Notes From Around The Farm

Most of this year's apples never developed but two trees near the road seemed to be the exception until these quarter-sized apples began falling off one day. I collected about two thirds of a bucket of them and fed them to the cattle. Of course I drove out into the field on the tractor because I didn't want to be out there on foot with the bull:

And when I started to drive back to the barn, this is the lovely scene which was displayed before me. I am blessed to live with such beauty:

And the morning skies seldom disappoint, a combination of pink and baby blue:

As the sun begins to peek up over the horizon, a golden yellow starts to infuse the pink and blue morning sky:

A pair of pigeons is using one of the new nests I made out of cake pans. They seem to like it:

Ladys-Thumb Smartweed, a member of the Buckwheat family, is growing abundantly near the barn door and the dogs' ramp. It usually has a dark triangle on each leaf but these show only a slight darkening instead of the triangle:

Wood-Sorrel also grows by the dogs' ramp, but beneath the Rugosa roses, where it has lots of shade:


The baby fantail pigeon who was so badly attacked by the adult birds is alive and growing rapidly:

The top of its head still looks terrible, as if there is no skin left there at all. I hope it will heal, but will be happy as long as the bird can live a normal life. So far, things look hopeful:

The bantam hens have reduced their egg laying to about four eggs per day. That's not many, but they were laying more than we could use before, so this is better:

The giant Rose Mallows seem even more giant than usual this year, perhaps because we've had so much rain. I counted 15 stems, each topped with about 7 flower buds. If things continue as they are now, it will be a magnificent display. They are so tightly packed that I think it may be time to split them up in the spring and replant them in more compost:

My Tree Hydrangea lost a limb over the winter but seems to be doing well in spite of it:

Cloud Watching, Flights Of Fancy

There was a time when I was young and time was my friend. A summer day, a grassy field and soaring clouds were all I needed to transport my mind to imaginary worlds. Now I am old and again have time to watch the clouds. I looked for poems or quotes about clouds, but in the end decided to simply describe what my imagination saw in them. You will surely see something different, but the reward is in the looking.

Three beasts rising up above the trees, sitting on their haunches and looking toward the left - children's toy versions of (L to R) a Tyrannosaurus (with an eye!), a Crocodile and an Elephant:

 Alpine peaks with a gray cloud stuck on the pointed top of one of them:

 A chubby dog, sitting upright and begging for food:

 An arm emerged out of the blue sky, with its fist clenched, and soundly punched the cloud to the left:

 A mother cloud, giving birth to its second baby, the first baby already heading off to join the herd:

 You think that you can tell the size and shape of that cloud, but there is a hole in its center which leads the explorer upward and into a different dimension, a place which the earthbound observer can only dream about:

 Playful clouds, taking turns flinging each other out into the wondrous sky. The little cloud on the left has just been launched, giggling with glee, its little arms lifted up, and trailing bits of itself behind as it goes:

 A big mouthed cloud, jaws open wide, as a doctor cloud looks down its throat. Will the doctor pronounce it a case of the "Cumulus Cold?"

 From somewhere down in the trees, a white rocket ship of cloud has launched itself up into the sky, on its way to higher levels than the boring, unadventurous clouds might ever imagine:

 Sea creatures in the sky, and they each have a highly developed sense of humor. I can see the glee on their faces:

 Mount Ararat, rising up above the lands of eastern Turkey. I can see Noah's Ark, encapsulated in the ice near the summit. It appears only as a dark smudge because it is inside the ice and snow, but contained therein is a marvelous bit of Biblical history to marvel at:

 Clouds at the county fair, having fun and spinning cotton candy for their friends:

 A baby whale, chasing schools of krill through the ocean:

Around The Farm - Part 1

Things have been happening rapidly around here, to the point where I've begun to look forward to the inactivity of winter. But it's also been beautiful, especially when the Rose Mallows bloomed:

The geese began moving quite early this year. This particular skein was headed north, but the important thing is that they were grouping up and starting to travel:

The fantail pigeons have been doing well. I cleaned out their room after the baby chicks were permanently out of there and the pigeons seemed grateful:

The pigeons still hang out with the chicks, but on their own terms:

The eight remaining Barred Rock bantam hens have been pecking holes in the windfall apples as fast as they fall to the ground:

I've got a very large toad living in the barn, apparently living off of crickets. I saw him every morning when I turned on the lights for awhile, but then I didn't see him any more:

I ring a cowbell to call the cattle and horses in for grain each morning. It's a beautiful time:

I've been trying to always notice the skies. They are ever changing, always beautiful:

Great white clouds over a corn field:

Blue-bottomed clouds, moving across the sky and passing over silos:

The neighbor asked me to visit and see her new lamb. I also got to see this year's wool crop:

Most lambs are born in the spring, but this one was late. And its mother had suffered from a prolapsed uterus with each of the two previous lambs, so this one was a special blessing, a sign that she may be just fine from here on:

Eventide

The cattle and horses began to spend their nights in the far field, where I couldn't see them from the house. I therefore began to drive down to the neighbors' house to check on my animals each evening before I settled in for the night. On one occasion I noticed the glorious bowl of the sky, strikingly different with each look, in each direction I cast my eyes. The occasion turned into a picture taking adventure and a post in which I've paired quotes from authors more gifted than I with my own photos:

“Dawn and dusk are mutual friends of the sun; one opens the door for him to a brand new day and the other one has to shut it to embrace the darkness of night.”       Munia Khan

 “The light is amber, the air still; the daylilies have folded in on themselves. Soon, the hooded blue of dusk will fall, followed by the darkness of night and the sky writing of the stars, indecipherable to us mortals, despite our attempts to force narrative upon them.”        Elizabeth Berg

 “It was that time of dusk when there is a—deepening of the interior shadows. It is a melancholy time: all you need do is switch on one lamp and the inside and the outside will separate, held apart by the reflections in the glass, and evening will begin.”       Rudolph Delson, Maynard and Jennica

 “Outside, daylight was bleeding slowly toward dusk.”        Stephen King, The Running Man

 “It is the quietening of the day that most appeals.”        Fennel Hudson, A Meaningful Life - Fennel's Journal - No. 1

 “There's a special quality to the loneliness of dusk, a melancholy more brooding even than the night's.”        Ed Gorman, Everybody's Somebody's Fool

 “The setting sun had turned the blue sky a brilliant orange, then soft pink merging to pearl; the plum velvet of night had come out of the east, spangled with stars.”        Paul Gallico, Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein

 “...dusk is the time when men whisper of matters about which they remain silent in the full light of the sun.”       Simon Raven

“Twilight fell: The sky turned to a light, dusky purple littered with tiny silver stars.”      J.K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
“A sunset is the sun’s fiery kiss to the night.”        Crystal Woods, Write Like No One Is Reading

 “The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.”        Haruki Murakami, Dance Dance Dance

Up Through Long Lake and Beyond

I was driving up to the farm on Route 30 with all six dogs in the car. I arrived in the Adirondack town of Long Lake and parked near the Adirondack Hotel. When Tropical Storm Irene came through, the road in front of this hotel and the parking lot were flooded right up to the building:

And directly across from the hotel is a beach with pontoon planes parked (docked?), awaiting tourists for sightseeing tours, sportsmen heading for the interior or businessmen in a hurry:

Long Lake is quite beautiful and, needless to say, extremely long. The town and this beach are located at a particularly narrow spot in an otherwise narrow lake:

 There were numerous pontoon planes parked along the shore:

After taking a few pictures, I resumed my journey. But when I passed this magnificent waterway lined with bog plants and spruces and with a mountain for a backdrop, I just had to stop for another photo:

Route 30 is a beautiful road with great scenery:

And I began to pass small ponds as I neared the town (and the lake) of Tupper Lake:

There are lots of ponds just south of Tupper Lake and they sure are spectacular. Notice the clouds drifting across the top of that small mountain. That's one advantage to driving through the Adirondacks in rainy weather. The dogs wanted me back inside the car - either that or they figured they should be allowed out:

All along the shoreline of this pond were birches and other hardwoods showing their autumn colors. Clouds drifted slowly across the mountaintops:

I love watching the clouds moving across the mountains. They seem to skip over the valleys and then get caught on the high points: