Living in the country as we do we see a variety of wildlife. We have possums, squirrels, chipmunks, deer, turkeys, and the occasional bear. Poor bears. They are being hunted once again this year. It’s too sad to even talk about.
A few weeks ago I looked out the window and saw a beautiful buck deer standing up by the top of our driveway, his rack of antlers held proudly. With a flick of his tail he was off up into our neighbor Kim’s yard. I see a small band of about five or six deer pretty often just outside the fenced part of our yard in the woods. The dogs just lie on the deck and watch them.
Lately we’ve had a mangy looking fox hanging around. I first saw him sitting in our driveway grooming himself like a cat. He looked up from his ritual and saw me watching him through the window. It was weird making direct eye contact with a fox. I went to grab the camera as quietly as I could but he ran off. Here’s the shot I got of him then.
Then the other day he was back again to take advantage of the bird seed and stale bread I had thrown out at the bird feeding area in the front yard for the squirrels (so they’ll leave my bird feeder and suet feeder in the back yard alone!). I think he must have mange although I have never seen it to identify it in a wild animal. He is scary looking! I do admire his black legs though. The rest is pretty darned ugly.
I’ve seen him down the road at neighbor Luke’s house too. A few years back I remember seeing another scroungy looking fox and I have to wonder if it’s the same one?
Another visitor to our yard and woods behind the house has been the pileated woodpecker. Every time I run for the camera he spooks and flies off to a different tree farther away. Do you remember when I was able to get photos of him a few years back? Follow this link to see them. We can hear him sometimes and don’t see him. When he flies he looks like no other bird: big black wings with a white streak. You don’t even notice his head until he lands. Twice in the past week I have caught him out of the corner of my eye in flight. He’s elusive that’s for sure.
I haven’t seen any cardinals for a long time. I wonder where they go? We are overrun with titmice, chickadees and white-breasted nuthatches. We have a few juncos now too and yesterday we saw a rosy finch.
The woodpeckers seem to really be taking off this year in numbers as well. We have downy woodpeckers and a red-bellied woodpecker that have always been visitors. But this year we also have the downy’s bigger cousin, the hairy woodpecker too. Here he is:
He looks just like a downy only considerably bigger.
Yesterday I looked out at the suet feeder and something about the bird on it didn’t look quite right to me. At first glance I thought it was a downy woodpecker, but it had a dark chest, not a white one. Hmmm. I got out the binoculars and saw that it had a red spot under the chin as well as one on top of its head. The markings around the eye were different too. Off to get the bird identification book! I am proud to present our very first Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker!
The light was not good since it was late in the afternoon but I think the shot is decent enough to see the bird fairly well. I hope he comes back!
We didn’t have any acorns from the oaks this year. It’s odd, but I guess they do have years when they don’t produce. Maybe that has something to do with the increase of woodpecker activity? Maybe they produce more sap when they don’t produce acorns?
I like having all my back and front yard buddies around. Well, maybe not so much that fox ...
It returns every year right about this time: the Snow Grinch. Me. For me it’s hard to get in the “Christmas spirit” without a little help from the weather. In previous years here for the most part we didn’t get snow until after Christmas, but a few years we did get a little and it was so wonderful! I guess I don’t mind so much if it doesn’t snow, but at least it could be cold and feel like Christmas. This year the weather has been very mild, and as far as I’m concerned it hasn’t snowed yet. I am not counting the rare October snowfall because I wasn’t here to see it! So, I am still waiting. And hoping. For snow.
Our predicted snow of 2-3 inches didn’t happen—just a smattering on the grass and the pool cover. We did, however, get just over three inches of RAIN in 24 hours. That’s a lot of water! Especially when our ground is still soggy from all the other moisture we’ve had. I drove up over the mountain yesterday to a farm store to buy wreaths and they had just enough elevation difference there to get about 2 inches of wet snow. It was lovely to see even if it wasn’t in my yard.
In my heart I know that snow does not make Christmas Christmas. But it would be nice. Last year it didn’t snow before Christmas either except for a slight skiff, then on the day after Christmas we got that blizzard, remember? From then on we didn’t see the ground until late March! So, you just never know.
Tomorrow we are going to cut our tree at a tree farm and it’s supposed to be chilly (in the high 30’s) so maybe that will help kick start my holiday mood!
There is also not much to take photos of this time of year, so I included two sky shots I took last week.
Those three words sum up the weather for the past few days. It’s so dark that I turned on the Christmas lights outside during the day! Yesterday was damp, but warm. I still started a fire in the wood stove though to take the chill off. Today is colder, rainy and still damp. But, it would seem that it might change tonight to SNOW. We’ll have to see, but even an inch would be good right about now.
We don’t have our tree yet. This Saturday we are going to a Christmas tree farm to cut one. The lights are up outside and the wreaths hung above the windows, so the outside of the house looks festive. Now I just have to work on the inside. Christmas always sneaks up on me and I am never ready. Please can we insert another month in-between Thanksgiving and Christmas? Please?
I know this is a boring entry but whenever I don’t blog my sister (love ya sis!) thinks something happened to me.
This morning’s sunrise off our back deck. I know that “red sky in morning is a sailor’s warning” but what about orange and purple?
We did take Mia out for a ride yesterday after working in the yard blowing and picking up the final leaves. (And, duh, I didn’t take my camera so you will just have visualize this.)
It’s obvious that the weather is changing. Even though the thermometer read 60 degrees F, the sun was veiled by a thin layer of clouds making it feel not quite that warm. Plus, the smell of wood smoke from house chimneys as we drove along and the bare trees reminded us that it was not summer anymore. Even the very air itself feels different, expectant. Almost like at any moment it was thinking of switching the season over from autumn to winter. I can’t fully describe it, but it’s there.
We passed a house we’ve gone by many a time on our route the back way to and from Warwick that has a large in-ground pool. Now they’ve converted their pool into a hockey ice rink!
Our main destination was the Warwick Valley Winery for lunch. I’ve mentioned before that we’ve eaten there many times over the summer. They have a wonderful café but it’s only open on the weekends. We ordered our lunch (grilled steak sandwich with truffle scented caramelized onions and gorgonzola cheese for Rick; duck confit sandwich for me with melted brie, cranberry chutney and arugula), bought and opened a bottle of wine to drink. I always want to order their mussels in white wine but the idea of duck confit had me at hello. Anything duck: foie gras, confit, just plain old duck ... Next time it will be the mussels!
We wanted to buy some apple cider from one of the local apple picking spots (of which there are four in Warwick alone), so that is where we headed next. We had heard that Och’s Orchard has “the best,” so that is where we went. I’m not sure that Mia has ever had her feet on a real dirt road before as we try to avoid them whenever we can, but this one was an exception. Up the hill with farm fields dotted with rolled up bales of hay we went. We even drove over some cow manure that had been spilled in the road. Really, Mia! With the trees laid bare of their leaves it was now possible to see the beautiful undulating layers of swells and hills. Such a beautifully situated farm and orchard!
When we got to the top of the dirt road we passed the farm house and barn where several cats lay sunning themselves. Freshly laundered sheets hung on the clothesline in the yard. We were wondering if we had just driven into someone’s private driveway when we rounded the corner and the farm store came into view. When we went inside all we could smell were apples and apple cider doughnuts! Intoxicating! Many different kinds of apples were for sale in wooden quart containers. Some were labeled as “home grown” and some just “local.” I picked some Jonamac that were home-grown and smelled delicious. I was tying to avoid the apple cider doughnuts but Rick found them and put a half dozen in a bag. sigh. They are a seasonal treat around here so why not enjoy them?
They had fresh pie fillings in a plastic tube made from their own fruits: blueberry, apricot, blackberry and more. They even had big cheese pumpkins (the kind used for cooking and baking) that we’ve been searching for this year and could not find for making our annual pumpkin soup, but these were too big to fit in the oven! They still had some vegetables for sale too—even brussels sprouts on the stalk.
I think we’ll be coming back here again. Maybe for the strawberry U-pick-yourself season? All in all, a pleasant lunch and outing with Mia.
This morning we did a little grocery shopping and then took the dogs to the dog park and let them run around like crazy. Alex decided that at the grand old age of 9 he was really meant to be an agility dog and went up the A-frame with very little coaxing. Several times! He even went through a tunnel. Go figure! Bella loves to chase any dog that runs and there were plenty of those today so she got the best workout of all of them. Hailey just trots around looking for people to scratch her butt. Then we came home to make lunch.
Today for lunch we drank these: Apple Cider Mimosas.
Half champagne (we used Prosecco) and half apple cider with an apple piece floating in it. Yummy!
I made these roasted pears which were basted with a honey mustard and olive oil sauce topped with melted brie and chopped pistachios. Also yummy!
Hope your weekend was a good one!
