Bun Run

I took the new camera with me on my morning walk and started climbing the learning curve.

 
The bunny above is the first picture I took. I particularly liked the line of fallen trumpet vine flowers behind this alert fellow.

 

This bunny was across the street from the first one. It looked picturesque in the shade of an obliging branch. The splash of color from the red berries is a nice touch, don't you think? That rabbit knows how to pose.

It decided to put a little distance between us and I was happy that the camera caught the hop in progress without too much blurring. 

It stopped to check on me to see if I was following. I love the stance - ready to spring into action.

Which it did. Aren't the little bunny feet just the cutest? 

Are you remembering just how easily amused I am? Very.  

Anyway, that's just the beginning. I have been trying to learn about the various functions on the new camera and I'm only successful part of the time, but some of the pictures have been pretty amazing. I'll regale you with those stories another day, but I wanted to share the very first outing with the new toy. :)

Meditative Mergansers

While walking along the road beside the bay, I noticed a small group of mergansers sitting quietly and taking pleasure in the early morning calm. 

They seemed to be resting comfortably and enjoying the gentle waves lapping against their rocks and the shore. I took a quick picture to make sure I caught them meditating on their rocky roosts, since they sometimes slip into the water and paddle away when they are disturbed.

Then, I quietly stepped a little closer and zoomed in a bit for a better look. Happily, this group was completely unperturbed by my presence, though they did watch me.

I learned something interesting about mergansers as I was writing this post. I read that they can be brood parasites, meaning that they sometimes lay their eggs in another duck's nest and let that duck raise its young for it. I had no idea they were such sneaky little devil ducks. 

In other news, the new camera has arrived, so I will be trying to learn how to use it. Once I put it through its paces, I'll probably be subjecting blog visitors to more of my dubious little adventures. ;-)

Mini Mystery

 
Well, darn! I have no idea why this didn't work the first time. That really was a mystery - I'll bet you really didn't expect a blank mystery post!!

I'll try again and see if I can actually get this silly little post posted. 

As you know, Baloo is never very far from my thoughts and I frequently smile at things that would have entertained or delighted him. That being the case, I saw something out in the middle of this grassy meadow about which Baloo would have been really excited and decided that I would take a couple pictures and share a little foolishness. 

You can click on the picture to enlarge it for a better chance at spotting the thrill.  I'm still using my brother's camera, so the pictures are less detailed than my old (dead) camera would have given us, but I'm doing my best. 

But!!! The excellent news is that the camera I wanted is finally available again and I ordered it just this morning. It should be here in a few days and I'm really excited.

In case you haven't noticed, I'm also blathering along and making extra paragraphs to keep you from seeing the answer before you've had a chance to try and solve the mystery. 

Okay, now I will just throw in a few asterisks to make sure the answer photo doesn't appear at the same time as the mystery photo. 

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Baloo loved these little squeakers. He'd hear their chirp of alarm and go into full alert mode. Or, he'd see that little, brown speck twitch out in the middle of a big field and immediately want to go investigate. He knew both of those things meant that thirteen-lined ground squirrels really needed to be harassed.

That's the solution to this mini mystery. Triply mini mystery -- a mystery about why it didn't post the first time (which is unlikely to be solved), a very small mini creature and mini because I didn't make you wait an extra day for the answer. 

The whole thing made me smile and I hope it gave you a bit of a grin, too. :-)

(Sadly, the stuff I wrote last night was much more clever than this retry, but there's nothing I can do about it now.)

 

 

Crooknecks

My brother and I planted a couple different things in the gardens this year than we usually do.  We got a little packet of yellow crookneck squash seeds which turned out to be enough for three hills (which will probably be enough to feed the entire river valley).

Mother nature did the thinning for us, as the drought conditions only allowed one or two seeds to germinate and grow in each hill. We hate to kill healthy plants, so we're not very good at the whole thinning process!

Squash blossoms are dramatic and beautiful stars hidden under the abundant foliage.

These are the first sweet little baby squash we got to pick the other day. Sauteed in butter and olive oil with a little salt, pepper and oregano sprinkled on top. Yum!

The other nice thing about the yellow crookneck squash (as opposed to zucchini) is that they're a lot easier to find among the green leaves and stems. It's much harder to lose one in the foliage and have it turn into a giant sized vegetable intent on world domination.

Sneaky Snacker

 I love the red-bellied woodpeckers. They're so cute and shy and careful.

 

This one is stealthily approaching the bird feeding board in the crab apple tree to get a sunflower seed.

 

It slowly hopped down the tree, circling around and keeping a wary eye on me (standing inside the barn doorway) as it decided whether it was safe to sneak a snack.

He never actually set a foot on the board. He just worked his way down far enough to reach over and take a seed before flying off again. 

What a clever, covert little character.
 

Not Blueberries, Baloo Berries

 
There are certain things that bring Baloo to mind very vividly (not that he's ever very far from my thoughts).

 
From the very first day he came to live with me, he loved fruit. He'd drag me (he was not as well behaved a walking companion when we first met) over to cherry or apple trees to pick up anything that had fallen from the tree. That was probably one of the things he survived on when he was out in the world on his own (he also hauled me to every picnic table and park bench to hunt for fallen potato chips and bread crusts).

Baloo loved mulberry season and this year the trees out in his favorite big field are absolutely beautiful and loaded with deliciously juicy morsels. The berries are not only abundant, they are also in enough different stages to prolong the pleasure. I stop and eat a few in Baloo's honor, every time I walk by.

Mulberries are a bit too sweet to make a really good pie, in my opinion, but maybe a mulberry cobbler would be tasty. I haven't made one of those in many years. Baloo would approve of that idea -- but only if he got to lick the bowl. :)

 

Mystery Mushrooms

Earlier in the season, I found some bright orange slime growing on a cut ironwood tree. More recently, I discovered this white slime growing on another tree.

 
I can't find anything quite like it in my mushroom reference books, but I suspect it's another yeasty beastie, like the orange one that BetsyLee's friend was able to identify for us.

 

Here's another one that I can't find in my books. I come close with several possibilities, but there's nothing quite like it, so I wasn't satisfied with my efforts at identification. I do love where it's growing, though. It looks quite magical surrounded by ferns and with the dark backdrop of the cracked log behind it.

 

Going Nuts-Hatching

The white-breasted nuthatch may be a common enough bird, but they're uncommonly cute and quite feisty. They're also a lot of fun to watch.

I often call them "merp", because that's the sound they make over and over again as they're making their way down the tree (usually head-first) to get to the feeding shelf. 

 
In the colder months, when food isn't quite so plentiful,  these bold birds will come in (merp-ing all the way) to take peanuts out of our hands. My brother and I like to see how many different kinds of birds we can bribe entice to hand feed with peanuts - so far we've had chickadees (always curious and very fond of peanuts), nuthatches (both white and pink-breasted), titmice, downy woodpeckers and we've had red-bellied woodpeckers and rose breasted grosbeaks come really close, but not quite.

 
The titmouse has joined in the fun at the feeding board, selecting from the banquet of sunflower seeds before them.

It's a serious decision - which seed to take and hide this time around... Many birds will just grab and go, but the nuthatch ponders all the possibilities before committing to a particular course of action.


 

Bird-Brained Baby

This young downy woodpecker managed to get trapped between the screen and the sliding glass door to the back yard.

 
He wasn't quite sure what to do with himself (you can tell he's a male by the patch of red that's starting to show on top of his addled little head). 

 

 
I took a couple pictures from inside the kitchen and then walked around the house from the front to rescue him from his plight. I was able to reach between the doors and gently grab his confuzzled self without any difficulty. He then pretty rapidly regained his wits and flew on his merry way. 

He was cute, if a bit goofy.

 

Festival of Races

The climax of the National Cherry Festival is happening today, starting with the Festival of Races. There are four races going at the same time - a 5K, 10K, 15K and half marathon. They all start at different times in different places and the finish line is at the Cherry Festival parade grounds and thousands of people line up to cheer the runners on, especially the last couple of miles, but my neighbors and I came out to encourage them at the beginning of their race. 

 
The half marathon started about two miles from my house and ran through my neighborhood early this morning. Here's the pacemaker bicycle and the first runners coming down my street.

 
They kicked off the half marathon at an area school and one of the cherry growers mowed a trail for them through the orchard, fields and woods on their property, so they ran cross-country for the first mile and a half.

They were saying that the run through the orchard was amazing, since the growers haven't harvested the cherries yet, and they are absolutely beautiful with the bright red fruit against the dark green foliage.

If your enlarge either of the last two pictures, you will be able to see runners emerging from the woods at about the center of the picture.

At the end of my street, the course turns back and goes down to the road that leads back to town along the shore. That gives the participants a long stretch of waterfront to enjoy as they race along. Also, the weather was perfect this morning, with it being cloudy and in the 50s when the race began.

I took my walk in the opposite direction, once the last racer went by and I could cheer her on her way. 

It's always fun to take advantage of the road being closed to traffic for a few hours - Baloo and I did it every year, too. He loved getting to walk along the bay without worrying about the cars.  

Catcalls!

While out on a recent morning ramble, I heard a catbird in the woods and thought I would see if I could call it in to say hello.

 
The catbird is another mimic, like the brown thrasher or the mockingbird, so one usually hears it singing all the other birds' songs. It has its own little mewling call, though, and if you imitate it, the bird will come out the foliage to see who is invading its territory.

 
I must have been close to a nest, because both the male and female came out to investigate the interloper. It was a real treat to have them come in for a chat. Happily, they didn't seem too bothered by me, once they realized I wasn't building my own nest in the neighborhood and I was able to get at least a couple decent pictures to share.
 

Happy Independence Day!

On my morning walk yesterday, I saw one of my neighbors' houses draped with bunting and flying the flag. I thought it would be a cheerful salute to the day. (I also saw three baby bunnies, but they were quick to take cover.)

Happy Independence Day!

A Panoply of Poults

I went on a small adventure early Sunday morning. There is a fairly new conservation area that was along my morning errand route and on my way home I decided to explore a little bit to see what kind of trails might be available for wandering. 

They are still working on reclaiming what was once a golf course and repopulating it with native plants and letting the natural watershed take the place of water hazards and other diversions. They are even using a small herd of goats to eradicate the autumn olives that have taken over large parts of the area. Apparently, goats aren't troubled by thorns. 

Anyway, I got to see some wildlife right from the beginning, with deer ducking into cover as I got out of the car. There were cedar waxwings, an overlook to an eagle's nest and a pair of muskrats in one of the above mentioned water hazards that's returning to the wild side. Finally, as I was getting close to the car to head for home, I saw a little rafter of turkey poults beside the trail. (Yes, rafter is the collective noun for wild turkeys - sometimes domestic ones, too.)

They were small (and also really cute), so they must have been from a second try at nesting.

I was surprised that their mom wasn't right with them, but they had ventured out of the tall grass before she did.

We stopped and looked at each other and they didn't seem too concerned about me as they waited for their guardian to emerge. 

See what I mean about their size? The others I have seen were at least twice that size and that was a couple weeks ago.

The little ones would fly for a few feet and land again to join the rest of the clan.

There were at least seven of them and it seemed like more - I think one or two might have ducked into the grass before I got this picture. 

I waited for them all to wander down the trail and find safe cover so they wouldn't panic and get separated. 

I'm hoping some of the hens on our family property are good moms this year. With bears, coyotes, bobcats, hawks and eagles, they have a lot of predators out to try and eat them. We're hoping for the best.