Plants And Birds

Wild Blackberries burst into bloom everywhere I was unable to mow - or were they Black Raspberries? I went to the internet for some ID pointers, but found them scarce and difficult to use. Then I found a website which was wonderfully helpful and easy to use. It confirmed that I have Blackberries, not Black Raspberries. I highly recommend this site:

My north field was getting very tall and my neighbor decided it was time for its first cutting:

 It was so thick and heavy that it was slow and difficult to mow:

 This was some seriously tall, thick, lush, heavy hay! As of this writing, the first part of the field has been cut and will be turned over to dry (tedded) today. About 3/4 of the field remains to be cut:

 My Rugosa Roses suffered badly from a fungus last year, along with the apple trees and one of the Ninebark bushes. But this year they continued blooming faithfully:

 So far, I see no fungus except on the one Ninebark which was affected last year:

 The Variegated Weigela was a dead looking stick a few weeks ago. Now it is blooming!

 The white Peonies (and one new red one) are building up to a flowering frenzy:

 And the Snowball bushes are doing extraordinarily well:

 I had no Cliff Swallow nests under the milk room eaves this year - until now. I found two adjacent mud nests, filled with birds. As soon as I snapped this photo, 6 to 8 birds burst from those holes and flew around, scolding me. I hope they keep the biting flies in check. The cows and horses (and I) will be grateful:

 In the lawn and pasture are many of these tiny white flowers, each petal split into two. They are Lesser Stitchwort, a kind of Chickweed. The grass head is Redtop:

 And of course the big, beautiful Red Clover. 'Tis the season:

In The Cold Of Winter

Winter has arrived in earnest, shocking us with much snow and cold down to -18F (-28C), but the pigeons stayed indoors. They got plenty cold in there, but were protected from the wind and their water was heated so as not to freeze:

 One evening I went in to do the nightly chores and found them on the floor, flapping their wings excitedly. Were they playing? Were they happy to see me? Was this some pigeon behavior, understood only by other pigeons? I'm guessing it was latter:

Each evening I make sure their food and water dispensers are full, the water heater working properly, and that all 27 birds are alive, well and accounted for:

 The 11 bantam hens get the same treatment. They aren't into flapping their wings, but the four little Easter Eggers always peck frantically at my shoes when I go in. I haven't figured out that behavior either:

 I've had lots of snow to plow - and one day, I saw so much beauty along the road that I climbed down off the tractor and attempted to get some photos. First was this tiny nest. I suspect it was too big for hummingbirds, but perhaps Kinglets or some other very small bird:

 Even dead blades of grass along the brook had become beautiful in the snowy cold:

 And the cattails, partially blown apart and topped with snow looked like an artist had designed them:

 Scruffy, dead grass poked up through the snow and I thought it was magnificent:

 And just when I thought it couldn't become any lovelier, I saw these dried Queen Anne's lace flower heads and Wild Cucumber seed cases, frosted with snow:

 But it was cold, so Blue and Remy spent much more time in the barn. I threw bricks of hay down to them so they didn't have to compete with the cows outside:

 But they liked going outdoors and mingling with the cows, so they did it anyway:

 The outer layer of a hay bale peeled off when I was carrying it to the feeder, and the two little horses rushed over to eat some. Gracie stood perfectly still behind them, probably chewing her cud:

Mid-Summer In The North Country

Even for this northern location, it's been a cool summer. It's also been a wet summer, with rain almost every day. Many corn fields are stunted. Most hay fields are growing wildly, but the farmers are having trouble finding two sunny days in a row when they can cut and bale the hay. It's been a wonderful summer for beautiful sunrise skies, though maybe that's largely because of when I go out to do the morning chores. Whatever the reason, I revel in the glorious dawn scenery:

 I've had a great deal of trouble identifying the swallows I've had this year. I know at least some of them are Cliff Swallows, and it's possible they all are. They began congregating in mid-July, perhaps preparing to migrate. I've already noticed flocks of Redwing Blackbirds and the disappearance of Grackles, Meadowlarks and other species. When the swallows collect into my yard, it's quite a spectacle. They sit on the wire for awhile, then begin feeding with dives, circles and swoops:

 I thought I had finally captured a photo of my baby Cliff Swallows, but when I saw this one fly away, thought maybe it was mother swallow, starting a new nest. They seem to feed the babies from outside the nest, clinging to the doorway, so it would be unusual for her to enter unless she had eggs or newly hatched chicks inside. But I haven't seen her in the nest since that day:

 The Rugosa Roses slowed their blooming, but the wild Bouncing Bet which grew beneath them took over, producing pinkish/white clusters of flowers:

 You can see why Bouncing Bet is sometimes called Wild Phlox:

 I decided that I would not cut the wild Catnip this year until it had flowered and seeded, allowing it to multiply. I haven't yet pulled out the Wild Cucumber vine growing there, but I should do that also to encourage the catnip. Besides making my cats happy, I years ago used to feed Catnip to my hens. The eggs they then laid were best I ever tasted:

 The old fashioned rose I rescued is still blooming (and so its baby, begun from a cutting). You can see that there's still clusters of buds to produce even more flowers:

 The baby Fantail Pigeon was bullied and pecked by the big birds, and I never saw its parents feeding or protecting it. Nonetheless, it had to have been fed because it kept growing. The black spot on its head is from being pecked, and so is the lack of feathers on its back. It was in a new place every time I entered the room, so I eventually built a little nest for it.

 One of the parents finally fed it while I was there, a blessed relief for me because I want the little bird to live. As of this writing, it is still living, growing and developing more feathers:

 I also prepared more nests which are up on shelves, as the birds nesting on the floor seems to be the basis of their problems. So far, however, they refuse to use them:

 Just as the yellow Asiatic Lilies began to fade, the orange ones began to bloom:

 We've had so much rain that mushrooms popped up in my lawn. This photo also demonstrates that much of my lawn is not grass. I'm happy to have a green lawn, whatever species it is composed of:

More Photos From Around The Farm

Spring finally arrived, and the pear tree was the first to blossom. But spring was short lived and lurched suddenly into summertime. Most of the flowers quickly dropped their petals to the ground. I'll have to wait and see what that portends for fruit production:

The cherry tree only produces fruit every couple of years but it produced blossoms this year. That's a hopeful sign:

And the bigger of the two new plum trees bloomed for several weeks. Not only was it beautiful, but I expect to have lots of plums this year. I also have a smaller plum tree and apricot which flowered sparsely for the first time this year. I can't tell which of those two is which, but I'll figure it out when they produce fruit this autumn:

I was inside the barn one morning when an Eastern Meadowlark landed on a nearby fence post and began singing. Not wanting to frighten it away, I stayed where I was and used my zoom lens to get a photo. I snapped many pictures, but this was the only one (just barely) good enough to keep:

The Daffodils were much delayed and modest in their blooming this year, but I noticed a new variety. These buttery yellow, double flowers put in an appearance. They may have bloomed previous springs, but this year was the first time I really noticed them:

Birds built a large nest in the cedar tree just outside my door and were pooping all over everything. It was only a matter of time before they pooped on me. The dogs were tracking through it. Worse, a baby had fallen out of the nest a couple of days earlier and I found it dead on my porch. Judging by the size of the dead baby bird, I figured the fledglings were out of the nest soon thereafter. I used a long board to push the nest out of the tree while two adult Grackles screamed at me. But I knew there were no eggs or babies in it:

Then I set out to mow the lawn, using the riding mower. When I got to the lawn on the other side of the apple trees, I saw a baby Grackle in the grass with its parents flying around overhead. I think I spotted its sibling, already flying. I switched to mowing on the other side of the house and then ate lunch. Later, when I went back, both the babies and their parents were nowhere to be seen:


The Bush Cherry bloomed copiously this year. It also is a new planting and this will be my first taste of a Bush Cherry. I hope they're good. At least they'll be easier to pick:

The apple trees began budding on a few trees:

And then began opening into flowers. Alas, our late spring and early summer weather meant a short blooming season:

One tree on the far end of the property, however, was in full bloom. This tree was probably a wild seedling but it produces lots of early apples. Oddly, its buds and flowers have very little pink in them. They're almost pure white:

While mowing the lawn, I kept seeing these tiny blue flowers in the grass. I snapped a picture and then looked them up in my field guide later in the day. They were Birds-Eye Speedwell, a member of the snapdragon family:

Birds And Flowers, Flowers And Birds

The old fashioned roses in the side yard began blooming in June, and especially this brightly colored gem. This rose was almost killed by a large maple tree and then, when the maple was cut down, mowed over for many years. One day I discovered a 6" shoot sticking up out of the ground with a small, red rosebud on it. I mowed around it for several years and now it is at least 4 feet tall and 3 feet wide, growing more beautiful every year - and hardy to below -30 degrees:

This year it had an abundance of buds. I'll surely be posting photos of the whole plant in bloom soon:

Likewise, I discovered Peonies which had been mowed over for many years and allowed them to spring up. Only one has bloomed before, so I don't even know what color the flowers will be on the newly revived plants. But as a bonus, this yellow Day-Lily sprang up from inside a clump of Peony:

One day I couldn't find the cows, so I set out walking across the north field to be sure they were OK. A Meadowlark flew up at my feet, startling me. I realized that there must be a nest near my feet. I checked down in the grass and found this "cave" of woven grasses, much like a Robin's nest turned on its side - with newly hatched, baby Meadowlarks inside:

Here's a close-up. You can most plainly see the bottom center baby, upside down with its beak pointing toward the upper right and its feet curled up at the bottom left:

The yellow and purple Iris bloomed profusely, perhaps because I top-dressed them with composted manure. Alas, a downpour ruined the yellow Iris, but the purple ones must have been made of sturdier stuff:

I drove the tractor out to the far end of the south field to close some gates to keep the cattle out. I noticed what I thought were Snowball Bushes blooming in the hedgerows and went over for a closer look:

I knew enough botany to notice the opposite leaves, parallel veins and four petaled flowers. I decided this must be in the Dogwood family, so I came back into the house and Googled it. I concluded that these huge, profusely blooming bushes were Cornus drummondii, or Roughleaf Dogwood. It was originally from the Midwest but has spread, via hedgerows, into New York state:

Here's a close-up. You can see the Dogwood resemblance in the tiny, individual flowers. In the familiar, large flowered Dogwood trees, the "petals" are actually bracts, a specialized leaf - but these are really petals:

And large patches of Ragged Robin in bloom, mixed with Buttercups. I especially liked this photo because it also shows the dirt road, the fence line and more of the hay field:

A close-up of the Ragged Robin. This photo also has a meaningful background, showing my house and barn as well as the neighbors' barn:

And now that I've mentioned birds, lets include the chickens. They invade the barn every time a door is left open, however briefly. I shoo them back out when I can, but they love to scratch in the hay for seeds and eat spilled grain from the cattle stalls: