Warm Weather!

 The rain has stopped! At least for now. Today was warm and sunny. The last several days have been dry, if not warm. But there is still plenty of snow we can see on the hills south of us. I even mowed the lawn... it was very high. The tulips are finally unfurling but I have yet to take flower photos. Instead I've been taking bird photos, now that I've regained some of the energy that disappeared while I was sick.

Every morning while milking and feeding goats, I watch and listen for birds outside the barn... well, sometimes inside now that the Barn Swallows are back. I keep lists in my little Rite in the Rain notebook, then transfer that data to e-bird under their "incidental" category... meaning I'm not just watching birds. I'm doing something else (milking goats) and just note whatever birds I happen to see/hear.

For the last two days, e-bird (a Cornell Ornithology site that birders across the nation use) has been insisting that the Fox Sparrow I list cannot be because it would be rare here at this time of year. In a normal year, the Fox Sparrows (we had three of them here all winter) would have left by now for their northern breeding territories. Two of them have. But one is still hanging out, eating the seed I throw in front of the barn every morning.

So yesterday afternoon, I went back out with my camera and took photos of the "rare" Fox Sparrow. And, while I was at it, any other bird that would hold still. We have 4 swallow species working on nests here. 

Our daily "Rare" Fox Sparrow:

 "Our" swallows:

 

Cliff Swallows working on mud nest

 

Barn Swallow

 

Tree Swallow

 

Violet-green Swallow

 And just in case e-bird decides all these Golden-crowned Sparrows we have should have moved north to nest by now, I took a photo of one of them... This one may have some White-crowned Sparrow in its genes since the back half of it's head stripe is white instead of gold.

 

 Here is a bonafide White-crowned Sparrow

 

 It was 80 here today, but I was at the cool beach doing my Beached Bird Survey for April. This Killdeer was perfectly happy to pose for as many photos as I wanted to take. I don't think I've ever seen a Killdeer on the beach before.

 

 Life is good again. Flowers are blooming, birds are singing. Happy Spring at last!

 

 

 

 

 

Hard Times on the Farm

 Into every life a little rain must fall. So said my mother. She also said "This, too, shall pass." Okay, I'm ready for the rain to pass, also the sadness and sickness. Friends have died. Goats have died. Johnny and I both got some nasty virus that had me down for 3 weeks. Johnny had to do the goat milking for much of that time. I am now functional again but not up to par. And the weather has been lousy.

So Easter passed with no giant eggs this year, the lawn llama was retired to the garden shed, and few photos were taken. Johnny, however, dyed eggs his traditional way and sent this email and photo to family:

"Made Easter eggs using MY Grandmother Fink's method.  Boiled them in pan with dry onion skins.  They get the prettiest brown color.  My grandpa would hide them outside around the yard just as we returned from the early morning church service.  Minutes after arriving Grandpa would rush into the room reporting he had just seen the Easter bunny outside.  We'd rush outside and find eggs hidden all over.  We believed him year after year about seeing the bunny because the eggs were still warm!   The fact that some were almost hot never fazed us.  True believers never question or doubt their Grandpa!"

...Grandpa Johnny

In good news on the farm, the first doe to kid had a lovely doeling. She also had a dead buckling. And so it has gone... But the doe kid is cute and healthy.

After several weeks of illness, I was able to drive the EZ Go down to the newly mowed (by Johnny) Qi Gong meadow, which I hope to turn into a wildflower meadow, and check on the trail camera I put up in the woods there a month earlier. I was hoping to see wild things since no domestics can get there (allegedly).

Well, there was one deer. The Black Angus calf had come through the fence from a neighbor, our dog and horse seem to be able to go anywhere, although we have tried and are trying to keep them contained.

A week or so later, the weather and my health were finally good enough for me to hike into the woods looking for birds and wildflowers... and finding both.

These Ruby-crowned Kinglets were feeding in the bushes across the creek (which is river-sized now from all the rain). I took photos as I could see them and then blew the photos way up to find the bird. Not the best photos, but I did get a little of the ruby crown on this first one!

That sunny afternoon was a gift. The next day we awoke to snow. Here is the view out the kitchen window.

And from the milkroom window in the barn...

But after snow flurries and light rain, the sky cleared and we had some sun again.

Here's to a sunnier, warmer, healthier spring from here on out.

Trail Camera photos!

 For Christmas, I bought each of us a trail camera. Okay, so I bought them both for me to put up and monitor but I wrapped one for Johnny and one for me. Life, as usual, got busy and I didn't get either one up until a week ago or so. Today I finally took the card out and put it into my computer to see what the camera had seen. Of course, since it was trained on the driveway, it got lots of cars going in and out, also our tractors and EZ Go carts... 85 photos in fact. I have deleted most but thought it would be fun to see a little of the driveway activity... in the snow. I love that it gives me the temperature as well as date and time.

Johnny on his way up the driveway to get the mail

Plowing so friend Suue will be able to drive in later (see previous blog post).

Friend Suue driving in from Portland in her rental car..

Friend Suue driving out the next day on her way to the Portland convention

Johnny on the big tractor after sawing off 3 leaning trees

Johnny back on the Kubota spreading gravel on the driveway

 Too bad I didn't think about having the 3 of us stand in front of the trail camera to get a photo. Suue was unsuccessful in getting a selfie of us with her magic phone... her arms would not reach far enough to capture all of us! We are so last century.

 

Now I will go put the cameras up where they might actually see wildlife, instead of our life. It's been years since we've had working trail cameras. It was fun to see deer and bears and bobcats, along with horses, dogs and miscellaneous birds, etc. Here are some of those earlier photo captures: https://lindafink.blogspot.com/2011/11/where-wild-things-are.html

 

 

Bad Weather and a Wonderful Friend from Afar

 Long time friend Suue (known as Sue to everyone but me), flew in to Portland for a conference. She works as a volunteer at a wildlife refuge near her in Maryland. The organization that provides volunteers who work at refuges have a conference somewhere every year. This year it is in Portland, Oregon, so Suue decided to fly out early and visit us. Alas, the snow storm hit when her flight arrived in Chicago and the Portland Airport shut down. However she was able to get here the next day when the airport reopened. She rented a car and drove bravely down here. Johnny had plowed out our driveway so it was navigable.

Our electric EZ Go (golf carts) turned out to be excellent snowmobiles so we were able to drive her to the barn to see handsome buck Freddie and through the arboretum. She had been here four years ago but, as I reminded her, never in the snow! 

I was scheduled to pick up native plants that I had ordered on Saturday, way down in Corvallis. So we all swooped down there in amazingly sunny, dry weather. (Made me realize that we really do live in the Coast Range mountains and valley dwellers have different weather.) "Swooping" is what a gang of friends in college did during college breaks. Suue and Johnny and I were all part of that gang. Suue and I had been horse-crazy friends in high school and were roommates in college. 

We took the back way home and stopped in Dallas (Oregon, not Texas) for delicious Mexican food at our favorite restaurant there. Suue says there are no good ethnic restaurants in her area of Maryland. And they also don't have all the ethnic food trucks that we have. (And Easterners think we live in the wild west?)

Strangely, I did not take photos until she was about to leave. I love this photo of Suue and Johnny in the greenhouse. (I just have to point out that's an orchid blooming behind and right of Suue,  a master gardener.)

 

 

All three of them are far more photogenic than I am. But here I am with my forever friend Suue anyway.  Who knows when she'll get here again...

 

 

 

 

Snow!!!

 Four inches overnight and still snowing. The Valentine's Day lawn llama is not amused.

 Nightingale and her dog, Annie, don't seem to mind, although Night is wondering where her grass went.

I love it... after morning chores when I'm back in the warm, dry house...

 

There is even snow at the coast! And Portland is shut down with snow... most since 1943... airport closed.  ...Weather just gets weirder and weirder...

Anniversary #56

 Once again, Friday the 13th came on a Monday, as Johnny likes to say about our Feb. 13, 1967, wedding day. And as usual, we hiked to a waterfall... between rain and sleet and snow showers. Since the weather was iffy, we hiked to nearby Yoncalla Falls, just up the road a few miles from our farm.

 

 the falls from a distance...

  the falls up close...

I'm not good at selfies, but Johnny is cute

same waterfall but from up on the road

 We hike to every waterfall we can find. And then I blog about them on my Waterfalls blog... complete with height measurements that Johnny takes. We are waterfall nuts. So here is the blog about this falls, which is really, according to Johnny, the West Fork Yoncalla Falls: https://ourwaterfallproject.blogspot.com/2016/02/west-fork-yoncalla-falls.html

We did other things on our anniversary this year, like look at old photos Johnny found... They were mostly pictures taken of trenches dug for water lines on our place when we were first laying water pipes from well to various buildings. And then there were the photos of his various roofing jobs... 

Thank goodness for waterfalls.

 

Johnny's 80th Birthday in Photos

Johnny's birthday weekend was a whirlwind of phone calls and a surprise visit from son Kevin and grandson Ian. They brought tons of food and a beautiful cake made by Jessica. As they left on Sunday, our Qi Gong friends arrived for their usual Ren Yuan practice... this day laden with food to share for the combined birthday celebrations for 3 of them in the same week, Johnny being one of the three.

Ian, Kevin, Johnny

Johnny, Kevin, Ian on a hike to the creek

Kevin, Johnny and Ian with the birthday cake

He blew them all out!

I didn't take many photos... but it was a very fun time. Johnny loved hearing from many friends and kinfolk on the phone. And loved having son Kevin and grandson Ian there to help celebrate his 80th birthday. It was a great weekend for the happy, healthy, vigorous... and 80 years young... Johnny Fink.