Seed Snitchers.

10-30-20 SHORT HILLS: It continues to rain courtesy of Hurricane Zeta, the umpteenth storm of the season. It’s been a week since we’ve seen the sun.

I’ve been filling and refilling the feeders almost every day. There have been a lot of birds, especially grackles, but the mammals have been feasting also.

It started with chipmunks in VT, and squirrels here in NJ, but the last seed thief was a surprise. 

Chipmunks were a problem in VT uintil we put a baffle on the pole.

Squirrels get on the feeders in spite of the domes.

Then we saw these.

She's got her tongue right in there.

The dogs started barking and chased them away. There was about four minutes between the first and last pix, but notice the drop in the level of seeds.

CountDown to 11/3.

10-26-20 SHORT HILLS: After a bunch of warm, but foggy and humid days, we have rain today and last night. The leaves are turning here, but the color doesn’t come close to what we had in VT. I have been doing more end-of-the-season chores. 

I’ve been spending a lot of time on <fivethirtyeight.com> and the polling, for what it’s worth, is quite consistent and stable for many weeks. With eight days to go, I’m fairly confident for B & H, and more anxious about the Senate. I’ve been sending money to Harrison and Kelly. We’ll see soon.

 Hairy Woodpecker looks a lot like the smaller Downy Woodpecker I showed last week.

Blue Jays compete with the Grackles at the feeders.

Burning Bushs are aflame in our yard.

The Sweet Gum tree sheds a lot of those junky gum balls, but partly makes up for that negative with some nice color.

Some nice color around the neighborhood.

And here.

And a little of the Passaic River.

Back in NJ.

10-18-20 SHORT HILLS: We’ve been back for a few days. Here most of the trees are still green, the ash are bare, sweet gum tree, walnut and locust are turning. Burning bush are starting to show red. Again, I get the sense of traveling back in time going from VT to NJ because we’re at an earlier stage of autumn in NJ.

The weather has been lovely except for a rainy day, 1.3 inches, that we needed. It seems cooler than recent Octobers because we have the heat on, when in many years, we don’t start it until November.

The birds are very active. All the usual feeder customers are here except for the goldfinches and house finches and the sparrows. The grackles have been monopolizing the feeders and draining them almost daily. They will be moving on soon, along with the red-wing blackbirds with whom they travel. They don’t live near each other in breeding season.

New blooms: witch-hazel.

Grackles have been mobbing the feeders and intimidating the other birds.

The birds with the yellow stripes are Red-Wing Blackbirds, who hang out with the Grackles during migrations.

The grackles are black until they step into the sunlight and then show a rainbow of iridenscence.

More iridescence.

Robin eating burning bush berries.

Cardinal found the other feeders after I re-filled them. The grackles have been draining the feeders daily.

Downy Woodpecker, female, is half the size of the very similar Hairy Woodpecker and have a small beak for a woodpecker. The male Downy is below.

More Chores, More Color.

10-11-20 VERMONT: New color is developing as the first trees go bare. It’s hard to get work done outside as I’m always looking at the trees and not at what I’m trying to do. We had a drop of rain last night after a beautiful day in the seventies. There won’t be many more of those this year. 

Today was sunny, but colder. I moved a stack of firewood drying outside behind the garage into the wood shed. Yesterday I pruned and did some work on the lower end of the brook. All the hoses are put away. The plant bed borders are put away. The plant supports are put away. Almost everything is done except the garden bed cleaning and that has to wait until all the plants are dormant in November. 

Brady the horse has a thick winter coat. Frogs and the turtles are still active in the pond. I saw a pair of garter snakes sun bathing today. Robins are eating the crab apples, flycatchers are still darting in and out of the trees. Chickadees are hanging around the empty feeders, but I can’t fill them until the bears are in bed in December. 

 New blooms: witch-hazel.

The cupola, newly repaired, on our barn silhouetted by a maple tree.

A pair of young maples admiring their reflections in the pond.

More color in the pasture.

The color appears in waves as new trees change and then go bare.

Nice color on Galaxy Hill Rd.

Witch-hazel flowers just opened.

 

Road Trip.

10-7-20 VERMONT: We are getting a bit of rain today, just showers, but it all helps. I have been outside doing chores every day, some work in the barn and other winterizing jobs, pulling out more bed borders and plant supports, storm doors. The outdoor benches are all cozy in the basement. The tomatoes are history until next spring.

Foliage season is progressing, but we still have green trees mingled among the bare ones. Yesterday we drove to Woodstock on the back roads and found some nice color on Galaxy Hill Road and Cloudland Road in Pomfret and Woodstock. It’s a favorite trip for us in the fall, especially, and since we have a restaurant there we like, at other seasons as well, but, of course, no restaurants now. 

There is a gorgeous horse farm on the road closer to the Woodstock end called Sleepy Hollow Farm. When we went by it there were more than a dozen cars and vans parked on the road and 20 or 30 people taking pictures. Here’s a link. <https://newengland.com/today/travel/vermont/the-history-of-sleepy-hollow-farm/> 

Woodstock was busy with out-of-state cars and photogs everywhere. It was good to see all the visitors here spending time and money.  

Red asters, reliable and hardy.

Wild asters grow everywhere and bloom earlier than the cultivated.

Purple asters.

Toad lily, a weird looking flower and late bloomer.

Bottle gentian. Pollinators actually push into the closed top of the flower.

Evening primrose is a biennial and looks nothing like the other primroses.

Rain is Back.

10-2-20 VERMONT: We finally got some rain a few days ago, 2.5 very welcome inches, and last night and today another 0.25 inches. Hopefully we’re back into our normal weather pattern with regular rain. The pond is full and the new pond has much more water than before the rain. 

The leaky barn cupola has been repaired, and we’ll see if the barn stays dry. A broken post in the cellar of the old house will get replaced tomorrow, if all goes according to plan. I started doing fall close up and winterizing—most of the hoses are put away, the hammock and outdoor benches are ready to crawl into the cellar for the winter.

I spend a few minutes in the hammock before bringing it in, just as I spend a few minutes in it when I put it out in the spring, because I never have the time to use it in the summer.

The color has changed, most of the trees that I showed in the last post are now bare, but the trees that were still green then are now turning. Leaf season changes every day—where it’s brilliant today will be drab and bare tomorrow and green areas will be red next week. It depends on weather, temperature, sun exposure, altitude and tree species among other things. By November almost all the trees will be bare until April or May.   

Our road next to the pasture.

 

Maples behind the barn.

Less color after the rain, but  the pond is full.

Different trees now turning. All the trees still green will show some color over the next few weeks.

We buried Gus' ashes with all the other dogs, and left another rock marker.