Sowing - big time

Out for my early morning walk when we were visiting my Dad on Speyside a couple of weeks ago I came across plenty of farming activity. This monster was sowing carrots. The land on the river valley floor is rich and fertile, but it wasn't always so peaceful. A few hundred years ago (in 1296 to be exact), King Edward I of England, known as the 'Hammer of the Scots' because, well, he kept trying to conquer us, stayed the night in the castle on the hill. You can just see the only remaining wall between the modern houses and the trees on the skyline. His army bivouacked on the plain below - right about where the tractor is.
Now it's just spring ploughing and sowing.

Chickens love watermelon

Chickens love watermelon, with a passion. These were just our leftover rinds, with only a bit of red. Last year we bought an over-mushy melon by mistake, and they ate the whole thing: chicken heaven.
I had figured that the black and white chickens were Dominiques, but now I'm not so sure. Dominiques (or Domineckers, as they are called here) have a rose comb, and these don't appear to be headed in that direction. The female on the right as a lot of whitish feathers on her front, but the others don't. The feathers on the back of their necks seem to be changing from black-and-white to brown-and-white.
My husband says they're probably all just mutt chickens. The three remaining excess cockerels haven't made it to the stew pot yet. They're not fighting, or even crowing, so far, but it's just a matter of time. For now though, they are helping decrease the insect population in the yard. This little flock roams further afield than others we've had.
I hate the fact that after the cockerels are culled, we'll have one tiny flock of two chickens and another tiny flock of three. "Can't we all just get along" is not a sentiment that's shared by chickens, apparently. The older birds just won't have anything to do with the younger ones. They treat them as if they were another species entirely. I wonder, if one of the older ones dies... will the remaining one prefer to spend her time alone, or will she try to join the younger flock? I'm guessing the latter.
The one on the right is lowest in the pecking order. The other chickens chase her from the food at times. But I've taken a tip from some people and started offering bugs that I find in the garden to the chickens. This gal is the one who comes running the fastest, for her caterpillar treat. Now she runs to me, expecting bugs, every time she sees me. I'm tempted to buy mealworms to keep in my pocket, so I won't be such a continual disappointment to her.

Stills

When you return to a place you know well after an absence, things that were once mundane strike you as exotic. As with these copper whisky stills in my home village. Until I moved away from home to go to university, it was just part of the landscape for me to come round a corner and come face to face with...creatures like this. Now, on a visit to see my dad this weekend, I found myself whipping out my camera. These are the top halves of stills, and these

are the bottom halves. All sitting out in the falling snow in the coppersmith's yard, waiting to be transported to their distillery. Every distillery has a different shape of still - it's one of the factors that gives each whisky its unique taste. My home village has a very well known firm of coppersmiths, who produce handmade stills not just for whisky, but also rum, gin, tequila and bourbon.

The Holly & The Ivy & The Roses

This year, our tenth in Texas, we decided to spend a small, quiet Christmas in Austin instead of making the 1200 mile drive to Chicago. Now the bubble lights and the tree are turned on
The pumpkin pie and cornbread cool on the table while the turkey roasts in the oven
In this quiet time before the others arrive for dinner, I go out to the garden and look for evergreens to make a simple centerpiece for the dining room table. Holly and ivy are traditional greens, but this is Texas, not Olde England! My Holly will be Burford holly and the Ivy is Fig ivy. A snip of magnolia, a small branch from a Meyer's Lemon, some rosemary in bloom, a few unfrozen wands and leaves of lavender and cuttings of dwarf Greek myrtle make the base. The roses looked pretty good from ten feet away, but up close only five are undamaged enough by cold to use: one large flower from the pink climber, a bud of 'Belinda's Dream', a medium-sized bloom of 'Julia Child' and one bud & one bloom from the 'Champagne' minirose.
Happy Christmas from Philo and Annie ~ May your days be merry and bright!

Harvest

Throughout the Northern Hemisphere, farmers are harvesting the fruits and vegetables they have cultivated over the summer. The brightly-flavored summer crops of cucumbers and tomatoes have passed their peak and we've moved into the deeper flavored pumpkins, winter squashes, pears and apples.
To celebrate the recent Autumnal Equinox, here are some images of harvests occurring around the globe (courtesy of Huffington Post).
Grape harvesting in FrancePumpkin picking in MaineGala Apples from Germany
Coconut plucking in Bangalore, India
Wheat harvest in Afghanistan
Potato harvest in BelarusGrape harvest in Bulgaria
Rice harvest in Hanoi, Vietnam
"No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden." -Thomas Jefferson

Classical flour

The back of a flour lorry, complete with Latin motto 'be mindful'. Latin used to be very widely taught in Scottish schools - in the 1970s my state secondary school in the north of Scotland offered not just Latin, to university entrance level, but classical Greek as well. Modern languages were French, German, Russian, Italian and Spanish. Now, last time I looked, my old school was offering only two European languages, and Latin and Greek had been discontinued. My children have both studied Latin as a compulsory subject at school, and I'm glad they've had the opportunity. They may not think it's done them any good, but I'm sure it hasn't done them any harm. And they may even be able to translate the back of a passing flour lorry.

Kendall Knob ..

Dan and I headed out to the Kendall Knob/clear cut area for some quick backcountry turns this morning. It turns out we didn't stay long.
What I have been learning is you need speed to easily execute turns in deep powder. I managed to do that last week at Hyak. However, trees were added to the equation today, and this made it more difficult to want to go fast. It is all a learning curve. On a positive note, I did not hit any trees. I did crash hard when catching a ski on buried alder.
Dan and I found the snow to be deep. Skinning was tiring. It snowed and the wind blew the whole time we were out. Dan had difficulty extricating himself a few times. I had difficulty with the one crash. A little more snow coverage would have made things somewhat easier.
We dug a snow pit at our high point to investigate the snow pack. Mostly soft snow for the top 30". We did a tap test and were able to have a 4" top slide with wrist taps on a fairly low angle slope. (~25° heavily treed) Often we heard the Alpental ski patrol bombing the slopes. (It was sort of scary.)
We made one run through the trees, and called it quits. By the time we left, I90 Eastbound was closed.
Dan breaking trail through trees
The view before conditions deteriorated.

Crevasse Falls

The past weekend went by without a hitch (no 911 calls) However, no one made the summit either. The recent climbing trend has involved crevasse falls. In the past two weeks, clients, guides, and rangers have all taken spills somewhere along the Ingraham Glacier Direct or upper Disappointment Cleaver route. No one was seriously injured, but the word on the glacier is that there a number of hidden or sketchy crevasses to cross high on the mountain. The latest report says that the wands have been removed from the Ingraham Glacier Direct, and the guided climbing teams are putting a route up the DC.
The other interesting trend that is being noticed is the number of skiers vs. the number of climbers. Over the past couple of years, I've seen an increase in the number of ski mountaineers on the hill in May and June. There have been quite a few weekends where we've actually seen more skiers than climbers at the high camps! It's no surprise that skiers and boarders flock to Rainier when the conditions are good (April/May/June) but to actually observe fewer climbers is interesting.
And with that said, ski demon Sky has been at it again. On the one day of really good weather last week (Friday), he and Dave Brown stormed the Success Couloirs and made short work of the route on skies. Not to be out done, Jason Hummel posted a sweet Fuhrer Finger trip report (a bit dated, but nice images). Photo by Dave Brown

Southwest Rock Art

Along the first leg of our journey back to Minnesota we made a couple of short side trips from I-70 to some rock art sites. The first of these was the "Head of Sinbad" rock art site. This is some of the best preserved rock art in the southwest. According to local literature these pictographs are at least 3,000 years old.





The second site we checked out was Sego Canyon. Unlike the Head of Sinbad panel, some of the Sego Canyon pictographs have experienced a lot of vandalism. There was one panel, however, that was high enough on the canyon wall that it was relatively untouched by vandals. According to the BLM, Sego Canyon contains 3 culturally distinct styles of rock art: Fremont, Ute and Barrier-style. After these quick stops we got back on the Interstate and continued our journey home.

The Winner IS....

First, I can't thank our GABE hostess, Twinkie, enough for coming up with the brilliant GABE idea - I know I has a lot of new friends - you are genius Twink! I was furry sci-fi techie in picking my winner and wrote every commenter's name on separate pieces of paper. Then I put the 48 pieces of paper in my old hat (that I won't ever wear again) and Dad held the hat up high. Mom reached in and picked one piece of paper and... it was the name of my new pal, Mayzie! Congrats to you, Mayzie! Enjoy the treat dispenser and have a gggrrreat Monday!

Fauna, Flora, and Water

After relaxing at home on Sunday (post here), we woke up to a warmer day that allowed us to eat breakfast on the deck.  Yay!  Though we were tempted to laze about again, we decided to take an exploratory drive into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, specifically the Cades Cove area.

We’re just two of the millions of people that will be visiting the park this year.
With a  visitor count of 8-10 million, the GSMNP is the most visited national park in the US.

The drive from the Townsend Entrance to Cades Cove is 9 miles (14 km) of two-way, single lane traffic.  At this time of the year, we’re finding that vehicles are few and far between — except in the 11-mile (18) Cades Cove Loop.

The 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on the loop — 35 mph [56 km/h] elsewhere — and the curvy single lane road forces even those visitors who would like to whiz through the park to slow down and take it easy.  And if there is a wildlife traffic jam, then all bets are off — you’re not going to get anywhere fast.

But to really enjoy the park, one must stop and get out of the car.  There’s plenty of entertainment along the way — gurgling creeks and rivers; rapids and waterfalls; colorful wild flowers; birds, and bees, and butterflies; deer, elk, wild turkey, and everyone’s favorite — the American black bear.  Add to that the many, many hiking trails and you’re not lacking for things to see and do.

So, slow down we did.  In fact, we made so many stops and spent so much time at each spot that we only had time to see a few of the historic buildings on the Cades Cove Loop.  I’m going to leave the heritage sites for a separate post after we’ve completed exploring all of them, and focus on everything else that made up our day.

Here’s our story in pictures …

Just inside the Townsend entrance to the park, we make our first stop.

these waterfalls are easily viewed from the road; But that wasn’t good enough for us.
Scrambling over the rocks, we found this perfect spot to view the falls.

A short trail just before the tunnel gives us our first glimpse of wild flowers.
top:  Creeping Phlox; Bottom: daisy Fleabane.
[do correct me if I am wrong on any of the flower identifications.]

I was especially intrigued with this flower, which I believe is a Foamflower.

A close encounter with a millipede (aka thousand-legged worm) provides ample entertainment.

a White-tailed deer encounter during our short walk to the John Oliver Place.

Here’s your chance to see the very rare two-headed white-tailed deer (top left).
Just kidding, but the positioning of the two deer couldn’t have been more perfect.
the trio featured here were right next to the path and weren’t fazed in the least
by visitors walking to the john Oliver place.

Left: On the trail from the John Oliver Place to the parking lot.
Right: Mui with his trophy ‘ginormous millipede kill’ — that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

The lens needed to capture the wide open expanses has yet to be invented.
this is just a tiny portion of the meadow near the john oliver place.

We were alerted to this American black bear sow by a number of cars parked in
every possible spot along the road.  This bear was in a densely wooded area with lots
of branches and shrubs in the way.  She could have cared less about our presence …

… even though she had a yearling cub (top right) foraging a short distance from where she was ‘pretend-napping’.  The photos I managed to get may not be great, but they’re good enough.
After all, unlike some of the other visitors we witnessed approaching closer than was wise,
I had no desire to test mum’s patience and become bear bait.

You can see wild turkeys just about anywhere in the park.  This one  was one of two
that happened to be  foraging in the wooded area behind the cemetery at the Primitive
Baptist Church, another heritage site on the Cades Cove Loop.

Our second ‘close encounter’ with a black bear was after we exited the Cades Cove Loop.
Foraging for berries in a wooded patch below the road, this young adult was more
cooperative  in terms of providing us with a good photo op.

The ranger on crowd control duty at this bear jam told us that the national
Park service estimates the GSMNP black bear population to be around 1,500.

And on that note, we decided to call it an early day and return home to enjoy our campsite.  Comfy chairs placed near the railing behind the coach, we sat down to read, and in my case, process photos.  I didn’t make any headway :-) … hence the teaser post ;-)

I hope it was worth the wait.

Tree Quiz

Sauron?

That's my dainty size 6 next to the largest leaf in North America. Identify the yellow leaves on the lower left for extra credit.

A big hint to how this tree got its common name.
Answers below.
--------
1. American Beech Tree with a personality problem. (Fagus grandifolia.) The smooth carving surface often tempts woodland vandals.
2. Around here this tree is known as the Cowcumber, but more commonly it's called the Bigleaf Magnolia, Magnolia macrophylla. I've read that they're rare, but it's one of those plants that tend to be locally abundant when you do find them.
Extra credit: Sweetgum, Liquidambar styraciflua.
3. Hophornbeam, Ostrya virginiana.

Biopsy

Been in the hospital this week for a biopsy on a mass in my left lung. I won't bore you the details of why a week in the hospital for a needle biopsy.

Got preliminary result this afternoon - lung cancer. This is now the 4th different cancer I have gotten.

This mass was not showing 6 months ago, so hoping we can catch it in time. Waiting for the full biopsy results and see if additional tests are needed. Then we will see what my doctors and I can work up as treatment.

Thanks, Wayne D for making the "Army Strong" coment on my facebook page. That's the inspiration for the "photo" with this posting.

Fog City?

San Francisco and the Bay Bridge on a particularly sunny January day.

Morning Walk

Here are more treasures I found on my morning walk today; all kinds and colors of old glass and even a square headed nail. It's hard looking up at the sky and trees when there's so much to find underfoot!

Spring break

I took a break from the recent gray days and worked on some pictures from last spring. This is the same garden from the Shoals Garden Tour that I posted about before. The "more pictures later" part only took me eight short months! Oh well.

I'd never been on a garden tour, so I wasn't sure what to expect. But this garden alone was worth the price of the tour. It's difficult to believe that all of this was on 3/4 acre.

Calla lily.

So much of what I love about this garden is the hardscaping. This purple wall was a favorite feature, and if I ever build a garden, I'm now convinced that I'd want to include a lot of statuary. (I think this is Apollo.)

Piney path.

Cherub planter.

Shady rest.

From the more traditional front of the house, you'd never guess that all that was going on in the back.
The garden has its own web site.