Northview Diary

Tough Old Men

2026-03-26T05:54:00.002-04:00

Hospital Wives

Waiting room bonding

Medical tales

Of fragile good husbands

Tough old men

Happy Birthday!

2026-03-21T05:00:00.003-04:00

To my favorite son!

Barnegat Day Two

2026-02-18T07:24:00.007-05:00

After shaking off the worst effects of our owl prowl we headed to the

Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Drive, a trip I would highly recommend to anyone visiting the area. The drive wanders through 8 miles of marsh and saltmarsh and provides shelter to a delightful array of birds and wildlife.

Sneaky little American Bittern

Kinda judgey Red-tailed Hawk

We were fortunate to encounter a gentleman at our first stop near the entrance who pointed us to a side road where a rare-in-this-season American Bittern was being seen from a tower. Of course we took it, to find a small crowd of birders photographing an obliging Red-tailed Hawk near the road. Lazy me stayed in the car and shot out the window. Just before we moved on, something caught my eye right between Kris's car and the next one in line. Said bittern was prancing across the road right in front of us!

Brant

Snow Geese

The whole drive was packed with surprises and delights, from a flock of around 90 Snow Geese right next to the car, to all three mergansers, Common, Hooded, and Red-breasted, hunting in a single small pool.

By the end of our circumnavigation of the drive we had seen 37 species.

Great Black-backed Gull

We next decided to return to the Barnegat Lighthouse in hopes of getting a look at the Harlequin Ducks that were being seen there. Alas, being ancient and sporting a pair of pretty awful knees, I didn't dare go out on the tumble of giant riprap rocks that form the jetty...not that staying on the sand was any kind of punishment.... There were plenty of birds where I was too. Anyhow, Kris got spectacular photos of the sought after ducks on the other side of the jetty, while almost by accident I got reference level shots of same surfing a line of rocks out in the water. What a happy!

Brant

It was a great trip that I will not forget anytime soon. If you get a chance, go do those things! See those birds and waves and shells and rocks. Hear the crashing of the surf and the calling of the gulls and the wind rushing through the sea grasses on the dunes. It will bring joy to the depths of your heart. Thanks again Kris for making it possible!

Barnegat Day One

2026-02-16T07:19:00.007-05:00

It's spring in Barnegat. The bushes and grasses are thronged with Yellow-rumped Warblers, still clad in drab winter plumage, but ready to assault the great North any day now.

Kris and Kristen on the jetty. A younger me would have been out there hopping rock to rock, but it is a nope for an old lady with bad knees and questionable balance. Instead I walked the sand from where I took this shot.

Yellow-rumped Warbler

The sea there is likewise thronged with wintering ducks and geese that would trigger rare bird alerts here in NY and instantly bring flocks of birders, rivaling those of YRWA, to stand and stare while madly clicking camera shutters.

Purple Sandpiper...he knows exactly how cute he is!

My dear friend and Best Birding Buddy, Kris, invited me to share a quick trip there to view these amazing creatures, so we took off at o'dark-thirty Friday morning. On the way down we speculated about what we wanted to see most. I was hoping for Great Cormorants, and we both settled on Purple Sandpipers as grail birds so to speak. I had only encountered either on Bird Wise or on Cornell birding courses.

Once we found our way through the tangle of going south in order to go north engendered by the whole just one bridge to Long Beach Island thing, we were instantly greeted by a whole flock of Brant, one of those geese that get folks all excited here in this area. They were grazing on lawns and strolling in the streets, much like our local Canada geese do here. We were out of the car and pointing the cameras in seconds.

Soon, we met the other Kristen, an experienced birding guide who generously shared tips on where to go and what to see, as well as accompanying us out on the jetty at the lighthouse...well, K and K did the jetty. I walked out far enough to see the rock hopping that would be involved in going on the actual rocks. Not being a penguin, I hustled down to the sand route....

Within a short time we had spotted Great Cormorants drying their wings on another nearby jetty, and Purple Sandpipers hip-hopping and scurrying to forage among the stones. The latter were even more beautiful than I had imagined and tickled me....well, purple, not pink.

Red-throated Loon

Red-breasted Merganser

American Herring Gull

Among other notables was a Red-throated Loon that swam up right next to us, floating on a breaker just as it hit the beach. There were so many amazing birds that I can barely describe them. Mergansers, Long-tailed Ducks, all three scoters, a Gadwall, scads of American Black Ducks and Mallards. Gulls abounded, mostly the three common species here, Herring, Ring-billed and Great Black-backed. We found 31 species just on that walk.

American Black Ducks, strolling with a Gadwall drake

Later we went to Holgate to seek the Snowy Owl spending the winter there. Hiked 2.84 miles down a sand spit reaching out into the water, almost to the very dip, only to be unable to find it. It was less than thrilling to get a rare bird alert a short time after we trekked back to the car...someone had seen it almost exactly where we had been right after we left. It taunted us all weekend, being spotted off and on... Although it would have been nice to see it there were so many other birds to make up for it. Day two was even more amazing...TBC

I can't thank Kris enough for allowing me to share this incredible experience!

Twas

2026-02-02T09:24:00.003-05:00

The night of the Full Moon

And all through the House

Every Creature was Frozen

Including the Mouse

The Toothpaste was iced in the Bathroom (unfair).

And Soap in the Laundry won't pour anywhere.

Are these Rock Pigeons or Willow Ptarmigan?
Note the protective coloring...

***And now you tell me that d*mned overgrown lawn rat saw his shadow etc. etc.

As I told the boss...as of the 2nd day of February in Upstate NY, there will ALWAYS 6 more weeks of winter.

Or really more like 12 or 14.

And that blasted marmot won't show his furry face until the beans and peas are sprouting up in the garden and he can have him a nice salad with the best of my lettuce.

Winter.

I'm over it.

Snow Song

2026-01-27T09:39:00.001-05:00

Rising, the sun trickles pink and gold across the snow. So faint you wonder if you really see it and miss the green of sweeter seasons.

Deer tracks trace a trail across the palette, stencil in the night. I think it's one of the summer fawns. He was tiny when the winter came but Alan said he'd be all right, and so far I guess he is.

American Tree Sparrow

No bird song now. Weeks ago it ended, as the focus turned to living through the winter, with no love in sight.

Or sound

In a few weeks it will begin again, old as time and sweet as summer. The hills will ring with joy and hearts will leap with warming sun.

But for today, two ponies shred the snow with flying hooves, sailing by a dozen times, racing, dancing, manes a-flying, silent but for snorting, muffled by the banks of white stuff.

But where is Jack? Diamond and Gambit are in the strength of middle age and full of vigor. Jack is in his 20s and over all that stuff.

They scoop him out of his sheltered corner and it's a race, two on one; snow flies in their wake.

I go out with the camera and sing to them.

Di stops to stare down at me and then they're off again.

Critics

They're everywhere.

Snow rollers on the side lawn

Making Snowbanks

2026-01-26T13:33:00.002-05:00

I imagine a large percentage of the population is or has been participating in this entertaining winter sport today. I got a head start last night thanks to the dog. At 12 pounds, with short little terrier legs, portions of his anatomy end up quite close to the ground.

This results in some daily bodily functions becoming....problematic... when the snow gets deep.

Last night he whined and wuthered and begged to go out.

Once out he would cringe and creep and race back in, his feet, and thus his nether regions, barely touching the ground...or the snow.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

I eventually took pity and shoveled a potty portal for him.

He was delighted and tended to business with a will.

This morning we all went out to play in the snow once more. I shoveled out the car and bird feeders and refreshed the pup promenade. Becky cleared the snow off the car. The boss dug out the driveway with the skidsteer.

Enough snow has continued to trickle down that it will probably all need to be done again this afternoon....Yay!

BTW, weird snow. Sometimes when it snows just right a few loose flakes will sparkle on top. This snow resembled sugar or salt, rolled off the shovel with every scoop, and sparkled all the way to the ground.

Pretty I guess, but I am over it.

Stay warm and dry my friends, and do some baking and boiling to get your kitchen cozy. That is how we roll at Northview...Italian Sausage Soup and homemade bread, later turned into garlic bread....a fine feast indeed.

Fern

2026-01-25T12:54:00.001-05:00

I have full respect for the coming storm. Experts are suggesting top ten all time, or even biggest one ever!

Winters have been pretty easy in recent years. I remember much harder years.

Driving to work in minus 30 or 40 temps in a car with no heat or defroster. We kept a portable catalytic thingie on the passenger's seat pointed at the windshield.

Keeping one tire on the snowbank to keep from sliding down the hills out of control.

Several inches of ice on the milking parlor wall, from trying to keep the place clean when it was that cold.

Frozen water bowls in our conventional barn. Frozen stable cleaner. Frozen manure spreader chains. Frozen silo unloaders. Frozen every darned thing. Normal three or four hour sets of chores morning and evening morphing into sixteen or eighteen hour days and not really done then.

Earlier years when snowbanks were so tall and wide that Gloversville streets were reduced to one lane and you had to take turns and pray. Couldn't see over them or around them. Holidays when blizzards hit and no one could get home from college in distant states.

However I have lately been second guessing myself. After all, our parents walked to school barefoot, uphill both ways, right? Maybe my ancient memory was tricking me into thinking things were worse than they really were.

However, the almanac shows that the winter of 70-71 was actually the snowiest on record here. There were storms with over 30 inches of snow, so I guess I am remembering those snowbanks accurately after all.

Turns out winter temperatures were the same story. In 80s when I was working at that farm with the milking parlor with frozen walls and driving that frigid car, some of the coldest temperatures on record occurred.

Anyhow, I hope you can all stay safe and warm, and my heart goes out to livestock owners facing frozen equipment and monster snowbanks. And if you have to walk to school in this and it is uphill both ways.....maybe you could all chip in for a dogsled and a dozen huskies. Maybe we could all use a nice set of those. I have a couple sets of harness in the hutch in the dining room.

It's snowing....

Calling Fellow Readers

2026-01-23T16:23:00.001-05:00

Who are your favorite characters from books that you have read?

Some of mine are Stuart Ramey, James D. Cronley Jr., Kenneth R. McCoy, Vetch, Avatre, any and all dust bunnies, Halt, Hal Mikkelson, Gunter and Houdini, Peaceable Drummond Sherwood, Brother Cadfael, Elvis Cole, Luis Mendoza, Good Luck, Annie Feeley, Agnes Tinkham, and Mrs. Rasmussen, Barnabas, and Skiff.

Not to mention many others I can't bring to mind right now.

How about you? Any characters you wish were real? People you admire and love if only in your mind. I actually identify with Mrs. Feely, right down to the bare feet and blue jeans. Share in the comments if you will...

And how about some that you are glad exist only between the pages and in the minds of their diabolical creators? I would love to know.

How do you spell Obsession

2026-01-19T06:40:00.005-05:00

Your 2025, Recounted

Your Year

2153 Complete Checklists

2535 Checklists

232 Species

11 Life Birds

168872 Birds Counted

Your Time

365 days with Checklists

733.8 Hours Spent eBirding

Your Longest Streak:

365 days (January 01, 2025 to December 31, 2025)

Your Biggest day by Checklists: May 17, 2025 Your Biggest day by Species: May 17, 2025

Top Counted Species:

Canada Goose

You counted 60759 individuals across all Checklists

Most Frequent Species:

You observed American Goldfinch on 1004 Checklists

Your Media

1450 Photographs of 173 Species, 337 Sound Recordings of 113 Species

Your Places

Northview Farm was your most eBirded location with 681 Checklists

964.5 km (or 598 mi)Traveled eBirding, You birded in 857 locations total

Your Birding Bestie was Kristin Harshman

Events participated in: Great Backyard Bird Count, Global Big Day, October Big Day

You are in the top 0.044 percent of checklist contributors

You are in the top 0.484 percent of media contributors

You are in the top 9.374 percent of species observers

You are in the top 0.665 percent of eBirders based on time spent eBirding

This Will Probably Never Happen Again, so....

French Interference

2026-01-08T09:24:00.001-05:00

I love to listen to audio books while walking 10000 steps a day...thank you Becky for Audible.

My favorites are W.E.B Griffin books, partly because they are super engaging and partly because they are long. It takes a long time to walk that far and short books just don't hold up. Recently I have been making my way through the clandestine operations series. A great deal of German is spoken therein and I have become fascinated by the words and names. I found myself wanting to learn some German.

No reason. Just because.

Enter Duolingo.

Also enter French interference.

I studied five years of the French language in high school and college, the first two under a tiny Moroccan martinet who did not take no for an answer. Her red hair matched her temper. I don't remember a lot of French by I can still recite the dialogs she drilled into our brains. Dis donc, ou est la biblioteque? C'est tout droit, tu y vas tout de suite?

Anyhow, I am forever typing est when it should be ist, thus losing all my hearts and having to end the lessons.

Who would have thought? Not me apparently.

6

2026-01-07T06:38:00.006-05:00

Seen in downtown Cobleskill during that count

Six Christmas Bird Counts this season and what a nice set of adventures they were.

First was the count at Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge. I wrote about that one here. I am really honored to participate in such an illustrious event, even if my personal failings slow me down a bit.

Red-breasted Nuthatch, Oneida County

Next was Schenectady County, much easier physically, as it is mostly done from the car. There are some incredibly beautiful places on that count, as well as a plethora of semi-urban birds, such as Northern Mockingbirds, which never fail to delight me, even when we are down south where they are everywhere.

Red-tailed Hawk, Montgomery County

Fulton County, up until this year my very favorite. Mom and Dad did this one almost from the start, and it is the county where I was born and raised. All sorts of northern birds are possible and this year we were rewarded with an Evening Grosbeak, a Northern Shrike and a Merlin.

Montezuma NWR

Montgomery County...home, although the territory covered by my BBB (best birding buddy,) Kris Harshman, and I is not part of our usual haunts, being farther west than our daily chases. It was a great count for raptors, including a Rough Legged Hawk, Kestrel, and Great Horned Owl. The weather that day was some of the best we have had in this challenging, cold, snowy season and much appreciated.

Trumpeter Swans, Montezuma

Then came Oneida County. This one is always interesting, as it is not an area Ralph and I have ever birded, so it is all new and different scenery and habitat. It is a good thing George can navigate so well.... The weather was harsh and windy (go figure...that has been the case almost every day since the second week in November) and it was work to find small birds, but fun, as always.

Northern Mockingbird, Schenectady CBC

Next was my new favorite, the brand new Cobleskill (Schoharie County) CBC. The boss and I bird extensively in three adjacent counties, Montgomery where we live, Fulton where I was born and raised, and Schoharie, conveniently located just to the south of us. To get to do CBCs in all three was the best treat of the winter so far. We had a long day with a mix of a few minutes of warm, sweet, elusive sunshine, bracketed by endless rounds of lake effect (my new cuss words for this winter) snow squalls and mini-white outs.

Cobleskill

Oh, but the territory, the habitat, the miles upon miles of winding roads through a mix of grasslands, wetlands, farmland, woodland, scrub brush areas, and urban neighborhoods. We found 32 species finishing the day with a Great Horned Owl George called up on a woodland road south of Cobleskill. I really hope the Good Lord lets me do this one again next year.

Anyhow, thanks to George Steele for leading all but Montgomery County, and to my BBB, Kris Harshman for that one. There is a good chance I am the world's worst navigator, having the potential to get lost in my own closet. My two good friends cover that nicely, as well as being able to actually see the birds...

Over the course of the season, I got to meet and bird with three new people, all of whom I liked a lot, and every single one of whom has sharper eyes than I do. (I am forever grateful to be able to hear reasonably well.)

Winter is a heckin' lot shorter when the foul weather and dark days are punctuated by the challenges and fun of all these Christmas Bird Counts.

10 out of 10 (if all 10 are lunatic birders, such as myself) would recommend.

Cobleskill

The Forest or the Trees

2025-12-25T16:28:00.003-05:00

I often hear Pileated Woodpeckers Heckle and Jekylling in this woods and sometimes see them as well. This tree was ripped up like this over the course of less than a week. I know because I have been watching the hole high up in it for owl action...none yet. Quite a feat for a simple bird.

Good Dog

2025-12-19T16:54:00.004-05:00

A couple of days ago I was walking past the front hall bookcase when something caught my eye. It was an old spiral bound notebook I once used as a journal. I kept such a thing for quite a few years, but most of them are long lost.

However, there is this one still hanging around and just for the heck of it I took it out to see what I was doing in December of 1994.

Surprise, surprise, the kids were all down with the flu. When we lived in town they are always sick. Dozens of diesels idling all night half a block away will do that if you are asthmatic.

One of my best cows, Frieland TE Emmy, was really sick and ended up being sold.

And on the 18th I brought home a puppy.

Mike

A good dog. It got me remembering the time he ran the heifers over me and and we had a Come To Jesus moment. He was a little better after that but I had a lot to learn.

The time he ran a cow over me, and came to lie tenderly beside me as I lay there in the snow gently describing his ancestry in highly uncomplimentary terms.

The day (after some training for both of us, mostly me) that we were loading a killer-mean Jersey bull and had to get him to help. He ran around in front of that miserable so-and-so, and swung right off his nose, then raced around behind him threatening mayhem.

The devil creature had just finished demolishing an old wooden cattle trailer right down the axels. It took Mike less than two minutes and one well-placed nose swing to put him in the sawdust shed over on the other farm, from whence we loaded him on the trailer for a trip to the auction.

And there was that one time when he and his half sister, Gael, both retired from stock work and just keeping me company while I puttered in the yard, put the heifers back in the fence all by themselves. I just stood and watched the old dogs working together so nicely.

There were other adventures too numerous to recount, but he was one of the two best dogs I ever owned, Brandy being the other one. It is kind of weird not to have a Border Collie, but Mack is a pretty good guy.

The story about the cop and the cliff

Another tale of the tailed ones

And another

If you are interested in still more, just type "Mike" in the search box above. He made a great difference in my life.

A Tale of Two Checklists

2025-12-19T15:41:00.003-05:00

There is a field we visit here in our home county, which up until recently was a communal roost for Northern Harriers and Short-eared Owls.

In 2023 we saw 23 of the former in the field, soaring in to roost on the fence or crouching down in the short brush. (Checklist with photos: https://ebird.org/checklist/S129462371) On other nights there were at least five owls with them.

Last year we spotted a handful.

Yesterday there was one. (Checklist with Photos: https://ebird.org/checklist/S1294623710

No owls at all.

Ain't development fun....

Numbers Game

2025-12-17T16:54:00.004-05:00

These Trumpeter Swans did not make our trip list
Out of territory and all
But they were just as exciting for me

I love Christmas Bird Counts. I can't say for sure how many years I have participated, but I have been married to Ralph for 40 years and they predate him on my dance card.

Black Ducks
Hooray for open water
Always a treasure on CBCs

Monday I joined the Montezuma count for the second time, which is a terrific honor for me. It required 4 1/2 hours of hiking through snow that ran around a foot deep and a close encounter of the really, really, really embarrassing kind with a scary bridge with which I would not be Facebook friends even if it sent me a request, but I loved it. Sometimes I wondered if I would make it back to the car, but it is what I do...and really, it was great fun.

Cardinalis Cardinalis, looking for all the world like
a Christmas ornament

Highlights were an amazing Gray Catbird that my birding friend and mentor, George Steele, spotted on Howland Island, finding a Winter Wren myself (that is always a thrill for me) and meeting and getting to bird with Jim Eckler, who is a really cool guy.

Montezuma is a fabulous, ever-changing, ever-fascinating, wild, wonderful place, that rarely disappoints. It was a lot of fun to visit it with people who are truly familiar with all its faces and facets, and to see it in an unfamiliar season. Of course it's always fun to count birds...see above...

Waiting, yet again, for me to catch up

Thanks to George and Jim for putting up with my slo-mo hiking, bridge squeezing and crashing, and clambering over trees handicap. Their patience was impressive. I have the potential to do five more CBCs this year if I can stay healthy and the Good Lord is willing and the Creek don't rise and all.

Happy Birding, Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year to all...and yes, I have a bird count on New Year's Day as well.

Walking

2025-12-10T07:29:00.006-05:00

I walk 10000 steps per day.

Sometimes that is a breezy delight, goes by quickly, and I end up with 12 thousand or even more.

Sometimes it is tedious drudgery. I don't want to walk but I do.

There is what I call organic walking, outdoors, in nature, in pursuit of all the little birdies for my obsessive listing of same.

Taken from the car on the way to walk

Sometimes it is laps inside the house with an audio book or my playlist buzzing in my ears. My favorite books for this practice are lo-o-o-ng ones like those by W.E.B. Griffin.

I figure any kind of walking is helpful in my ever-more-challenging battle to stay active and able.

And surely we have found some beautiful places for the former sort of stroll. (There are also spots that are less scenic, require a bit of bushwhacking, which I hate, and intense tick checks upon arriving home.)

Here are some of the good places....also if you are in the area and want to join me for a stroll in pursuit of delightful scenery and interesting birds, hit me up...seriously, I would love to share.

See the bird?

Brown Creeper

Snow Geese

Not Dead

2025-12-03T06:51:00.000-05:00

Snowing hard outside the hospital. Plow trucks weaving among the outpatients, trying to keep up with the fall. The ramp is long and snowy and the steps are way up the hill..

A long way from the tiny, bent-over lady, dressed in white much like the snow. Frail, fragile, not much taller than a child and all alone.

Struggling with her cane to get to the bottom of the ramp through the snow that was inevitably building up between the cars where the plows couldn't go.

I was watching, thinking, "will she let me help her or will she be offended if I ask?"

Before I could decide, a man came striding down the hill.

"Ma'am can I help you?"

She protested that she was fine, although she clearly wasn't, and was glad he asked. He was firm and gently took her arm and slowly helped her up the hill to the steps, and up them to the door, where she just as firmly insisted that she could take it from there.

Seeing him helping her along, others hurried to offer their help too, but she said, "No, he's got me."

I was never so proud of him...just coming out from a less than wonderful diagnosis himself, although not as bad as it could have been...but his mama taught him right.

Chivalry is not dead, even if it is getting older fast. There were plenty of folks who warned me against marrying him, but I am sure glad that I did.

Well done....

Tree Skins

2025-11-28T16:48:00.002-05:00

Thanksgiving

2025-11-27T06:37:00.002-05:00

It's a quiet morning here at Northview Farm. I am the only one awake and I relish the peace and silence. The stars were so bright when I walked the dog today, that I swear I can feel them burning from inside the house.

Someone else is making the turkey this year and for this I am downright grateful. The boss has a set of new health issues and that is in the forefront of my mind most of the time. I am glad I don't have to race around juggling the oven and the microwave, turning the tables on the turkey, and all the other madness that goes with making Thanksgiving dinner.

I am glad too that yesterday I sent my mother's Golden Glow salad recipe to our daughter, Liz, who has taken over all the chaos. It was written in Mom's own words, joking asides abounded, and it was like having her here with me just to read it. That recipe has graced (or disgraced, depending on how you feel about gelatin salads) our family's holidays since my Grandma Lachmayer, all the aunties, and my mama, prepared the turkey dinner, while the men went hunting (that hasn't changed much either). I remember well how delicious, yet unsatisfying it always was, like swallowing wet air with a side of fruit and vegetables. I found mama's scalloped corn recipe and sent that one along as well. It was even funnier!

I am grateful the boss and I had another year to ram around the countryside chasing birds, mostly in the local 3-county area, with a couple of side trips to Western and Northern NY, and an adventure to OBX. I don't know how long we will be able to keep it up, but it's fun while it lasts.

Wildly grateful for family, blessed brothers, aunts, an uncle, cousins, nieces, nephews, clever, cute, and talented grandkids, and for our three adult children, each and every one of who could put on today's magical meal and do it well.

Love you guys, and Happy Thanksgiving to all. Hugs!

Connections

2025-10-29T07:09:00.008-04:00

With today a whirlwind of blistering change, a chimera of magical technology laced with an underlying horror story full of nightmares, I find myself thinking about how many other changes my generation has seen and our connections with all that ancient history.

I walk my ten-thousand steps a day listening to W.E.B. Griffin's Corps series in audio book form for the second time through...I read the paper versions too, a while ago. I was not born until two years after the Korean War began and was a baby when the armistice was declared but I am still connected to those days. My uncles must have served in occupying forces because I remember being awed when they came home on holiday leave...Christmas I think...in starched and pressed khakis, (remember starch and ironing boards?) bearing gifts from the other side of the world. My mother had a jewelry box that sported mythical dragons if I remember rightly and we were always warned to be extra careful when we pawed through the paste gems admiring it madly.

And even farther back to the Day that will Live in Infamy, Peal Harbor. Once again I was not born yet, but my parents were. Mom was 8 and remembered the day well. She and her siblings were playing upstairs at the house that grandpa built with his hands, in many cases of used lumber with nails he straightened before using them. There was a landing at the top of the stairs there, with not much of a railing at all and kids could perch over the edge near the kitchen listening to all that went on below. There must have been a radio....or maybe someone came by and told them...but she remembered the hushed tones of shock and horror that rose from below with the warm scent of dinner cooking and the oily air from the kerosene stove, on that fateful day.

And so I am connected to these world events and others, even if I didn't experience them myself. Listening to the books, remembering the stories told at family gatherings before everyone had a cell phone and no one told stories any more, makes me think of historical events like these as closer than the passing years would make them in real life.

I still find it a challenge to throw away a good cardboard box, a battered tee shirt or a still functional length of string, because my grandparents lived through the Great Depression and knew the pangs of hard poverty and loss. They saved everything until it was truly past any possible use and even long after that. I try to be more sensible, but our house is cluttered with things we might use someday.

As I listen, I see Ken McCoy, the main character in the books, as looking like one of my handsome twin uncles in grinning photos from their military days when their visits home were worthy of the utmost joy imaginable. I still feel the energy of Grandma and Grandpa Montgomery's kitchen when all the brothers and sisters and their kids gathered to eat good food and love one another.

I guess that makes me old, but I treasure the connections. I remember the people, the houses, one that exists only in memory, and the tales of times before mine, and the plentitude of years between, and feel connected.

Shiverish

2025-10-28T16:31:00.005-04:00

As I sit in a house built of bones of old forest with elixir of beans from a far southern continent, I savor the flavor of seasoned fall gourds...or a reasonable chemical facsimile thereof... plucked sunny from fields just to sparkle my drink.

Somebody's sorrow gourd
Found in the parking lot of a place we bird

I shiver.

The cold has come, is coming and will come. I have made it through my annual challenge. Why must I compel myself to make it harder?

I don't know.

But every year from April to October, I wear shorts.

Every day.

I count it as a personal failure if I break out my sweats during that interval, but I soldiered through all the way into fall. The weather cooperated.

This year, fool that I am, I decided to shoot for THRU October and have done just fine.

Up until now. The temperature is going well below freezing. The garden is toast....but I am.....not...

Four more days...

Just four more days....

Brrrr...

Also, it is time for two of my most hated jobs of the year. We must dig the cannas and put the insulation board and tarp over the big front doors, in futile hope of keeping out the north wind because that is where they point.

We stall, and stall, and stall, every single year, until it simply essential to do the job and then we shiver and complain through it.

The cannas are worse. However, the hummingbirds love them so we perservere.

Happy Fall y'all.

Intruder

2025-10-21T15:18:00.004-04:00

Machine gun chatter of spruce-crazed squirrels, sentinel jays scream out their warning, intruder! Intruder! Intruder!

It's raining spruce cones again. Ripe ones now, so perhaps not as threatening as the hard green ones were earlier, but still I have to raise the thick hood of my father's old green Carhartt to stave them off sometimes. I wear it, partly because it is the warmest thing I own, but mostly in his honor. He passed down the love of the woods and the whole bird thing, and those are some of the best parts of my life.

In one spot so many cones are tumbling down from seventy or eighty feet up that I have to run (Imagine that...me, running!) to dodge them. (First time I have run since the days of chasing cows and I am amazed that I could. Didn't even kill me.)

I succeed in remaining undamaged, although some were mighty close.

Hah, hah, you missed me!

At least this time.

Anyone who imagines the forest to be a quiet place hasn't been there lately. The woods at the Blues at Burbine contain ten million, seven-hundred, and sixty-leven squirrels, both red and grey, along with a few dozen munks of chip, and as of Sunday, myriad migrating sparrows of all sorts.

Along with an occasional breeze rustling what's left of the leaves and the creaking of elderly trees and knees, it makes for a singularly unquiet place.

Which is fine by me.

I do a lot of birding by ear and the noisy juncos and their ilk are quite unbothered by my visit to their domain. Most of the birds I saw yesterday were migrants, passing through or looking for a place to winter. However, at least one pair of Dark-eyed Juncos raised a brood of young right here in the woods this year. I got to see them shortly after they left the nest and hear them singing all summer long...which was pretty cool.

Meanwhile, I've been bringing home acorns for Ralph's chipmunks and carrying peanuts for our jays. They come streaming in from wherever they await, crying, "What has it got in its pocketses? Huh? Huh?"

Why is it

2025-10-08T17:27:00.002-04:00

That there is a soul-deep joy in putting out the plants in the spring, in planting the cannas, in starting tomatoes and whatever strange and mysterious flowers that Becky has bought for me, yet bringing them all in is like a husky black cloud glooming up my day?

I don't know, but there are three rows of canna lilies out there to dig and store, plus a whole batch of the dwarf ones in pots to haul indoors. Ugh. At least the houseplants are in and safe.

BTW, this year and last I saved seed from my favorites of these little ones and grew new plants from them. I tried starting the seeds in peat pellets, which worked somewhat, but germination was poor at best. However I put some right out in the dirt in big pots in the spring and got lovely plants that bloomed eagerly. At five bucks a plant this is a real economy...plus I do love a garden challenge.

We had an incredible haul of tomatoes this year. They must love the hot dry weather we have had. There is still maybe a peck or two out there, mostly pretty green, but we will pick them all and see what happens. Becky has offered to see how fried green tomatoes do in the air fryer, so we can probably use them one way or another. (Update: nothing left out there now, but the Husky Red Cherry tomatoes that haven't ripened yet.)

I am not a winter person, and tending my myriad houseplants over the winter is a poor substitute for a real garden and cheerful flowers any place I can fit a plant. However, October Big Day is Saturday, and the sea ducks should be drifting through in the coming weeks, so there's that....

Happy Fall to All.

On Becoming an Influencer

2025-10-06T17:19:00.009-04:00

I get da peanuts

I run on down

It started with peanuts. When you reach a certain age, you look for entertainment anywhere you can find it. In my case, I'm a pretty cheap date. Feeding peanuts to the Blue Jays works for me.

However, the bossman is a fan of the ~~dastardly~~ clever little chipmunks. He likes to feed THEM peanuts.

Chonk-munk

This creates a situation of great conflict, since they are both aggressive and ravenous. The 'munks gather continuously, stuffing cheeks full of anything that will fit (and many things that won't).

I get the peanuts

And I scarf em on down

The jays have to carry the nuts away one-by-one and crack them out of the shells to enjoy them.

Thus the chipmunks have had about a four-to-one advantage over the birds.

Since nuts are pretty expensive to toss on the ground for the wildlife, I have pondered and experimented in ways to slant the game in the blue folks' favor.

I don't get the peanuts but this cracked corn isn't
too bad

This morning I became an influencer, if only in who gets the peanuts and who doesn't.

Because I was defrosting the big freezer I was later than usual in sneaking outside to my birding chair to parcel out my share of the nuts. The jays had evidently given up on me and by the time they came back to the yard the 'munks had eaten ALL the nuts.

What are peanuts?
Are they anything like lettuce?

I had two leftovers in my pocket and when one of my blue-feathered buddies landed by the place I put nuts, I made sure he was watching me and tossed one out by my feet. He tipped his head back and forth a couple times as if debating whether I wanted to eat him, then darted down and nabbed it.

Within minutes the local jays were gathered around watching me. Whenever I tossed a nut out of my pocket they were all over it in no time flat. The chipmunks only got one out of a whole pocketful

So now I am a backyard influencer. I can hardly wait until tomorrow when it is time to meet the morning flight.

Fie on peanuts
Imma get you all!
(This is not our cat, but if you know whose cat it is,
tell them they might want to keep him home...)