Rose hip “spider”

I guess I haven’t had a lot to say lately. Not much to take photos of either at this time of year. Although this quote out of my photography class book does hit home:

“Quit trying to find beautiful objects to photograph. Find the ordinary objects so you can transform them by photographing them.”

That obviously takes a bit more work! Work that I am sometimes uninspired to find. You either have to be in the mood to take good photographs, or you’re not.

We had a lovely Thanksgiving yesterday. The weather was perfection and very much like remembered Thanksgivings of my childhood: sunny, a little brisk.

The turkey was phenomenal! This year I splurged and instead of getting our “free” turkey after earning points at our Shop Rite I placed an order for a fresh turkey from Pennings Farm Stand in Warwick, NY. I got the idea when we had lunch there a few weeks back and people kept coming up to the counter to put in their turkey order.

When I went to pick up the turkey on Tuesday there was a white duck wandering around their parking lot. This wasn’t too strange since they have a “petting zoo” on the premises with chickens, goats and etc. I walked in and said “Did you know you have someone loose in your parking lot?” One of the women behind the counter looked up at me and said “Does it say AFLAC?” (Note: those of you who don’t live in the States will not get this reference to a commercial on TV for insurance that uses a white duck. The insurance company name is Aflac and the duck is constantly shouting the word.) She went on to tell me that someone just dumped the duck at their store and they have no idea where he came from. They can’t put him in with their chickens because they tear each other apart. She’s said but he’s the friendliest duck. He just hangs out and greets people.

My “Thanksgiving” cacti are going all out this year. Fuchsia, white, red and salmon colors decorate the sun room. The cactus shown below is only one of the four that I have. Beautiful, no?

The turkeys came to visit us on Turkey Day. Brave souls! Not the most attractive birds up close but they are so ugly that I find them cute.

This tom had his tail feathers spread until I grabbed the camera. You can see the sacs on his neck are still inflated.

Up close their feathers are prismatic and quite lovely.

I think they are getting ready to breed. This morning I had a flock of 13 in the front yard and the toms were chasing the hens around. It won’t be the first time we’ve witnessed turkey sex in the front yard! Ah, country life.

Rick has a bad cold that he is trying to shake so our plans for taking Mia out today (it’s supposed to warm and beautiful) will have to be changed to taking it easy and watching movies. Let’s hope they are better than the one we chose to watch last night called “The Grey.” If you like movies where no one makes it out alive, I can recommend it. We recorded “The Poseidon Adventure” yesterday and at least some of them make it out in the end.

I really am quite boring lately and for that I apologize! I just can’t wrap my head around Christmas in a month. Where does the time go?

Sunset last night.

Was it really just one week ago today that we got our power restored? It seems like such a long time ago. If not for the closed gas stations, all the downed trees and all the leftovers from Sandy it might seem like just a bad dream. It certainly has been a strange couple of weeks here in New Jersey.

We finally have someone lined up to take care of our clogged-with-trees driveway. After getting three different estimates we finally narrowed it down to this: the cheapest! Our insurance company will pay $500 towards the clean up, but with estimates coming in anywhere from $1500 to $3500, we can’t go with our normal tree service people.

Strangely enough, the insurance will also reimburse us for the gas we used in our generator if we give them a tally of all the food items in our fridge and freezer that was saved by running the generator. I think that’s weird. And, they have suspended the deductible which is kind of nice.

“My” turkeys heading out of the yard.

Temperatures today were in the 50’s and most of the snow has disappeared. The weekend promises to be lovely with temps in the 60’s! From snow boots to nearly sandals in one fell swoop. I think we just might have to have a day trip in Mia.

Junco in the snow.

You just never know what is going to turn up next here. Life in the country.

The other day it was a doe deer and her fawn as I pulled in to the driveway at the bird feeding station in the front yard. Too bad I had the dogs with me who saw them as we pulled in. Sigh. I waited a while and went to shoo them away, but they were already gone. I let the dogs out of the truck right by the garage and thankfully they just went right in and didn’t pursue a chase.

Every morning Tom the Turkey and his sidekick arrive for their breakfast.  If I don’t pay attention, Tom will stand and look fixedly at the house. Where is my breakfast?? So I fill up the pail and make my way outside where Tom turkey-talks to me the whole time. His sidekick does not trust me and skitters off, whereas Tom stands his ground and we have a quick conversation. Turkey-style. Sort of quiet little gobbley talk, but not full-out gobbling.

Tom and friend

Late yesterday afternoon I noticed that he dogs were fixated on the neighbor Aileen’s yard. (Aileen is the neighbor who has chickens where I get my farm fresh eggs from, sheep and Ollie the Pig.) I went outside several times to figure out what they were looking at. I failed to see anything.

Then around the time it started to get dark I went outside on the deck and I could hear chicken clucking noises coming from the direction of the street. Totally opposite of where it should be coming from. I suspected Aileen was not home this weekend, so I called her. No answer. So I took off in my sweats and slippers like any good neighbor would do. I got to the top of our driveway and could hear the chicken making a racket.

There it was: a beautiful buff-colored hen sitting on their split rail fence clucking away. It spooked when it saw me and flew up into the tree. No way was I going to catch that bird!

I walked down their driveway to check on the chicken coops just to be sure the chickens weren’t all out running around loose. They were all tucked away in their respective coops, so all was good there. The sheep baa-ed and came over to see what I was doing. They all looked at me as if to say “what are you doing down here?” But sheep always have that wide-eyed surprised stare anyway, so who knows what they were thinking?

After a few pats on sheep noses stuck through the fence I headed for home. The chicken looked like it was asleep in the tree. I hope it stays safe. At least it was supposed to stay above freezing last night.

It would seem we don’t get much sleep around here. Fireworks. Sirens of twenty different fire companies. An owl.

We haven’t had any owls around since we moved to New Jersey. We always wondered why we never heard one given all the woods that surround our house.

We can’t say that anymore. We’ve heard this owl a couple of times over the past month. The hoo-hoo-hooing of some kind of owl we were not familiar with. It’s always around the same time in the wee hours of the morning, right around 4:00 to 4:30 a.m. Sometimes it sounds like it’s right outside our window, and since we have huge trees in the front yard, it probably is!

Last night the owl outdid itself. When it first woke me it was pretty close, then it settled in further away in the woods and kept hoo-hooing for a good fifteen minutes. Then another one joined in that was very close and it was a very strange noise. Even Rick woke up for that one!

This morning I looked it up and given I only had three choices of owl species to choose from it wasn’t hard to figure it out. Our choices where we live are Great Horned (which we knew it was not by the voice), Barred, and Eastern Screech Owl. No screeching, so I got out my bird song CD and played the voice of the Barred Owl. Bingo!

Here is our culprit, the Barred Owl. The link kindly provides sound!

I don’t mind being woken by Mr. Barred. It’s kind of nice to have an owl around.

Early morning sunlight sifting through my backyard trees.

Here in New Jersey August is a pretty mild month. It should be the hottest but it’s not. Somehow I think it’s the weather’s way of segueing us into autumn. Every year for the past six years that we’ve lived here it’s been the same. So why do I keep expecting it to be somehow different each year?

Now the cicadas are joined by multitudes of crickets at night, each one trying to outdo the other. The cicadas are not ready to give up their orchestra seats to the crickets just yet.

If this is typical of all the other years we are not quite done with the heat just yet. There is always a week at the beginning of September where the temperatures soar for the last hurrah of summer.

My little clutch of turkeys come nearly every morning. A hen with two half-grown babies. The other day when I looked out I thought a recognized the sole turkey that was at the feeding station. I’m certain it’s Thomas back again! He has the same funny feather that sticks out all by itself on his chest. And even more exciting news: Thomas has hooked up with Lady Hen and they are now traveling as a family group. Good for Thomas!

Thomas and family.

Some trees are getting a head start.

Not sure if they are truly changing because of the season or if it’s stress from not enough moisture.

The air feels different; it’s hard to explain, but it’s there.

It’s easier to see the difference in the light. It’s softer. The way it filters through the trees. The shadows in the morning. The increasingly shorter days. All due to the sun dipping lower in the sky.

Me and the big pine in our front drive this morning.

Autumn is on it’s way. It’s real. Tangible. I think I’m ready.