Birds and a full moon...

Rich got a neat barn-like birdfeeder from his daughter for his birthday. He really likes it. I put it in a spot where he can watch the mules and the birds at the same time.

It seems all the birds enjoyed it. 
 

Of course, I couldn't resist making sure that the Lego Birds got in on the act.

The Cardinals weren't bothered by the little Lego Birds at all. They all ate together without a fuss.

Our ground is warm enough for the Robins to be pulling up worms. I watched this Robin and learned something new once more. They don't gobble down the whole worm. At least this one didn't. It pulled it up and then took bites out of it. After a bit the Robin left leaving part of the worm.

I always assumed that Robins grabbed up the worms and chucked them down all at once. See? I can learn new things on any given day!

I spent most of the afternoon grooming the mules and getting burrs out of their tails. A bit of hair conditioner rubbed into the tails makes that chore a bit easier. I am always amazed at how they go find more burdock any way. 

We spent part of the day looking through old family photos. Rich would tell me who they were and I'd write the names on the back of them. He couldn't ID them all, but we sure had fun looking at them. When I pulled out his High School Yearbook I read him the signatures he'd collected. Some of them were pretty hilarious. He was drafted not long after graduation.

This morning [Sunday] we had the full moon peeking at us from a partially cloudy sky, I took this shot and then did a little video of the predawn morning sounds.

20 seconds long. The moon is not in focus as I was

recording the sounds.

The song is that of the coyotes and their young hunting in the valley to the west of us and in the forest to the east of us.

The mules were rather unconcerned.

What I know...

 ...from Mary Oliver's Poem

What Is There Beyond Knowing

What I know
I could put into a pack

as if it were bread and cheese, and carry it
on one shoulder,

important and honorable, but so small!
While everything else continues, unexplained

and unexplainable. How wonderful it is 
to follow a thought quietly

to its logical end.
I have done this a few times.

But mostly I just stand in the dark field,
in the middle of the world, breathing

in and out. Life so far doesn't have any other name

but breath and light, wind and rain.

If there's a temple, I haven't found it yet.

I simply go on drifting, in the heaven of grass

     and weeds.

Fence Checking & Weird Stuff

Usually just after sunrise I head out to do a daily fence check. I can walk the meadow admire the changes each season brings. The grasses have seed heads and are waiting to drop them. 

The Queen Anne's Lace is beginning to bloom and the milkweed is just about done blossoming.

If there is a good morning dew or fog, I get to stop and admire my favorite spiders who start to appear in abundance at the end of July through August. Orb spiders.

Orb Spider shadow!!!

If I stand quietly just after dawn along our fence line, I can watch the deer emerge from the woods and cross the meadow to the east of us.

In another few weeks and up until gun season, I'll probably sneak out a few times a week to sit in a tree with my camera and watch for some does and bucks in velvet. It is fun to catch them on the trail cam but even more exciting to watch them in real time.

I collected some Queen Anne's Lace to dry while out walking.

I just love their beautiful patterns.

Down in the valley I found an area that had a curious slime mold growing all over the place. It seemed to grow at the base of little plants and small saplings. Odd, but not so odd because of all the rain and humidity we've had. It makes for perfect growing conditions for slime molds.

One of my favorite slime molds to find is fresh Dog Vomit Slime Mold. AKA: Scrambled Egg Slime Mold or Fuligo septica. It is hard to miss as it is such a bright yellow. The patch was very tiny. It probably only is visible for about 24 hours.

I was SO excited to find this tiny patch!
[I know, I am odd.]

We are coming up on the great months for finding all sorts of cool Fungi and odd things growing in the forest. I can't wait!

Anyway, this was my morning walk. Checking on my mules and checking on the fencing.

Have a great week.

Ever make a Haiku?

Wow, making a Haiku is hard especially when limited in syllables.

Yeah that has the syllables but makes about as perfect sense as most Haikus ever written.

I actually sat down and tried to make one up.

First I tried an automated generator form on the internet and the result said "Not safe content". I'm not sure why words like winter, cold, wind, white, and snow could be construed as adult content so I did this the old fashioned way.

Paper and pencil with coffee and curse words. Basically, I couldn't think of anything clever. I looked up Haikus on winter and nothing fit either. So I was left to create something myself.

Snow Drifts

Now I need to think of one regarding trees. I don't know why I decided to go to the world of poetry and Haikus at 5 in the morning, but I did. 

I guess it is a good brain exercise after the past two days of events.

One more just so I won't bore anyone.

Apple Tree

I'm going to stop here
my brain hurts
and my coffee
is cold

Morning?

"Hey I want to go with you on one of your morning hikes." Says my friend Bill.

I get up very early.

"How early?"

Old people early.

"Hah, I'm elderly, I get up to pee at 3:30. But I go back to bed and get up at 5 and 6 but go back to bed until CrossFit."

So what is Bill Early?

"What do you mean?"

I mean what time could you go realistically?

"I'll pick you up at 5?"

Text me when you start your pickup.

Truthfully, I would have gone earlier to 'catch' the predawn sky in my plans. But I thought I'd best not push it at all. Bill was an afternoon hiker but had recently discovered that mornings were best to beat the heat for doing outdoor stuff.

In the summer, I can't sleep past the first breath of predawn. I can't help it. I use that time to go check the fences, or walk on the ridge to watch the deer grazing in the cropland.

There is something pretty special about feeling like you have the world to yourself at that time of day.

It is almost an intrusion to have the rest of the world wake up too.

Bill is a neighbor and friend through CrossFit. He likes to complain that he is very old. He isn't. He is only 4 years older than I am. He is in his second year of retirement and true to form, he is busier now than pre retirement. He likes hiking as a form of relaxing exercise, but also has decided that he needs to get to know the area he has lived in for so many years but never had the time for.

I wanted to show him the beauty of early morning. The slanted light, the magic between dawn and day.

And... my husband feels more comfortable if I have someone going with me on my crazy excursions.

Of course I was awake at 3:30. I pondered which place I should take my friend.

So I decided to 'shoot' the Milkway since it was presenting itself right outside my porch.

That way I could be useful and ponder at the same time.

The lights in the lower half of the photo above mark my neighbor's solar lights on the dog fence and the streaks belong to the fireflies. 

The whole purpose of the morning hike was to get Bill excited enough to go with me to shoot the Milkyway or the stars above the ponds at KVR. Or to just watch a full moon set/sunrise down by the water.

That thought was two fold. While at the ponds, we could hopefully catch a glimpse of the Trumpeter Swans or other cool birds in the early morning.

Text: 4 minutes.

Text: Okay, I'll be here.

At 5, Bill picked me up. [First time in a vehicle with anyone outside my family.]

We parked as the sun was just coming over the horizon. It filtered through the wooded trail as we hiked up towards the rock outcropping. This short trail is all uphill and I can usually march up it quickly. No way was I going to make this uncomfortable for him. I matched his pace and listened to him breath.

"This is beautiful!" He kept exclaiming. The morning light was indeed enchanting as we walked right the light filtered through the heavy canopied woods.

I led him through the narrow trail up to the rock. To my horror I saw that the poison ivy had really done very well in the drought.

I asked Bill if he knew what poison ivy looked like. He didn't. So I helped negotiate the trail the rest of the way to keep his bare legs from rubbing the leaves of Three.

We'd missed the brilliant colors of dawn over the valley ....but....

The first view was enough for Bill to softly exclaim.

Wow.

wow...wow....

We spent about 20 minutes on top looking at the light, the forest, the mist, and the view.

And as promised, I had us back on the road in time for him to get home, take a short snooze and make his 9 am CrossFit class.

He was animated on the drive and asked if we could do this again. 

I let my idea of a full moon set and sunrise combo percolate with him a bit.

Next time I get smarter and bring coffee with me. I missed having coffee on the rock.

Little Tiny Stuff

Yesterday morning there was enough humidity to have a small hoar frost. I saw the sun glinting through the trees and realized that shiny silvery glow I saw was frost!
I think the mules were a bit surprised as to how fast I tossed out hay into their feeder and trotted up to the shed to stash my hay 'sled'.
I grabbed the little red camera and took off.

The burdock sported little frosty crystals.

See the little hooks? And the crystals?

Pretty cool right?

Barbed wire fence:

Multi flora rose thorn in the woods above the creek:

I guess I am always pleasantly surprised every time I take a little walk through the woods and down around the creek.

I sat on a rock and listened to the sounds. There was a mossy rock at my feet. See that arrow?

Now look at the crystal!

As a side note:

Just so you know, this isn't always an easy feature to use but it sure beats trying to set up a DSLR camera. It took me about 4 or 5 shots to get one that I wanted.
When in Microscopic mode the camera takes fairly small photos. Something like 5MB. I wanted a larger print of one of the crystals and finally did work out a way to make it clear AND large enough.

Had I just tried to make an 8 by 10 print it would have turned out noisy and spotty.
I found a work around to that and printed out a nice photo of a snowflake.

The RAW files are much larger but I think Microscopic Mode defaults to a jpeg file.

All right, geek stuff aside, I did find it just perfect for FB, blogs, and other places on the internet.

My favorite of the day was the one below.

This was the middle portion of a twig that was laying across a small rock.

Here is how the twig looked when I pulled back a bit:

I was pretty amazed at how this turned out as I used the 'In focus stack' feature and this was hand held.

Yep, that is a tiny twig with frost growing on it.

The Tiny World is delightful and I am having a great time finding little things on some of these short winter days.



If you suddenly and unexpectdly feel joy, don't hesitate.
Give in to it.
~Mary Oliver

This n that

Self exercising critters.

Play time at dawn in the meadow.

No animals were injured during the early morning photo shoot.

Just fun and happiness with a dog and his goat.

Sven still thinks Charlie is his best ever pal.

I probably should clip the rest of the long hair of Sven, but I love the look he has right now.
It appears as though he is wearing knickers.

Those two played in the early morning light while I took some 'dew' drop photos.

And a Japanese Beetle and his shadow on a milkweed leaf.

 Lastly, a bit of artistic license with a Fleabane flower....

~~~~~

Rich has an upcoming surgery so we have some hoops to jump through to get it all done.  It will have to be done at the larger facility as Rich has a complicated Medical History.

The surgeon's PA left me a bit bothered with his know it all attitude and frustrations with the fact my husband is a veteran.
Obviously he has never been trained to deal with a veteran with PTSD. One of the reasons I do like the VA staff much better.
However this will be closer to home and so will all the follow up appointments along with the Physical Therapy that will have to be done.

So last night to ease stress levels a bit ... I went out and called out to the mules.

Good ol' Fred came up! He is retired, but insisted.
So we took a very slow and easy walk on the ridge.

I dismounted and walked the steep parts, but all in all, ...
well
the old boy surprised me!

Good Morning...

Sometimes the mornings are the best.
I listen to the birds, and Charlie and I have the gravel roads to ourselves.

Rarely do we have traffic anyway...but...

somehow an empty road and a tiny dog makes things look bigger and the possibilities ....
endless...

Enjoy your day.

Make an Adventure

To say that I have a 'normal' life would be somewhat of an exaggeration. What is normal?

In my mind's eye a normal person of my age and stature putters around in the morning and then has some coffee while reading the news.
Then she should prepare breakfast for her guests and set the table.

Later on, this nice little hostess would get a proper noon meal planned and sit on the porch and visit with her guests and husband.

The day would drag on to supper, chores would be done. The nice hostess would whip up an exotic supper and present it to the guests. Some nice conversation would occur around the table with cups of coffee.

Later everyone would go to bed and slumber.

Not
how it
happens
here!

I get up pre dawn and make coffee, let Charlie out and pretty soon my company starts to drift down the stairs. First comes Daryl and Scout, followed by his youngest daughter and Amanda. The dogs start to wrestle and play in the living room, so they are taken outside for a potty break.
Coffee is passed around along with some Kringle that was brought from the Racine Bakery.
We all look out the window and decide to go for a walk to look for spiders and dewy webs in the meadow.

Rubber chore boots go on over PJ pants for some...no need to dress fancy. The dogs chase each other around and around in the yard with dew drops spraying up from their legs.

We go walking in the tall weeds and grasses of the meadow and begin to spread out each person looking for webs and we begin to find many of them.

It is a bit of a fuzzy shot but then again...HOW close do I want to get to these guys or girls??? Not close!
We wander the meadow brushing up against weeds, and keeping an eye out for Charlie who is so small that he seems to disappear in the wet grasses.

Daryl gets close up and personal with the Spiders and we find dozens of small or 'baby' spiders.

We are like excited children, calling out to each other each time we find an incredible specimen.

Finally, soaked with dew, we all head back to the house for more coffee and to visit with Rich.

The kids do the chores and drag out Mt. Tank and fill it. The dogs are toweled off and we visit with Rich and have coffee and conversation. We discuss the meteor showers and decide we'll go on the ridge to try and watch them around midnight.

And that is just the start of our morning.

To be continued....