A nice gentleman put me onto a pair of Sandhill Cranes with his scope at Knox-Marcellus Marsh, which was excellent.
A good time had by all. Thanks guys!
Why, yes, these are in fact, swans
How bout that heat shimmer!
After that we didn't need to buy many feed cart motors.
Today he and his wonderful wife are approaching the greatest adventure of all...and we are so excited.
Happy Birthday, Alan! Hope you and Amber have a wonderful day.
"We've never been on this road before, have we?"
Scoffing..."You've been on this road before. Wait til you see where it comes out. You're gonna laugh..."
The nicely paved but winding road turns suddenly and unexpectedly to bluish clay and stone, marred only by many buggy wheels. The car rumbles noisily over the tiny ruts that they make.
"Um, okay, we haven't been on this road before."
You are right, senior, and there is a snow and mud bank right across it where the town plows stopped, along with a seasonal use only sign.
Still it looks pretty good. And it goes in the right direction and all. We creep over the corner of the bank and just barely sneak neatly around it onto what seems to be an okay road.
Soon we pass a young Amishman carrying his lunch pail. He looks at us askance.
We continue, clattering along between fields of clay plowed into pillowy brown humps, with stray stems of last year's crop poking up here and there. It is barren and lonely-seeming land, pretty stark for Upstate NY.
We crest over the edge of a small hill..........
To find that the road winds down through some woods into a swampy place still covered with a foot of snow, through which some sort of horse-drawn machinery has clearly passed, but no cars.
I start noping vociferously. "No, no, no, we are not going down there. No way, no how, nope, nope, nope."
Thankfully I am married to someone turned wise by the seasons, and also an experienced farmer who can back up as well as he can go forward.
"Go ahead, say it," he tells me, when he finds a place to turn around, after much backing and filling.
But no, I am grateful that he is not a young rutting buck who would have just had to try it even if it went wrong. We had places to go and deadlines to meet.
Wish you could have seen the look the Amish lad gave us as we passed him again on the way out.
Meanwhile, I saluted the fine folks who grace the kitchen wall with a mug of warm, pale coffee this morning in honor of the day. The folks have joined the grandfolks there and their faces, Mom smiling for all she was worth, and Dad looking serious but intensely engaged with the fun going on in their dining room whenever we visited, help me through my lonely days.
Owing to the plague, we will be experiencing our annual Irish music concert in the living room this evening rather than at the Egg in Albany, where we normally thrill to a High Kings concert each year.
Becky bought us virtual tickets to the virtual event, and we are hoping to have time to get take-out from our favorite restaurant to top off the experience. (Not a scalper in sight btw.)
On one hand the boys are the best live performers I have ever heard, in a lifetime of great music and many concerts. On the other hand driving in the dark in Albany is not fun for folks of our vintage and I won't miss that part of it. We can NEVER actually get to Route 7 or any of the other ways out of the city even if we can see them from where we are. Last year it was raining.....
It will be a nice break from dealing with estate matters. Many hours have been spent on the phone, talking to many people not particularly conversant in English, and many more hours going through the 5000 emails in my mom's inbox looking for bills and important stuff.
I do a few hundred a day now. I think when I get back to the beginning of the year I will quit and get the service shut down....once I get all those bills and things forwarded to me that is....
The question for today is, do we go north and east to deal with estate stuff that has to be done in person or west to get the trash to the doggy-wog amusement park* and buy cow feed?
I'll let you know later...
But for right now, Happy St. Patrick's Day!
*BITD we used to take the Cracker Dogs to the dump when we went. Of course they stayed in the cab of the truck, but they loved the incredible...to a dog...smells and the seething gulls and beeping machinery....
**And, oh, how I wish I could have called Mom last night and told her how Becky and I took turns reading Peg excerpts from Things that Go Bump in the Night. She loved that book. We first became aware of the author, Louis C, Jones, when I was a little kid. I used to beat the doorstep off the Frothingham Library in the summer when we spent our days at the antique shop in Fonda. One day I stumbled on Jones' really scary kid's book, Spooks of the Valley. Mom loved it too, found his other book, mentioned above, and it became kind of a thing to offer it to folks who came into the bookstore looking for folklore.
One day Mom was engaged in a bit of such salesmanship with a nice young woman who came into the store. The lady laughed and said, "Mr. Jones is my father. He is out in the car."
I told Peggy that story too and she was just delighted. She is taking to reading these days.....Liz just said to her, "You have to stop reading and get ready for school." Then she said, "I can't believe I just said that...I sound like my mother!"
I wanted Mom to know.
We went in and had some ball playing and kibble tossing, coffee making and the like, and then I just had a feeling. It was maybe twenty after six, new time.
Out with the coffee I went.
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| Bald Eagle |
Down on the river a few gulls were whining and crying...such a lonesome, mournful sound. Geese were murmuring and chattering quietly; the stars were winking out against a pink and orange sky. And then it came....the chuck, chuck, chuck of a woodcock's wing as it circled over the heifer pasture.
For as long as I could bear to stand in the windy yard, armed only with rapidly cooling coffee and my fuzzy reindeer robe, I listened to the sky dance. Such a haunting, mystical sound, and such a sweet and fulfilling start to the day.
It is still cold out there and the wind is shiverish and mean, but my heart is just a little warmer now....thank you Mr. Timberdoodle....thank you very much.
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| Sunset at Lock 12 |
There is a flock of at least 8 hanging around in our driveway. Usually they stay at the back of the farm and only come down as far as the old heifer pasture and then only in winter. Yesterday I walked down the driveway and they met me half way.
As for the birds that are blue....this bottle of maple syrup came straight from our boy's sugarbush up in Bath. I am supposed to be making pancakes to go with it, but instead am treating myself to a little spoonful every morning....it'll last longer that way.
Nights are still stupid cold here. It was four degrees when I got up this morning, and even with the sun up and bright it is not particularly pleasant yet. The river almost thawed last week....almost.
But not quite and now it is almost bank-to-bank thick ice with only a few small open leads.
Hint to the Powers that Be....we are ready for spring. In fact, way beyond ready.
That is all
Thank you.
The wind fluffed his fingers through the silver on her head.
At his icy winter touch she rolled over in bed
And stumbling toward the morning light
She turned away from night.
Raised her face toward the rising bright
And set the morn alight.
They are maybe a handspan...my hand that is...in diameter, and range from eight inches to a foot long.
They are solid stone.
Last night as we battened down the hatches, the boss put a tarp over some wood shavings bags in the yard that are waiting to go in the pony stalls.
He set the entire five-gallon pail on one corner of the tarp and laid individual cores on the rest.
This morning I found drill cores scattered in the driveway, with one all the way over on the other side and the tarp completely out from under the bucket (!!!!) and wrapped around a tree...
That was some wind! The overnight low was projected to ten degrees with winds gusting to 60 mph. It ended up down to five degrees right now. I slept like a baby though. Three extra blankets, with my head under them all as it was so drafty and noisy. Didn't hear a thing.
This morning even the birds that usually don't show up at the feeders until midmorning or so were there before the sun was even up.
I double fed on the ground and in the flower pot, as I brought the plastic feeders in last night to keep them from banging on things and breaking.
Seventeen Common Redpolls showed up, along with extra-large numbers of almost everything else.
It's like January all over again.
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| Some people banding American Black Ducks at Lock 12 |
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| Don't let the door hit ya... |
I never noticed when the first real chorus occurred before, but with the NY Breeding Bird Atlas going on, I've been entering breeding codes when I see or hear them.
Sounds as if at least a little lead has opened up down along the south shore north of the house too. I could hear Mallards and gulls hollering and whispering down there for the first time since late last year.
Small signs of impending spring, but I'll take 'em.
But the river is another story. It was frozen a long time this winter compared to other recent, warmer, years. It rarely freezes solid in front of McDonald's down in town, allowing for great opportunities to observe Bald Eagles, multiple species of gulls including some nice rarities, and lots of ducks and geese.
This year though, for weeks there hasn't been so much as an open pool to entertain a stray or two.
However, over the past three warmish days the ice first darkened in streaks and puddles, then the streaks ran together, and by yesterday afternoon the whole expanse was greenish, bluish, darkish, and wettish.
Will breakup today? I wouldn't be surprised. Or maybe tomorrow or the next day. But soon, very soon.
Here's hoping the resulting jumble doesn't bring ice jams and flooding.
Meanwhile, as the waterfowl congregate at Lock 12, where there are several nice reaches of open water, so do the Bald Eagles. If you want to see some hunting and herding of waterfowl flocks numbering in the hundreds...and if your vehicle can handle mud and ice....the little lock road on the north side of the river leading west offers a great vantage point. For the county birders among us Redhead ducks are pretty reliable also.
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| It appeared that these Amish horses were free and unfettered |
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| Their owner was not terribly far away, but didn't seem concerned |
And the snow was very deep so I don't suppose they went far.
Becky bought Liz and me each a lovely bouquet of roses for the holiday. She also cooked steak dinner with berry shortcake for dessert. Nicest Valentine's Day in decades.
I have no idea what was in the flower saver packet that came with the flowers, but they lasted and lasted...until at last....they went.......
BAD.
But I hated to see them go.....so......they were given a decent burial.
Then early this morning Mack gave them last rites in his unique and special doggie fashion. Little wretch!
Last night's snow with flash
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