Thursdays with Becky

 Lately Becky has been taking Thursdays off so we can get the groceries as soon as the store opens and avoid the crowds. Some weeks we leave at o'dark thirty and head out to see the sun up at some mountain place of wild magic.

We went this week to a place I have named Benham Marsh in honor of a sweet lady I met there and her late son. It was cold and bright with just a touch of morning mist. Ravens were crying their harsh, strong song and a faint twitter had just begun in the edges of the woods.

As the sun crested the horizon the colors popped out one by one. The burgundy and blaze of the Red Maples in the marsh. Just the beginning of orange and crimson in the Sugar Maples. Plenty of green for background, buttercup and bronze in the low-lying bushes, and birds everywhere. So many birds! 

We found 30 species, from a Common Loon calling down on Peck's Lake to a Wilson's Warbler I pished out of the shrubbery. The bushes and treetops were buzzing with warblers, but in their fall plumage ID is tough. I got a few of them though, before they flitted off over the forest, feeding as they went.

Beaver Lodge

Not one car passed during the the nearly two hours that we stayed. I reveled in the cold, wild, beauty until the sun burned off the last of the early morning haze and it was time to rejoin humanity down in town.

Suddenly I find that I love Thursdays...they were formerly just another day in the calendar of retired life. Now they are plumb fantastic.

Immature male Common Yellowthroat

Lip-synching Beethoven

 

Everyone is asleep. Except me. I want to play computer games, but need to make Ralph's breakfast sausage and get some of my steps out of the way. Thus, earphones and silent song.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, fourth movement. Ode to Joy. Perfect for a crisp fall morning. Nestled among the Scottish/Irish music and ancient rock on my Threecollie Walking List it is something of an anomaly but I like it so it stays. 

It sweetly takes me back to other mornings back in the day. My next younger brother introduced me to this particular work, my very favorite piece of classical music, I think during camping trips to Tirrell Pond in the Adirondacks.

We were nutz in those days. Always hiked in packing butternut squash, whole potatoes, butter, and foil in which to prepare these delicacies in the coals of the campfire. While the boys climbed the mountains measuring DBH on many assorted trees for a college class, couch potato girl stayed in camp, tending the fire, and watching the food so it didn't burn. I didn't even like squash until we cooked it on those long ago hikes, but it's a favorite now.

There is a painting in the dining room taken from photos I took then of lakeshore plants....even then I packed a camera, a little Instamatic given to my by my Aunt Barbara and Uncle Earl. The pics weren't great and neither is the painting, but, ah, the memories!

There was this one time we found the lean-to occupied already, when we got there late in the evening. We traded most of our food for the chance to sleep undercover rather than out in the drizzly rain. With little else left, we ate sardines right out of the can....better than nothing...although not much better. I am of the anti-anchovy persuasion...hate the taste so much I can't even eat the half of the pizza that doesn't have them....tastes like dead fish to me. However, that night I ate those sardines and liked them too. You get that hungry hiking out in the woods. 

Anyhow, everyone else is up now so I can play my music and "sing" along if I want to, but I guess I won't. Time to try to find a motel for that trip to Maine we want to take in a couple of weeks. Ugh...I am not good at that sort of thing either. 

Long Lake, not Tirrell, but you get the idea

"The trail ascends 170 feet in the first 1.75 miles before dropping 450 feet over the last 1.5 miles to the pond."

Amsterdam Bird Walk

 

Last Saturday I had the fun of participating in one of George Steele's urban bird walks at the gateway bridge in Amsterdam. Several other birders also attended, and, man, oh, man, some of them are amazing bird spotters...

George leads these walks at the beginning of each summer month, with birds ranging from Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to Bald Eagles being spotted this time. An earlier walk is where I first learned of the Peregrine Falcon family that nests on one of the bridge supports.

There is a surprising variety of habitat for so populated an area, with an overgrown brushy area that is home to catbirds and cardinals, the water, both in the stream that meets the river there and the river itself, plus frequent thermals near vulture roosts, and open grassy areas. We often visit in early evening this time of year to look for Common Nighthawks there and have found them a couple of times. 

If you get a chance, join the group at the boat launch by the bocce court above the bridge. Maybe I will see you there.

Hey S*ms*ng

This is a bird
I like bird apps
NMM (No more math)
*Female Common Merganser

And all your parent companies and providers....Goo Gull, this means you too!

Please be kind enough to cease to install stoopid games on my phone every time there is an update and sometimes in between. Also smart games. Quit it with them too please.

Particularly Sudocooties! I am and have always been math challenged. I do not think in numbers.  I wrote a newspaper column for 23 years...I think...numbers challenged and all. Words are my thing. As in, failed Algebra and aced English and French and learn the Latin names for birds, frogs, and fish....for fun!

Stupidoku is more Greek to me than ancient Sumerian would be. I don't even understand HOW you play it, let alone why. And I don't want to.

Also my phone is crammed with bird apps and pictures of my grandkids, dogs, ponies, garden flowers, and random cool stuff. There is no room for anything involving numbers or movie stars whose words pass for news in your version of culture.

Just cut it out. I am going to uninstall all that junk anyhow and you make me awful cranky.

Thanks, that is all.

Sharing is Caring

 I guess I am something less than caring....I have no love for sharing my lettuce and tiny pea plants with deer or whatever else is devouring them every time I replant.

I grow them in large containers...mostly old plastic watering troughs no longer suitable for their original purpose. Usually that serves to keep the critters away. However this summer I first dealt with a woodchuck using a handy bucket to climb in and decimate the plants. I trapped the chuck in a humane trap, although that was the end of the humane part, and moved the bucket away.

Broad-winged Hawk

It worked for a while. Then the nibbling began anew. Irish Spring was hung above the plants. Guess our local varmints like the fresh scent.

Thus the boss has found some wire paneling we used to cover horse windows back in the day. Guess I will put on his heavy gloves, get out the wire cutters, and shape it to shelter my tasty stuff from whatever is eating it.

 I just don't play well with others. 

Meanwhile the weather is about as good as it gets. Cold and clear enough for stars at night, foggy in the morning, then crisp, clear, and pleasant all day. Laundry dries quickly on the line. You can see all the way to the mountains, but it is not too hot to work outside, for example, making covers for the garden beds and all.

The Red Maples are on fire in the swamps, glowing purple-red like lanterns among the slower changing trees. I was birding Rankin Grove the other day and thought a bear or deer was approaching through the nearby woods. Crash, crash, crash. I watched and listened closely in case I had to get my fanny back in the car...but, no, it was Red Squirrels dropping acorns from seventy feet high or so. They make a lot of noise on the way down. Warblers are beginning to trickle through and the young of the year Ruby-throated Hummingbirds will fly right up in your face, all curious and cute. 

Forget the calendar...It's Fall.

I like it!

Color Magic for Ponies

Take one cute little black pony and one determined young lady.

Add horsey shampoo and lots of water. Wash him well and pick out the burdocks that came out of the most recent hay. 

Braid him up nice and walk him for a while. He is kind of a little stinker (the last word there is a synonym for pony) and the experience will do him good.

Put him back in his lovely box stall with a net full of hay.

And "HEY PRESTO"

Gambit

A cute little blue roan pony emerges from his chrysalis.

Yeah, as soon as the kids put the ponies back in the stalls they rolled like somebody was paying them overtime.

That's life at the Great Fonda Fair.

*The Appleyard Duck Peg exhibited won BOS waterfowl...he is a real pretty fellow. That's him with the dark green head above.

Not just another pretty face
McCall's KC Crimson
AKA Diamond

Boxes

 

I was running around before the sun came up this morning, catching up the housework so the decks would be clear for the day. In deference to the other people who live here I was listening to my threecollie walking playlist with earphones and trying to be quiet. No sense in waking them up.

Brown-eyed Girl, by Van Morrison, came on, and I sang along, very, very softly....and thought about boxes.

The song came out in 1967. I was fifteen and enthralled by it. As teenagers did in those days, I wore the 45 rpm record out, just wore the grooves away, lying on the floor in my bedroom and listening to it on a different sort of box than the one I have now.

It was my own little portable record player, if I remember correctly it belonged first to my folks, who were also driven by music. They got something better and it came down to me. Snapped closed it looked like a little suitcase. Open it brought me great joy.  I was forever losing or breaking those little plastic adaptor inserts that made a 45 playable on a spindle intended for a 33. 

I could never have imagined that lo, these many years later, I would be listening to the same song on a little rubber-padded box containing all the knowledge, music, media, and mystery anyone in the world might want to employ for any kind of reason. 

We have come a long way, baby!

I want to thank Becky, who keeps me in music and books, for the wonders conveyed by the magical time machine in my pocket. There are a few songs I can't add to that playlist, but most anything I want to hear is available. I added the song above to my walking (10000 steps a day) playlist just the other day. Most of that list consists of Irish and Scottish music, Canadian music, a bagpipe song or two, a little Beethoven and the like, but there are just a few classic favorites from the fifties, sixties and seventies on there too.

However I do not miss the clumsy box on the bedroom floor and my mama hollering up the stairs to "turn that darned thing down" one little bit. (Well, part of that is a lie....I do miss Mama every day.) I do not miss saving my 25 cents a day lunch money for weeks to afford the next new song I wanted either. 

This is a lot easier.

Next on the playlist: C'mon Marianne, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

Flashlight Fail

 

Not the boy in question but close enough for government work

Becky discovered some tiny, thumb-sized, rechargeable flashlights a while back and bought me a batch. I always carry one in the pocket of anything I am wearing. They come in handy.

This morning I went out shortly after four with the puppy-duppy to see what we could see...well, actually he was seeing what he could pee-on.

Over by the honey locust tree a large object loomed at the edge of the circle of backyard light. It was silvery colored and looked like a small sack of trash.

Wot-the-heckin-heck?

Mack stared intently.

Then the thing stood up and stalked off down the driveway.

I trained my tiny flashlight on it.

Which promptly died, dagnabbit. Usually they are dim for a bit and warn me to recharge. This one just conked in an instant.

However, my sleepy brain put the available information together. It was Liz's big silver tom turkey.

There were a few feathers left behind so I think something has been after it and it came to the house seeking safety.

Note to Liz: you can put him in the horse barn and I will feed and care for him, poor guy. I like to hear him clucking and chuckling out there and I don't want the vermin to get him.

Not to me: Charge your flashlights.

Where's the Mud

Least Sandpiper

 It might seem counterintuitive, but in this summer of constant rain there is no mud to be found here or in nearby counties. Ponds, lakes and rivers are bank-full right up to the surrounding vegetation leaving no room for mud.

Meanwhile, although you might not be seeing them, shorebirds are migrating through in great numbers. Without nice icky mud flats to lure them down to dine they are downright hard to find.

However, last week when the canal authorities....very wisely...drew the river down to winter levels to make room for Debby's copious tears, acres and acres of luscious river bottom mud were exposed.

Acres of lovely, lovely mud

It was a birder's playground. Ralph and I made eager use of it. We went to the boat launch at least once a day and often twice to look for peeps and pipers. It was a delight to walk the western shore of the Schoharie right out to the confluence with the Mohawk peering happily at the mud.

i saw Least Sandpipers, Semipalmated Sandpipers, Spotted Sandpipers, Solitary Sandpipers, Semipalmated Plovers, Great Egrets, Green Herons, Great Blue Herons, Bald Eagles hunting them all, and a single Laughing Gull. (Many thanks to David Harrison for finding it, texting me, and letting me peer through his scope for a quick glimpse before it waddled out of view).

Great Egret displaying the watches he has for sale

It was amazing to say the least! 

However, not surprisingly, when we went down yesterday afternoon the river was filled almost to its normal summer level. There were a few assorted peeps left, but they were nervous and looked like heading out.

Belted Kingfisher

Solitary Sandpipers

Thus the fun is over until well into the fall when the dams will be opened for winter and the mud revealed again. There will probably still be a few migrants passing though at that time and I will walk the river bed in eager anticipation, but I don't expect anything like this past week's fun and games.

Semipalmated Sandpiper

And thus, I ask you local folks who may see places that I haven't found yet.....

She's filling up fast

Where's the mud? I need another shorebird fix!

And thanks in advance!

Semipalmated Plover

Up to No Good

 

We had just returned from searching various mudflats revealed by the lowering of the river in honor of the arrival of Stormy Debby when I heard the sitting porch door close.

Nosy critter that I am, I went to see why the boss went out on the porch.

And then I heard what had drawn him out there...urgent orders were being issued behind the bushes at the corner of the driveway in front of the house. We listened for a minute, then heard the tortured groans of spinning wheels right in front of us.

Of course we ran to see what the H-E-Double Hockey Sticks was going on. We are both just that kind of fool.

I got there first because I still had my boots on from the birding trip.

There in the driveway, crossways and big time stuck, was a battered silver Ford Explorer, accompanied by a skinhead kinda guy with a little red billy goat beard, and a woman with partly pink hair. He was exhorting her to hurry and get the car unstuck. However it was buried, nose in one bank, back tires in the other. 

We were both pretty darned angry, because to get where they were they had to ignore a bright yellow no trespassing sign at the bottom of the driveway. Also because they were tearing up the driveway, which did not need holes and trenches dug in it what with all this rain going on.

Things got worse. I pointed out that they had passed the sign. He claimed they couldn't back down the driveway from where the sign was and had come up the hill to turn around. Yeah, right. The sign is right at the bottom of the drive just a few yards from the road. We put it there on the advice of the state police after another such incident. Anyone could easily back down from there. What was readily apparent was that they came up hoping to do something nefarious to the house, saw when they reached the corner where they got stuck that it was occupied, (you can see my plethora of plants on the porch from there) and attempted to make their exit before anyone noticed them.

I won't go into too much detail about how obnoxious the guy was. The boss started getting really upset and I managed to convince him to go in the house....his surgery was way too recent to get his blood pressure up that bad and he was REALLY mad!

The guy had some kind of winch in the back of the car and wanted to tie up to the cottonwood tree on the corner. I was concerned that the cable would cut in and kill the tree which is a big one, and besides the guy was a real jerk, so I refused to let him..

He ignored me and tied up to another tree further down the driveway and proceeded to tell his girlfriend how to drive, tearing things up even more.

I called 911 and began to video the show. Of course the phone camera acted up, but I got a lot of it, plus pictures of the license plate and of both of them.

Eventually they got the car out and....whodathunkit...backed all the way down the driveway.

There were two county sheriffs waiting for them there.

The officers came up to talk to us about it and asked what we wanted to do. We both wanted to press charges, but they seemed a bit reluctant to do so, what with the guy only having gotten stuck in our driveway and then gotten himself out. With the new New York laws that wasn't going to mean much. We might have pushed the issue, but they then told us that he was in the back of the second car as there were warrants out for his arrest so he was going to jail anyhow. We saw no reason to charge the lady he was with. She was polite and apologetic and offered to try to fix the damage to the driveway if we would loan her a shovel.

The guy was another story. He had so much brass that he asked how I dared to swear at him while calling me the colloquial word for an anal orifice. I did use a little...and only a little...inelegant language I admit it. I try pretty hard not to embarrass the little children but most of a lifetime around cows leaves a mark.

When the excitement was over I asked the officers if I should make the guy YouTube famous. I guess they can't answer that question so I am asking you...I have a lot of fun with my YouTube channel...should I feature the fiasco...or is likely to make trouble for me? Please let me know what you think

Anyhow, now we know why he was in such a Godawful hurry to get out of our driveway. Outstanding warrants will do that every time.

Many, many thanks to Montgomery County Sheriff's Department. They have never let us down when we have had need of them and this was no exception. Thanks to their prompt arrival we at least have some satisfaction over the deal and whenever Stormy Debby stops being such a drowner, the boss can fix the driveway with the skid steer.

Update: I published the video. Just couldn't stop myself.

The Ghost in the Door

 

We moved here in 2001 shortly after Ralph's mom passed away. It was very much her house. This had been her home for decades and she loved the place.

From the first day I was uncomfortable.

Unsettled.

Restless.

I laid it to not having a "place" in the new-to-us house.

Being a creature of habit and territorial, I needed a spot to park my carcass and feel safe. I had no such location.

It was more than that though. For some reason I felt uncomfortable around the pocket doors leading from the front hall into the fancy parlor...think gilt-framed ceiling-high mirror and all that. Along with that feeling there was the way the doors closed if I left them open or opened if I left them shut. That'll rattle your cage, I can tell you.

Those doors are HUGE...and heavy. I am not a wimp and I had to throw my weight into moving them, but they moved themselves pretty regularly during our first weeks here. It was easy to lay that to vibration from trains across the river or large boats on same. You can feel the ground shaking from those things sometimes, especially the big boats.

However, after I found my place...south east corner of the regular living room, in Peg's ancient recliner, and started putting the house in some kind of order, the funny business with the doors stopped. 

I didn't think much of it after that, just joked that whomever it was had accepted me and realized that I meant well to the house and its occupants spectral and otherwise.

However, although she never mentioned it, Becky never stopped feeling the creepy sensation in the front hall. When she finally said something, after all these years, I knew just what she was talking about.

The ghost in the door.

As I put the disaster area...don't ask, you truly don't want to know...that was in that parlor with the fancy mirror straight, she noticed that she was no longer uncomfortable going through that room. (Because the front hall is in fact as big as a room and two stories high.)

Cool! Mr. Mrs. or Ms. Spook was pleased again with its haunting place.

Then last night the boss and I ventured down to the river to look for Common Nighthawks (no joy there, alas).

As soon as we were out the door my little dog, Mack, commenced to howl.

And howl.

And howl.

And then whine and howl some more.

Biskies did not help. Stern words ditto.

He didn't quit until we came home.

I think he just needed to visit the outdoor facilities after consuming his kibble and water.

Becky, however, is positive that the ghost is pissed annoyed about something. I don't know, but I spent some time today on the restoring order project in the front room. Nothing like a little propitiation if you know what I mean.

Friends

 When longtime friends who haven't met yet get together IRL for the first time, the stories fly. They race across the table, collide in mid word, then burst like fireworks on high, each spark racing into another tale, then another, and yet another, until a web of magic floats over all, right there in McDonald's.

What joy! 

What amazement!

What sheer, unfettered delight!

And, yes what love...

We loved meeting you, Cathy and Keith!

We knew it would be a great event, all those years of building friendship over the miles that separated us could not have been wrong about us all. We were sure to like each other.

However, it turned out it was so much more than we could possibly have anticipated. Ohio turns out the most wonderful people.

I hope you pass this way again and thank you for taking time out of your journey to share an hour of sparkling stories and heartfelt smiles. I am so glad you liked our river.

Hugs to you both. ( How nice it was to share real ones, and so very heartfelt.)

The Best Blueberries

 

The boss took me up to Bellinger's Orchard today so I could pick some blueberries. Becky has been keeping me in the grocery store variety. As you might expect there is no comparison, although I am grateful to have any kind for my salads.

However, as soon as we got home I rinsed a couple of handfuls of the fresh-from-the-orchard kind and put them in a bowl on the table.

Before I was even done putting away the other stuff we had brought home from a morning's excursions the first ones were gone. It only took a little longer to eat the second bunch.

10 out of 10 would recommend you go pick a quart or two, but do your best not to eat them all at once. I did manage to curb my enthusiasm, but they aren't going to last long.

Yum....

Birding with the Pros

Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers

 I had the best fun this morning anybody could ask for. I joined a Hudson Mohawk Bird Club field trip to the Caroga Lake CE breeding bird atlas block in Bleecker and got to spend several hours birding with two highly skilled experts. What a way to learn!

 I drove myself up to the turn around on Pinnacle Road (go me!!) much earlier than I needed to, just to catch the earliest birds that I could. On the way, driving through another priority NY Breeding Bird Atlas block, I spotted a hen turkey on the edge of the road with a mess of really new poults milling around her feet. I stopped and listed them and continued north.

Once at my destination I birded by myself for a while. In 37 minutes I counted 20 species, most of them fun mountain birds, making a change from my usual farm country denizens.

Then as I sat in the car waiting, (and hiding from the deer flies) a Sharp-shinned Hawk nailed something right next to the car, carried it to a nearby branch, adjusted it in its talons, and carried it away. About as easy a confirmed species as you could ask for.

After David and Mark arrived, we walked the road, finding birds ranging in size from Ruby-throated Hummingbirds to a family of noisy Common Ravens. My personal total at the end of the trip was 45 species, but I know they got at least a couple more than that.

I am always hesitant about joining group birding expeditions for fear I will slow more athletic birders down too much, but I was certainly glad I went on this one. As a lovely side benefit I got over 14,000 steps so I don't have to walk this afternoon. If you are local and want to have some birdie fun, I highly recommend joining the Mohawk Hudson Club and undertaking a field trip or two.

Squirrel Baffle

This is the third one of these I have made. I was desperate to keep the vermin out of my bird feeders, and thus designed this thing. So far the other two work pretty well. As long as the tape stays on they foil chipmunks and even big Grey Squirrels. It is pretty funny to see a great big skerverrel start up the post, get his head stuffed in the bottle, and fail to progress.

Hopefully they will continue to function as planned and this one will work too. 

I use a 2-liter soda bottle and duct tape in the construction. Tin snips are employed to cut through the neck of the bottle to split it so it fits on the pole. Then scissors are used to cut the rest of the way down the bottle and to slice the bendy strips.

Kinda ugly, but the bottle is only worth a nickel deposit and I always have the tape on hand anyhow. Can't get much cheaper than that.

Good luck if you try one. LMK how it works out for you.

Sunnycrest Orchard

 

I don't remember the exact first time Ralph took me there. He and his mom had been buying fruit and plants there, probably since the place first opened, but Schoharie County was new territory for me. My adventuring had been mostly to the north, Fulton and Hamilton Counties, and I was in for a delightful surprise.

The front part of the building in those days was filled with tables heaped with fat, glistening apples, all red, green, and gold, bursting with sweet juice, and even sweeter temptation, for an old apple hound like me.

And then there was Mr. Schilde. He knew Ralph and Peg and delighted in telling them of his extensive travels all over the world. He had served in the Peace Corps, and, did he ever have stories to tell. Just talking to him for a few minutes as we shopped was like a college course but a lot more interesting and no homework either. We often discussed what he taught us all the way home and sometimes for days afterward. There is nothing that rivals someone who makes you think and he surely did. We  miss him still.

Later the apples were joined by greenhouses full of treasures to tempt the most blasé gardener alive. There was something for every taste and always blooming with health and vigor.

Every year we lamented the late winter closing period and eagerly awaited spring opening day. I thought it was better than baseball's Spring Training, even though I love the game.

As Ralph grew busier managing the farm It was I who took Peg for her spring plants. She loved the place as much as I did. Such delight in  walking into the dense, humid air of the greenhouses with the glowing array of flowers stretching wall-to-wall. Often the air buzzed with hummingbirds sampling the flowery feast and the only challenge was picking which plants to bring home.

Along with the popular standards like petunias and marigolds, there were always fascinating exotics. Last year I bought a Lion's Ear plant and enjoyed it mightily as it grew higher than my kitchen window. (Thanks again to the nice lady who sent me seeds, which I started and set out this spring). There was always something cool tucked away in the odd corner that I just had to bring home and try. I also got some Pineapple Sage last year and loved that too. (Thanks Matt and Lisa.)

In recent years Sunnycrest became my go to for tomato plants. I used to start from seed, but trays of tiny tomatoes were crowded out by my ridiculous array of houseplants hogging the big windows. Theirs were of varieties I liked and hardy, sturdy, and ready to grow. This spring was no exception.

Last week we learned that the business had been sold. At first it was like contemplating the end of an old friend. We truly love the place. Since the announcement we have been over twice, first to find something to put in that ugly purple planter pot. Pink Gomphrena and dark purple Salvia....perfect...it is pretty now!

Then yesterday we went back just to kind of look around and enjoy the nostalgia of a place we visited with great delight every year since we met, forty-some odd years ago.

Becky came along, and somehow the two of them each bought me a new plant. Becky chose a gigantic fuchsia. Hoo boy! I tried one bitd and failed dismally. Ralph picked out a cute little green job with leaves like strawberries and fuzzy pink kitty-tail flowers. Hope I can keep them growing for the summer. Can't wait to see what the hummers think of them.

Anyhow, we nodded goodbye to Tim and Laurie, and carried off our treats. I managed to step on a cherry tomato that fell off a plant someone was carting out. Splat. It was kind of a comical ending I guess. 

However, now I am allowing myself to be excited that the business will be rising like a  phoenix, hopefully this fall. I guess the new folks are returning to three seasons of operation, which should be fun. Who knows what cool new plants and ideas will be forthcoming!

If you get a chance, run over to Sharon Springs and grab some of the great bargains available until they close on the 30th. It's never too late to add something fun to your garden and you can always find a bare spot or an empty pot. (I thought I was done planting and out of room, but lo and behold, both the new treasures found attractive homes on the sitting porch. I would not be surprised if we somehow happened to wander over that way for just one more visit...

Best wishes to everyone at Sunnycrest and to the new folks carrying on the tradition. Maybe we will see you there.

Also, if anyone has any advice on keeping a fuchsia going, let me know. Thanks!

Nope

 

The boss is off to the races in NH this morning, so I got up early to make sure he got away all right and to drive Becky to work. There was a tumultuous racket emanating from the sitting porch so I took a look.

A House Wren nestling was peeking out of the nest box, wide-eyed. As I watched it fledged, flying off into the brush near the driveway.

Another soon popped its head out.

To my surprise the parents were trying to tempt the babies to join them in the big world. They would fly up near the box, chattering madly, bug in beak, but refuse to feed the gaping mouth poking out of the entrance hole. Instead they would fly away encouragingly "Hey, follow me! I've got food!", and then return to repeat the game.

The second baby was stubborn and somewhat stuck in the door way. It wiggled and jiggled, (although I saw no tickling), but it couldn't seem to get a wing past a stick in the door. (Said stick has stuck out the doorway for at least three years now.)

Suddenly it came loose, popped out with a flutter, took one look at the big world and scooted back inside like its tail was on fire.

I was there with the camera. There is a video of the whole deal right here. (Watch to the end. It took the reluctant guy a while to come out).

As I write this, hours later, the show is still going on. I don't know how many babies were crammed into that box, but it was a bunch.

On one hand I will miss the ongoing wren show. They are always busy and pretty funny. On the other hand for the past week the parents have been agitated and noisy all day from maybe 430 AM until 9 at night, and the kids were worse, squabbling and squalling all day.

 Be nice to have the porch to myself for a while.

Out on the Hill

 

Back in the day, when we filled all the mows in all the barns with sweet-scented bales, and loaded two silos with fermented corn and grass, and spent most of the summer out on the hills, there were owls there.

There was a cherry tree back in the Sixty-acre Lot with a cavernous hollow half way up. We thought the big ones...the Great Horned Owls... nested there. We saw them there at half-dark sometimes.

When a mother skunk was hit down on the road and her litter of little stinkers paraded up and down the driveway preventing us from going out or getting home, Great-Horned Owls took care of that situation and quite quickly too, hooty, hoo, hoo.

We would hear them calling in the dusk, song of the wild, don't you know. 

And we took them for granted. 

Until they vanished.

In later years the only messages they shared with us were occasional feathers tangled in the wild roses out on the heifer pasture hill, marking where they had hunted for something that tried to hide there.

We didn't see them any more. Oh, we always had Barred Owls. Alan would see them out in daylight when he hunted, and if I walked back on the hill before the sun came up I would hear them haunting the old pastures.

But no Tiger Owls were heard or seen.

They may have been there all along. We don't make hay or grow corn any more, and if I walk out on the hills it is usually in daylight. 

Then the other night I went forth at dusk to bring the dog on down to dinner. The mosquitoes were out, as was a waxing gibbous moon. I was glad only one of them wanted to bite me.

As the dog dragged me up the step I heard a thrush calling. I went back out to see if it was a Hermit Thrush (it was),

There in the dead tree up by the old spring was a thick spot in its shrouded silhouette...just a tiny anomaly in the outline of the branches.

I know that tree as well as I know the painting across from my chair in the living room.

That spot was something.

The camera with its extra zoom showed me what.

A Great Horned Owl, just beginning his night hunt. As I watched through the screen he lifted off on heavy wings and floated off to the east, seeking skunks maybe or perhaps just gleaning field mice from the tangled woodland there..

It made my night and maybe even my year.

One of those best birds you sometimes find but never often enough.