Pennsylvania Backwoods

I went to get something to drink from the refrigerator in the basement and looked out the window and saw what I thought were two geese.  I looked again and noticed that only one looked like a goose so I got out the binoculars and found that it was a pair of Mallards that nest here each spring.

The colors that the male has are amazing.  The Green on his neck is very deep and shiny.  Maybe they’ll hatch some little ones soon.  That would be great to see.

The may also be a pair of geese at the pond with a nest so there may also be some gosling’s on the farm this year!

Just got home from working on the house and decided to check the minnow trap I had set in the creek (pronounced crick here in PA) about 2 weeks ago, and to my surprise there were about 2 dozen in it. So I put them in a bucket of water and went up to the pond to feed the bass and get some relaxation in before tonights session of The Black Ink Project.

I got a couple of shots of decent sized bass, but I messed up when i resized them, so the pictures won’t enlarge much when you click on them.

It’s pretty cool watching them compete for the minnows you toss in and usually once you toss a couple in the Bass just swarm around waiting for more.  For some reason there weren’t that many today and it seemed like they were staying deep.  Maybe it’s still a little early on in the year and they are still coming out of “hibernation”.  Anyway, it was a good few minutes to relax.

I’m pretty pumped aout The Black Ink Project. With the help of everyone involved, I should be able to turn the time I spend in front of a computer into a nice salary. I guess we will see in a couple of months, but I do have high hopes for it and I’m also ready to do what it takes to start another business. Anyone interested in marketing should check it out. I think there are still seats open, but you will be behind the game if you get started late. Even if you don’t sign up for it, I suggest you check out the forums at Quit Your Day Job, there is plenty you can learn there in the forums.

I thought I would do another post about the Black Capped Chickadee. This little bird is probably my favorite to watch. If you put out a feeder, you can be sure that the chickadee’s will show up. These must be the tamest little birds there are. My Dad has had them land on his shoulder while he is filling up the feeder and it is nothing to stand a few feet from the feeder and have them flying right up to the feeder. It is like they know that we feed them.

This next image was a lucky shot and has to be my best picture ever. How I caught the motion of this chickadee’s wings while it was heading for the feeder is beyond me!

One more picture, then I’ll write a bit of info about this bird.

According to All About Birds :

Cool Facts

• The Black-Capped Chickadee hides seeds and other food items for later recovery. Each item is placed in a different spot and a bird can remember thousands of hiding places.
• The chickadee’s simple-sounding calls have been found to be extremely complex and language-like. They code information on identity and recognition of other flocks as well as predator alarms and contact calls.
• Breeding pairs and nonbreeders join up into flocks outside of the breeding season. Nonbreeders may be members of several flocks, with a different position in the dominance hierarchy of each flock.

I have noticed that I only usually see the chickadees during the winter months, so I assume that they are well fitted to the cold climate. The black capped chickadee page on Wikipedia says that they are permanent residents, but they often move south during the winter. Their have a wide range as you can see from the map available on the All About Birds page. They live in parts of Alaska, most of southern Canada, and most of the northern United States.

Heres to you my little friends!

I’m not sure where this originated, but I just received this email:

I just want to thank all of you for your educational emails over the past year.

Thanks to you, I no longer open a public bathroom door without using a paper towel.

I can’t use the remote in a hotel room because I don’t know what the last person was doing while flipping through the adult movie channels.

I can’t sit down on the hotel bedspread because I can only imagine what has happened on it since it was last washed.

I have trouble shaking hands with someone who has been driving because the number one pass-time while driving alone is picking your nose. (Although cell phone usage may be taking the number one spot)

Eating a Little Debbie sends me on a guilt trip because I can only imagine how many gallons of trans fats I have consumed over the years.

I can’t touch any woman’s purse for fear she has placed it on the floor of a public bathroom. Yuck!

I must send my special thanks to whoever sent me the one about poop in the glue on envelopes because I now have to use a wet sponge with every envelope that needs sealing.

Also, now I have to scrub the top of every can I open for the same reason.

I no longer have any savings because I gave it to a sick girl (Penny Brown) who is about to die in the hospital for the 1,387,258th time.

I no longer have any money at all, but that will change once I receive the $15,000 that Bill Gates/Microsoft and AOL are sending me for participating in their special e-mail program.

I no longer worry about my soul because I have 363,214 angels looking out for me, and St. Theresa’s novena has granted my every wish.

I no longer eat KFC because their chickens are actually horrible mutant freaks with no eyes or feathers.

I no longer use cancer-causing deodorants even though I smell like a water buffalo on a hot day.

Thanks to you, I have learned that my prayers only get answered if I forward an email to seven of my friends and make a wish within five minutes.

Because of your concern I no longer drink Coca Cola because it can remove toilet stains.

I no longer can buy gasoline without taking someone along to watch the car so a serial killer won’t crawl in my back seat when I’m pumping gas.

I no longer drink Pepsi or Dr. Pepper since the people who make these products are atheists who refuse to put ‘Under God’ on their cans.

I no longer use Saran wrap in the microwave because it causes cancer.

And thanks for letting me know I can’t boil a cup of water in the microwave anymore because it will blow up in my face…disfiguring me for life.

I no longer check the coin return on pay phones because I could be pricked with a needle infected with AIDS.

I no longer go to shopping malls because someone will drug me with a perfume sample and rob me.

I no longer receive packages from UPS or FedEx since they are actually Al Qaeda in disguise.

I no longer shop at Target since they are French and don’t support our American troops or the Salvation Army.

I no longer answer the phone because someone will ask me to dial a number for which I will get a phone bill with calls to Jamaica, Uganda, Singapore and Uzbekistan.

I no longer buy expensive cookies from Neiman Marcus since I now have their recipe.

Thanks to you, I can’t use anyone’s toilet but mine because a big brown African spider is lurking under the seat to cause me instant death when it bites my butt.

And thanks to your great advice, I can’t ever pick up $5.00 dropped in the parking lot because it probably was placed there by a sex molester waiting underneath my car to grab my leg.

I can no longer drive my car because I can’t buy gas from certain gas companies!
I don’t use lemon in my tea because usually it has not been cleaned and is full of germs.

If you don’t send this e-mail to at least 144,000 people in the next 70 minutes, a large dove with diarrhea will land on your head at 5:00 PM this afternoon and the fleas from 12 camels will infest your back, causing you to grow a hairy hump. I know this will occur because it actually happened to a friend of my next door neighbor’s ex-mother-in-law’s second husband’s cousin’s beautician…

Have a wonderful day….

Oh, by the way…..

A German scientist from Argentina, after a lengthy study, has discovered that people with insufficient brain activity read their e-mail with their hand on the mouse.

Don’t bother taking it off now, it’s too late.

Just imagine where we would all be without all of this help;)

For some reason I got to thinking earlier about the few times I got to go to a drive-in when I was younger to watch a movie. It was an awesome experience as a kid. The size of the screen, the cool speaker that clipped on to your window, the walk to the concession stand to get some popcorn and some candy, all part of an era that is all but gone.

It amazes me that most of the drive-ins closed and became retail space for new stores and restaurant. I mean, since then, we have become a lazy society never having to leave our cars for anything. Pretty much there is a drive through window available for whatever you want these days. Need lunch or dinner? Stop at a fast food restaurant and grab an extra value meal - make mine large please. In most states, if you need to pick up a case of beer or a 5th of your favorite bottom of the barrel wine(Mad Dog was my favorite) all you need to do is hit a local convenience store and pull up to the window and place you order for your drinks and snacks for the evening DVD at home.

Doesn’t the drive-in fit in with our lifestyle? Sure, there are still some out there, but now as many as there were when I was young. Now, the sound from the movie plays through your car radio on an unused FM frequency. The concession stands are still there, just more expensive. And now, the cars have gotten smaller so the trunks can’t fit as many people to sneak in without paying. Well, even though the drive-in was on its way out when I was young, this sure makes me feel old. What say you?

I was kidding around with Denny in one of my comments on his blog about this very thing. Accenting the Accent has written a very informative post about PA speak. Or is it Appalachian speak?

All I know is that native Pennsylvanians think the first President of the nation was George Worshington. Also, they worsh their clothes and cars. They’re not sure, they are “shore”. They don’t use a sponge to clean the dishes after dinner, they use a dish-rag or a worsh-rag. Also you are never in their way, you are in their road. My! I could come up with many others, but I think I’ll leave it at these. You can read more terms at the link above and at Pittsbughese. I just remember learning English in elementary school and hearing my parents talk this way would make my head feel like it was going to explode.

At first, like a lot of others, I thought that twitter sucked. Now though that I’m on there, I can see the benefits of it. Its really a great way to communicate with your community.

Twitter is sort of a cross between a blog and an instant messenger. You can alert your followers to sites or articles of interest to them, or just let them know what you are doing throughout the day. Lets say you just spent hours writing an awesome post for your blog and you think it would be great to get it dugg or stumbled. You can just send a “tweet” out on Twitter asking your community asking them to do so - a tweet is what your messages are called on Twitter. Or say you just got arrested, twitter can even help get you out of jail via a text message from your cell phone.

Well, enough about Twitter. Head on over, sign up for your account and follow me!

The first 3 pictures shown here are from last evening. These 3 jakes were out picking through the freshly plowed cornfield. For those who may not know, a jake is a young male wild turkey. I have been seeing turkey out just about every evening the past couple of weeks. Sometimes a flock of them, or sometimes just 1 all alone out feeding, both in the morning and evening.

The rest of these I took tonight while outside enjoying the nice weather. It actually smelled like spring too. Hopefully the cold weather is almost gone now. The trees are starting to bloom, although the frost we had the past few mornings may have stunted them a bit.

While the three turkey were pecking along in the cornfield, out came a group of nine whitetails. Pretty awesome seeing them out together eating.

In this last picture you can see the other 3 deer off to the right hand side.

There were also 2 deer out on top of the hill that I couldn’t get a shot of. After a few minutes, something ended up spooking all 11 deer and they ran off into the woods. About a half an hour later I saw around 7 others up on the hill where the other 2 were out, I assume that these were the ones from down by the turkey and they just made their way up the hill through the woods.

If you enjoy the wildlife photos, you can view more in my “farm” album on my Pennsylvania Backwoods Photo Gallery
Enjoy!

Spring is upon us. It was actually hot enough yesterday to get a sunburn.

As you can see from this picture, the heat just means its time to get out and get the work done. That grass will need weedwacked every couple of weeks beginning probably next week.

These wild onions have actually been growing for about 3 weeks now. They smell great when the are growing in the yard as you cut the grass. Taste wise, I imagine they taste like ramps, but I haven’t eaten ramps so I can’t say for sure. I do know that they taste very strong, almost garlic like.

Earlier in the week, I caught this blue heron land about 300 yards away. I think it may have a nest down that way in the woods. Its also around frequently during the warm weather. Its kinda hard to see… I’m thinking of getting a telephoto lens for my camera.

A couple of days later I caught this deer coming out of the Christmas trees to graze during the evening.

It’s been awhile since I’ve had time or anything to write about here. However I also am an author at the Stop Mountaintop Removal blog and I wrote a post about wind power.

Visit One Alternative to Mountaintop Removal - Wind to read more on the subject.

Pennsylvania is doing quite good with funding renewable, green energy, but it needs to do more, just as the whole country should be.