Suddenly I found Myself

 ...unexpectedly working a Border Collie.

My three dogs are all gone, those little black collies of long-ago fame. Now, all I have is my tiny terrorist, er, terrier, Mack. His idea of work is to ignore me until he knows he has no choice.

But, hey, you never know...

The rain had finally ended, the sky had settled down.

Out to the backyard line I thought I'd go.

The table cloth was wrinkled, you could tell it at a glance.

The breeze would prolly fix that, don't cha know?

Because of doggie daycare, I had a pup along.

She likes to travel with me close in tow.

But then.....without warning....

Chickens and ducks under the bird feeder, oh, my!!!!!!

She was off in a trice, crouched low and showing lots of "eye". I hollered, "That'll do."

Hah! She paused for a second, just to let me know she'd heard, 

Then headed out again to really herd.

"Lie down!"

Nope, she was trained before we got her, but there isn't any lie down on her atall, atall.

"That'll do!"

Another pause, but she swung off, come bye, as if I'd meant that all along.

She has a nice, wide outrun anyhow. 

She knew she was wrong, and enough vocal authority brought her back to my feet, where she propped on her hinders peering over the flowerbed to see where the birdies went.

Man, did that ever take me back. I haven't worked a dog in years, and I never was terribly elegant at it. I had good dogs though, so I sometimes looked better than I was, but the credit for bulls moved and critters gathered goes entirely to them, with yours truly just along for the ride.

I have to say I loved it, that little bit of time travel. If that was my pup we'd go out and play gather up the poultry, but she's not, so I will just throw her ball for her and tell her she's a good girl.

That'll do, Jill, that'll do.

Mike, Nick, and Gael, BITD

Roadside Story

 

Saw these under a tree by the side of the road the other day.

No Sunday sales.

I do not need a puppy.

However, I cajoled Ralph into turning around to go back...just to ask ya know...

"How much for your puppies?"

"Tree hunderd dollars."

"Are they Jack Russells?"

Mama seemed unconcerned about the two breed thing
and was enjoying perhaps the first uninterrupted bone in a long time

"No, terriers. Tha mother is two breeds, some Toy Fox Terrier and another breed."

O...kay.....

"They are awful cute...thanks for your time..."

Nope I do not need a puppy, at least not at this time.

As I said, cute though....we went by again yesterday and they seemed to all be still there. Kids were snuggling them and they appeared pretty happy about it.

To the far Blue Mountain

 

....Lake Museum that is. 

The kids and Baby Bailey took me along with them on a visit Saturday and what a great time we had.

Passenger Pigeon
Quite a pretty bird~

Northern Goshawk
Having only ever seen one, I had to guess
Checked online...guessed right this time.

From continuing a longstanding tradition of enjoying the hamburger platter at King of the Frosties in Speculator (ate there for the first time back when we were playing in the band and driving around the 'Dacks on frigid winter nights, listening to the trees explode as the temperature dropped) to marveling over the incredible collection of awesome wooden watercraft, it was just plain fun.

And Bailey is simply the best baby, bar none. She took in the whole museum, utterly entranced by all there was to see, without a whimper, until she needed a run to get the kinks out.

 

Thanks kids! And thanks for the gas card, which made it possible for us to visit Dingman Road for the Clay-colored Sparrows AND (!!!) Sara Lib Road quarry.

Smelling the Roses

 

Red-bellied Woodpecker

We went out last night to pick up milk for the house. Farm households like ours go through a lot of it, especially during these hot, sticky days, when its refreshing balance of vitamins and minerals is a fantastic thirst-quencher. (Way to go, Dairy Month!)

On the way home, the boss said, "Wanna go up around the loop?"

We haven't been up on the loop (Ingersoll, Argersinger, Borden, and home....lots of ponds and tundra-like fields...home to many awesome birds) much lately. Gas prices have nibbled and gnawed away our ability to travel until even the close places in the Schoharie Crossing park are too far most days.

Black Locust

Anyhow, I agreed and we went. It was hard dusk. We could hear a few daytime birds, sleepy robins, a late catbird or two, but not much else. Certainly too late for shorebirds at the ponds.

However, we both had an instinctive feeling that maybe we should go down Borden Road, so we did. No more than had we made the turn when there he was, sitting proud atop a power pole in all his fierce and predatory glory....a Great-horned Owl...first of the year.

Delightful, especially since we missed an actual, real live, confirmed Red-headed Woodpecker earlier in the day. We have seen photos....now to see the bird....

And about those roses. COVID left me with about 10 percent of my normal ability to smell things. The things I could smell were wrong somehow. Frankly it stank and not in a good way.

However gradually I have become able to smell this or that. Usually bad things, but, hey, better than nothing, right?

Oddly I could smell the honeysuckle this summer, which I never noticed before. However, the lilies of the valley that my cousin gave me last year that remind me so much of Grandma Montgomery? 

A disappointing nope.

I despaired for the riverbank grape flowers, my favorite scent in the world. What were the odds I could smell them this year? Imagine my joy when the first whiff wafted in through the car windows last week. Not as strong as usual, but there.

Thank you Lord! It's the little things

Soon, probably next week or the week after, the wild, invasive, horrible-pest-the-rest-of-the-year wild roses will flaunt their flagrant white wedding veils and swamp the valley with their scent of sweet old ladies' purses*. Will I be aware of the latter? Only time will tell.

Fledgling American Robin

*One of my grandmas must have used rose-scented eau de toilet and kept a fragrant hanky in her purse...grandmas did back then, you know. Anyhow rose time always reminds me of both of them. Those same purses usually contained Chiclets, or some other wonderful, exotic treats, so as to placate whining grandchildren. Ah, the fond memories of it all....sucking the hard sweet coating off the Chiclets, then chewing the concrete-hard nugget of gum inside until your teeth whined worse than you did.

Best bird last week,
although not the best picture
Brant

We will Remember Them

 

If You See

 This fine young lady today, wish her a very Happy Birthday, please.

If gift ideas are a problem, she wears any size from Junior Heifer Calf to Aged Cow Class and anything in between.

Her favorite colors are Holstein, Jersey, or Milking Shorthorn, but Swiss or Ayrshire will do if supplies are low.

Love you Liz, hope you have a great day!

97

 

A sleepy mama Downy Woodpecker
peeks out of her nest hole at Yankee Hill Lock

Yesterday, area educator and extraordinary birder, George Steele, and I attempted a "Century Run".

That is, we set out to find one hundred species of birds in 24 hours in a given area, in this case Fulton and Montgomery Counties.

Some of my favorite people are redheads too
Female Common Merganser

It was hot and humid and the sun was like a hammer on a red-hot anvil, banging away all day. It was still a lot of fun, although I sure envied the swimmers at Caroga Lake. That water looked inviting.

This horse we passed is for Liz...thought of you when I saw it

 We traveled many miles, some by car, some on foot, and we even climbed down into a steep ravine (and back out too!) We started out well before dawn, and returned around 13 hours later.

Common Grackle looks as if he belongs on the bench
with a gavel in his wing...just call me "your honor)

Best birds of the day for me were a good number of warblers I was missing, including Prairie and Blackburnian, an obliging American Bittern, right where Ralph spotted one two years ago, and a distant Barred Owl answering George's hooting calls from far across the water at Willie Marsh.

We saw a number of gorgeous waterfalls. (I think I drank at least one waterfall's worth of water along the way trying to stay hydrated in the energy-zapping heat.)

I was as green as this water with envy
Mr. Turtle looks pretty chill

My favorite water of the day was my shower at the end of it though.

Green Heron

*We ended the day with 97 species, not too shabby what with the heat and all...

**Of course this morning when Ralph and I went out for a couple of hours, as we do most days, we promptly found the Osprey we missed yesterday, a Brown Thrasher ditto, and a nice batch of assorted sandpipers that we missed yesterday. 

***Thanks George for braving that awful heat so we could count birds.

Checking out Bank Swallows in a distant sand quarry
(Yes, they were there)

A smile a minute

The Culprit

Yea, or Nay? 

The Moose Excuse

 Will no longer serve as a great reason to tour around the mountains taking in the scenery. Moose Quest has taken us from Maine to many lovely places in the Adirondack Mountains, as well as down many intriguing country roads looking for moose or chasing down moose reports.

We kept just missing them. When Alan and I went to Maine...my first visit there...it was the week after moose season. The closest we got was an antler poking up out of a ditch from an especially large bit of roadkill.

One was seen right across the river from here...but not by us.

It went on for years until even I was getting sick of staring into every pond and pool along the mountain roads hoping for a glimpse of an extra-large even-toed ungulate.

Then my cousin shared some photos of one on a road we like to travel. (Thanks, Roberta!) I passed the information along to a dear friend who lives up that way. I was chasing warblers in the lane at the boat launch when she texted me that it was sleeping in a pasture just below the road.

We headed that way, droving through verdant hillside pastures thronged with assorted cows of every color, enjoying fabulous views out over the valley with the river winding below.

When we rounded the corner in front of another good friend's farm there it was, still lying in the pasture. I snapped a few photos, sent gloating texts to other Moose Quest participants and felt a little let down.  I might just miss the anticipation of vying to be the first to find a moose in the wild.

But not too much.

**In the interest of full disclosure, Liz found a moose in Vermont not long ago, but she hadn't officially joined Moose Quest at the time, so we didn't let her claim victory.

*** Also, Alan and Amber won Gator Quest when they went to Florida not too long ago, so that trophy is off the table.

****I need a new excuse quest.

The Eyes Have It

 

Four-thirty AM, precise-a-mundo. Beginning the daily quest for ten-thousand steps by taking Mack up to his kennel run for the day, fresh container of water for his calf bucket, which provides his daily libations in one hand, leash in the other. (Leash is about eight feet of quadruple braided paracord....he's a ruff un).

It is raining lightly, the kind of rain that doesn't get you wet, but it feels as if it should. 

I wear my headlamp because it is full dark and downright gloomy. The headlamp lights up every reflector on every vehicle, implement, and tool in the yard, plus the driveway markers and all.

It also lights up two very bright, very white, spots on the lawn about two yards from Alan's four-wheeler, which is also brightly illuminated.

At first I think animal, because it is low to the ground, spaced about right for critter eyes and in a spot where I am pretty sure nothing is parked....but it doesn't move. It doesn't move while I dump yesterday's water out of the calf bucket, rinse and refill it.

It doesn't move when the dog noodles around at the end of his leash outside the run while I do these things. The lights just sit there utterly static, glowing brightly in our direction. I wonder what could possibly be out there a few inches off the ground in the middle of the lawn that has white reflectors that are so close together and so very bright. I vow to go check after I get the snap and the rope and the chain that hold closed the gate that contains my tiny dog each day. (And yes, we need them all!)

As always, I pet him for a minute before I latch them all up.

Then I turn around to investigate the odd lights on the lawn.

They are gone.

I hurry inside and lock the door leaving the poor pup to his fate. After all he is protected by a  chain link fence intended for a much larger dog and he is as fierce as a honey badger on crack on a bad day. He B Fine.

So, in your experienced rural opinions, what was/is out there?

What has eyes that reflect white and face forward, maybe two to four inches apart, six or eight inches off the ground, and would sit dead still. never blinking, for three or four minutes just staring at me? 

Fox? Raccoon? Skunk? Possum? Chupacabra? 

I really want to know.

That is all.

Thank you.