Hunting season last fall was filled with success. With camera always at the ready, here are a few glimpses.
Yearling buck that I hope will be around next year. I saw him quite often.
A rare sighting of a grey fox. I had to speak to him to get him to stop and pose.
Big daddy bobcat, looking me over.
Then slinking away in to the brush.
Then baby bobcat kitten came out to look me over twenty minutes later.
Elena visited us for a few hours one Sunday during October, thanks to Grandma Michelle. What a treat! What a cutie! What a poser!
We had been saving for a new roof on our house in Painted Post for several years. Ice dams had backed water up beneath shingles and taken the gutter down. Shingles were falling off the back of the house. 
And curled on the front of the house. The final straw, it started leaking. Time to call in the roofers.
By 10:30 AM on the first day, the back half of the house was stripped.
By evening, they had finished removing all of the disintegrated insulation from the attic, put on a new roof deck, and the new energy efficient shingles were up, or down, such as the case may be...
The front of the house was finished by the end of the second day.
This new style eave vent was used to ventilate the attic along with the new ridge cap. Previously there was no ventilation. And a new rubber membrane was put on the area over the kitchen that should never have been shingled because it was just too flat and always leaked.
And now, I don't have ice build up on the roof.
Unlike my neighbors.
Scouting for the fall hunting season starts early and lasts all summer.
How big are they?
Where are they and where will they be? The picture here shows two big bucks up by the larch.
What is out there? Like this bear.
And this bear down by the spring. Will this be the year one of us harvests a bear?
And will this bruiser still be around a week from now?
We visited Elena, and her Mom and Dad, in Maryland last September. She met us at the door wearing, and pointing at, this shirt. Drum roll provided by Miss Elena.... She is going to be a BIG SISTER! Little brother Morehouse is expected March 31.
Rachel and Elena waiting to get in their new van for one of our road trips.
Particularly enjoyable was a trip to Havre de Grace, MD, at the mouth of the Susquehanna River. The Concord Point lighthouse is the oldest continuously operated lighthouse in Maryland since its construction in 1827.
Elena, Adam, and Jann on the boardwalk along the Chesapeake Bay.
And a glorious view of the Chesapeake Bay. This is of personal interest to me as much of my career efforts over the last 22 years has been to improve the water quality of the Upper Chesapeake Bay watersheds and ultimately, the Bay. Anecdotally, it looked good with more room for improvement. However, I believe the agricultural contribution from the New York reaches are now only a very minor source of the problem.
This year has certainly been snowier than normal. In fact, after yesterday's 12" of the white fluff, we are told we have set a new seasonal record. The front sidewalk in front of our house in the Post has higher banks that I can remember.
And somewhere under this snow pile in Biscuithollow there is a tractor.
Granted, some of its depth is a function ceremoniously performed by our favorite snowplow operator.
It took some digging out last weekend. I imagine it's worse now.
And the snow piles up to the bottom of the windows where it slides off the garage's new roof.
This year's food plot efforts included intentions to plant most of the fields to a permanent cover of clover mixes so that yearly efforts would not be quite so demanding. Soil samples were taken and 4 tons of bagged lime were purchased. Half of the lime was spread in the spring. And then other demands on my time superceded prompt completion.
As time was available through June and July, I picked stones. These areas had not been tilled in at least 70 years and so there was a LOT of stones.
I got a little creative as I removed the stones and separated them for future uses.
Behind the tidy little stone wall is a huge pile of all the rest of the stone taken from about half of the acreage I was preparing for planting. Thank you to Bill for helping with some of the stone removal.
On one of the foodplots I call the "Uppergate", I unearthed this horseshoe. I can only imagine the back story of the day this shoe was originally lost. I hoped it would bring me luck. It reminded me that Dad would often launch into the recitation of the poem, "For want of a nail the shoe was lost...".
I spread the other half of the lime, disced the fields again, and finally on the first of August managed to plant the Uppergate (shown), Northpark, and Westpark food plots.
It was a very dry summer and without any rain, I didn't seed the other foodplots until the first week of September, hoping for the best.
Here's a look at the Northpark foodplot (planted August 1) in the middle of October. The seeding was successful as shown by the excellent stand of brassica turnips. I don't think the underlying clover and chicory did very well due to the dry weather. I suspect I will be reseeding all the fields this spring. Or at least doing some frost seeding.
The turnips sized up nice and provided a lot of food and attracted the deer to the farm. In that, it was successful.
The defending Junior College National Lacrosse Champions, Onondaga Community College, prepare to take the field for the 2011 season opener against Genesee Community College at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse, March 4.
It didn't take long after the opening face-off for the OCC Lasers to re-establish their dominance.
Jeff, #36, center field. 
We are so excited, and proud, for Jeff that he has achieved his goal of playing college lacrosse. Even more so that he made the President's List last semester.
Grandpa Sienkiewicz and Uncle Mark made the trip from MA to watch the season opener.
