Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Since we’ve gotten back to Big A-town, we’ve had to eradicate spiders who took up residence in the house while we were gone (our own local, household version of move-on-dot-org). This colorful fellow/lady, thankfully, was outdoors.
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Amazingly, the weather’s turned cool, and I’m not hearing the buzz of the cicadas that I heard all summer even through closed windows (hmm, maybe we need to upgrade our windows).
Wednesday, 5 September 2007
Like these geese we saw veeing up in the UP, we got the migratory bug. Today we made it across Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee, to land once again here in ATL.
Gotta get the pasta in the boiling water, or I’d write more….
PS That’s code for “I’m too tired and brain-dead to compose a coherent thought….”
Sunday, 2 September 2007
We were busy busy until 3:30 in the afternoon getting the water turned off, the pump and house drained, the curtains pulled, and all manner of other chores for closing the cottage for (gulp) the winter.
Sigh.
Another year’s passage is duly marked, witnessed by this toad hanging out on the lip of the water barrel.
Sunday, 19 August 2007
Sometimes, in that post-Victorian life-of-leisure style, we have cocktail hour here at the “farm” and multiple households unite for a “snort.” Today we perched on the bluff above the lake, very civilized, and chatted and laughed for quite a while. Bored with our conversation, I guess, and with his poodle playmate ensconced on a lap, the puppy trotted around checking smells and eventually found a dead soldier and mauled it about for quite a while….
Monday, 13 August 2007
Why do we perceive sunflowers as offering a happy face to the world? I think we react to their vibrant color and stunning size, and perhaps even their tendency to follow the sun in its daily circuit, and feel a positive vibe.
Or something.
For those keeping score, last night jcb removed a bat from our bedroom for the second time this summer. Tada-dada-dada, Batman!
Friday, 10 August 2007
Our photographic safari to Seney Refuge with KW and GG produced several hundred images from four still cameras—one apiece! Note our New Camera, delivered here courtesy of Amazon right after we arrived. It has more zoom and wide-angle capabilities, and faster shutter cycling (whatever that’s called); generally, a huge pleasure. The only major (if this indeed is major) drawback is that the lens cap needs a tether (no camera store for 90 miles or so). We’ve become habituated to the small cameras with no separate lens cover, and struggle to remember….
As to critter sightings, mostly birds and rodents. Did see Sandhills this time around, but no super photos, just ones where you can see the red eye patch and general shape, but no details. (You see, the new fab camera’s modest-capacity chip had been filled by then.)
Of special note: we enjoyed our first picnic out of the New Prius!
If you didn’t know us, you’d think from this entry (New this, New that…) we are big consumers, when in reality, we spend much of the year not buying much besides groceries and paying utilities and the like.
Sunday, 5 August 2007
Over at the Seney Refuge, late in the afternoon, but by no means at sunset, we saw the usual complement of birds, and not much else on the long loop of the driving tour (skipped the welcome center; we’ll stop next time). A couple of turtles. Very few Canada geese. Several family clusters of trumpeter swans, heads stained orange-brown by the tannic waters. Almost no ducks, grebes, or coots. Water levels are low, as across the UP and into Ontario. Not good for nesting. Or myriad other things.
Ah, that “mallard”—wrong! It was a male ring-necked pheasant! I finally got a good look at ’im. Now I know why the “duck” walked/ran so far!
Ya gotta give me a break on this mis-ID; I haven’t seen a pheasant in a while—vigilant wildlife officers and hunters have intentionally extirpated them in Georgia. After all, they’re not native to the Americas.
Saturday, 4 August 2007
All my life we’ve been finding artifacts in the lake. Today’s most interesting find was this spoon, unfortunately plain, lacking a monogram or any maker’s mark that I spotted.
As I ascended the bluff from the lake, I startled a critter that ran away from me through tall grass (unmowed), then scuttled across the mowed trail that links the steps to the lake with the houses. From the sound it had a woodchuck size, but moved pretty fast and noisy for a woodchuck. It was larger than a rat or rabbit, and lower to the ground than a deer. As I got to top of the steps, I saw the critter just before it disappeared around a corner. Male mallard. I would never have guessed!
Friday, 3 August 2007
Here in the Northland, we’ve been greeted by various species of wildlife. Two fawns came gingerly through the backyard. We saw a woodchuck considering crossing the road over near Curtis. We’ve seen Canada geese here and there. Same with seagulls, robins, cardinals, and assorted other birds. In the lake we saw minnows, but no leeches (thankfully).
Without a doubt the most exciting critter sighting was the bat that appeared in the bedroom about seven the other morning. A bat’s better than coffee to get your blood flowing and your brain percolating as the sun rises! I’d been awake for a while reading, so if s/he had been there, s/he had been absolutely quiet. I have no idea where they’re getting in; each year for the last three years we’ve had one visit.
John, enjoying pre-coffee morning ablutions downstairs, flew up the stairs after I screeched, to find me crouched near the floor (it’s a low-ceilinged room), as the bat tried perching on different walls. The Guru saved me, getting a paper grocery bag and gently capturing the bat without harming it, carrying it carefully outside, where it took off into the early morning sky, probably saying to him/herself, well, I’ll try somewhere quieter to nap the day away!