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One of Jen’s peonies bloomed to herald Mothers Day. We started the day in traditional style, with breakfast in bed: broccoli and cheddar omelet, locally sourced bacon, fruit, toast, and coffee.  Sarah made duct tape roses, and a pinwheel for the garden. On Saturday after soccer practice, Sarah and I stopped by the Phantom Gardener […]

We saw this coyote on Saturday and Sunday, drinking at the pond.  She seems to have some pups somewhere – maybe in the hedgerow.  We are giving each other a wide berth. On Saturday our neighbor Richard Murray lent me his Gravely zero-turn mower, which has a 27 horsepower engine and a 60″ deck.  It’s […]

Sarah dug her golf clubs out of the back of the hall closet and drove a few balls into the pasture. Springtime brings Ring-necked Ducks to the pond.  This year we have an odd menage of three males and a female. On Saturday, Jen and I took a walk and counted nine herons’ nests in the swamp.  […]

We have been conducting a low-level war with the Canada Geese as long as we’ve been at the farm.  They are pestilent, and persistent.  But I too am persistent: whenever we see geese, we run across the lawn at them, screaming, and then get in the rowboat to chase them off the pond.  Our neighbors think […]

Sarah dusted off her bicycle for the first ride of the season. Here is one of our resident turkeys.  Soon we should have lots of poults (that is farm talk for baby turkeys). On Sunday, Sarah went for a trail ride in Walden N.Y. with her friend Michaela (not pictured).

We returned from a long absence (okay, two weekends) to find many signs of spring. At school, Sarah just finished a segment called “Wild Northeast,” in which each student selected a northeastern animal or plant (only two kids picked plants) and wrote a little book about it.  Sarah chose the Northern Spring Peeper (seen here and […]

We had a nice long weekend up at the farm celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. day, President Obama’s inauguration, and my father’s 75th birthday. It was cold on Saturday, but on Sunday it was mild enough to get everyone outside. The wild turkeys seem to be doing OK this winter. Sarah broke the ice to […]

The pond started to ice over on Saturday, but this mallard couple was undaunted.  They were back on Sunday, when everything had melted.  Maybe they will try to ride out the winter with us. A cardinal provided a shot of color to the late fall landscape.

Sarah had her last soccer practice of the season on Saturday.  It culminated in an approximately five-on-thirty game of coaches versus kids.  The coaches were surprisingly competitive. Chuck has been spending many, many hours gathering the falling leaves. We had fine weather all weekend.  On Sunday, Sarah brought out her bug-collecting gear. Our bluebirds seem to […]

We had some really impressive thunderstorms Saturday evening.  Perhaps in response, this woodpecker went looking for a safe and cozy spot.  He found one by making a hole about the size of a silver dollar in one of the pillars on the back porch. The storm also shook loose lots of tomatoes.