Blurry Bird Blog

Or my telephoto kung-fu is not strong enough...

We happened to be looking out the kitchen window yesterday (2nd floor) and saw the egret at the river across the road. (Well, at that point I didn't know if he was an egret or a juvenile heron, and needed to see him with my binoculars.)
So first out-sneaking was with binoculars, creeping down the end of the drive to try and see what colour his beak was. And two cars going by before I could even get down to the ground...(Sigh. It used to be a nice untravelled side road!) Fortunately, he hung in, and I got to see that his beak was yellow.
And that there was an unsual duck on the river as well. Loon in winter clothing? Just an unusual duck? I never could quite see him well enough, but he definitely appeared to have a white collar.
But I suppose I'll never know for sure. Probably not a loon. I don't think we're off the beaten path quite that much...

But the birds congenially hung out there, waiting while I trotted back in and swapped the binocs for the camera. (Two thoughts at once being well beyond my capacity!)

Unfortunately, I don't have quite enough telephoto power to do well at that distance. And before I could try creeping any closer, some noisier ducks spoiled the whole affair.

Still, blurry but exciting.

New Images of Spring!

The annual [single] flowering of the Hoya. A weird alien little blossom that is fascinating to watch.

Apple blossoms. Yea! But sadly, our main tree suffered sudden onset death last spring, after it had blossomed and was starting to make apples. So it makes a sad counterpart to the blossoming tree, as shown below.

One of the koi from the pond, who turn out not to have been eaten by snappers, but have gone from five red and two black to one red and several dark ones, though I have great hopes that those little goldfish shapes may turn out to be baby koi, and prove that our koi are more promiscuous than Grondzilla's!


The woad, definitely in blossom!


Darrell making a few paths so we can find our way from one end of the yard to another. I must haul out my weed nibbler, and clear some space next to my varying plant beds, so I can tell where they are, *before* the "lawn" eats them up!


The first of my baby lilacs getting near to blossoming. My other lilacs never do much till about two weeks after every other lilac in the county. Very odd.


Honeysuckle starting to flower. But they kept jiggling in the breeze, which makes it very hard for a clear shot.
And maybe, just maybe, if we've convinced the raccoons to go away, that there are crazy people living here [true!], maybe I can put out my hummingbird feeder...

Black Flies, Back Spasms, and Home Invasions

Yes, real, and jumbled, random thoughts.

After complaining for a chunk o’ time that spring was really sucking, (we’d had a glorious start to it, then cold and drizzle and grey and rains and snow showers and frost and all growing things getting very confused), we were finally having some hints of springlike weather.
Which of course, just whupped the black flies into a real frenzy out there. Dang it all! It’s finally mild enough that I could –again- think about trying to do spring-like things in my poor neglected yard, not wrapped up in layers like the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man, and instead I need to be swathed in enough protective screening that I can’t actually see the yard!

(At least black flies are a temporary annoyance. It’s just that they take real chunks out of you. One bit me a week or so ago, on one of their other blossomings, and the spot is still swollen and itchy.)

What is weird is that we had lived here for about 5 or 6 years before I even met my first black fly, and discovered their ‘charms’, in New Brunswick. So, either we didn’t have them, or they were kinder and gentler.
Or maybe it’s like poison ivy? You’re fine till your first encounter, and then it’s toxic ever after?

Also coinciding, frustratingly, with these moments of thermometrically enhanced weather, I’ve had a sudden recurrence of the back problems that plagued me at the beginning of the century. (Doncha love being able to say that?)
Back in 2001, we’d been asked to do a demo at the Museum of Civilization, in conjunction with the Smithsonian exhibit, Vikings: North Atlantic Saga, and I had the misfortune to sleep on a mattress that just did not agree with my back, and instead of just being creaky the next day (and several days after), my back started to spasm and cramp up.
Unfortunately, this turned into a chronic problem for quite some time, no doubt encouraged by the too many years I’d spent commuting too many hours to and from Toronto, and sitting at a computer. (Yet another reason why I bid adieu to my real job in the city….)
But in the last couple of years, my back has been much more politely behaved, and if it acts out, I can usually point a finger at which stupid activity I participated in to set it off. (Like vacuuming without finding the pipey bits! Or playing too much Grim Reaper in the yard.)
This time, I don’t know. I don’t think I did any of my usual ‘bad’ things. But it’s hanging around enough that I’m either suffering from it, and in pain, or it’s lurking and I can just feel a bit of extra tension in all my abdominal and back muscles waiting for it to strike again.
And of course, this is the land of no doctors. When the one local one passed away, the single nurse practitioner was swamped with about 400+ patients. (I think a number of people had been hoping for any other doctor, and had been saving themselves. The recent doctor was not ‘sought after’. (He’s the one, when Darrell tried to saw his arm off and phoned to town, the receptionist said the doctor was about to go on lunch, could Darrell call back later?)

Essentially, when you live in the wilds of rural Ontario, you need to learn to fend for yourselves. (Never knew this was the ‘wilds’, did you? We didn’t either, when we moved up here!)

Speaking of the ‘wilds’… the other day there was some huge mayhem overhead. The up-till-now only thumpy raccoons suddenly had a street brawl. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back, and Darrell went up to have a word.
Well, it seemed that results of that ‘word’, was that the raccoons didn’t come home the next morning, so Darrell has taken advantage of their absence by essentially rebuilding the outer walls of the attic. And commenting that no doubt they’d be back to try and find another way in.

Little did we expect how soon that would be!
Saturday afternoon I was perched on the couch checking times for a movie we wanted to watch on TV that evening. For some reason, I turned my head to look at the deck door, and there coming through the cat portal at the bottom was a raccoon! 2 pm in the afternoon!
Well, I shrieked, and leapt at it yelling. (Stronger men have quailed before a Vandy incensed, let me tell you….) And Mr. Bumbly turned tail and trundled towards the deck stairs. Inopportunely, just as Bear came up them. This, of course, only increased the intensity of my shrieking and frothing. Bear went one way, Mr. Bumbly went another.
I grabbed the cat, and hustled him in, shutting doors after me.

By now all the shrieking had drawn cats from all corners, but at least they were all accounted for.

Mind you, the increased security precautions of locking the cats indoors during nice daytime weather, when we already cruelly force them to be in at night, hasn’t lasted long. Four cats who like the outdoors, beautiful sunny mild weather, closed doors? Not a recipe for peace in our time. No siree!

But it has made a bit of an impact on my peace of mind. Dammit.

Chickens, Southern-Style

Well, since I'm on a roll, chicken-wise, how about some other pictures.
It's not that I'm necessarily obsessed with chickens, though I always enjoy a good critter-pic... But when we were down in Virginia, our hostess had recently (since our last visit anyway) acquired some chickens.And one of my best friends up here raises chickens, and will always tell me anything I could need to know about raising chickens!
But when I saw Elizabeth's southern style chicken accommodations, I knew I had to take some pics for my favourite gypsy!


For starters, the lucky chickens have a spectacular setting for their home. On the side of a wooded mountain. (Very folksy!) And there's an entirely different kind of climate to contend with. In Ontario, chickens need some really sturdy and weather-secure homes. The Gypsy's chickens live in fine style, and are lovingly tucked away from the winter winds.
Virginia chickens get to live more rustically. (Rusticly?) Which allows for a bit more quirky personality in their surroundings.
This is the 'winterized' version of their house, with the extra straw and poles for insulation. By now, Elizabeth will have pulled that away, leaving them their little ol' log hen house.

And isn't he a fine-looking fellow? (And he knows it! The good-looking ones always do....)

Chooks and Peeps

This weekend we were at a 'blackpowder rendez-vous' to celebrate the seasonal opening of the Ameliasburgh County Museum in Prince Edward County, near Belleville. It's a little pioneer museum, and every May long weekend for 14 or 15 years (our memories are failing....) a group of re-enactors interested in French-Indian Wars, furtrade, black powder, buckskinning, all sorts of things in the 1750 - 1840ish timeframe, have been getting together there.

Apparently, last year, after the long weekend, so we missed it, they brought in a load of chickens to take up residence for the summer. (Years and years ago, back when little museums had a bit more funding and support and staff, there used to be more 'on loan' critters.)
This year the chickens arrived for the weekend.

And were just so appealing I had to take pictures! Not just those little pale yellow chicks I remember from my childhood. These are pretty little colourful chicks, taking after their parents. (And it's amazing just how many peeps you can squeeze under one momma at night!)

Return of the Great White Hunter

Now that the man is home, we can get back to work at trying to trap the infestation of raccoons in the attic. We went through this a number of years ago, and know just how much damage they do, and what a lot of clean up and repair there will be. Sigh.

Of course, it's suddenly become a bit of a crap shoot whether we're going to catch one of our own cats (who should know better after years of this live-trapping going on) or an actual raccoon. This round, the cats see to be outnumbering the raccoons!



Here's the latest raccoon, pre-release elsewhere, catching a little coon-nap.

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Sun and Cats

Although I leave my camera set on the 'fast moving objects' setting, I'm thinking that the only way to really take good pictures of cats and actors, is to dig out the instructions for that multi-shot setting. I'd tried it last summer, and it was fun; I could use display and make Karen dance!
I need to figure out which mound the instruction book is in, and give it a go...

Fuddled by Facebook

Or frazzled? Flummoxed? Frelled? Flustered?

Yes, it *is* pre-coffee, so bear with me. I'll try to toss back a swallow or two as I go. Though I don't know that it will make me any more coherent...

So, Facebook was born. A long time ago, (well, okay some indeterminate long time ago in my memory) I even checked it out. A friend had mentioned they were on it. It had got some airtime on CBC. (So it must be real!) So I went to look it out.
I think it was a bit different early on, because I couldn't really figure it out. I couldn't seem to make it do much. And whatever ID I set up, I didn't write down. duh...

Anyway, at the beginning of this year, a dear friend asked me to check out her Facebook profile, so back I went. Yes, you have to be involved enough to set up an ID to even look at things you're invited to look at... So I set up an ID. (This time I wrote it down!) And looked at her profile. Noticed with amusement, how many mutual old friends had popped out of the woodwork. Poked her. (I love the "poke" function. It suits my sense of the absurd.) Sent a message or two.
But....and here's the first big but in all of this. It worked like sludge. Every action took forever. (And we've already switched to satellite, remember? Admittedly, it's pretty sad satellite, but we're paying through the nose for it, simply because our dial up barely supports phone conversations these days!) It took so long to sign in, or change screens that I was forever asking myself, did I hit enter?

And pretty much anything I went to do, required me to sign in and join up for whatever widget, and quite apart from the amount of time it was taking to even get to those screens, I'm sorry, I just wasn't interested in going that far. Sure, I'd love to know my friend's secret stripper name, or send her back a 'flower for her virtual garden', or see how she did in the movie trivia quiz, but I've no interest in adding these widgets to my Facebook page. I don't use my Facebook page as it is.

After four months I finally got as far as adding a picture, and mentioning the theatre, just so it didn't look totally question-mark-y. I don't have much else to say.
I can send email to my friends far more simply. I don't have to log in to do it. My email gets turned on at the beginning of the day. I click on their address, I type as long or as short a message as I want. And queue it. Whenever I want I can hit send, and my outmail goes, and my new inmail arrives. Ta da!

When I have random thoughts, I can come over and jot them down. Long or short, with pictures or without. And I can also make notes to myself here (like which cookbook that marvellous sesame and green bean dish was in, and when I should be heading off to check on wild leeks.) Actually, the picture posting aspect of blogs is far more useful and interesting. My useful herby friends can tell me it really is woad (when I'm too stupid to be sure.) I can lust after Grondzilla's irises. And admire Karen's new header image.

So, on wieldiness points alone, the 'blob' wins.

But the latest bizzarity with the Facebook phenomenon is that all of a sudden I have people asking me to be their friend. Sure, some of them are already friends in the greater scheme of things. We already chat to some degree. But then, there are other people. People I know only marginally. People I've barely shared a half dozen mini-conversations with in my life! People I might not even pick out of a crowd.
Now that's weird.

I understand the mechanic. Now that I've allowed myself to be 'friends' with a couple of other people, because it seemed harmless, if ineffective, there's a coagulation of 'people I know' and 'people they know'. So friends of friends can see my existence.

Sure, that works for me, too! I can look at someone's list of friends and say to myself, well lookee there! So and so has Facebook. Do I see any point of doing anything about it? Not really. I suppose it suggests to me who I might ask about email addresses, if and when I'm suddenly filled with the urge to get in contact...
But beyond that? Hence, it seems highly weird that these people now want to be my friends here, in the online world, when they might not know me from a hole in the ground in the real world. (Though another friend did suggest it's way to get to know me better in the 'safety' of Facebook... Actually, I'd say come read the 'blob', there's far more of the real me here!)

Sadly, maybe this is nature's way of pointing out to me that I'm finally achieving fuddy-duddiness. That I'm too old a dog to change spots. (Is that even the metaphor?)

Maybe it's telling me I'm too old to remember trite whatyamahusits that I can't even remember the word for... sigh.

Maybe life is telling me I need more coffee!

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