Beautiful visitor

I snapped this picture of a black swallowtail butterfly(Papilio polyxenes) visiting my garden. Butterflys don't often visit. Its too bad. I love seeing them. I was lucky to have snapped a shot of this one. Beautiful!

The twin fawns visit again

The fawns came to visit us again. I didn't see the mother deer but I am sure she was waiting in the wings in the woods. The fawns are getting bigger and their mom is giving them some distance from her to explore. They still have their white spots but are physically larger. I was happy that they chose to eat from a prickly shrub I've let grow on the periphery of the woods. They have stripped the leaves from the ground level around the bottom of the plant.
My husband was able to snap a picture from the bedroom through the screen. Take a look...

Bambi's in the backyard

There have been two sighting. A mother deer and her twin fawns. The first time I saw them it was about 10 am and I was making some coffee. I looked out the kitchen window to see a little spotted fawn in the backyard with it's twin. I really noticed them because they were frolicking yes frolicking, jumping for joy to just be in a wide open space (my backyard) where they could run and jump. And besides there are some tasting things (aruugh!) to chew on... They were so cute and little.
I scanned the backyard and spotted the mother deer off to the right near the entrance to the woods. I went out onto the screened in porch to look and the mother started to lead them away into the woods.
About a week later there they were again. It was almost noon and they were in the backyard. I wanted to take a picture but the camera was not in sight. I ran around the house looking for it. No luck. They started to walk up the driveway. I poked my head out the front door and the mother deer and I shared a moment staring at each other. I didn't have the camera and missed my opportunity to show them to you . Maybe they will show up again and this time I'll get a picture.
Today I read an opinion piece in the Courant about a guy who got lyme disease. He goes on to talk about the large deer population in CT this year. Apparently the cold weather this winter somehow made both the deer and the deer tick population thrive. I've noticed that now I see deer not only on the side of the wooded road I live off of but sometimes just standing in the middle of the road in midday staring at me and not running off. I've seen a lot of youngsters. They have also really been eating the plants surrounding my house. I dread hitting one again and have even seen some dead ones on Route 95. In PA where I grew up there were more deer killed on our interstate than by hunters each year. As much as I enjoy Bambi and his mom and brother visiting, I do see problems ahead for living with so many deer in a shrinking amount of woody habitat for them.

Birds diving in the surf

I was at the beach a couple of weeks ago. It was late in the day and I went to a spot that doesn't draw the crowds. It was me and maybe 2 others looking at the waves. I could see about 5 birds, smaller than sea gulls, flying over the water. Then "splash" a bird dove into the water. I supposed it was trying to catch a fish. The bird was very close to land. It kept doing this over and over.
No one else seemed to notice this activity. Had they seen these birds before? I hadn't and I come to the beach a lot! I looked the species up online and found that their behavior and coloring fit that of terns.
There is a tern colony on Faulkner's Island off the Guilford shore that would explain their presence, but why hadn't I seen them before? Maybe they usually stay closer to home and fish. What a neat experience. I never did see a bird come up victorious, with some food. It was neat to observe this little bit of bird behavior though; a little something different than the food fight over a few scattered french fried I observed later in the week between a group of gulls. One of the gulls was coveting a hamburger wrapper with some cheese stuck to it. It looked like he was planning on eating the entire piece of paper just to enjoy the cheese. People really need to remove their garbage when they leave the beach.

What's that?

This spring my family kept sighting a critter we hadn't seen before. A large furry rodent, with a stumpy but fuzzy tail. I'd seen animals like this before in PA where I grew up but they had rodent-like tails. This creature had a fuzzy tail about 4 inches long.
Turns out it's a ground hog or woodchuck. Also known as a land beaver. Maybe he was out gloating about how he'd predicted an early spring in Punxsutawney? I've seen him a few times scurrying into the woods to go about his business.
I'm posting a picture I got off the internet of a Groundhog and a link to some more information on their habits.(http://wiki.ask.com/Groundhog). They are vegetarians and they dig burrows. I'll keep my eye out for the CT Groundhog and let you know of sightings.

Luna moth resting on my garage door

My son alerted me to the presence of this Luna Moth the other day so I ran outside and snapped this picture. I guess it must have just landed there during the night and slept in!
These moths are very large (3-4" across) and really beautiful. Their green color is unusual for a moth or butterfly.

Riding Outdoors

Today being a beautiful day I decided to take my moped for a spin. My husband and I have mopeds that we use around town when we aren't traveling very far from home. What I love about using the moped is that you can connect with your surroundings while you are making significant progress towards your destination.

To get to town I take the road past my house which winds through the woods for several miles. I like the feeling of sensing temperature changes as you zip through patches of shade and sunshine. Since you are traveling with some speed, unlike on a bike (at least when I am peddling), a jacket is often necessary even in the summer. When the air rushes over your skin it can be cold. But just traveling under a tree with all its leaves providing shade over the road cools down that small area enough for your skin to sense a change in temperature. I find it to be a neat feeling.

The other thing I really like is all the smells that drift by. Right now its the flowers that are blooming. The sent of Honeysuckle was in the air today.

I took another ride with my husband when he was done working this evening. He wanted to take a ride to wind down after the workday. We ran an errand then stopped for a snack. When we were done we were greeted with a huge rain cloud hovoring over head. It was drizzling lightly off and on all the way home. Nothing like rain drops covering your glasses as you ride and your have no windshield wipers to turn on1

Swamp Yankee

After my last post I threw the term "Swamp Yankee" into Google to see if there were any references to this term. Lo and behold there were! Apparently the term is both a source of pride and a derisive term. It's the equivalent of "Red Neck" for Southerners... but with a Northern twist. Apparently Swamp Yankee's are excruciatingly frugal. So I guess taking advantage of swamp land to graze your cattle is making good with what you have.

According to wikipedia the term is used most in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. It is refers to an unrefined type of Yankee. The individual being referred to has all the attributes of a Yankee but is also thought of as backwards and unrefined. Kind of a Hillbilly or Red Neck Yankee. Interesting....

Shoreline Bovine

I finally got some pictures of the cattle that graze along the shoreline in my town. Yes...cattle. There is a lot of farming near by. Fruit orchards are probably the most abundant crops. My neighbor down the road has sheep that graze in his front yard. But until I noticed one day that there were cattle grazing about 50 feet from the ocean off a shoreline road I didn't realize farmers were raising cattle here.
This picture was taken by my husband as we rode our mopeds along the shoreline road. He stopped to snap some pictures for me with his Droid phone.

Last summer I watched a man putting in a fence in a marshy area on the shoreline that I pass quite often on my way into town. Why he was putting up a fence when there already was a fence along the road I couldn't figure out. Now I see that it was to keep the cows from wading too far into the water; that there needed to be a new fence about 10 feet from the fence on the side of the road.

The cows come down to the march to graze and walk through the plants selecting the ones they enjoy munching on. This particular day there were a few horses with the cows and there was an especially large number of cows grazing.

This is why the term Swamp Yankee seems to make sense to me. A neighbor down the road I met who I guess has lived most of her life her introduced me to this term. It seems to refer to the people who live near the shore and perhaps to the farmers that are raising cattle in the swampy areas here. I guess there are swamp cows too.

Here's a panoramic view of the herd.

Gardening weather

It has rained the whole past week. As the week has moved on the weather has warmed. Tomorrow will be a gardening day I'm sure of it!
I have already started some weeding. I'm pulled out some compost to amend the soil in my garden. I've planted a few seeds of radishes and spinach. So I have a few plants already started.
Today I stopped at Home Depot for a rug and came out with $60 of plants. I bought tomato plants, peppers and Japanese eggplants (that I thought I'd never find). I also bought some plants on sale to beef up the garden area in the backyard that needs some new plants and a budget rose plant to add to the area I am trying to steal back from the forest.
Tomorrow I have to get out and do some digging. This interferes with my obsession with growing and painting my nails (they look pretty good now). Even with gardening gloves my nails always end up dirty. Oh well.
So I am excited to get into the dirt tomorrow AND to start blogging some more. I had a busy Fall and Winter. Things are settling down now and I have more time to do things around the house.

I'm back!

Well its been just over a year since my last post. It's not like I haven't been collecting experiences to share, I just haven't found the time to share them. Maybe this year I'll make time to keep blogging.

I'm starting off this year with the news for January 2011. That would be snow, lot's of it here on the Eastern shoreline. Its a record snowfall here in CT for January. And we are 25" shy of passing the record for snow for the year!

Check out what greeted us this morning as my husband ventured out to try and make it to work this morning.


This is at least our 5 snow storm. They started just after Christmas 2010. We had to take our son back to his home in Brooklyn but the weather was predicted to be blizzard conditions...so we waited. We didn't have much to deliver to his 4th floor walk-up, but the streets were narrowed down by mounds of snow on each side and we had to double-park for a while to unload. Since then its been at least a storm a week. We have piles of 4 feet of snow or more on the side of roads and in our driveway. Been burning wood in the fireplace every evening.

This takes me back to my childhood in the midwest, Wisconsin to be exact. As an elementary school kid I loved playing in the snow. The kids in the subdivision built forts out of snow and had snowball wars. I have different classifications for all the different types of snow: sledding snow, fort snow, and several kinds of slushy snow. The puddles we had to jump over full of slush were amazing! You could stay outside for hours in the snow as a kid
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Well I have to start back to work at the university next week. Classes just started (or tried to start-the university closed today for snow) this week and I start teaching next week. Wouldn't you know the weather predicts a storm for Tuesday, just in time for my first class.

Mayor Bloomberg was on television this morning fielding more than a few questions from reporters wondering how he would view the Groundhog's prediction on winter's duration this year. Bloomberg intimated that he could use all the help he could get...even from a Groundhog!