Turkeys in the Grass

I am fascinated by wild turkeys and we are lucky to have many of them in our community.  Yesterday I started out our driveway and saw two turkey hens and at least a dozen or so poults.  They walked across the road.  I ran inside for my camera and got back in time to shoot a couple of rather poor photographs of a few of them before they disappeared into the woods on the other side of the road.

The wild turkey was thriving before America was explored.  Early in the sixteenth century explorers took wild turkeys from Mexico to Europe where they were successfully domesticated.  The domestic turkeys did so well that early English settlers brought them back to America.

In the nineteenth century turkeys were over-hunted and their habitat lost to settlers.  In the early twentieth century turkeys were eradicated in the north-eastern United States.  In the 1940s large re-stocking efforts put wild turkeys back.  Turkeys were captured in one area and re-introduced in another.  The turkeys thrived and are now found in every state except Alaska.

The females raise the poults with no help from the males.  Several females might live together and share the raising of the poults.

How lucky we are to see so many turkeys around our house.  they are fascinating to watch and delightful to listen to.

Fridays are Golden

One of the best things about having more than one dog is the pleasure of watching them play together.  Our dogs play in the den, but they really love to play outside.  When they are taken off leash the first thing they do is have a little wrestling match.  No one wins or loses and no one is ever injured.  The wrestling match ends as quickly as it began.  Then the girls will run free at breakneck speed.  Here they are in action:


First thing...we need our leashes off please.

The match is over.  Just look at those smiles.

Moving forward in these troubled times, we need to be mindful of the needs of others.  As Mother Teresa so wisely said:
Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier.

Let's all try to make others feel better and happier.  And I'm sure we will also feel better and happier for having done so.

HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND, EVERYONE!

Close off the Streets and Dance!

Many mountain towns have street dances primarily to entertain the tourists and encourage them to shop downtown in the evenings.  They are usually Fridays and Saturdays...a peak time for tourists.

Brevard has street dances and while tourists are certainly welcome, the participants are primarily year-round residents.  Some of the people are really dressed up while others are more casual.  Our street dancing is held on Tuesday evenings.  Many people come to dance and others bring their chairs to enjoy the music and watch.  Young and old, folks just grab a partner and wait for the music to begin.

The two people with the blue tee shirts at the center of the picture are volunteers who will teach the square dance steps to anyone who needs a little help.  You have to love the variation in age.  Folks in their "senior" years dancing right alongside much younger folks.

 

The children make their own little group.

The bluegrass band and square dance caller.  They have a jug for donations, the only pay they receive.

Winding up that ball of twine gets a little confusing, especially for the children.

This little sweetie saw my camera and yelled, "Me next.  Me next."  She was delighted to see herself in the digital display and and yelled to her Granpa to come and look.

Main street is blocked off at the Courthouse Square in the center of town.  No, the camera is not at an angle.  The streets are hilly in the mountains.

This little girl really put her heart and soul into the dancing.  And yes, all the children in the mountains are above average and have curly hair.

This old geezer  older gentleman was eating, drinking sweet tea, smoking cigarettes and occasionally watching the dancers.  He was short of breath so in between smokes, he put on his nasal canula for his oxygen.  He had a beautifully carved walking stick on the table.  I don't know if the man across the table from him is a relative or a caretaker.  I didn't dare try to get a better photograph.  Something about the older gentleman's behavior made me feel he wouldn't like it very much.

The street dancing will end all too soon as summer wanes.  Our public schools will start next Monday.  Who knows where the time goes?  In Brevard we have danced the summer away.

Alarmed

The alarms rang VERY loudly all over the house.  The dogs were frantic about the shrill high-pitched sound.

Our smoke detectors are wired together so that if one goes off it automatically triggers all of the other alarms.  Last Thursday morning we were getting ready to drive to the Biltmore Estate to view their current Tiffany exhibit.  The smoke detectors all alarmed.  I hurried all over the house to see if I could smell any smoke.  I found nothing and the alarms silenced as quickly as they had begun.  By checking all the warning lights, my husband could determine that it was the master bedroom alarm that started the alert.

All was quiet for several minutes and the dogs finally calmed down.  Then the alarms all sounded once again.  I took the dogs outside while my husband once again checked all over the house.  He found nothing and the alarm again stopped in less than a minute.

I checked the owner's manual and found no troubleshooting information on intermittent false alarms other than chirping with low batteries.  We knew the batteries were fine since we change them twice a year.  What on earth could be triggering the alarms?  We decided we should not leave the dogs in the house alone, so we canceled the dog walker and decided to stay home.

Once again the alarms all went off.  And once again, they stopped in less than a minute.  The bedroom alarm was the one to trigger the alarm in each instance.

I went Online to the Kidde Website.  One troubleshooting Q&A mentioned that the alarms might be triggered by dust particles.  "Blow out the smoke detectors each time you change the batteries."  I asked my husband if we ever did that and he replied that the user's manual said nothing about that.  We decided to give it a try so I got the vacuum and change the hose to "blow" rather than vacuum while my husband got the ladder.

He climbed onto the ladder and took down the smoke detector.  Expecting to see some dust I wisely pointed the vacuum hose away from me while we blew the dust out.

There was no dust.  But a HUGE BIG BLACK SPIDER was blown from the smoke detectors.  [True confessions here:  I HATE SPIDERS!  They are so creepy, sneaking up on a person.  And yes, I have an unreasonable fear of them.]

My husband stomped on the spider.  Unfortunately, he was wearing a pair of Keen's and the ridges did not make contact with the HUGE BIG BLACK SPIDER!  It was coming MY way!  Thank goodness I found sufficient courage to stomp it rather than run away.  [Don't send me comments about how useful spiders are...and that I should have captured it somehow and put it outside.  No way was I about the chance that HUGE BIG BLACK SPIDER might get away and stay inside our house.  And yes, I know there are probably other spiders living with us.  But unless I see one, I can forget that they are lurking around.]

So once more, my husband and I found ourselves in another Lucy/Desi moment.  After the snake incident (here) we decided that I will manage the snakes and he will manage the spiders.  Who would have thought a spider would set off a smoke detector? 

Photograph by Will Cook from the Carolina Nature Website.

We are thankful that the spider didn't choose the middle of the night to establish himself in the smoke detector.  Or worse, at a time when we were not home.  Should I write the company and have them list the fact that a spider might be the cause for the false alarms?  Nah.  No need to alarm people.

Fridays are Golden

Impossible as it may seem, here we are ending the first week of August.  Around our house we are all in a bit of a funk.  The humans so worried about the direction in which our Congress is leading us (or failing to lead us), and the canines because it is way too hot to do much of anything outside.

Like much of the country we have had weather with temperatures much higher than normal and with several record-breaking high temperatures.  With the high humidity the misery index climbs every day.

The dogs get most of their exercise very early in the mornings.  My husband rises before dawn most days, and as soon as the daylight comes, he takes the Golden Girls out for a walk and a romp.  The girls just hang around the rest of the day, going out for potty breaks and coming right back inside.

Lucy is quite bored.  Nothing to do but watch the birds and mope.

Ellie is the same.  She just had an ice cube (hence the wet spot on the bed) and mopes along with Lucy.

We have been so discouraged by the actions of some of our "leaders" in Congress.  So much partisanship on both sides of the aisle, and so little respect for compromise.  I cannot recall a more dysfunctional Congress  whose members seem to have lost interest in the good of the Nation and our future.  The best I can do is to contact my Senators and Representative and express my views.  And to keep informed so I can make an informed decision for the next election.

And for the weekend I am going to follow the advice of Sophie.  At age ten, she wrote the following in a little book called, Always Have Three Friends and Never Eat a Bug:   Never give up or lose faith even if you don't really believe.

NOTE:  I just realized the book is called, "Always Have Three Friends and Never Eat a Fly."  (Sorry I wrote Bug)

I must admit that I really don't believe they can work together, but I will try very hard not to lose faith in our Congress.  Well, at least for this weekend.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND, EVERYONE!!!

Get the Water Where You Can, I Suppose

We have a birdbath mounted on our deck railing.  The birds need water, and we are delighted to see all the different birds coming there to drink, winter and summer.  We change the water several times a day in this hot weather so the water is always fresh.

A goldfinch at the water.

The other day, I saw a little chickadee getting water from the ant trap of the hummingbird feeder.  It had rained and the ant trap was full of water.  I have no idea why the chickadee chose the feeder rather than the birdbath.

 I think this is a juvenile who is just learning how to make it on its own.

Much to my surprise, a little titmouse did the very same thing just minutes later.

Sweet little titmouse.

I looked up from my book and saw a little goldfinch getting water from the same hummingbird feeder.  I was able to pick up my camera and get a few shots.



Upside down goldfinch. 

Amazing!

There was one great moment that I missed with the camera.  A hummingbird dive-bombed the goldfinch.  The goldfinch gave in immediately and I didn't get a photograph.  But I laughed out loud at the little fighter.  The hummingbird did not go to the feeder, but he wasn't about to allow the bigger birds to take it over.  I have no idea why three different birds would choose the water in the ant trap over the fresh water in the birdbath not three feet away.  I got up and checked to see if there were any seeds or insects in the trap.  Nope, there was nothing but water.  You figure.

Dark Clouds Rolling In

Among the many places that give me pleasure, one of them is in my very own neighborhood.  The view from this by-way is almost always a beautiful sight.

In the midst of the "heat wave," we have been having evening showers most days.  I went down to my favorite by-way to watch the dark clouds rolling in.

The Blue Ridge Mountains are truly blue, especially before a storm.

 The clouds begin to gather, turning everything darker.

More and more of the sky is covered.

I wanted to linger and watch the storm, but a big bolt of lightning made me change my mind.  It was too close for comfort so I headed home.

It now appears that Congress will pass a bill to keep our country from defaulting on its loans.  Created in the last hours before the deadline, it is not pleasant and leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.  But it is probably the best we will get.  When you see that one group is perfectly willing to divide the baby...well, you know what I mean.