Surprise! Suprise! Surprise!

Lots of interesting stuff happening around here this week.

First was a surprise visit from a Eurasian species of bird: a White-winged Tern. Seldom seen in North America this little guy showed up in a small lake over near Wellsboro on Thursday morning. It was identified by members of the Tiadaghton Audubon Society and was confirmed by some folks from Cornell. It helped that the person, Rich Hanlon, reporting it to Cornell had pictures--and is the minister of the Wellsboro Methodist Church. The two folks with him are among the top birders in Tioga County according to eBird.

As one might expect from the appearance of such a rarity, folks are flocking in from all over to get a glimpse of this super cooperative bird. This morning there was one guy who had flown from Texas to Philadelphia and rented a car to drive out here just to see the bird. There have been folks from Michigan, Ohio, Maryland, New Jersey and New York (Long Island and West Point area so they weren't just hopping over the state line). Even folks from PA drove from Pittsburgh and Philly area just to add this bird to their life lists. TV news crews and the local newspaper showed up and did  interviews with Rich Hanlon and some of the birders.

I've been over to look at the birds and to meet and talk to some of the visitors  a couple of times--Friday afternoon and again this morning. I might go back tomorrow morning to see if it's still here. Rich Hanlon will, of course, be occupied elsewhere. ;-)

White-winged Tern at Nessmuk Lake, 2017_08_11

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My second surprise was finding another yellow jackets' nest. Remember the nest I said was under the cover to the septic tank? I thought I might have to wait until we had some cold weather to take care of that nest, but when I got back from Quebec, I found something--probably a bear--had shoved the cover aside enough to reach in and rip out the wasps' nest. The paper from the nest was torn apart and there was precious little left. I watched the area just in case and saw only one or two bees flying around. Nothing special--or threatening. Today I went out to cut the grass and even pushed the cover back into place without raising any wasps.

HOWEVER, as I was cutting the grass I happened to glance up at the awning of our travel trailer. A small stain on the white of the one awning drew my attention and that's when I saw it--and them.

The damn wasps have built a paper nest between the two awnings not far from the door of the trailer. It's above the white awning for the kitchen bump out and below the black awning that would create a shaded patio.

Wasp nest between the awnings

One of the b*st*rds exiting the nest.

*Sigh* I guess I'll have to get out there with some spray after dark when every bee should be home. I'll soak it good with Spectricide from a safe distance and hope for the best. Then, when the spray has worked overnight, I'll hit it again. THEN I'll knock that bad boy down using the garden hose.

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Third: While cutting the lawn, I noticed the sky was darkening a bit but thought little of it--until I ran out of gas when I was about 5/6ths done (just the area behind the house to do--maybe 10' x 40'). That's when I heard the rumble of thunder off in the distance. There wasn't much of a breeze and I could barely make out any movement in the clouds overhead, still, I figured, I had better hurry up and finish! And so I refueled the mower and proceeded to double-time my efforts.

Just as I finished and was putting the mower into the shed, the first drops fell. They were soon followed by more and more and even more. As I sat and watched on the covered porch, the sky opened up and torrents of rain fell straight down while thunder pealed about two mile away. (See the lightening flash. Count "one-thousand-one, one-thousand-two...." If you get to one-thousand-five and then hear the thunder, the storm is about one mile away.)

This lasted just about 30 minutes and then, suddenly, it stopped as if someone had turned off the faucet. And the sun came out. I'm sure someone, somewhere got to see a beautiful rainbow. Unfortunately, it wasn't me. Too many trees--and a mountain--in the way.

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Four: Terry has gone south for the week. She'll be attending an EGA Seminar down in Ashville, North Carolina, right after she goes and visits her cousin in Columbia, South Carolina. So it's just me and the cats (four indoors and four outdoors) for the week.

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That is all. Enjoy the rest of the weekend and don't forget to look skyward tonight for the Perseid Meteor Shower. It's supposed to be a good one and the moon won't rise until after 11 PM.

Almost Home

Just racking up the miles as we home.

Yesterday morning (Friday...I think) we were just inside Louisiana's southwest border in the town of Sulfur. That night we were in the northern Alabama town of Fort Payne. Tonight we are in Woodstock, Virginia just south of Winchester and seventy miles away from Pennsylvania. But first we will have to complete forty miles in Virginia and around fifteen miles each in West Virginia and Maryland. (Don't blink!) The total distance to home is about 280 miles (just about five hours since it involves travel on Route 15 north of Harrisburg to I-80).  We've been doing close to 600 miles a day since we left Corpus Christi, Texas. (Maybe a little less that first day since we did stop at the Aransas Wildlife Refuge to do some birding. Maybe a little more the second between Sulphur and Fort Payne.)

We'll be home a couple of days early but that's fine. I've lots to do before I pack for a fishing trip at Caesar's Outpost in northern Quebec. (You can find a link to the outfitter on the sidebar.)

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For the first time since we left the Omaha, Nebraska region after the torrential rains of the 3rd of June that we had serious rain. (Actually, just about the first rain period.) Visibility dropped to maybe fifty feet and traffic slowed from 75-80 all the way down to *gasp* 55 miles per hour! Yet even that lasted just long enough to wash the road grime off the Tundra and drop the temperature fifteen degrees from 79 to 64 degrees. (It had been as high as 93 when we were crossing the Alabama-Georgia-Tennessee portion of I-59 this morning.

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I had no luck getting online last evening because I could never get a sign in screen. I finally figured out why. I had inadvertently changed my default browser to AOL when I installed updates two days ago. AOL requires I enter a password to sign in. I can't sign in until I agree to terms and enter the network password. It's a catch-22 situation. Tonight I went and (temporarily) made Internet Explorer my default browser. Got signed on in no time. I should have played with the photos but wasted too many minutes trying to get on line that I was too frustrated with the computer. Instead, I used the iPhone to get my email done and look at Facebook and then went to sleep with a headache.

Labor Day Ramble

The calendar has turned another page, I hope you are all enjoying a fine Labor Day. We are now at the unofficial end of summer.  (The official end being the solar equinox, of course. That won't happen for about three weeks yet.) Kids are back in school or will be in a day or two. The days are noticably shorter in the daylight department and there is a crispness in the morning air--when it's not raining.

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Terry, her sister and their mom should be landing in NYC any minute now as they return from their sojourn to Poland. Terry will stay at Mom's overnight and take Lucille to the airport so she can catch her flight to her lake house in Missouri. After dropping her sister off at 6:30 AM, Terry will be driving back to the Aerie and should be home before noon. [UPDATE: They're back! Got to Mom's around 6:30 PM.]

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I've been giving my knees a bit of a workout going up and down the stairs in the house. The TV and recliner are up in the loft and that's the best place to watch football and baseball. So, I've been going up and down the steps as I take in the games and come down to feed the cats, do some walking on the deck, feed the cats, and grab a bite to eat for myself.

And my knees have been doing pretty good going UP the steps. Going down is a little harder and I'm often doing it one leg at a time.

Tomorrow is another therapy session in the pool. The warmth and the exercises may give me even more bend in the knees making the DOWN portion of the stairs a little more likely.

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Every day we seem to be getting some rain--often in the form of T-storms. Thursday evening we got 0.43 inches. Saturday night we got 0.98 inches and one heck of a sound and light show. Last night we got a teensy 0.4 inches. And this afternoon we got a little more but that may be just the start. There's a severe T-storm watch on through 10 PM although the radar shows the worst passing to the south of our location.

The tempreatures have been nice though. The thermometer dropes to around 50 over night and rises to around 80 during the sunny afternoons. There's usually a nice breeze blowing in the afternoon, too, so those 80 degrees feel slightly cooler.

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One more college football game to be played tonight to wrap up the opening weekend. There have been some excellent games. There have been some dull ones. There have been blow outs and a few surprises. I'll have more to post on the results tomorrow.

For now, let me say that I was disappointed my Rutgers Scarlet Knights lost to Fresno State. Sure, they were 13 point underdogs on the road, but they played a great game--on offense. Defense? Well, they did not give up a play longer than 25 yards but they had some penalty issues in the end zone and at the goal line that gave Fresno too many opportunities.

Even then, the Knights had their chances. A missed field goal as time ran out and a missed two-point conversion in OT proved costly as the game ended 52-51.

(Could RU please not play a night game in California again. The final didn't happen until nearly 3 AM in the east and I've still not recovered.)

More Ramblings From the Aerie

Emptied the rain gauge--again--on Thursday morning and found 0.73 inches of water contained therein. So in the last week alone we had approximately 2 inches of rainfall. Needless to say, the ground is pretty well saturated. And there's a stalled front and a hurricane/tropical storm/nor'easter heading this way. Oh. Joy.

Could be worse. Some of the forecasters are saying up to half a foot of snow may fall in the southwest corner of the state down through the panhandle of Maryland into West Virginia. WE will only see some flurries to an inch or two.

The good news is that--at least around here--nearly all the leaves have fallen. 

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I went out and raked leaves yesterday thinking 1) most of them had fallen and 2) they were about as dry as they were going to get considering the forecast.

It was 70+ degrees out there and the sun was shining so the job was not unpleasant. Today, although the forecast was for sun, it's been almost completely overcast. May be that way for a week.

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Raking leaves, I turned out half a dozen wooly bear caterpillars. Ever single one had a wide brown central band and small black ends. Those I've seen around town and the yard previously also had wide brown bands. Folklore has it that this predicts a mild winter. (You can check the link for more from the Old Farmer's Almanac about that.) That would be fine with me!

Hmmmm.

Last Tuesday night we had 0.86 inches of rain in the gauge.

Thursday night we had 0.61 inches of rain.

Saturday afternoon-night we got another 0.69 inches.

What drought?

Last night-this morning the temperature dropped to 46.9 degrees--on the deck. It never gt above 64 degrees and is supposed to get down to around 38 tonight.

What warming?

All this rain and cold have brought the blight to my tomatoes. Overnight they went from looking healthy--if as yet unripened--to blech!

All set to hit the road!

It rained softly for most of the night. Started just about 4 PM on Monday and has continued overnight and through much of today, although it was a bit spotty at times. We'd get an hour or so when there were actual blue skies visible--but never in a postion to allow the sun to break through. This rain is supposed to continue through much of the night but stop around dawn. I blame Alberto.

Lucky for us the avian alarm system worked a little too well this morning. The birds started 30 to 45 minutes before sunrise--which was officially around 5:30 AM. It wouldn't have been too bad but I have learned a few too many bird calls and spent time trying to ID the songs instead of pulling the pillow over my ears and going back to sleep.

Being up and about at 5:30 provided lots of time to get things done between showers and before noon.

The trailer is now packed, the ATV is pretty much put back together (it's only missing the starter which is on order) and we're ready to hit the road for Bourne, MA tomorrow morning bright and early. I'm sure the birds will see that we are up in plenty of time to have breakfast and pack a lunch for the road.

I'm looking forward to seeing some of the folks from our trip to Alaska again. We'll be meeting up with a couple of Tennesseans, Texans, Louisianans,  some Aussies, and a few Massachusetts folks. Hopefully we'll be able to enjoy the weather around the Canal area and get a nice tour of Martha's Vineyard before heading up the Cape to North Truro for a couple of days. Once in North Truro, there will be time to walk the beaches and visit Provincetown.

Aerie Weather Report, January 23, 2012

Windy. Rainy. Dreary. But WARMING Monday here at the Aerie. Snow is melting like crazy creating a dense fog directly overhead and down into the valley.

Our low temp was at 12:01 AM this morning and it's been climbing ever since and is currently into the low 40s. This won't last long, but, by melting some snow now, it'll lessen the chance of spring thaw flooding. And after last September, that's a good thing.

The same thing is happening up near the Bolt Hole, too. And that is also a good thing for the Mohawk Valley residents.

Aerie Report, October 15, 2011

Another 0.92 inches in the rain gauge this morning. More probably on the way. With 40 mph gusts. Every hour I can see further and further into the woods as the leaves are getting battered to the ground. There's still color on the hillsides, but it's rapidly disappearing.

Oh, and the temperature dropped to 40 degrees last night. Thanks a lot Canada!

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I watched a young deer apparently traveling alone as it fed just on the other side of the powerline yesterday afternoon. In the pouring rain. I felt sorry for the poor thing as I could see the water running off its fur. It walked slowly down hill plucking an occasional leaf from the low growth unaware of my presence on the deck since the wind was rattling the leaves and blowing towards me. Finally, however, a swirl of air must have carried my scent in that direction as its head came up and it bounded off downhill and into the protection of the thicket. Or, maybe, it was a straggling youngster who's ma had already passed beyond my sight and she (ma) gave a snort telling it to get a move on. It was too noisy for me to hear from my vantage point, but that young deer's ears are far better than mine.

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I think I'll bake some chocolate chip cookies today. The heat from the oven will be welcome.

Two problems with baking 5 dozen cookies:
1) Clean up. I hate washing the tools needed to produce the cookies.
2) Baking cookies leads to eating cookies. And with plenty of football on the tube over the next three days, probably ALL of the cookies will be eaten. (Which is why I picked up more milk this morning.)

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Speaking of football.... My Scarlet Knights of Rutgers are currently 4-1 and 2-0 in the Big East and facing Navy at Rutgers today with a good chance to be 5-1. (They could be undefeated IF 1) they had kicked a field goal at North Carolina instead of trying to score from the one--twice, and 2) the replay official had bothered to look at either of those one-yard scoring attempts as some say the runner was over the goal line BOTH times.)

Last year they were 4-2 (1-0) after this weekend, having just beaten Army. It would be the last game they won all season. They lost Eric LeGrand in that game. Paralyzed from the neck down while making a tackle on a kick return. Eric was a star defensive player and the heart and soul of that RU team. His current attitude toward his injury may well be what has RU playing so well this year. He believes he will one day be able to return to the Meadowlands, where he was injured, lay down on the field and be able to get up and walk off under his own power. He is working hard to make that happen and who is to say he won't do it someday. Believe!

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BCS rankings are out now as well as the other polls. ESPN will make a big thing of them tomorrow (Sunday) night. In the meantime, here are the BCS Top Ten:

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oklahoma
4. Oklahoma State
5. Boise State
6. Wisconsin
7. Clemson
8. Stanford
9. Michigan
10. Georgia Tech

Every single one of these teams is currently undefeated, but that won't last. Down the line, during the course of their regular season, Alabama faces LSU, Oklahoma goes against Oklahoma State, and Georgia Tech must play Clemson. Should Wisconsin and Michigan make it through their regular season unbeaten, they would face each other in the Big Ten Championship game. Stanford has Washington, USC, Oregon, and Notre Dame yet to play. Only Boise State has what appears to be an easy road to an undefeated season.

Meh. More rain.

We only got 0.15 inches of rain in the last 24 hours. Makes it seem like a sunny day at the beach. We've now had about 13.45 inches of rain since the beginning of September without once being hit by a real hurricane...just two tropical storms (Irene and Lee). In truth, the sun DID come out...for about an hour yesterday afternoon and the same this morning. Not to worry, however, the forecasters at AccuHunch say we might get another 1/2 inch or so later this evening into tomorrow morning.

The temperatures did take a nose dive over night. Instead of being stuck on near 70 degrees night and day, the thermometer fell outside overnight to around 55 degrees. With a fairly strong breeze blowing it felt much, much cooler when I stepped out on the deck.

Blogspheric friend Marianne of Northview Dairy up on a hill overlooking the Mohawk River near Fonda, NY, reports her barnyard has become 1-a quagmire and 2-a raging torrent. The former is true of every flat surface while the latter describes any slope slightly greater than 10 degrees.
Oh, she also reports that the river is rising...again.

Hell of an end to summer.

Glub.... Glub.... Glub....

Terry emptied the rain gauge this morning about 10:30 AM. It held 0.95 inches of water. That's from around 4 PM Wednesday (yesterday). Seems like it should have been more because it really came down at times.

Oh, and it's still raining. This has been one of the wettest Septembers in memory.

Cooler though. About 62 degrees overnight and just a wee bit higher (64) at 11 AM. Wind has shifted so it's coming out of the west so it should be getting cooler in the coming days.

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Terry's heading into New Jersey this afternoon to visit her Mom and our daughter. She'll be gone until Sunday afternoon.

Egads! That's a lot of water!

I emptied the rain gauge back on September 8 just before our abortive attempt to go to New Jersey. Abortive because we had just finished visits from two hurricanes/tropical storms (Irene and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropical_Storm_Lee_%282011%29) that resulted in massive flooding in eastern Pennsylvania effectively blocking our path. The rain gauge had yielded 6" and 3.1" respectively from those two storms.

Since then I've been a bit lax in checking the amount of rain that has fallen. I know it rained. Terry took me to Corning three times after that (pre-op, op and post-op) and it rained each time. So I wasn't surprised when Terry emptied the rain gauge Tuesday morning and found 1.5" of water there. That was BEFORE the heavy rains fell Tuesday afternoon and much of the night. This morning I dumped 1.75" out of the gauge. it hasn't rained since, but the sky is threatening.

So let's tally it up, hey? Six, 3.1, 1.5, and 1.75 equals 12.35 inches. Over a foot. Yikes! And we didn't get hit the hardest by Irene or Lee. Those storms were worse to the east of here.

Meanwhile, the thermometer must be broken. Every time I've looked at it over the last two days it says it's 70 degrees outside and 70 degrees inside. (Or at least close enough so as not to matter.) Beats the 85 degrees we had on the sunny afternoon when I cut the grass Monday.

[UPDATE: Just 5 minutes after I posted the above at 4:15 PM: It's raining again/still. And there's another flood warning out. *sigh*]

Aerie Report, August 25, 2011

Thunderstorms rolled through the Aerie's environs overnight and showers--some very heavy showers--persistently hung around all morning and this afternoon. The result was 1.25 inches of water in the rain gauge. As dry as we were during much of July and the first week or two of August, we've more than made up for it during the last two weeks. Hard to believe that I had to drag the hose out to water the garden only a short time ago. Talk about roller coaster numbers.

And there's a hurricane moving north. We should be far enough west so as to see only 40-50 mph gusts and considerable rain, but one never knows. In 1972, Agnes swept up the Chesapeake and right through this area. Flooding was unbelievable. As a result of her rampage, lots of levees and even several Corps of Engineer lakes (Hammond, Tioga and Cowenesque) were constructed in the immediate area. More were built along the Susquehanna River to the east near Wilkes Barre, Scranton and Binghamton.
[I've just been reminded that Agnes actually dawdled over Corning, NY for a bit which is why the flooding was unprecedented. Having a hurricane (or tropical storm) sit in one place for a period of time can, indeed, result in huge amounts of rainfall.]

It currently looks like Irene will come up along the New Jersey shore into the eastern boros of NYC on Saturday Sunday. Family and friends in New Jersey and the NYC area need to take precautions ASAP. But that's still two days away. That's a long time in hurricane terms.

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Had another session of PT this afternoon and the knee is feeling much better. Even step up exercises went well with little or no pain on a 4" step. I'm still experiencing some pain on the normal steps around the house, however, as the knee doesn't like those 7-9" risers.

Finally go the medication for the arthritic condition in both knees so we'll see how that affects the pain level. Nothing short of surgery will stop the snap, crackle, and pop of my knees' percussive duet though. So far, none of the professionals I've consulted has mentioned that four letter word "DIET," but it's just a matter of time.
Heck, even I know I should shed 30-40 pounds if I want the knees to feel happier.

Still (mostly) Raining

It stopped raining for about an hour mid-day today. The sun actually made a (very) brief appearance and I can aver that Gollum was correct: It burns! It didn't last, however. There's showers and thunderstorms in the near future.

I took the opportunity to walk about and spy on the garden a bit. The beans and cucumbers have begun breaking the surface and should be making rapid progress as things warm up. And should the sun come out for a few days, I'll expect Jack to show up with his climbing gear. I'll let him too, provided he lets me have an egg or two from the goose.

The rain gauge I put out on Saturday held "only" 1.55 inches of water. I thought it might have been more than that but it has been a genteel rain versus the gully washers we had a few weeks ago. AccuHunch says there's another inch of rain on the way before we get a nicer weekend--and another wet work week.

The grass/dandelions need cutting but with the amount of rain that's just going to have to wait. As will the rest of the landscaping I would like to do.

Rainy Day...

It's been a wet, soggy, gray day here at the Aerie. A few snow flurries last night quickly turned to rain and it's been rain ever since. Initial forecasts said we might get 2-3 inches of rain but there seems to have been a split in the clouds. It's pouring to the east of us in the Pocono/Catskill regions and pouring to the west of us in the Allegheny area. But here we are in a slot between the two heavy boys. Sort of in the DMZ between rain systems.

We're still getting rain, but it's mostly the slow, steady soaking kind that a farmer would love--if it happened son after planting. Instead, it's happening on top of the 15-18 inches of snow that fell last Sunday night. And, with temperatures in the mid 40s that spells flooding and road washouts.

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So, I'm sitting here with no desire to go out. Just following the Iditarod on the web. Several of the leaders have reached the half way point in the race, with Trent Herbst being the first to arrive at the ghost town of Iditarod to claim the purse of gold nuggets awarded at this point each year. Not bad for a school teacher driving a sled built by his students--in fourth grade. But he's still got a mandatory 24-hr rest to make and that will quickly put him--and several others--back in the pack as the real leaders move on.

The front runners area also in Iditarod and will probably be moving out as things cool down and the trail firms up. They include four time winner Martin Buser, Hugh Neff, and defending champion and winner of The Race four consecutive years--Lance Mackey whose team is down to just 10 dogs with half the race to go.

Things are about to get real interesting.

Aerie Weather for Sunday-Monday, March 6-7, 2011

It's going to be an interesting 24 hours. It was 47 degrees at 7:30 this morning with heavy rain falling. By 9:30 AM it was just 34 degrees and still raining but the wind had shifted 180 degrees. Instead of coming out of the south, it is now blowing--albeit gently--from the north. (A shift such as this usually means that the front has passed over us as it drifted eastward.) The rain is now starting to mix with a little sleet. The weather services all say it will become snow in a short time and that accumulations could be as much as 8 inches before it stops sometime around 4 AM Monday morning. That means that the ground that was bared by the warm air and rain will be covered once more.

Now, I realize that spring doesn't officially start for another two weeks and we're likely to have some snow showers through mid April but, damn it, I've had enough!

It could be worse, however. Forecasts for the area of the Bolt Hole are saying up to 15 inches of snow may fall tonight. I can only hope the place is still standing when I finally get up there the end of the month.

Oh, I nearly forgot. I did spot the first Robin around the Aerie yesterday. It (probably a "He") landed in the trees bordering the yard looking for some bare ground to explore and had to settle for a patch under one of the pines where the snow had already been melted away. I suppose it won't be long, snow or no snow, before the woodcock start showing up.

Also, yesterday afternoon and evening, while the winds were still blowing strongly out of the south, there were several skeins of geese flying north. They were too high for me to determine whether they were Canadas or snows but they were obviously optimists.