Out, into the Moon

 

I don't like waking up every morning between three and four in the winter. Too many hours must pass before the sun makes its presence known. However, I got in the habit the year Riva Ridge won the Derby, and through a lifetime of farming the habit has stuck.

Even now into retirement.

However, waking up early as spring leaps toward summer, like a bunny on a caffeine and clover high, is not so bad. It is spooky and mysterious out there with the dog and the waning gibbous moon, but you can feel the sun coming. Today Cassiopeia was rocking in the branches of the cottonwood by the driveway, which was kinda cool.

All that is left of the old nest, which went all the way around the tree

No woodcock today, but I am sure thousands of migrating birds are passing overhead and most likely some of them will land to spend the day where maybe I can find them.

Yesterday we happened on a Rusty Blackbird at the boat launch as well as a couple of Bonaparte's Gulls that have been hanging around. These are birds that are elusive as pixies under mushrooms, at least in my world, and it was a delight to find them. Both species of kinglets are passing through, giving me a serious challenge in the photographing of same. They NEVER sit still. At least I was able to obtain recordings of both yesterday.

Cline Road Marsh, where we found Evening Grosbeaks recently

In less happy news the Sprakers eagles lost their venerable nest in a recent high wind. No idea what stage of breeding they were in but they at least lost eggs if not nestlings. We have been following the nest for years since a good friend pointed it out to us and I was dismayed when I looked up when we were passing to see only a quarter of it remaining. Sad. The parent birds had really added a lot to it this year...perhaps it was extra heavy. The night it fell, we certainly did have some serious winds, as has been the case a lot already this year.

Anyhow, on our way out to Beardsley Reservoir the other day, we stopped to take a better look at the damage. The nest was mostly gone, but eagle-eye Radar-Ralph spotted two birds whirling over the pines on the steep hill where the nest was. One landed and appeared to be breaking off branches and carrying them to a new tree a short way from the old nest.

Sure enough, they are building anew. 

I wish them success!

Rusty Blackbird

In other bird news, we have found some good ones lately, after the latest, migration-wise, and most meagre early spring, I have ever experienced. (I have been running ten or twelve species behind other years all year, but am slowly beginning to catch up, as birds finally begin moving.)

Bonaparte's Gull

At Beardsley Reservoir we found three Red-necked Grebes and a nice group of Long-tailed Ducks one day. This is only the second time I have ever seen those grebes, although we find a couple of Pied-billed most years.

I've been able to get decent recordings of a Pileated Woodpecker calling and drumming. Ditto Downies as well.

A farmer friend shared a map of 2023 hummingbird sightings this morning and I see they are up into Pennsylvania. Guess I will stick a feeder out just in case.

Meanwhile, hope you all had a nice Easter. We did....went birding in the AM, hung around puttering later in the day. Called loved ones to check in and made the boss meatloaf for Easter dinner. He loves it....We got the beef from an area farm and I am quite please with it.

But now, the first Northern Cardinal and White-throated Sparrows are singing outside. Guess I should see what the day might bring.

Dark-eyed Junco

I Found an Old Farm Side

From back in the day when I was an ag columnist....

 What do the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age have in common, and what does that have to do with politics today?

Good question. I’m glad you asked. 

The National Museum of Denmark says of the Neolithic period, “The Neolithic period covers the era 3900-1700 BC. The hunting people in Denmark had long had contact with the farming societies in central Europe, but only around 3900 BC the hunters began to till the land and keep animals. Wooded areas were cleared, burnt and replaced with fields of arable crops. Cattle, pigs and sheep appeared as domesticated animals.”

It is also the period wherein the first primitive examples of what is called “proto-writing” were found, as humans developed simple forms of markings for communication.  

Even though early scratches on turtle shells didn’t quite match up to texting, not only did those hunters turned farmer begin to grow food instead of shooting or trapping it, they also began to drink milk from the animals they kept.

Science Daily reports that researchers have found evidence of milk protein in the mineralized dental plaque of seven people from that era who lived in what is now Great Britain.

 “Lead author of the study, Dr Sophy Charlton, from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "The fact that we found this protein in the dental calculus of individuals from three different Neolithic sites may suggest that dairy consumption was a widespread dietary practice in the past.”

The fascinating article pointed out that the consumption of dairy products predates the genetic mutation that allowed at least some of us to be able to digest milk into adulthood. The authors theorized that either early farmers only drank small amounts of fluid milk or turned it into products, such as cheese, which have significantly reduced lactose content.

The relationship of this story to politics might seem a bit obscure. However, the animal rights movement certainly is politically motivated and they would have us believe that drinking milk from other animals is weird and unnatural. Yet we clearly started evolving our wildly successful, symbiotic relationship with milk producing mammals a very long time ago. It worked out pretty well for the survival of those milk producers...how else would they get to be kept in cozy barns, protected from wild predators, and pampered and cossetted all their lives? And how else would I get the delicious chunk of extra-sharp Cheddar I’m nibbling as I type this tale? They would probably have the cows and sheep and dairy goats go extinct and me eat some soybean concoction. I say no thanks, and the animals probably would too.

Which brings us to a somewhat more modern time, the Bronze Age. That is when our ancestors began making and using tools from bronze, which is created primarily by smelting copper with the addition of tin, and sometimes other metals. Bronze objects were harder than those made of previously available metals and thus came in pretty handy for sturdy nails and significant axe heads. The Bronze Age fell between the Stone Age, of which the Neolithic period was part, and the Iron Age, wherein humans learned to make even harder tools and weapons.

As early as the Neolithic period humans were feeding their infants and children milk from other mammals. By the time the Bronze Age rolled around it appears to have become a common practice, as evidenced by nifty little vessels from those periods unearthed by archaeologists all over Europe. The small clay pots were of a size comfortable for tiny hands and had spouts that scientists theorized would serve to supply food via suckling.An article from the Archaeology News Network showed photos of the “bottles” some of which were shaped like fanciful animals and even had legs to stand upon.

According to the article there was some skepticism as to whether the vessels were used to feed children at all or if they were used for nourishing sick people instead. Thus they analyzed the residual contents of such containers found in ancient graves of children in Bavaria. It was discovered that the bottles had contained the milk of domestic ruminants such as cows and sheep.

Nature Magazine said “This evidence of the foodstuffs that were used to either feed or wean prehistoric infants confirms the importance of milk from domesticated animals for these early communities, and provides information on the infant-feeding behaviors that were practiced by prehistoric human groups.”

Thus not only did our early relatives begin domesticating and keeping cows and other ruminants from a very early time in order to drink their milk, so did they begin feeding their offspring such materials at an early stage in their lives.


Project partner, Dr Katharina Rebay-Salisbury from the Institute for Oriental and European Archaeology of the Austrian Academy of Science concluded in Archaeology News, "Bringing up babies in prehistory was not an easy task. We are interested in researching cultural practices of mothering, which had profound implications for the survival of babies. It is fascinating to be able to see, for the first time, which foods these vessels contained."


It’s fascinating to me that even Stone Age humans saw value in drinking milk and used it to help their children survive the stresses of weaning and subsequent primitive life.


It’s too bad that modern privileged humans want to reinvent the wheel when it comes to nutrition. Today’s vegan movement would have us forgo our historic relationships with animals and consume only plant material instead. According to the Conversation this is leading to a trend in developed and indeed wealthy countries of chronic hidden hunger as people crave micronutrients lost by following such unnatural diets. More than one in two children in the United States is deficient in vitamin D and E, while ¼ of children lack sufficient calcium or magnesium.


Guess what time-honored beverage contains all of those elements. You know the answer of course. Dairy milk.


So simple that even the cavemen knew it. Or if not cavemen at least some really early humans.

Second March

 Kinda like second brakefust only a lot less fun...

Woke up at 2AM and 3AM to the winds of the damned. Impossible to sleep. And then I did for a bit during a lull, to the tune of terrible, all-too-real nightmares that rivaled the evening news for horror.

Ugh. (BTW, I see from my FB memories that ten years ago today we had pretty much the same weather. Also it is Mule Day.)

Yesterday felt like spring, (after the daunting rains got done). It got warm so fast that I watched fog roll up off a cornfield and then dissipate in real time, maybe five minutes worth. Crazy and nothing I had ever seen before. I found two first-of-the-year birds too, Northern Shovelers in Schoharie County and a Belted Kingfisher in Montgomery. I was even able to photograph a Pileated Woodpecker and record it calling and drumming. Cool

Then came the night. More wind-driven rain and then wind, wind, wind. You can't go from almost 70 to the twenties without some drama. Today it is just cold and kinda grim. I didn't even go down to the river when Ralph took Becky to work. Too darned tired and drained.

However, on the bright side...and there usually is one...someone left me a micro-duck on my new reading device that Becky handed down to me yesterday (she hates it, I like it). It can sit on my thumbnail with room to spare. 

It is an adorable little thing, although I am somewhat afraid it might grow up to be a Yakushima Rain Duck and Lord knows we don't need any more of those! I have an idea who may have left it here to gift me nearly immeasurable cheer, but I could be wrong.

Maybe it was the duck fairy instead!

Breaking News

 

Vortex discovered in northern Fulton County.

Experts baffled. Rainy Springday, professor of Confounding Hydraulics at Oatnell University in Mythica NY, said Saturday that although there is no immediate danger to the public, authorities are monitoring the situation and measurements are being taken on an hourly basis,

Stay tuned for further developments. 

*This is LiarLiar PantsonFire reporting from Cline Road Marsh. 

Revolving Door Lions

 

Lawn Lion AKA Cobra Chicken

Here in the Great Northeast, March came in like a lion...not at all unexpected. However, now it is going out like one too. It just doesn't seem fair.

Yesterday I spent some sunny afternoon time working in the garden. Pulled up the old landscape fabric, raked and leveled, and laid out new rows for when it's warm enough to put in the cannas.

I reveled in the sturdy little shoots of newly emerged garlic. Last year we found the best garlic I have ever tasted at an Amish roadside stand. I spared one bulb's worth to plant and now I an glad I did.

It was warm and nice enough for Mack to spend a couple of hours in his outside run and for the lambs, which are for the most part huge now, to go out in the yard with the flock.

Lambic Pentameter

Today all is covered with fresh snow. Jilly-woo was delighted. She could go roll in it. Me not so much.

And now it looks as if April will come in like a lion too. Brrr.....

Sky Lions fighting over a large carcass of something they caught.
It has slipped into the water here.
There were five of them strafing and struggling to steal

While the Computer is Functioning for a Minute

 

A very Happy Birthday to the guy who can do it all!

Love you, Alan, and your wonderful family. 

Cooperstown Coots

 

American Coots

A couple of years ago a nice birder friend let us in on the secret of the American Coots that winter on the end of Otsego Lake where the marina runs bubblers to keep the ice away from the docks. Since then we have made at least one trip each year to add them to my state year list, since the nearest other spot that we have found them to be reliable is Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge and that is a long haul for us.

The past couple of weeks I have been watching for an auspicious day to head that way and yesterday sure looked good.....

Lil' bit windy here and colder than is enjoyable for outdoor fun and games but it sure looked doable...

Until we got up on the hills! We are so spoiled by living here near the river where the weather is just a bit moderated by it, especially when it isn't frozen. I forget that the whole state isn't warmed by the rivers. Up on those hills the tiny bit of snow we had experienced overnight was being tossed around in thin, icy streams, by that same cold, miserable wind.

The farther south we went the worse it got. Some counties and towns do a better job than others at plowing, salting and sanding their roads. We quickly figured out which was which.

We discovered that our path took us past the
Ames firehouse pancake breakfast

Also Cooperstown is in the foothills of the Catskill Mountains. The higher we went the worse it got. I offered that maybe we should turn back and apologized profusely for even thinking of such a journey.

Whiteout!

The boss is intrepid and he soldiered on, even when at one point we hit a total whiteout where the windshield was awash with nothing but driving snow and the car seemed almost stalled in place by the maddened wind.

There was a certain amount of traffic
despite the ugly conditions

It was so cold when we got there that the boss hustled back to the car after about five minutes near the water. I had to keep putting one of my hand warmers on my ear to ward off frostbite.

But there were coots! Lotsa coots! Over 30 of them. Plus Buffleheads, Common Mergansers and a few geese. 

The ride home was almost, but not quite, as horrific as the trip over. I was pretty darned happy to hit the gravel driveway.

Before I went to bed, I thanked the boss for the coots, as I try to always remember to thank him for our frequent birding trips. He took the opportunity to tease me a bit about cooties....been a while since I had to worry about those. 

Some interesting links

Otsego Lake...117,000,000,000 gallons of gorgeous turquoise water is contained in this beauty.

Cooperstown NY

I don't think I want to chase any coots today, even though the wind has gone down.

Cooties!

Happy Saint Patrick's Day!

 

A Couple of Months Ago

 

At the early onset of cabin fever, I was lured into the pages of a seed catalog....oh, those tempting, seductive, cover photos...oh, my, oh, my, oh, my downfall.

Now, on the dining room table, because I have so many plants I can't find room for the seed starter tray near the big windows, tiny, almost microscopic, herb plants are poking up out of the soil...

Mexican Mint, which appears to be some kind of marigold. I dunno what it actually is, but the photo caught my eye so onto the order it went. Seedlings are pretty scraggly, but I can hope.

Tiny threads of Orange Thyme appeared yesterday....yes, I peer into the box every day eager for greenery and all that it portends.

So far none of the assorted basils are up yet, but I am excited. I still have a fair amount of BOOM left, but I like to have enough to share and it is  awful good stuff. For years I have dried herbs from the garden to make seasoning blends that suit our taste buds. Two years ago, entirely by accident I happened upon BOOM.

BOOM consists of Sweet Basil, Oregano, and Orange Mint. B-O-OM. We have a kind of feral Oregano/Marjoram stuff that grows free down along the driveway. When Grandma Peggy was still with us, she and I went out one day planting daffodils to naturalize and this herby stuff to see if it would grow. 

The daffs are mostly Ice Follies. They bloom and spread each year, especially on the edges of the spring-soggy ditches, reminding me of her and that day in such a sweet spring way. The Oregano thrives in big patches that smell like pizza when you pick it to dry, which I do most years. I have transplanted it up here by the house several times, but it always freezes out after a winter or two.

The difference in plant life and vitality as you get farther away from the river never fails to astonish me. Down in town I could winter mums for years and years, coaxing them into giant clumps that when properly pinched looked just like the little potted jobs in the store, only waist-high and covering whole beds with huge, round clumps of bloom. Up here...hah...a mile away, but up on the hill...the only ones that will winter are the Sheffields. Good thing I love them. I tried again this year, setting some purchased pots in the ground and covering them a bit, bit but I think the miserable March weather finished them off.

I grew Orange Mint for well over 30 years at several different houses, but a few years ago it faded and died, no matter what I did. It took us several years to get new plants, as it isn't easy to find, but at least last fall we had a big hearty patch. No telling if it is still surviving out there under the snow (which I pile on whenever i shovel, hoping to protect it from the iffy late winter weather).

Anyhow, last year I bought some Sweet Basil plants...lazy, lazy, lazy...and they didn't grow much, nor did they taste very good. So, no BOOM.

This year I bought the Pinetree basil seed assortment, some licorice Basil, and I don't remember what other kinds. Good thing I labeled everything when I planted. Hopefully all come along and I can pot them up and make some BOOM this summer. I don't try to actually grow basil in the ground up here because the weeds outcompete it no matter what I do. Big pots and buckets take care of that.

One thing that will enhance my summer project...Becky just bought a dehydrator. I hate to tell you how many times I warmed the oven to 200, put in some trays of greenery, then shut it off and left them drying, only to have someone else decide to bake biscuits and preheat it for their project. This will end that fun and games.

So, over the next few days some houseplant or project will have to move away from the windows to make room for the seed tray. My compulsion to  grow things has caused pineapple tops in pots, Elephant Ears as tall as I am, Norfolk Island Pines even taller, etc. etc. and they all love the windows.

 I also started some bright red geraniums in kitty litter bottles (cut a third off the long way, leaving a hinge at one end, which makes a handy little roofed tray). They are just getting true leaves now. If I can get them through without damping off and get them potted, hopefully they will bloom this summer. I have a few geraniums that I started down from seed when we lived in the village twenty-some years ago, but they are on their way out, getting weaker each year. It is hard to find the bright, cardinal red ones that I like and I only have one left. My last orange one, which has always stayed tiny, but prolific in blooms, nearly died of root rot this winter. It is repotted but struggling. We shall see. Geranium seed is expensive, hard to find, and not very easy to propagate, but once mature the plants seem stronger and much more beautifully colored than purchased plants.

And there you have it, some of what keeps me occupied while winter pounds us with storm after storm. Happy gardening everyone!

I also planted some of this

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