well into the double digits. Blue robin’s egg sky frosted with scarves of drift flakes. Shadows a darker blue, almost denim, stretching across the old horse pasture against the cold white ground.

The roads are mostly open, but no doubt the wind will drift some of them closed again and make it almost as hard to see as it was when the snow was falling at its heaviest.


The weather pundits got it right this time and the storm was a doozy. Do we dare hope that it got it out of its system for a while and we can look forward to nicer weather? Probably not.

Happy Birthday

 

To the the Crazy Card Lady

Queen of her Crochet Kingdom

Fish Whisperer

Guppy Guru

And all around Good Daughter.....

We love you, Becky.

The Farm Side

 I just discovered that many issues of my old newspaper column, the Farm Side, are now available online for free. You can find a whole bunch of them here.

Meanwhile, here's the text of one if you would like to read it. The photo is what I used to look like a number of years worth of moons ago when my boss made me get a new profile pic for the column. I look older and uglier now.

For The Recorder

A bully moon in full regalia gave me the third degree the other night. Not a truncheon in sight, but she shined her blinding spotlight right into my room and chased my sleep from pillow-to-pillow. Arghh, but not-so-soft, what light through yonder window breaks, and in all-night misery the sleeper wakes?

When I rolled out of her way, she used the white paint on the door to reflect on her accusations and wake me up again. What happened to the nasty drizzle of rain that was falling at bedtime, I wondered. I am really, really sick of rain, but least it was dark then.

The first robin started yelling at quarter-after-four and within minutes was joined by a dozen more. This place is baby bird central, a veritable assembly line of fluffy fledglings. Robins are the most numerous and full of early noise and drama. Little ones dot-dot-dash across the lawn, chirping for hand-me-down worms and looking cute as puppies.

Enough baby bunnies to fill a dozen Easter baskets are lined up along the garden edge every morning drooling over the beans sprouts as well. Tiny fawns hide among the bushes in the heifer pasture. We watch the does slipping through the tall grass, all secret and sly, butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, as they visit the places where their babies are hidden. “Nothing to see here, move along, move along.”

We know they are there though and pretty much just where. It is a wonder how they stay hidden when the coyotes hold howling fests just yards from their secret nests in the tall grass.

The moon was relentless in her questioning so I gave up on sleep to start the day. It’s summer after all, moon to noon and dawn to day’s end. I don’t want to miss a minute.

As sunlight shivered on the other horizon at just about dark thirty, that meanie of a moon fell off the edge of the west, smirking in the early fog and pointing chilly fingers as I stumbled down the stairs.

Her sleep robbing midnight rudeness could not deflect from the delight of not one, but two, Indigo Buntings singing furiously from a pair of Box Elders in the front yard. It was surround sound awesomeness at its finest. After the robin opening sonata the other birds tuned up for the adagio movement, although daybreak is not so very slow in June at all.

Grey Catbirds snap crackle popped a medley of a dozen other bird songs from the shrubbery. They can’t bring me a shrubbery, but they sure can sing me one.

“Look-up, over-here, see-me, up-here,” a Red-eyed Vireo played his cheerful flute notes, while a fledgling Northern Cardinal banged on daddy’s shins, as he sat in a tray full of sunflower seeds, begging to be fed.

A Carolina Wren suggested with his “tea kettle, tea kettle, tea kettle” that I put on a refreshing morning beverage to shake off the last dregs of sleep deprivation. I went with strong coffee instead and another June morning was off to a brilliant start.

June is my favorite month. It’s better than December with Christmas…who needs the stress and hassle anyhow? There is no need to agonize over appropriate presents in June, just a few brotherly birthday cards for the guys I grew up with. And what’s not to like about Father’s Day?

Golden June is way superior to February, chocolate hearts or no chocolate hearts. You can, after all, eat chocolate in summer too.

There is more fizz and bang in June than all the fireworks of July or the thunder that punctuates May.

It’s even better than Thanksgiving. Turkey is all well and good, but even the smell of homemade dressing in the oven can’t compare with the seductive scent of Riverbank Grapes blooming in their myriad millions all up and down the valley.

Despite delays in planting, corn is popping up all over, dressed in the exuberant shades of bright spring green. It has been a great pleasure to watch the river flats fields we pass, as the corn seedlings double in size overnight and triple their tall by the weekend.

Hay fields have been sheared and fertilized and are racing toward second cutting faster than a speeding lawn mower, only better.

June is also Dairy Month and that may just be the best part of all.

Dairy Month began as National Milk Month in 1937 and was originally a program planned to promote dairy products. Today it is still aimed in that direction, but I see it as a good reason to enjoy delicious things and have a lot of fun too.

It’s the perfect month to take a drive through perfumed air under an azure sky, heading for ice cream that tastes like Heaven.

It’s fun to change up the destination. We have a couple of favorite ice cream shops, where we indulge in a range of delights.

My favorite, and Becky’s too, Hawaiian Moon, a decadent concoction of coconut, cherry, and pineapple, is only available in summer, and as far as the Internet can tell, only right here in our area. Despite being named after that midnight nemesis that robs our sleep, we love it. We wait eagerly all winter for the first cone, and save a pint or two in the freezer for the winter wasteland.

And what’s a picnic without ice cream to follow the cheeseburgers from the grill?

There are more delicious dairy things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy!

I chased down some recipe suggestions for dairy month delights and found cucumber yogurt dip, another great possibility for picnics by the lake. Or how about a Tangerine Strawberry Creamsicle Smoothie? If you can’t find just the recipe you want you can be sure that the American Dairy Association has your back.

I hope you are enjoying June as much as I am this year, rain or no rain. After all, June is Dairy Good.

Fultonville dairy farmer Marianne Friers is a regular columnist. She blogs at http://northvilledairy.blogspot.com.

In the Pink

 

No not me, I am in my usual lousy wintertime shape.

But this guy, a Common Redpoll, is sporting a lovely pink winter vest, raspberry-red cap, and pinstripe suit from Birds Brothers.

Isn't he natty?

Common Redpolls breed way up in the taiga and boreal regions of the Arctic and only encounter people much in irruptive years when they come south to partake of our feeders. Poor cone crops in northern conifers is what drives them our way.

In earlier years we saw them on our feeders nearly every year, if not every single year, but more recently they are much less common. Last fall however, I saw flocks of as many as 90 both in Maine and here in our yard.

Now we have this pretty fellow and four of his cohorts coming in for seeds. Fine looking birds. I like them.

Still no Owls

Oh, the boss got an owl the other morning. He was up filling the wood stove just before first light and there was one calling from over by the cow barn. Alas, it was gone by the time he came in to get me.

We have spent quite a few hours driving out where we find them, to no avail. Not seeing much else either. I was talking to a friend in Alabama the other day though, and their feeders are full of irruptive winter finches, so maybe that is where all the birds have gone. We did get a Common Redpoll on the feeder this morning, only the second for the year, but it mostly the usual cast of winter characters.

Sometimes Lynk St. is good for Short-eared Owls
Not this year though

I always get antsy this time of year, wishing to see something, anything...interesting. Get anxious over the dearth of birds. And then February rolls around and they start moving slowly north and it gets fun again. This year though there haven't even been many ducks down on the river or even Canada Geese. Have they moved farther south to greener pastures? Or has the open water in other areas seduced them away from us?

Hard telling, not knowing, but better days are coming, it says here in fine print.

We do have a pair of Carolina Wrens (my favorite birds) wintering in the old cow barn and visiting the feeders regularly. February is always a bad month for them, but we will do what we can to keep them well fed.

Meanwhile, I am sorry I have been so lax about writing. Just no heart for it. Restarted working on the book I began writing when the Recorder fired me, so there's that. Maybe when the birds start moving the words will too. 

Hang in there friends...you know what they say about better days. Much love from Northview Farm 

Anybody missing a kitty? This guy seems to have moved in.
Pretty fellow.. as long as he leaves the birds alone

Owling

 

As is the case with every other aspect of life, the plague has influenced our ability to go owling. Some days we have responsibilities. Some days we have no heart for it.

Thus we have yet to see or hear a single owl this year. No Short-eared Owls out on Lynk Street. No Great Horned out at Lyker's. Not a single Barred Owl peering nearsightedly down from roadside twigs and branches.

And nothing here at home. I go out almost every evening and every single morning to stand and listen. In fact, I just came in from breathing quietly out in the darkness as large soft flakes whispered down and the traffic growled on the Thruway. 

Not a sound.

Nope.

Nothing.

Kinda fitting somehow.

Day by Day

 

Snow Buntings

One step forward and ten steps back. I played the messages on the answering machine to retrieve one the boss needed. And there was Mom's voice asking us to pick up something Dad needed.

Backslid big time there.

I just don't feel like writing and so I haven't been. Been neglecting everything but the things that have to be done. Hopefully things will improve as the season advances. I have a hard time in winter anyhow.

Heavy, clunky, wet snow today to greet us. Might rain later. I guess it's pretty and I guess I should get up and hang up the laundry, feed the birds, and walk the dog again.

Hope you are all well...much love from Northview farm.

BTW, thank you for all the sweet and comforting comments, and for the cards you have sent and the kind words contained. They mean a lot to all of us and we are really grateful that you have thought of us in that way.

2020 Lifers and GoodBirds

 

11 life birds last year. First was a set of Tundra Swans resting near the boat launch at Schoharie Crossing. Exciting for sure. 

Then we found a Cackling Goose, also at Schoharie Crossing, a short time later.

Next was a Wilson's Snipe, at the Crossing as well. We didn't find that one but were directed to it by some other birders who were nice enough to let me know it was there. Later we found a spot where there were a good number of them winnowing overhead and calling from a water meadow most of the summer. 

Later we found some Least Sandpipers at the Crossing, which well deserves its designation as a birding hotspot.

And Semipalmated Plovers the same day.

Next was a Grasshopper Sparrow, no photo, alas. It was raining and the camera just couldn't pick him out.

And then a Yellow-bellied Flycatcher at a little swamp we visit. 

A Swainson's Thrush showed up at Lyker's Pond on the 18th of September.

Our visit to Maine with Scott and Jen and the girls brought awesome sea birds...first a Common Eider

And then a Black Guillemot. 

Back to the Crossing for a White-rumped Sandpiper, the last life bird of the year, although not the last GoodBird.

A very GoodBird, a Snowy Owl on a nearby lawn

And So

 If you are on Facebook you already know, but some of you aren't so...we lost both Dad and Mom over the last few days, four days apart in fact.

There is not much I can say that wouldn't sound trite or smack of hyperbole, so I will just say that we loved them intensely and our lives were closely intertwined on many levels. I don't imagine that we will heal any time soon, but we must go on and will. 

However, way too many times a day I think about doing things for Mom or sharing things on Facebook for her before remembering that I can't. Started to send her a video of Peg.....

Every morning when I wake up...well, last night was the first time I really slept....but every morning I remember anew what has happened and am freshly shattered.

Friends and family, including both IRL people and those scattered across the world, have been an immeasurable comfort. Thank you.

Now comes the bureaucratic part of the equation, looking for documents, providing them to the correct people, sorting through mementos and sharing tears. They had good lives and we had them for longer than many folks do, so I am trying to be grateful while still profoundly sad.

Much love from Northview Farm.

Soup

 

I made Italian sausage soup yesterday.... a family favorite, easy and comforting. All day, as I added ingredients, I was beset by nagging wrongness. For the past several years, whenever any of us made a big dish meal, the kind of thing that graced the table back when we were dairy farming, we planned on enough for Mom and Dad.

Everyone has always cooked in our family, both sides. Grandma Montgomery was famous for her spaghetti sauce, enough to feed all of her six offspring and their extensive families. Fresh cut French Fries ditto. So many wonderful meals were eaten in her small Gloversville kitchen, kids milling around underfoot, waiting impatiently for the first fries out of the fryer, or kibitzing in the adult conversations

Grandma Lachmayer combined the best of home-style German and Irish cooking, along with many specialties of her own. My heart is  happy that her round oak dining room table, where generations of comforting meals were served far longer than I have been alive, sits in the center of our dining room now.

Ralph's mom spent many of her younger years in a top-notch restaurant and was creative, resourceful, and just plain good at what she did. She knew how to fill a harvest crew up to face the field, and fed us by that formula.

But yesterday I made the soup...and ached. No dish set aside to take up to Johnstown to be frozen for future use or enjoyed right away. No thoughts of making biscuits or cookies, or applesauce to send along.

There were blessings...Matt and Kegan came down and cut up enough wood that the boss won't have to touch a saw for a few weeks....they also got some hay and brought him plywood to fix the barn door. He was tickled that it only took him a few seconds to tend the stove this morning.

Mom sounded pretty good yesterday morning, although as the day progressed she got so tired.

 And she hates the food. Will only eat her yogurt that Matt took her and peanut butter sandwiches. Maybe it's the Covid, but today I am going to call the home and ask if we are allowed to bring her up a home-cooked meal. I don't know what is allowed under the disease restrictions. 

I do know that none of us were able to see Dad from the 15th of December when he was hospitalized until the end....and now we spend an incomprehensible number of hours every day on the phone with everyone from contact tracers to funeral directors, trying to put out fires, set up processes, and track down his missing possessions. 

I hope this new year treats us all better than the one we just staggered away from. Much love from Northview Farm to each and every one of you. 

Dog Story

 

I like this one...think I'll just stay here

First an update on Mom and Dad. Mom is still in the nursing home, struggling a bit more than we would like. Dad is in hospital still and has improved some as far as we know. Prayers would be much appreciated, as we are very worried about them both. Thanks.

Now, about the dog. While waiting for it to be late enough to begin the daily round of phone calls trying to get information about people we are not allowed to visit, from busy staff in frantic facilities, we went birding this morning.

We were at the park at Yankee Hill. Ran into the nice, tall older fellow who walks there every day. He is amazing....walks so far! Found out he is the one who made the helpful snowshoe trail I was walking on the other day...all the way to Fort Hunter!!! (I only went a few yards so I could see the ducks across the river.)

Anyhow, I was getting ready to return to the car and fire up the old cell phone for all my calls when a couple strolled out of the woods accompanied by a jolly little bulldog.

The dog made a beeline for me as fast as his legs would carry him, sniffed my leg and seemed to say, "I like this one. Guess I'll visit for a while."

He leaned happily against my knees and stayed right there, ignoring frantic calls for his return.

I was assured that he was nice and wouldn't bite. I have to say that I rarely believe such assurances. I have been bitten by nice dogs. However, it was easy to read this guy and he was a delight. He and I shared a good laugh before his owner came and took him away, apologizing all the while. He seemed disappointed to have to part company after such a short interlude.

He gave me a little blep before he left, then jogged away jauntily, having enjoyed our little communion at the edge of the racing water. He was a bright spot in my day too. And I needed one.

A little blep goodbye

Merry Christmas from Northview

 I truly hope that each and every one of you is able to salvage some joy in this season of renewal of faith and hope.

For us, things are pretty dark. Dad is in the hospital with pneumonia and COVID. So much for being safer under care than at home, where he was falling with alarming regularity. One of my dear aunties is also hospitalized, same situation.

Mom is still at the nursing home in Palatine, where he was until yesterday.

It is raining. There is flooding. At least most of the snow vanished overnight.

As most mornings, I am the first one up, although I see by the objects under the tree that Santa came through right on schedule. The weird elf has left for a few seasons at the North Pole, while the one who stays here all year and is played with until he/she is reanimated with a cinnamon bath is still sitting on the American Girl style horse. The two of them have been cavorting all over the house on that poor animal for days now. I am sure it is happy to return to its toyland slumber. I won't miss the thunder of its little hooves at all. I will miss the fun of its mistress finding where they parked it after their escapades, and sharing possible stories about what went on overnight.

The pink guitar is on the futon, encased in a great big box, and nicely wrapped by my s-i-l Lisa. (Thank you, thank you, thank you, for taking care of that!) We smuggled it in under guise of being grandpa's pressie and its been sitting there in plain sight for several days. There is a story to go with his real one, but that will have to wait until later to be told. Trust me, it's a good un.

Although sadness is an envelope I have yet to step outside, there is much to be grateful for. My brother is home from the West Coast and he and his wife are doing as much as they can to get the bases covered with my folks' affairs...and they are many and challenging.

The girls and Peggy live with us, so we are surrounded by family all the time. Right now that is a major league blessing for me.

Alan calls every day, sometimes more than once, so I am a part of his and Amber's lives, even from half way across the state. They are healthy again after their own go round with the plague.

Thanks to Facebook we can enjoy our other two grandbabies, and their sweet and loving parents. Maybe someday life will return to normal and the boss can go to the races with them on Saturday nights and come home tired and full of new stories to tell when we drive around the neighborhood birding.

Also thanks to that biased and flawed platform from the Netherworld, I get to talk to many of you every day and that is a bright spot indeed.

So, Merry Christmas from the farm, and best wishes for a hopeful New Year. Love to all.

Christmas Bird Count

 

Peregrine Falcon, found yesterday
on the exact same pole where we found one last year.

For the first time since pretty much the beginning of the count circle there will be no representative of Clan Montgomery working on the Johnstown NY CBC. I made the decision not long after last year's count that I just couldn't do it any more.

Mom and Dad had been in almost at the start of the circle, or at least within the first couple of years. They did it together for many years, then Mom wanted out so I went with Dad. When his vision began to fail both brothers and a large selection of the grandkids stepped in too.

White-throated Sparrow
Checking out the home feeders

It was always quite an affair. Mom would make hearty meal for the counters and we would gather at noon to eat and compare notes and again at the end to send in our totals. We would walk an abandoned railroad, our aunt and uncle's farm, and the field behind the house. We would drive for miles looking for feeders or roadside gatherings. It was exhausting but a lot of fun too. Mayfield South found quite a few nice birds over the years.

However, the brothers' lives moved them out of reach, kids grew up, moved away, lost interest, and traffic became an appalling snarl of constant peril. I became invested in birding our home county and the last two count years were miserable, mostly because of the traffic. 

So, it was almost with relief that I let someone else take over this year and I wish her well. I sent her a list of our favorite spots, and hope she finds amazing rarities there.

Horned Lark
I get excited every time I see them

Meanwhile, it turns out that it was fortuitous that this was the year to step away. The family is reeling from the loss of two aunts and an uncle (just yesterday) over the past three months. Another aunt is hospitalized right now...It has been a terrible time for everyone in our close-knit clan.

With mom and dad both in a nursing home for rehab and mad at me about it, mostly I guess because I am an available target, I am happiest just haunting our favorite river spots and winter back roads near home. And trying to find some heart for Christmas for the 6-year old who shares our lives....and incidentally loves eagles and woodpeckers. The little pink guitar was safely delivered to my brother and his wife.....can't wait for that aspect of Christmas morning

Hope you are all well and that you have some hope this Christmas season...much love from Northview Farm.

Circus Rescue

Female Northern Harrier

 Circus Hudsonius that is. A Northern Harrier. 

We found some time to do a little birding today, having mostly caught up on errands and shopping. We traveled some of our best winter roads, up Lynk St. down Brand Rd. and then home via Hall and Borden Roads.

It was as we were climbing the spectacular hillscapes on Hall that I saw something on a clump of dead grass at the side of the road. I thought it was debris shoved up by the plows and didn't react until we were past. 

However, there were bright green eyes staring back at me.

Hall Rd.
You can see why northern raptors love this area

Long story short we drove back, turned around and sidled up slowly for a better look, snapping many photos as we went.

What we were seeing was a female Northern Harrier, but we thought she was sitting on prey, too cropful to fly.

However, as we drew closer we realized that she was injured...at least a broken wing, probably more. 

We had to leave her as we had to get home so Ralph could do some chores before full dark, but I called DEC right away to report her situation. Within minutes an officer was on the phone for more detailed directions to her location, and within half an hour she was on her way to a rehabber who specializes in raptors.

 Isn't she just the most beautiful thing? I hope she can be saved.

Update

 

Mom is still in ICU but has shown some comforting improvement, as of yesterday. However, the enforced isolation is making her very anxious. We are going to try to get her tablet, glasses, and possibly cell phone if I can find the charger, down to her today, so at least she can read.

I am still here with Dad. Haven't been home since Saturday when this all began. The boss took me out for a short trip to Lowe's and Mayfield Lake, but Dad fell again while we were gone, so we raced back home. I haven't dared leave, even to go walking in the field behind the house, since. 

He is having such a hard time getting around the house and at first was not willing to let me lend an arm. As his condition slips downhill in that respect he has let me be a leaning post a little bit, but it means following him every step he takes. He does like to wander around.

I want to thank everyone who has helped, offered to help, or provided prayers, good thoughts and words of encouragement. My sister-in-law, Lisa, the boss and the girls, have done every single thing that has been asked of them and more. Other family members have offered to bring food, run errands, etc. What we really need is someone who is versed in setting up appropriate care for people who have been singularly independent right up until last weekend and can't be independent any more. Maybe more independent than they should have been, but I guess that is a common issue.

Meanwhile, I am tired and discouraged and miss my home and people. I hope you will continue to keep mom and dad in your prayers. I truly believe that the many prayers offered up for mom have made a magnificent difference in the course of her illness. so please and thankyou for continuing.

Love to all

Side Effects

 

This ugly virus can be blamed for much more than the mayhem it causes directly. We have the joined the ranks of who knows how many thousands or millions who have loved ones in medical and long term facilities and can't visit to offer comfort or be involved in care.

You know it's horrible when you read about it. You feel compassion and deep sadness for those facing it. However, nothing can prepare you for what it is like to have no contact but telephone calls to overworked nurses and doctors who barely speak English. To be utterly helpless, prisoners of covid laws.

My poor mom, whom many of you know well from Facebook, is in ICU in Amsterdam and struggling against the treatment she needs to live. She does NOT have covid. The nurse says they explain to her why she needs the mask, but the low oxygen the the mask should correct makes her confused, and she won't let them keep it on her. I am beyond certain that if one her children or their families could be there holding her hand and reassuring her she would relent. 

Instead the best they can offer is an iPad chat when she feels better. Or should I say if?

 I would like to yell at someone or pound on something, but there is no one directly involved here that is responsible for what is happening. Distant lawmakers, distant criminals in distant countries, people with no dogs in our personal fight, have decreed that this is how life will continue or end and there isn't one damned thing we can do about it. That does not help with the stress of the situation.

Meanwhile I am staying with Dad, which is a struggle I don't discuss right now. Let's just say I need my home and the outdoors and my own bed and my peeps. I just sneaked out to walk up the field behind the house for a few minutes in the first hour of the sun and that helped a bit. Out seems to be my natural environment.

 At the same time it unleashed a cascade of memories of when this was home...mostly of winters, as the fields were in crops in summer. We slid down the big hill on boards strapped to our feet with bits of leather that were loosely known as skis in those days. Raced like mad down the same hill with more kids piled on toboggans and sleds than could be easily imagined. Tumbled off at the bottom losing boots, finding our socks full of snow, and sporting new bruises that didn't slow us down a bit.

Getting "lost" in the tall corn that grew almost up to the house in summer. As county kids we always knew our way out but it was fun to pretend.

I could go on and on about football, dummy training rifles and war games that were okay then, and yes I had one, and yes, I played too.

But I won't right now. It just was a shock to have all those bygone days come racing into my poor tired brain. I wasn't going to write about this personal battle we are facing, but I find that I need to put my thoughts into words, and many of us in the far flung internet community rely on one another in times like these. I would be most grateful for any prayers or good thoughts you could offer. And it makes me feel much better to "talk" to you.

Love to all.

Every Morning I move the Elf

 

It's one of the best parts of my day. A bright spot in the gloom soup that is life these days. Our elf is a non-judgmental little soul, and not only spends no time seeking out naughtiness, but also brings small gifts...some days just a chocolate. Some days little activity things. These are challenging times for small folks too.

Every day I check the York Beach Maine rare bird alert. We spent the best weekend of the year in that neighborhood with family. Seeing the place were I got to have real clam chowder and walk around admiring the shops and ships and lobster boats and all on the little rare bird map takes me back there to a better time and place....and I am only mildly envious of the folks who see the little Rock Wren in Ogunquit....okay, that's a lie. What a cool bird!

Later in the day I check the ABA rare bird alert too...always keeping watch for the single American Flamingo seen quite often in Florida. If there are flamingos there is hope.

I do a bird list every day, partly because it what I like best, and partly because I enjoy watching the streak of consecutive days reported inching upward...1434 as of this morning before daylight. Pretty soon I can fill the feeders and do one for today. Yesterday we had a single Evening Grosbeak on the feeder by the window over the sink. It was missing most of its upper mandible but still managed to scarf its fill of seeds. I stayed away from the window after grabbing a few photos to let it eat its fill.

High spots happen and then the day is spent just creeping along through the dark of the year, hoping for better things, but not optimistic. Hope you are getting by as well. Have a good one.