What Bird Sounds Like a Manual Typewriter?

A yellow rail, one of THE MOST ELUSIVE birds around, sound like a manual typewriter.   And if you're too young to know what a manual typewriter sounds like, WHATEVER!  It sounds like a yellow rail.  Yellow rails are more secretive than Prince.  If I hear a yellow rail, I am going to celebrate big time.

Mission Accomplished

When I got home from the gym this afternoon I checked on my chicken.  I gave her fresh water, collected an egg, and checked on her food.  She was running low so I took her feed container out of the coop to refill.  I crouched down to replace the food container inside the coop.  I was in a bit of a hurry to get the door closed before she decided she wanted to come outside.  As I was closing the door to the coop I got up from a crouch.  I got up from a crouch without pulling myself up or pushing myself up or using my hands in any way.  I did it!  This was a goal I had since having my hip replaced - to get up from a crouch hands free!  Wow!  Mission accomplished.  This will make gardening, photography, chicken rearing, tying shoes for other people, traveling and countless other activities so much easier.

Language Can Be Hard

Today I had a busy day.  One meeting was especially difficult.  Problems.  Everybody has them.  One guy had bugs in his computer.  No, not a virus.  Actual bugs.  Ants to be specific.  His laptop was wrapped tightly in plastic. Can ants be suffocated?  Wouldn't it be better to lure the ants out of the machine with a jelly sandwich maybe? I don't know the answer to than.  I'm no computer expert.  My field is employment.  We try not to use jargon but sometimes it slips out.  So today when I heard my coworker say, "He hasn't been listening to directions.  I had to punch him out twice in the past week."  I knew right away that didn't sound good.  Especially since the guy saying it obviously lifts weights regularly.  His forearms bulge like Popeye the Sailor Man.  "On the time clock!" I pipe in, "He punches him out on the time clock."  Wow, that was a close one.  People could have taken that wrong for sure.  Jargon.  Jargon can be dangerous. 

Early Warning

As I stood in line at the self checkout to borrow Early Warning by Jane Smiley, the librarian called me over to shorten my wait and give me personal service.  "This is the second of a series," she told me.  "What?!" I said with grace and poise, "I'm checking it out anyway."  So this is the second of a triple feature about a farm family in Iowa.  This book covers 1960 to 2000.  The first book is about the family from 1920 to 1960.  The third in the series covers 2000 to 2020.  All in all the family history is covered for 100 years. And I started in the middle!  I liked it though and I've already started on the first of the series.  As the family spreads out from Iowa to Manhattan to San Francisco, Jane Smiley informs us about the culture of the time.  Jimmy Carter and the grain embargo. Rev. Jones in Guyana, the trickle down economics of the Reagen era, farm prices and the ag bills and James Watt; the story is fascinating because I lived through most of it.  I learned a lot from this book.  One of the main characters is named Frank.  Frank doesn't stay on the family farm but settles on the east coast instead.  Frank is fairly estranged from his wife and family but still married.  He has issues. When Frank can't sleep, he counts backwards from 1000 by fives.  I tried that last night and it didn't work.  I mean, I didn't get to sleep. I did, however, get pretty good at counting backward by 5's.  I love Jane Smiley's writing and can't wait to read about Frank's parents,

First Prize!

On top of volunteering to run an owl route once a year and a frog and toad route three times a year, we signed up for a marsh bird survey. So now I am listening to the strange sounds of the birds of the marsh.  And there are some ridiculously strange sounds.  There is one bird, the American bittern, that wins first prize for the most ridiculous sound.  The other name for American bittern is swamp pumper because it hangs out in the swamp and sounds like a pump.  Listen for yourself and see what you think.

Seriously?  Is that bird making a mating call or is it about to be sick?  Bulimic bittern?  This bird call is so incredible. I really hope I get the opportunity to hear one.

Fly Day

Beautiful day today so I decided to get a few things done in the yard for those that fly.  Hopefully a bird will make use of this yellow gourd house.

I hung all three yellow gourd houses in the hackberry trees that line my driveway.

As I put up the third gourd house I see Mr. and Mrs. Black Capped Chickadee checking out my bluebird house.  One potential parent goes in and looks around while the other waits on a blackberry cane.  Next they switch places so both can get a feel for the place.  Will they move in?

When the gourd houses were up I moved my bat house from the tree where it has hung for the past 7 years unused to the side of the house.  Last year I took a bat class and learned that the bats who nest on trees don't use houses.  The bats who nest in houses will not nest on trees.  So it made no sense to hang that bat house on a tree.  It needs to be on a house. I put this one on the south side of the house, close to the deck, but not close enough to get guano on the deck.

When the bat house was up I put up my pollinator house.  This was a gift from a fair trade market and made in the Phillipines.  I hope bees take it up for a residence.

I think bees will like it.  If the bees come by to smell the crab apple blossoms, they will find a clean, new home right there next to the blossoms.  What's not to like?

Owl Survey

Four of us went out on the owl survey in Morrison County last night.  We started more than 30 minutes after sunset after a delicious and warming dinner in Pierz.  The sky was mostly cloudy and the wind was gusty and the temperature was cold.  We stood on the cold gravel road listening for owls.  At the third stop the wind picked up a little bit.  With my back to the wind, mother nature parted the hair on the back of my head where there usually is no part and made me cold right down to the scalp.  At the fifth stop we parked the car at a T in the road.  As we got out we thought we saw a UFO coming from the west; a well-lit UFO.  Turns out it was not a UFO but  a tractor pulling a manure spreader.  As we stood there in the cold trying to listen for owls, the tractor pulled the manure spreader and proceeded to spread in the field the rich, ripe manure.  Talk about poor timing!  What are the chances the farmer chooses the one night we're in this neighborhood and the exact time of night of our arrival on the owl route?  Not only was the noise of the tractor spreading this juicy manure too loud for us to hear the owls, the smell of methane and ammonia was too much to take.  I'm surprised we held out for almost the entire 5 minutes.  I imagine the farmer eating dinner earlier tonight and planning to spread manure in the dark on cold Friday night.  Why? We didn't hear any owls at the two stops in the town of Pierz.  In fact the only birds we heard were geese and a lone mallard.  It was a quiet night for birds.  As time went on the wind got stronger. So we were skunked on the owls this year on our owl route. Maybe it was too cold or too windy.  Or maybe the owls ran out of things to say.  Lack of owls calling is just as important as evidence of owls calling or at least that is what we were told.  Earlier in the evening someone said they went to Jackson.  Well, that is all it took for me to get a new ear wig. I know Johnny Cash sang it but didn't Sonny and Cher also sing that song?  We had some dispute about the lyrics.  Was it hotter than a Brussels sprout? That doesn't make sense.  Hotter than a  Texas drought?  That does make sense but was it right?  Turns out is hotter than a pepper sprout.  Seriously?  I was told not to quit my day job. #sniffle #rockstardreamsdashed