Yesterday and today...

I used to love to sing...I was never particularly good at it, but it sure did make me feel good to try.  So tonight I sang acapella, Memory, from the Broadway musical, CATS,  to my dogs...Im happy they didn't begin to howl...lol  I Love Barbara Streisand's version ...I just don't hear her music much anymore.  

If you're familiar with the play, Grizabella has been ostracized by the fellow cats, And she is lonely and in much sadness.  The play is actually very moving and the costumes are amazing.   I watched a DVD version of the play...If you have never seen it I recommend it.  

Lately I have been going way back in time digging up memories...one line in the song says... "When the dawn comes, tonight will be a memory too, and a new day will begin." Each day we are creating the past the future is only alive in our thoughts...Actually when you think about it there is only Then and now.  There is NO future!! Wow. 

We definitely had winter this year.  By northern standards it was a cake walk but nothing is colder than a damp cold, the type we had.  So I feel like I've been curled up in a blanket for nearly a month.  Time to uncurl!

First of the year Ring Necked Ducks seen on Monday in a pond by the highway...

Soon enough Im sure I will be complaining about the heat, such is life eh? 

This little White Throated Sparrow will soon be heading back to breeding grounds up north and the birds in the tropics will be moving in here to take their  place...I hope

"It's so easy to leave me all alone with my memories of my days in the sun."

Today it was nice and warm so I took a walk around I haven't been going very far these days, seems Im completely content to just be at home with my simple life.  There was a beautiful crow on the ground this morning..

Then later in the day I had to go out and so I stopped at the Sewage Ponds, one part has been restored to a natural area...So I walked one of the trails around, found this Swamp Sparrow..

Moving  by the cattails lots of Song Sparrow skittered around they don't fly far and sometimes one would perch up to see what all the disturbance is about...

These two birds look  very similar but if you look closely one has streaks and a strong dot on the chest and the other does not.  

When the Sparrows leave and the Summer Tanager and the Flycatchers arrive the heat comes with them...up from the tropics..

 I left the ponds and went by the river to see what was out, a Bald Eagle flew over headed North but too far for a photo so I concentrated on the Double Crested Cormorants swimming and diving in the water.

I'm keeping this short since I posted on Wednesday give you guys a break, and thank you all for your visits.
Have a Happy Valentine's day...eat chocolate, stop and smell the flowers, and feed the birds!

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

2022 What Kind of Year will it be?

Monday there was an 3.3 Earthquake in our area...and that is the 10th quake we have had since Nov of this year...this epicenter was about 18 miles away from my house....In 1886 in the month of August a Quake destroyed Charleston, SC and killed 60 people.  They estimate it was a 6.9-7.3 in strength....the shock wave was felt as far away as Boston, Mass. 

I want to do a time lapse something I haven't tried yet, so soon I want to make one.

Tonight we have a red sky...and it seems peaceful.  I have felt quakes before and it normally sounds and feels like a big truck going by and vibrating the house...I did not feel the one today as I had just arrived at home from a day out and about but I had been much closer to the epi center earlier in the day by the river...

Anyways...one never knows what Mother nature has in store for us.  

Here's our State Bird, the Carolina Wren. My New Yrs Resolution is to use less plastic packaging in the future...starting NOW...I use as little as possible but there is a lot of room for improvement..

Like buying my vegs in bulk that is not prepackaged...BUT don't reach for that thin film...some stores recycle it but most don't bring your own paper "lunch" bag to put your fresh produce in...and if it's gonna be something heavy get some Paper grocery bags at the entrance to the store or bring your own to reuse from home.  AND do reuse your shopping bags or bring your own..

The bulk laundry det. in plastic jugs,...or those pops in plastic wrap just don't buy it you can still buy detergent in a cardboard box...that is bio-degradable, and sustainable,  and most of the time recyclable. You can premix in water to be sure its dissolved prior to adding it to the tub of your washer....AND there's other alternatives online the little sheet that you simply toss in very little packaging involved but it's pricey.  

...a young Buck was hanging out behind the fence on Christmas Day...

This  really fine White Throated Sparrow paused from his work of seed picking...

 ...and a Golden Crowned Kinglet showed off his gold crest but moved...

I have enjoyed the ease of the steam in the bag, but Im not doing that anymore...I will buy fresh and steam it the old fashioned way....
Some products I eat like Veggie Sausage comes  in those NOT recyclable zip top bags, I plan to phase that out and find my own recipe for making my own veggie sausage veggie burgers, etc.  

the Kinglet liked the sound of my camera as it tried to focus on him...

Lake Bee has been closed for over a year so they finally opened it back up and put in a brand new deck. They put in a new dam overflow, made repairs to the earthen dam, repaired the shoreline, and tore down the old deck.   The old deck was made of that composite stuff it did NOT hold up....and they closed it for a year before giving up on it....

I was glad to see the area open again I was able to walk back to the wetland where there is/was a small beaver dam...I want to stop in the HQ one day and ask about their policy on Beaver, because I see signs of beaver, 
 then I see signs of disturbance of their dams also....

Are they welcomed or not is my question? 

We had a wide variety of weather events this week and today it's raining, I saw this Red Shouldered Hawk in one of the trees so snapped this window shot...he didn't sit long, by the time I jockeyed for a better look he was gone...

I hope everyone has a peaceful New Years Eve and Day.

2022,  sounds like it came out of a Sci-Fi story but it's for real.  Sometimes it feels like we are living in a sci-fi story, if only we could see into the future.

We can plan, we can prepare, we can try, and we can do our very best and at the end of the day we have to accept the reality of the choices we make across the board. 

Happy New Year and may we each have Many More!

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

State Line Fields

 I took a drive to a neighboring area to visit, some  large FIELDS.

When I go anywhere it's never to a mall, a restaurant, a movie, or a grand opening, 

its either a cemetery, a sewage pond,  a corn field,  a rocky shore line, a salt marsh,  or a swamp...

On This day It was a huge wide open field, where people had been reporting the American Golden Plover.  I had not seen an A. Golden since the late 90's on a sod farm Southwest of me, so I figured it was time to see them again.    The fields were huge,  I had my scope if I needed it,  but they ended up being about 90 ft from the road so I saw them with my binoculars and I counted 18 birds but could only get a group shot of 14 so I went with a count of 14 to be safe,  a Northern Harrier scattered them after I had about 20 minutes to try for photos.  

This is a heavy crop of  4 of them grouped together, you want to look for wingtips that extend well beyond the tail, and a broad white line above the eye and in breeding plumage  that line in the male becomes almost a large backwards S down the neck and onto the chest. This is non breeding plumage birds.  This is the closest shot I got, the wind just wouldn't allow me to get a sharp focus...

You can see the big dark eyes,  I enjoyed being out in the open without trees blocking my view....

It's only a 44 minute drive, and the dirt road passes over into North Carolina...here is where I crossed the State Line..

  

Some others saw lots of Horned Lark also, I didn't see a single one! These fields were huge...I did see Some White Throated Sparrow, 

Eastern Towhee, 

And the Savannah Sparrow, 

Several  Song Sparrow 

And about 21 species all together It was a good day for a drive in the country. 

that was earlier in the week....

Today I took the painted rock up to Mary's Hill...the rock I chose is one I brought with me from Colorado, it's a very 3 dimensional rock...

This is the south end of the rock 

The view today was very nice as the last of the fall color is still hanging on the trees down the slope...

On the upper part of the rock I painted in a rainbow, 

A little hard to see I sprayed it with some gloss Finish to protect the paint so hopefully it won't fade off too fast....there's some trees, a pond, and some flowers on the rock, it's a landscape of what we always enjoyed about  the trips we made to Sandhills thru the years...

I placed it at the foot of this tall pine that over looks the hill..on the upper side of the dirt road...

See the one in  center with a long limb pointing down to the right...

And here it is....

The really special thing is as I started out this morning to drive over, a dark cloud came up fast and it began to sprinkle and I had to turn on the wipers for a few minutes then this came out...

That is the one and only rainbow I've seen all year long...

I took it as a HUG....

Hope you all have a fine Thanksgiving if you're celebrating.  

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.

Fact or Fantasy

Fact: Rant off the bat:
I found yet another dead beaver! That's the 3rd in the past 6 months...and all on the same  road, but a few miles apart.  So upsetting to me.  When I read about how important they are to the creation of forest, I just can't believe people don't recognize that importance!  They are natural forest builders...part of a system as old as time!  So remember Beavers are GOOD! People who exterminate them are BAD! SO its the Dept of Agriculture that is killing our beaver! I found a notice attached to a tree It basically said they set traps and those traps and ANY animal in the trap is the property of the Dept of AG,..oh I beg to differ!  I better not find one in a trap...

    I took this in MN back in 2016, and I picked up some of those wood chips "beaver chewed wood"

Fact: Simple Solutions:
Well it's the beginning of another week...my son JT and I got Mom's front yard all ready for spring... we removed as many leaves as we could and yet there is still plenty left behind.  Our soil is so sandy and acidic. We have all the deciding factors to make soil acidic...high organic decay, (leaf matter) leeching due to high rainfall amounts, acidic parent matter, like pine needles...and in the past planting/harvesting of high yielding cotton!  So I sprinkle my fireplace ash on the yard it helps to balance the ph of the soil. 

Fantasy: Will the Groundhog see his shadow or not. It's barely been winter up to now. Whether Phil sees his shadow or not, I predict an early end to winter!  Soon we will have 2 seasons, HOT and HOTTER...Heavy snowfall does not mean the planet is not warming, to the contrary it means the opposite,  a warmer planet means more moisture! Ah-ha!  Of course if you're a climate change denier, you will argue that point and that will just  make my brain hurt more...HUH? This white-tailed deer was right outside my window this morning...she def had no shadow but if she came by an hour later she would have and then an hour after that she would not...ping/pong/Punxsutawney Phil.

I've been going bonkers over sparrows lately...Like this really red Fox Sparrow.

And a very red Song Sparrow




And a cute little Field Sparrow...dig that eye ring!



And a White-Throated Sparrow up high...dig that yellow!

In order for color to exist we need Sunlight! 

And I got a new bird in my 5 mile radius today, the Radius Challenge ended on Dec 31st, Today it was #125 The House Wren!  I wasn't fully able to conclude the last two months of the challenge Nov and Dec was like a foggy dream to me...However I want to continue to keep track of my 5 mile patch. Of all the  participants 20 really happy people had 200+ birds in their 5 mile! A Texas Birder had 271----> WOW!

 It would be fantastic if we could have this blue sky every minute of every day! As the Planet warms up moisture builds so we will see less blue cloudless skies! Eventually I imagine we will have blankets of clouds layered thickly between us and the Blue of the Blue Planet...I can imagine some sort of craft that takes humans up to see this magnificent Blue Sky that once was visible but is no longer. I can also imagine each year this craft will have to go higher and higher until it becomes obsolete because there is no more blue...Our planet will become a moss and mushroom covered dreary damp place.  Heavy moisture will give humans lung disease.  Every day will be a bad hair day.  We will no longer be living in wooden homes, those will decay and fall down!  It will have to be stone or some type of synthetic stone. We may develop gills think "Water World."  Some will think a Rainbow was only a myth.

All sorts of Super Viral Bugs will kill millions as they flourish in a damp humid environment. The trees will fail as many are not well suited for that type moisture.  Shallow roots will give way when even a gently breeze comes along. Trees need lots of sunlight to make food and to go through the seasonal changes. Fruit trees, and crops will fail.  Heavy wet winter snow will break and damage trees, roofs, roads, and the ground. Earth slides will become a daily  danger.  Eventually it becomes too warm for winter to exist, Jungle Rains will bring erosion and  will leech and change growing fields into muddy wastelands! Not a very good place to live...wow I think I could write a fiction novel about the Earth before and after..or will it be fantasy?

Cherished souvenir: beaver chewed wood from MN.

Monday it rained part the day...Tuesday it rained overnight...Friday a complete rain out.  How's your weather?  We currently are reaping what we have sown. Cause and Effect.


Fact: The US Senate and the Potus should realize...Karma is the Ultimate Judge in our Universe! ;o)

PEACE

Every day is a new Adventure.