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!

Always take your camera

Yesterday I was heading out on the town to run errands and as I was packing up my messenger bag to take my computer with me I hesitated next to my camera. I didn't put it in the bag. I would regret this later. The road I decided to take to town runs along the CT coastline where marshes alternate with scenic views of the ocean. At a stop sign facing a head-on view of a marsh I looked to the left to search for oncoming traffic and saw what I believe to be a Green Heron. This bird was sitting on the metal cable attached to wooden supports that acts as a barrier between the road and the swampy marsh area. It was perhaps 3 feet from the road. What a great shot....I missed! I drove by slowly as not to disturb the Heron but my car was probably the least of the bird's worrys. He was just trying to keep warm.

Flickers Feast on Sumac

Its snowing here today. Back to white outside. There goes the gym for today. We'll leave it as a New Year's Resolution. Looking out my side window at the sumac trees on the side of the house I saw at least 4 Yellow Shafted Flickers eating berries this morning. One sat very close to the window so I could get a good shot of it through the window. At one point the Flickers were joined by a Robin and I could see a few other birds flying by in the background. This summer I was cursing the sumacs since they seem to be invading the yard from the forest next door and I have to pay to get one large one removed. But now I am saving on birdseed and get a much better view of the feathered visitors as they come into my yard to feed.

Fall Foilage for the Birds

Walking along the beach after the leaves have dropped off the trees and the vegetation has turned brown challenges me to find interesting things to photograph. One of my favorite things is finding a plant with berries on it. Red, yellow or purple berries stand out against the drab brush as the treasure that catches your eye. Here's an example.


Hopefully these berries will be food for some over wintering birds.
I've seen quite a few birds lately including a flock of Robins outside my window at home eating sumac berries in a tree the morning after the shoreline was blanketed in a foot of snow. Along with at least 6 blue jays across the street on my neighbor's lawn yesterday a cardinal and a few black pheobes flew into my yard to search for food in the lawn. The foot of snow was melted overnight in a rain storm that turned the yard from white to green.

The other harbinger of Fall is the appearance of the feathery tops of the phragmites on the tops of their tall stalks. I'd imagine the seeds in these fronds feed the bird species that stay along the shore as well.

Sunsets and swans

I haven't posted for a few months, but I have been taking pictures. This swan caught my eye in a pond to the right of the road as I pulled into the park. There were two of them gracefully gliding over the water.




It gets harder and harder to get to the beach before sunset as the days get shorter. Leaving the beach as the sun is starting to go down does present the opportunity to take some lovely sunsets and pictures with interesting lighting.