- 10:30 Adding more Christmas Bird Count posts to the Birds of Vermont blog. bovm.wordpress.com/
- 06:14 Moëbius Bagel instructions: www.georgehart.com/bagel/bagel.html (via CrystalPyramid on LiveJournal)
- 07:41 The Morgan Freeman Chain of Command: www.joeydevilla.com/2009/12/15/the-morga
n-freeman-chain-of-command/ **amused** - 08:18 Now that the bears are pretty well asleep, we can feed the birds again. Just usual suspects right now: jays, chickadees.
- 08:51 Catching up on webwandering... heard about earthish planet with water on radio first. More: bit.ly/77qEJO
- 11:20 "Avatar": radio review & stills make me want to see it, but dialogue excerpts sound trite as a box of twinkies. Go? No? Babysitting? Hm.
- 12:23 Gorgeously sunny on the snow. Shoulda been outside this a.m. more! Must separate from computer now!
- 06:50 While in triangle post this morning, I saw a young raccoon wobbling round the house. I followed it from window to window, smiling.
- 14:50 Swam again -- errands -- Orca & I worried a goose -- tea and Field Farm updates (http://www.thefieldfarm.com/westportchai
r.htm) at library. - 16:45 Time to get the squitch. Later must print an invoice; print a draft of another (and tweak it: over estimate, will report on first phases)
It was really fun to worry the goose. I mean, the worry bit was accidental, but the rest was fun. I'd pulled over in this little pullout on the side of a road near a small pond, to nap for a bit, then to let Orca out for a walk/pee/etc. As we got out of the car, a Canada goose landed in the water and then proceed to swim about, honking at us in a "My pond... really!" sort of way. he (I assume) was delightful to watch, and clearly concerned about us without being terribly scared. We walked back and forth and Orca kept perking her ears at him, and obviously was considering trying to get down the bank and wade in the water (she didn't) (wisely).
- 08:07 There's a white-throated sparrow singing LOUDLY in our woods, near our yard. Almost louder than the road grader! #VTbird
The hashtag didn't really seem to work as I "pinged" it to twitter. But I keep picking up a variety of twitter followers, some for web stuff, some for bird stuff. The birds are really delighting me recently. Wish I had time to write down all the observations, audio and otherwises. Heck, I wish I knew them well enough to ID them from said audio and visual... oh well. That's in the "someday when I have more time" daydream-pile, I suppose.
- 17:16 Cool: purple finch on the black oil sunflower seed feeder today. Two Cooper's Hawks over the yard yesterday!
- 17:33 Check out Kris Andrew's lovely baskets at craft shows in NY, MA, VT, ME this summer/fall: www.naturallyinspiredbaskets.com/shows.p
hp
- 10:38 Want to do ~12 different things (now!). Being asked to do ~5 different things (now!). Plus chores (at least they're easy) (now!). Ack!
- 16:54 Lovely afternoon with sib and kids: errands and ice cream. Now a few minutes alone while they return books to library.
- 17:15 A little brown bat is flying around over the road, in the shadow of the hillside. Sweet to see, but I worry he's not catching much.
- 22:22 I like writing little if-then series. Need to fix the thumbnails next at www.productionsolutionsvt.com
- 15:12 To chirps of woodpeckers dueling over suet, I finished tedious bit of a small project. Works AND is semantically sound! Now for review...
- 19:37 Mojo, I & KKS are coloring Easter eggs!
- 00:17 Well... some work done. Damn, things take a long time to do. Sigh. Off to bed...
- 07:44 Tadasana as the sky turns green with dawn. Then a little conversation, coffee, toast. Now woodpeckers and titmice calling.
- 13:12 New page ready for client review; three pp edited quickly for another client. Relatedly (not my site): get a DVD! www.rpsdvd.com/
As we were arriving home tonight I saw a white-tailed deer in my yard. I mean, in -- as in about 3 feet from the doorstep. I suspect she was eating birdseed; she was standing just under one of the feeders and we saw tracks later: both hoofprints and scrape marks. She was shaggy as all get-out, but I couldn't say how large, since she was partly hidden from me and I'm not very good at estimating that sort of thing. I'm sure I was taller than her back and her head might've topped mine, but this is hardly useful or precise.
I slowed and stopped in the road, I was so surprised, and of course because of the slope and snow, wound up revving the engine to make the turn into the parking space. And accidentally hit the windshield wipers, which squeaked terribly. All this startled the poor doe, and she leapt away in a heartbeat.
I am inordinately tickled. Yes, we see their tracks many mornings, but it's a delight to have caught this glimpse of her as well.
(cross-posted from Small Measures; No photos tonight but I probably forgot to tell you about other bird photos I've posted over there)
(in case you wondered: this blog is catch-all -- half my own notes, half stuff to share with you. Other blogs are intentionally (thankfully?!) more limited in scope)
I slowed and stopped in the road, I was so surprised, and of course because of the slope and snow, wound up revving the engine to make the turn into the parking space. And accidentally hit the windshield wipers, which squeaked terribly. All this startled the poor doe, and she leapt away in a heartbeat.
I am inordinately tickled. Yes, we see their tracks many mornings, but it's a delight to have caught this glimpse of her as well.
(cross-posted from Small Measures; No photos tonight but I probably forgot to tell you about other bird photos I've posted over there)
(in case you wondered: this blog is catch-all -- half my own notes, half stuff to share with you. Other blogs are intentionally (thankfully?!) more limited in scope)
This Saturday Jan 3
from eBird Vermont:
The 109th Christmas Bird Count will run from December 14th through January 5th. Last year, thousands of volunteers counted nearly 60 million birds across the Americas and beyond. Each count occurs in a designated circle, 15 miles in diameter, and is led by an experienced birder, or designated “compiler”.... The longest running Citizen Science program in the world, the count originally began on Christmas Day in 1900 ...
The Hinesburg-Huntington Count will be January 3rd. Contact: Paul Wieczoreck mgcpw@gmavt.net
from eBird Vermont:
The 109th Christmas Bird Count will run from December 14th through January 5th. Last year, thousands of volunteers counted nearly 60 million birds across the Americas and beyond. Each count occurs in a designated circle, 15 miles in diameter, and is led by an experienced birder, or designated “compiler”.... The longest running Citizen Science program in the world, the count originally began on Christmas Day in 1900 ...
The Hinesburg-Huntington Count will be January 3rd. Contact: Paul Wieczoreck mgcpw@gmavt.net
Pine Siskin (Carduelis pinus)(female?) feeding under hydrangea bushWe had a good dozen or more Pine Siskins appear today, now that it's thawed (again). I understand we're supposed to get more snow, after the rain that wiped away much of the Christmas snowstorm. (There are still soggy piles, one of which you can see behind the feeder, but a good bit of wilted and chilled-crispy grass and mud is now visible all across to the yard.)
The photos were taken through the glass door, and on a fairly high zoom, so any blurriness is probably camera shake and vague dust. If you click them, of course you get them larger... and there's the album as well.
Pine Siskin (female?) on the black oil seed feederI think I've seen this species before, but haven't had a chance yet to root through the older photos and journals to be sure. Ah well, some other organized version of me in some other alternate universe is keeping a detailed, accurate, citizen-science-y life list... With any luck though, I'll remember to post this at least in eBird!
x-posted from Small Measures
I think I forgot to mention I've been trying to get in a rhythm of adding posts to Small Measures and to Little Birder, too. These are not necessarily cross-posted here, for no real good reason either way. (Both links go to October. I figure you can sort it out.)
This is one of the consequences of adding the Remember the Milk and GTD plug-ins to Firefox (they apply my Gmail account, so I've add to add them to several computers, which is a little odd because I don't always exactly remember how I've categorized things. Whoops... At least Foxmarks synchs automatically)
Off to fetch the ShortGuy! A pretty productive day, with the usual amount of server thwartage. And I have tomorrow too!
This is one of the consequences of adding the Remember the Milk and GTD plug-ins to Firefox (they apply my Gmail account, so I've add to add them to several computers, which is a little odd because I don't always exactly remember how I've categorized things. Whoops... At least Foxmarks synchs automatically)
Off to fetch the ShortGuy! A pretty productive day, with the usual amount of server thwartage. And I have tomorrow too!
"Mama, Orca's footyprints look liek wolves'."
and after a moment's thought,
"Mama, I see a clue! I need my handy-dandy notebook to write it down." So we go and find it, and draw two of Orca's tracks in the snow.
(see also: http://smallmeasures.blogspot.com/2
and after a moment's thought,
"Mama, I see a clue! I need my handy-dandy notebook to write it down." So we go and find it, and draw two of Orca's tracks in the snow.
(see also: http://smallmeasures.blogspot.com/2
I've cleaned up the Herp Atlas a bit (why did it take me so long to switch from beigey-orange to deep green? Duh!), and added slide shows where we have extra critter pics. Check out the Eastern Ratsnake, for example, and click the next link once or twice. Did you know they could do that?
Can't yet code jQuery coolness from scratch, but I can still poke, prod and adapt existing code (and I can donate to their effort, in thanks). But damn! I'm just not fast enough. (But how on earth could I have been faster today?)
I'm at that point in the day where there's not enough time to Really Do Properly another batch of work, and way too much time to do nothing. Dammit!
Can't yet code jQuery coolness from scratch, but I can still poke, prod and adapt existing code (and I can donate to their effort, in thanks). But damn! I'm just not fast enough. (But how on earth could I have been faster today?)
I'm at that point in the day where there's not enough time to Really Do Properly another batch of work, and way too much time to do nothing. Dammit!
from ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
ellenmillion and like her, more than 10...
A Boy
A Hose
A Mud Puddle
Sunlight
Orca (the dog)
Brand-new (mother's day) boxes for raised bed garden! (Made of old lumber and nails we had leftover around. No money spent for the exactly-what-I-wanted present!)
Chickadees
Titmice
Dark-Eyed Juncos
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (a pair)
Nuthatch
Goldfinches (a pair)
Chipping sparrows
White-throated sparrows
Eastern Chipmunks (at least 4)
Red Squirrel
Bumblebee
White Butterfly
Dark brown teeny butterfly with white stripes
Blooming, or nearly:
Bluebells
Lilacs (white and purple buds)
Tulips (fromlepi's drive-by crocussing)
little purple-and-white ground cover
White Violets
Ruby and Yellow Pansies (from last year!)
Red and Yellow Primroses
Dandelions
Recently Planted:
Bee Balm (to compete with the Snow-on-the-Mountain)
A Slide and Large Rocks to climb on
Heard recently:
Black-throated Green Warbler
Oven Bird
Robin
Hairy Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe ("SqueeKee Phoe-Bee!")
Wood Thrush
ellenmillion and like her, more than 10...A Boy
A Hose
A Mud Puddle
Sunlight
Orca (the dog)
Brand-new (mother's day) boxes for raised bed garden! (Made of old lumber and nails we had leftover around. No money spent for the exactly-what-I-wanted present!)
Chickadees
Titmice
Dark-Eyed Juncos
Rose-breasted Grosbeaks (a pair)
Nuthatch
Goldfinches (a pair)
Chipping sparrows
White-throated sparrows
Eastern Chipmunks (at least 4)
Red Squirrel
Bumblebee
White Butterfly
Dark brown teeny butterfly with white stripes
Blooming, or nearly:
Bluebells
Lilacs (white and purple buds)
Tulips (from
lepi's drive-by crocussing)little purple-and-white ground cover
White Violets
Ruby and Yellow Pansies (from last year!)
Red and Yellow Primroses
Dandelions
Recently Planted:
Bee Balm (to compete with the Snow-on-the-Mountain)
A Slide and Large Rocks to climb on
Heard recently:
Black-throated Green Warbler
Oven Bird
Robin
Hairy Woodpecker
Eastern Phoebe ("SqueeKee Phoe-Bee!")
Wood Thrush
OK, Small August Measures done too. No pics. Only about Buggleguppy, defending us from the Forces of Foxery.
Or not...
All about end-of-year wrap-ups of projects, I guess.
Didja know photos uploaded to Blogger automatically get gathered into a Picas Web Album? Not public unless you tell it to be. Fancy that! Here's the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/metasilk/Sm
Or not...
All about end-of-year wrap-ups of projects, I guess.
Didja know photos uploaded to Blogger automatically get gathered into a Picas Web Album? Not public unless you tell it to be. Fancy that! Here's the album: http://picasaweb.google.com/metasilk/Sm
in another small step, I've updated the Small Measures blog through July.... includes photo of woodshed and a salamander
Profile
- metasilk
- metasilk
- whimsical dreams
Sometimes a Coupon
Sometimes Not
Syndicate
