A Time For Every Season

And this one happens to be FALL...

Well I guess you see I did not get a blog together for my 6 am posting plan...so this is late but as the old saying goes better late than never? 

 

This long tailed skipper is missing part of his tail looks like he had a tough summer!  Still he has not given up he is making do.  That is what I am the Queen of make do...

The American Beauty bushes have their fall berries, and it's cooled considerable and so fall is official here..

A Painted Lady graced my path this week...the Golden Rod is at peak now along with the other field wild flowers...

Brown headed nuthatch are plentiful at the feeders right now...

I've been very busy with some personal business this week...so can't say I've been very present in my own small world, sometimes you are forced out of it... and I've started trying to make my van look a little bit better, right now it looks like a tired old has been but I hope my improvements will make it look more like a badass adventure mobile...lol so we'll see. 

Yes it's time for ripe persimmon and the deer have been in the field looking for it...

Still hanging in there! This was the last one I saw I think they are gone for the season now..

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Now and Then

 Blogger?? so on the new one how can I set my font so it stays to the one I want and the size I want? Anyone know? And I can't drag and drop photos in the new blogger..there's sliders all over I want only ONE slider or scroll bar...all that that makes it undesirable. So I switched back to legacy in order to make a post. I have a long list of dislikes.  But what's the use? 

Another slow week up to now...

ever get the feeling you're just tracks in the sand?




I took a walk this morning, but with the humidity up again due to the storms in the gulf... my lens was foggy, so I had to edit these photos to get any saturation to show up.

lots of beautiful butterflies finding the fall flowers that line the dirt road, I really enjoyed watching them, mostly they were Little Yellow, and Southern Dogface, Cloudless Sulfur, Buck Eye, and Gulf Fritillary.

The Golden rod is nice right now and many other flowers that I don't know the name of but it's so colorful along with various sedge and grasses.   

The blue herons were at the vernal pool it's sort of low right now but I guess that's how they like it...too far for a decent look but I was happy to see them. 

 Another wonderful thing about this time of year is all the seed heads ready for birds to eat and to reseed the area for next year. Like this tall dandelion...

More seed heads....

The American Crow is out every morning patrolling the area, making sure no hawks are around, these 3 chased away a Red Shouldered Hawk over by the tree line just after this shot was taken...

Still the fires burn, and here we have yet another hurricane breezing through giving us gallons of fresh water...2-5 inches of rain expected today and tomorrow...  

OH I dragged this photo in! Hello. 

I could not sleep last night...no matter how tired my eyes got they would not stay closed...so I brought out one of my old journals written during the Months of July- Sept of 2017.  Roughly 3 yrs ago...My Mom and I were staying at my little sis's empty house  in CO; she had not yet retired and the house sat empty so we enjoyed that time there together before I returned to SC and Mom stayed there with my big sis. 

My favorite tree on the Hill


Photo below taken on 9/6/2017 we were driving up to Maroon Bells, you can drive your own car up if you go after 5 or 6 pm and we had Mom who had be on Oxygen so this was taken on way into the Maroon Bells Wilderness...I looked up some photos of the space and time my journal covered and these are some of the events I had written about.

The Bells in the distance behind the smokey haze being blown in on the winds.

... fire seems to be a regular occurrence about this time of year, this was taken on Sept 7, 2017  Below, from the house on the hill, The setting sun with a smokey haze around it..

 

You can barely see the Hogbacks  on the horizon line 

So I looked for the 17th of Sept 2017, which is today I am wrapping up this post and getting it ready to post tomorrow and this is where I was  on the 17th, 3 yrs ago... Monument Rocks Kansas!

Earth, Wind, or Fire! 

Then on exactly 3 yrs ago today I was at Cheyenne Bottoms NWR in Great Bend Kansas...taking a  photo of this Peregrine Falcon. 9/18/2020  

One more week in September remains! Can you like get your head around that? I almost can not, time is slipping away. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

FUNK?

The weather has shifted a little still warm but lower humidity and every now and then even some cool air whisps past me.  I've been playing catch up with a lot of deferred jobs.  My camera is sitting with a dead battery...and I have no desire to charge it, sadly...so I dug thru the archives. 

Jackson lake State Park, in Colorado, I camped under this tree and had about 1,000 gypsy moths invade my van!

It will be time to hang up the yard maintenance tools and drag out the firewood cutting tools..in fact I've already started...some pieces of wood I have been collecting that were long I've been cutting to size.

Still a lot of deer still hanging out in my pasture they bed down out there and you can see the big crop circle where they curl up and sleep..we don't have any of these in the East wish we did..

Pronghorn in the Sagebrush Walden, Colorado 2018

Last Friday my Mom's best Friend passed away (age 96) so I attended her funeral...that was sad.  The line keeps moving of the people I know...it's almost like I can hear some ghastly voice saying, "NEXT". 

This  really upsets me, she has 2 sons..both married.  She was living with one son and his wife had the duty of caregiver...but  as soon as Nettie moved out of her home and moved in with the youngest son, the Older son with  his wife moved into Nettie's vacant house...SO my question is WHY couldn't he have made that move when his mother was there and wanted to Stay in her own  home?  Shame on anyone who does that!! I really didn't want to hug him at the funeral I wanted to smack him!! But I didn't because I know he was  hurting.

American Goldfinch 2011

MISSING

yellow throated warbler in the yard June 2011

I have not been motivated to go birding or traveling...I think all the "stuff" Nationally and personally just has me in a vice, I am however enjoying the birds that I see around me, I just have no motivation to go looking beyond my little acres... hope that changes soon as even better weather is expected next week. 

I guess you could say Im in a Funk, remember that word.  Or maybe it's one of those force fields that has a hold over me...I dunno but it stinks. It's like I don't want to go out and see the donkeys without a mask on that makes me angry, and I don't want to see the jackasses with the Trump flags off the back of their pick ups, and 6 ft away is not far enough.  I'd have to drive 3,000 miles to get away from the RED state and the Surrounding Red States! I think election depression is setting in on me.

ruby throated 2011

There was 5 hummers around the feeder a few days ago now I'm seeing only 3 now soon they will be off to their winter feeding grounds!

When I was a kid I used to stomp tin cans on my feet and pretend I was a wild horse...and I was instantly transported to anyplace in the whole world...I want to be a wild horse again...

Trying to forget the stuff I saw on 9-11 that's why I rarely mention it when the date rolls around -----19 yrs ago ...boy I wish I could erase those horrible memories (RIP💓) but then be careful what you wish for...forgetting is going around.  

                                                                       Night photography 2015

So this was a slight transgression  of my normal post of My Art, or My Journey but it sure fit the bill of My Life currently.  Hope things in your life are leaning more positive...it gives me something to strive toward..;o)

I am so saddened by all the wildfires in the West people losing the homes they cherish and their sanctuary from the madness that can exist outside that sanctuary.  AND I think of all the animals and birds and how it affects them.  I wish I could send some rain in that direction.  Early snow in the CO Rockies helped with the fires there mostly contained now..

Jimmy is getting good reports on his vet visits and in 2 weeks the cone can come off.

So that's my thoughts this week...just little things stung together.  Share some of yours with me...

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Sept Still HOT

MY orchard is in the ground...wish me luck.  I will need it, the very first night some leaves were munched off the Apple trees and I saw deer track in the freshly dug soil!  I put yellow caution tape all over them it looks like a murder scene! Fortunately that won't hurt the trees as the leaves will fall anyways I just want to protect the branches.  One of the Apples had a baby coming up in the bucket,  it has a good root system so I  planted it to...so 3 Apple Trees!
We had rain yesterday filled my 30 gallon rain barrel in like 15 minutes! 

 The white thing floats so critters can escape...now it's full I put the lid on to keep skeeters from breeding. 

and in dog gone good news my sister M, is a dog foster parent and she has decided to adopt the current foster she has..meet Nala a super beautiful girl!!



Im so happy! She sounds like an energetic dog who is fun to play with and a great walking pal.  And there is another doggie friend in our world and I think she has made a place in E's heart so now Jimmy (who is improving and getting the best care ever) has a yard mate, her name is Patches, and  I hear she is super sweet, she was homeless and my sis opened the gate and said come on it...

Nala is Doberman and Patches is a Cattle Dog I think,,Both very lucky girls!!
Mom just got 2 new grand dogs! ;o)

This is an immature Male Yellow Billed Cuckoo...I was happy to see 2 of them in the yard.  The adult I could not get a clear shot of...but this young one was visible.

He was sitting at an odd angle with his back to me, so  you can't really see just how long he is! They are actually bigger than a Blue Jay...



And almost at the same time along came an immature Great Crested Flycatcher! Another of the bigger sized yard birds, both of these species are Migratory birds and they will soon be gone! 

You can't see it here but this bird has a lemony colored belly and is a very attractive bird when in full color with those hues of rusty brown and tan, and yellow.

Im suffering for photos so this is just a photo of some of the many cards I have saved over the years...this is all full so now I have a box I'm filling.  I started saving my cards in 2005 but I have some in here much older than that..

I made a quick stop at the Riverside Park, which has been renamed Veteran's Park...they did all sort of improvements that did nothing to make it better for birding...in fact probably made it less attractive to birds.

They made a kayak launch and it says no fishing off the dock but people were...I don't think the County Council that oversaw this project got any community input on how this land could be used...There was picnic tables, now there is only one...there was shady riverside trails now there are none, there was interesting plants and edges, all mowed down.. They improved the entrance, put in all sorts of nursery plants, and yet I think some native plants would have been better and cost less to maintain.
...one especially nice tree that used to be along the forest trail they bull dozed down really made me sad.  It was an old tree that made an arch over the trail. 

Sis and Jimmy Dec 2019 under the arch tree

In the clear cut on my 5 miles has 2  vernal pools and today I saw 2 Little Blue Herons  there  when I drove to do errands, I did not have my camera, but it's a new bird for the clear cut area. 72 species so far. 

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.