Spring Deer

There's just something nice about taking a trip around the field behind the house in the evening and watching the deer. It's nice to see that the deer survived the winter. We are probably about 5-6 weeks away from seeing fawns.

Cornell Lacrosse #1

After Jeff's lacrosse game Saturday morning, we went to Ithaca to watch Cornell (ranked #1 in the nation) play Princeton, #5. Princeton is Jeff's dream school and of course, I have some loyalty to my Alma Mater, which made things fun.

We sat right next to the Big Red Pep Band which played really loud, which of course made Jann happy. And they played really often, since they played the fight song after every score, which was a lot. Which really annoyed Jeff. And of course, made me happy!

This was taken during the National Anthem, the only opportunity I could get to take a picture of Jeff w/o his hat. Notice his team mate Brian to Jeff's left, also w/ a mohawk.

The last time Cornell was the National Champion was in 1977 when I was on campus. They honored the '77 team during halftime, which included my roommate, the team manager. When they walked on the field right in front of us, Jann noticed how they looked so much older than us. Could someone please explain to me the phenomenon that when you are in school, you all look the same age. But everybody ages much faster than you after school?

On the way home, we stopped briefly at Buttermilk Falls.

No Cleaning

I decided I needed to get away from the cleaning for a while so this weekend's visit to BH was a little more enjoyable. Nick stopped by to show off his "new" 2005 Dodge SRT-4. All souped up.

Much of the day was spent cutting these "tire stickers" from the fields; left over brush stumps from brushhogging last year. I surely don't need more flat tires.











I was pretty excited to find this antler shed while working in the fields. I have never found one before.












And then some trail cleanup. A free trail ride is at stake if you can tell me where this picture was taken.

Sunburst Over Biscuit Hollow

I realized just the other day that I have panorama stitching software, so immediately put it to work on these 2004 photos.

Happy Birthday Loren

Happy birthday to my baby brother Loren. Well, he was a baby in this picture. I must have just taken a break from reading to him a great book by Beverly Cleary, "Ribsy".

Jeff's Mohawk

As a team building experience in preparation for tomorrow night's game against our arch rival Corning East, the Corning West JV lacrosse team all got mohawk haircuts tonight.

OUT, OUT, DAMN SPOT

I guess these photos demonstrate the principal that things have to look worse before they look better. We made good progress last weekend cleaning up the soot. The kitchen and living room are nearly done and both are put back together, curtains washed and hung. Next, all the other rooms, pick one. I'll save it for you.

All of the utensils and silver and dishes and pots and pans, well, you get the idea, everything had to be washed. It was great exploring and I was able to teach Jann a few things about old time kitchen utensils. But this one has me stumped. Anyone know what it is?

JV Lacrosse 2007

The Corning West JV lacrosse team is 4-0 on the season; goals scored =51 -goals allowed =9. Jeff says he has a team leading 14 goals and 6 assists so far.

Andy's New Car

Andy is excited to own a new (2001) Ford Escape. It was delivered on Monday!

On Thursday, somebody side-swiped him causing damage to both doors and front and rear quarterpanels. So much for that new car feeling! He is getting it repaired. He made his first road trip home with the new car this weekend, arriving Sunday night, and leaving Monday morning after he got it registered and inspected.

Bee Followup

Cell phones have been blamed for lot's of things, but the current honey bee crisis? Experts say it is actually a plausible explanation.

http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/wildlife/article2449968.ece

Elk

We are blessed with plentiful wildlife in our peaceful valley. Up until last year, it was the normal deer, turkey, birds, small mammals, the usual stuff. Up until last year. Oh sure, we even had occasional sightings of coyotes, and as you saw on yesterday’s post, a bobcat. And an occasional bear as well. But this year, an ELK! Yep. If you had told me there would be elk on our property, a likely response might have been, "when pigs fly". I took this photo in May 2006 on our property, and it was my only sighting. It was late in the evening in failing light, so it’s not a very good photo. Kinda like those UFO pictures you see. But rest assured, this was an elk. I was watching it through the binoculars and could see its antlers standing 18” over its ears. It was seen by many people in the area. It was either an escapee from a wildlife refuge or a traveler from the Pennsylvania wild herd. We never really found out for sure and last fall, it was rumored that an Amish farmer in Troupsburg shot it.

Honey Bee Swarm

Speaking of swarms, I have seen lots of honey bees in my day, more than I care to, but never a swarm until this time. I love honey. Mmmm, remember Mom’s honey oatmeal bread? I am fascinated with their social activity and comb building skills. They provide a much needed and valuable pollinating service, more recently brought to light by the strange and unexplained disappearance of bees around the country. Catch the
buzz at:

In the heyday of USDA’s involvement in the support of honey production, I visited dozens of apiaries, inspected the extraction of honey, sampled hundreds of honey containers, and back in the 1980’s, was responsible for the intake, sampling, and warehousing of honey. At one point, I had over 495,000 pounds of honey in storage waiting for government surplus food processing. We still offer price support on stored honey to producers; such is the importance of bees.

But I had never seen a honey bee swarm. I can show you a bee tree on the hill (if it’s still there), one that would make Pooh feel like he was in honey heaven. But I had never seen a swarm. Science tells us that bees swarm when they’re sick of the current interior decorator, their hive is not big enough, or they have two queen bees and anyone who has ever worked in an office knows that is not a good thing.

This swarm appeared last summer a few feet from our front porch at our neighbor’s in Painted Post. The curious thing is that they had a bee keeper remove the swarm, and two days later, another swarm appeared in the same bush.

Tomorrow: When Pigs Fly

Asian Lady Beetle Swarm

This is a good depiction of the swarming action of the Asian Lady Beetle. A day or two after the first fall freeze, they will swarm to the sunny southern exposures of buildings, especially light colored or contrasting colored building areas. Then they will crawl into crevices where they will overwinter, sometimes emerging on the inside of the structure in the spring where they can be quite a nuisance. This was taken Columbus Day weekend in Woodhull, NY.

Lady Beetles

Bonnie has her box elder beetles in Michigan. In this area, we have our cluster flies and more recently and bothersome for most people, Asian Lady Beetles. They crawl into the crevices of the house in the fall and when it warms up in the spring, and especially if the house has been cold and empty all winter, they cover the inside of the house. One of the rituals of springtime in Biscuit Hollow is the vacuuming of the beetles, yuck!

They were introduced here in the States as a control insect for some other pest and have become a pest in their own right. http://www.uky.edu/Ag/Entomology/entfacts/trees/ef416.htm
The grape farmers have a real problem with them because they huddle in the grape clusters in the fall and it only takes a few to ruin the taste of a batch of wine. Double double, yuck, yuck.

I found a control for them this past fall and it seemed to have worked. They begin to cluster a day or two after the first frost in the fall. If you can spray the sides of your house at the right time, you will kill them as they fly to your house, or at least repel them. I hardly have any in the house this year! Or maybe the smoke killed them.

Ivory and Ebony

We had two Easter surprises this year.

First, the snow. Beautiful. White.

I guess we can take it as an Easter reminder of God's grace, his gift to us. From Isaiah 1:18, "Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow."

And from the classic hymn:

Jesus paid it all,

All to Him I owe;

Sin had left a crimson stain,

He washed it white as snow.

We went to Biscuit Hollow Friday morning and were greeted by a house filled with black sooty smoke. The chimney had plugged. We had black soot and a dingy grey smoke film over everything in the house. Every drawer, cabinet, nook, and cranny. You can see it on the window frame over the kitchen sink; we washed the top left corner.

And you can see the black soot on the curtains.

We ran the dishwasher and and clothes washer all day Friday and Saturday, had two vacuum cleaners going, and have managed to make significant progress in the kitchen, living room, and bath.

Bonnie was asking when we were all going to get together this year. I think now would be good. :)

Bobcats

Three or four years ago, a hunter was video taping a turkey on the hill and caught a bobcat running by. We all thought it was pretty much a fluke, an itinerant, looking for new territory. They just don’t live around here. But a year ago this past winter, we started to hear about other sightings. One evening in May 2006, I was visiting with my nephew Mike outside in the driveway, and we saw this bobcat, just below the yard. Actually, there were two! So this wasn't window hunting; it was yard hunting. Always keeping an eye out down the road like I told you. This one was patient enough for me to run back in the house and get the camera. One crossed the road above the house later that evening. I saw it again the following week in the same location. It was suspected that we may have a breeding pair in the area. Later in the summer, I saw a bobcat kitten several times. And I saw a bobcat again in the fall. Maybe they're here to stay.

Window Hunting

When you grow up in the country, on a back road, the closest neighbor a ¼ mile away and that’s your grandparents, and a car goes by, that’s news! Because there’s not many; only a couple a day. I mean, if you heard a car go by, everyone jumped to the window to see who it was. Because you must know them. I guess most of us have broken that habit somewhat now, but not completely. The traffic is a little heavier. But it’s still a gravel road. What I do find interesting is that I still always keep an eye on what’s happening outside. Because you never know what wildlife you might see. And if you are outside, you are always keeping an eye out down the road, because that’s where most of the wildlife cross. Not just me: everyone familiar with the neighborhood. The turkeys I showed you yesterday were caught on camera while looking out the windows. The same with this nice little buck, with his horns just beginning to grow and in velvet. He was in the road in front of the house last spring. I wonder how big his antlers became. It pays too stay alert.

Turkey in the Yard

I am here in Biscuit Hollow pretty much only on weekends. So it surprises me how much wildlife I see with such limited time. Last year about this time, I took this picture of a hen turkey outside in the lower yard.








Sunday morning, 3/25/07, I saw a small flock cross the upper yard with this very nice tom turkey. The colors were vivid and he looked very handsome as he followed his harem, strutting his stuff, fanning his tail feathers. One of the measures of a trophy turkey is the length of his beard. This one looked nice, but I am not a very good judge. I have never been a turkey hunter. Growing up, we never saw turkeys in the valley. And now it’s just is a matter of time, and getting up REALLY early in the morning. Turkey season opens May 1, after the breeding season.

Porcupine

As you saw yesterday, the porcupine, can be a very destructive creature. If you don't take some precautions, they will chew on your house, or cabin. Like Aunt Anna and Uncle Skip, folks in porcupine country often will put salt on a nearby tree stump and the porcupines, which apparently crave salt, chew away on the stump rather than their cabin. It can make for some interesting yard art.

Although the porcupine does den and I can show you a porcupine den tree on the hill, usually they just eat all night and sleep in the nearest tree during the day. Note the "debarked" branches in the background of this napping tree killer.

Here's one I found last week in a hemlock tree, first from the side with his tail below the branch on the left.

And then face to ugly face.

The Great Debarking

A large maple tree grows across the road from the springhouse, on the other side of the beaver meadow, towering over the old log cabin site and shading the stone pile, just a little ways from the biggest rhubarb plant on the planet. Look carefully at the branches and you will note that some of them have been stripped of their bark. A lot of them. High up ones. I began noticing signs of this growing menace last fall. But this spring, it became painfully obvious.

Then look at this Scotch pine not too far away. The tree is stripped of its bark on the main trunk from 10’ off the ground to its tip. Surely it will die.






And here’s a close up look of a branch this critter and it’s kin have chewed on. Tomorrow I’ll show you some more artistic work by this critter and then we’ll get up close and personal.