Tag Archives: frog

Your Standard Fall Day Around Here

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Geese are heading south. That’s what they do this time of year. We heard lots of them today. A flock honks its way overhead as I type this. We some a few large flocks of them as we did our things outdoors on this fine fall day.

Headed South, Passing Over Our House

Our neighbor came over this afternoon to mow the wet stretch of our field. We have had cattails galore, not to mention a crazy amount of purple loosestrife, plowing itself down the middle of the field since we moved in, and likely before that. We hired him to get a handle on it. The loosestrife will come back, but it we keep at it we might eventually keep it in check. Ideally the field dries out enough with the tall boys out of there that we can simply mow it and hay it.

Busting Out the Tracks for the Soggy Parts

After the Destruction

We took a walk out t see the effects of the crashing and slashing. We found a vole, hopping about, confused about what the heck just happened. Then we saw a mouse. We had a good look at both of these typically hiding critters as they tried to find a place to hide from the huge beasts on their turf. We also managed to see a small garter snake and a large frog. The latter was a bullfrog, and it was honkin’. Wildlife coming out of the woodwork, so to speak.

Um, Where Did my Habitat Go?

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at Shelburne Farms’s Harvest Festival. That always proves to be a fun event. We had corn on the cob–fire-roasted–and watched a play and took a hay ride and got some face painting and checked out the animals and ran into friends. We had a fine time and will go back again next year. On the way home we turned the corner to find the sun pouring down through a hole in the clouds.  It was, as you might imagine, stunning. So far, fall is off to an ideal start. No complaints here.

Busy at Shelburne Farms--Cars and Sheep and People

Bam! Fall Light in its Glory

Stuff I’ve Noticed Recently

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I hung up a bunch of old CD’s recently  over some garden beds, to keep out the birds.  This morning I looked out the window to see a robin pecking at the dirt at the edge of one of those beds.  Then it hopped right over the bed.  It nearly got clocked by the spinning disk.  It worked last time.

Our dishwasher has a whole slew of adjustable bars and rods, the better to efficiently stack all one’s dishware and cutlery.  One of them seemed to have lost its adjustability recently.  It flopped.  I removed it today to find that it had rusted right through.  The little rod was pointy, yet crumbly, with rust.  I took out one half and wrestled with the second for a while before deciding to leave it for tomorrow.  I figured a dishwasher is for lazy people anyway so I had good reason to be lazy with that task.

Our neighbors have a small pond, just over our property line.  What its intended use what I can’t say.  It doesn’t seem to get much human use at all–no swimming, no irrigation, no livestock watering.  It just sits there, leaking onto our side, home for ducks and frogs.  The bullfrogs are especially loud these days.  The groan and croak at all hours, but seem to especially like the hours just after dark.  All of us pretend to respond to them now and again.  Cracks us right up.

For Father’s Day I got a book of crossword puzzles.  I am pretty hooked on crossword puzzles and have been working my way through a book of 200 of them from the New York Times.  This new book is a little different.  One of the clues was this:  Royal mistake maker.  The answer?  Dumbshit.  Cracked me right up.

We have been watching old science fiction movies lately.  You know, the classics.  The Day the Earth Stood Still, for example.  Last night we watched the original 1950’s version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  It was pretty well done, eerie and even a little scary, but not gore-filled.  All of these movies have the year listed on the sleeve from Netflix.  Last night’s said 1956, but when the film opened it said 1955.  The other films have had this same one year discrpancy.  My guess is the the film posts the copyright date and Netflix notes the date the film actually was released.  I guess they used to do things a little slower back then.

We went up the road this afternoon to pick up our share of produce.  This was given to us as a gift again at Christmas.  Great gift.  As we walked out to the field to pick strawberries, the children found a mud puddle.  Well, maybe puddle isn’t quite right.  It was a mud puddle and had become a thick bowl of muddy paste.  The children were wearing mud boots so of course they slopped about in it until their footwear was gray and wet.  They had a blast.  Then they sat in their dirty boots and ate all the strawberries we picked while I picked some daisies to bring home.

The cucumber beetles are starting to hatch.  I have been slow to attend to them.  I hope to get some Neem and see what that does.  I have heard good things about it, that it makes the beetles go away.  I want them to go away.  I picked one off a pumpkin plant today and slayed it.  They are beautiful little bugs.  And I want them to live far away from here.  I want some cucumbers this year, dammit.