Around The Farm In July

My little garden continues to fill in, and I hope that all the crowding will keep down the weeds. I have seen evidence of some animal sitting on them during the night, but at least whatever it is hasn't been digging in there or eating the leaves. The yellow Asiatic Lilies are left over from the woman who lived in this farm house before me, though I've moved them several times. Moving them seems to cause them to grow stronger and to multiply:

I have several Chipmunks living around the house and barn:

Since it's summer, I go out extra early to do the morning chores. I turn on the lights inside the barn while I'm in there and sometimes, if it's going to be cloudy and rainy, I'll leave on the lights for the pigeons and hens:

And many times I enjoy the spectacular morning skies. On this day, the colors were muted but still beautiful. This was due north:

And looking southwest:

 Northeast:

But one day I was feeling down and discouraged as I mowed the lawn. Then I noticed that I was being watched by a vulture on a fence post. I thought that perfectly summed up my mood:

The bird let me snap a couple of photos before it flew away, apparently deciding that eating my carcass would raise its cholesterol too much. That bit of humor and the beauty of the wild bird helped lift my mood:


And the town put down fresh gravel on the road. Thankfully, they graded it and carefully pulled the stones off of my lawn - unlike what they did last time:

What is this, you may wonder - Sadly, it's a cornfield after several months of excess rain. Not all fields are this stunted and wet, but some are. The farmers who don't have enough money to install drainage systems are more influenced by the wet weather:

The old fashioned rose I saved has continued to bloom, though its June extravaganza is now past:

And wildflowers spring up everywhere. Here by a post, where the mower couldn't reach, Black-Eyed Susans and Oxeye Daisies sprang up to brighten the yard:

Adirondack Wildlife Refuge - Part 1

I decided to drive down to see the Adirondack Wildlife Refuge in Wilmington, New York at the foot of Whiteface Mountain. It was about a 65 mile drive along winding, scenic roads, and I parked beneath the pines and walked down a path to where people were looking into a big pen:

The pen housed three wolves - two gray colored:

  And one smaller, red female:

A young man and woman entered and interacted with the wolves, who behaved admirably with the humans but got pretty darn crabby with each other:

The small red female seemed to be at the bottom of the pecking order but she liked people and, I was later told, seemed to like dogs when the tourists brought them:

I walked from there down a longer trail through the forest (definitely not handicapped accessible), passing a yurt where college student volunteers live during the summer:

They had Ravens:

And Sylvia, the Bald Eagle who has lived here for years. They showed photos of the changes in her plumage color as she matured:

There was a red fox sleeping in his director's chair. He got up and came to the front of his enclosure later, interacting with the tourists, but I forgot to take another photo then:

A Turkey Vulture:

And Nikki, the fox. Nikki had a shedding problem of some kind, but then all of these animals have a problem of some kind which prevents them from being released into the wild once again. In Nikki's case, he was a melanistic (dark phase) Red Fox, probably from a fur breeding colony, who had been abused and used to train dogs to hunt foxes. He was rescued and now lives here:

I wandered among the cages, taking photos wherever I thought there was a chance of them coming out:

The sign on this cage said it contained Kestrels, but it did not. Instead it had three ducks. But there was a lot more to see and I'll post Part 2 tomorrow:

Around The Farm In June

There's lots of folks around here saying that we jumped directly from winter into summer. Indeed, most spring flowers bloomed halfheartedly and briefly - and then it became hot outside. My little bantams got into the habit of going outdoors at 9:00 every morning and going back in about 7:00 in the evening:

The rest of their day is spent pecking and scratching, looking for food:

The old fashioned Iris around the house bloomed in purple:

And in yellow:

I used my new sprayer, attached to the back of the tractor, to spray the weeds along the fence line which short out the fence. I steered with my left hand and held the sprayer nozzle with my right hand:

I stopped the tractor in the above photo because I'd seen masses of blue flowers along the fence line. They looked a bit like Forget-Me-Nots to me, but bigger and bolder:

So I looked them up when I got back into the house and decided that they were Birds-Eye Speedwell, an introduced species but an awfully pretty one:

A deer carcass along the county road drew both flies and vultures for several days. Only one vulture was brave enough to stay there while I snapped a photo. Several days later, I saw a mature Bald Eagle flying up into the trees from somewhere near the carcass. Was it eating there? I suspect that it was:

I put hinges on a window so the pigeons could get outside and enjoy the outdoors. To make it easier for them, I put a broad sill plate down for them to stand on and a raised tree limb for a perch. Did they use it? No, they did not. They refused to go near the open window or set foot on the sill plate. Yet I kept opening the window every morning, hoping they'd get brave and give it a try:

The window was raised and held open by means of a rope:

I built some shelves for the pigeons and, since they seemed so incompetent at nest building, nailed some kitchen stove plates to the shelves to help them get started:

Here's 30 seconds of fantail pigeon activity. Nothing special happens, they just go about their business:

A Real Mountaintop Experience On Azure Mountain

We'd reached the summit of Azure Mountain, the dogs and I, and this panorama spread out before me. I headed on down that stony path toward the edge but first stopped and put the dogs on leashes. I'd read that there's a 300 foot drop off that rocky ledge and excited dogs, especially rambunctious young Papillons, could not be trusted to use much caution or good sense:

We all walked down to the behold the spectacular view before us, and then I followed the path along the edge. Having the dogs on leashes also kept them off of the delicate Alpine vegetation:

From where we were walking, I looked back up at the fire tower:

Four or five Vultures drifted lazily on the winds at eye level, though when we walked out to the edge, they lifted up higher - perhaps because they didn't trust me, perhaps to keep an eye on us in case we'd die and provide a good meal. They were a beautiful, graceful and peaceful sight:

Adirondack mountains stretched out before us:

Bunchberry, Cornus canadensis, is a typical plant of high altitudes and it was growing plentifully atop Azure Mountain. Its bunches of berries, from which it gets its name, were evident. I always find it amazing that this tiny plant is in the same genus as the Dogwood tree:

I shot a brief video of the scene spread out around us:

And then, of course, I tied the dogs to the base of the fire tower and climbed up to the top. This is what I saw:

And this:

And this, which is where we'd been standing a few minutes earlier:

But before I climbed down, I turned my camera below me to show Fergus and Seamus tied at the base. Fergus was watching me anxiously, but Seamus was a tired dog and just needed a rest:

The Taconic Crest Trail - Part 3

We were well on our way along the Taconic Crest Trail on the border of New York and Massachusetts as I hiked with Fergus, Seamus and Daphne. We'd done a lot of deep woods hiking and seen plenty of spring flowers on the forest floor, but now we'd emerged into a high clearing where spectacular views of the valley below were spread out before us. This view is looking southeast and that curving road you see on the left is New York Route 2, the road on which we arrived. The parking area is just about where it curves around that mountain hump. That's American Shad, or Shadblow, blooming on the mountainside:

Little Daphne, with her muddy legs, was having a grand time and all excited. But she agreed to hold still for just a moment so that I could photograph her sitting beside some blooming lowbush blueberries:

The air was still and quiet, with not even the usual high peaks winds rushing by. Vultures soared soundlessly in the high spaces between mountains:

More Shadblow blooming on the hillside as I viewed the Taconic Mountains towards the southwest:

This has become one of my favorite photos as it shows all three dogs climbing the mountain up into the sky:

More scenic views, more blooming Shadblow, more Taconic Mountains, more peace and quiet:

The valley below is where I used to live and where New York Route 22 traverses in its long span from north to south. Standing up here all alone with my happy dogs with no other people anywhere was a bit like soaring:

Directly below our mountain where New York Route 2 runs east and west between Massachusetts and New York:

Fergus, Daphne and Seamus took a rest with the high altitude miniaturized trees behind them:

And I discovered some Red Trillium plants in bloom:

When we arrived at the Snow Hole, our destination, I was shocked to see a large group of hikers from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. We'd been totally alone on our mountain trek until then. They were resting and cooking lunch. You may notice Daphne getting chummy with the woman in the white tank top. But her main love affair was the man in black to the left. She was all over him like white on rice:

That's the snow hole on the right and the woman with the black tank top was cooking right on its edge. I warned her to watch carefully lest my goofy dogs topple the propane cookers down into the grotto. Then another couple arrived with a Miniature Poodle who looked much like Fergus. My two Poodles went bananas with excitement and ran over to see her but her owners picked her up quickly, not sure if they were friendly or not. It was just a matter of moments before all the dogs were playing together happily (the Williams College students had a dog also):

You may be wondering what happened to little Daphne in this photo taken down inside the Snow Hole. Well, she glommed onto that young guy resting near the entrance to the Snow Hole and was licking his face like shameless hussy. So I left her to her infatuation and descended down into the grotto with Fergus and Seamus:

There was indeed snow down inside, though less than I'd expected for early May. On the other hand, I suddenly broke through the crust and one leg dropped down several feet through the snow, so it was deeper than it at first appeared. Also, the temperatures above the Snow Hole were in the mid 80s, so the contrast was striking:

And I'll end with a short video clip taken at a scenic overlook just before we reached the Snow Hole: