31 October 2014 - Big Sky Day and Even Bigger Night

One of the things I like best about driving across Wyoming is that you are on top of the world. The high plateaus give you nothing but sky. I love that.  Today for me, was similar, even though I was in Utah.

Starting early this morning before the sun was over the mountains, lots of sky and wonderful cloud formations. 

This evening I thought there should be a fabulous sunset, based on the clouds I saw today. Sunset was 6:24 this evening, so I hustled up Neff's canyon. 

I thought I was going to be disappointed, there was nothing but gray for so long. Then the first bit of pink appeared and I thought "Is this all there is?"  But no. I was reminded of How the Grinch Stole Christmas ended when the Grinch was expecting to hear the Whos boo-hooing 

It started in low.
Then it started to grow...
But this-- the sound wasn't sad.
Why, this sound sounded glad!  

This perfectly explains today's sunset. 

And finally, 

27 October 2014 - A Mother Nature Hissy Fit

The last two weeks have found me very busy in the yard starting to get it prepped for winter. Hoses rolled up and put away. Lawn furniture cleaned up and stored. Hammock and yard umbrellas taken down.  Compost piles turned over. Project supplies like paint all hauled to the basement. Mowing leaves up to start another compost pile. All the usual stuff. While I'm not quite done, I'm mostly done. It is a lot of work, but today I was very glad I've been keeping at it. 

Mother Nature had a meltdown today. It rained, hailed, snowed, rained some more. Then the sun came out and it rained and snowed while the sun was shining. Then gray skies and more rain. She finally quit spitting moisture at us and let the sun come out for the rest of the day, but it has been cold. I think we barely reached 45 after weeks of temps in the high 70s. Quite a shock to the system. On top of all that we have a hard freeze warning for tonight. That calls for one last trip to harvest tomatoes. None of the snow stuck, but the mountain tops have a layer of white frosting. 

I have been enjoying watching the color change in the yard. About half of the trees are still green. The rest have either turned gold or lost their leaves completely. Saturday's wind storm stripped many trees of their leaves. 

But here is the fun stuff.  I have Boston ivy growing on the front of my house. On the north side of the door, the entire plant is green. On the south side of the door, it has turned gold and red. Explain that to me. Mighty pretty, though.
 

Virginia Creeper is also trying to take over the yard and in addition to spreading over the ground, it likes to grow up trees. Currently I am letting it climb an ornamental plum because I like the way the gold leaves look against the deep purple of the plum. 


















 
These ping-pong size crabapples glow against their yellow foliage. I did not get around to making jelly this year, but the deer, squirrels and birds will quickly take care of the fruit. 

I didn't get any Mackintosh apples this year, but with all the trees that were taken out in order to build a new house next door, I suspect that  I should have a bumper crop with all the sun that will be pouring down on the apple tree going forward.

Why is it that just as container plantings become swoon-worthy, the frost shows up to take them out?  I moved most of my pots under the porch overhang hoping to enjoy them a little longer. 

 
The view towards Neff's canyon with the fall colors in front is always worth admiring.

I'm just hoping to enjoy the season a bit longer.

25 October 2014 - Another day, another (spectacular) sunset

Late October through November seem to be prime time for sunsets. Tonight was just another gorgeous sky. I am calling it "just another" but in reality, I never tire of seeing them. 

23 October 2014 - Pink Evening

I was out in the backyard this evening and noticed the sky had some great color. It was too hard to see through the trees so I ran inside for camera, keys and wallet. Drove up to Neff's Canyon for a good view. And it was fabulous! 

17 October 2014 - The Games have Begun

I am not talking sports here, at least not the normal football frenzy you might assume.  I am referring to the fall wildlife games taking place in my yard. 

Both the red squirrels and the rock squirrels are getting ready for winter. They fill their cheeks to bulging with sunflower seeds then find a spot to bury them--almost always in the lawn. At night the raccoons show up and very cleverly dig them up for dinner. The squirrels leave no trace of the buried treasure. The raccoons leave golf ball to tennis ball sized divots in the lawn. 

The blue jays are also stuffing their gullets with sunflower seeds. They tuck the seeds into the shaggy bark of the Russian Olive trees where their cache is often found by chickadees or woodpeckers.

This last week has seen a lot of bird activity. Hawks are migrating and are often seen gliding above the ridge across the street. I had a flock of Evening Grosbeaks pass through for a day.  

The Pine Siskens came in last week and are still busy on the feeders. The Pine Sisken flock included other small birds such as  juncos, yellow-rumped warblers and lesser goldfinch. All of which I'm happy to see. 

Today brought the first sighting of a Steller's Jay. Just one so far, but it is early yet.  I had six regulars at the feeders all last winter, so I hope to get them back again. 

The deer are coming down the mountain regularly now. First were the does, then does and babies, and now the young bucks are showing up. 

The only good thing they have done is to clean up all the fallen crabapples. The tree had a ton of fruit this year, and most of it was fermenting on the lawn. Not sure which is worse, the soft fermenting apples stuck in the treads of my shoes or deer poop. 




 



 

1 October 2014 - Hunting Season, Birds and Antelope Island

I haven't had a chance to go out looking for birds in quite a while. The paper today had an article about duck hunting season starting this Saturday. It dawned on me that if I wanted to go out to the lake or marsh areas, I'd better do it before the hunters start shooting and scare everything away. 

After considering my options, I decided on Antelope Island. First, I haven't been out there since early May and second, people on the bird list were reporting an Oven Bird down at Garr Ranch. After all the rainy cold days we've had, it seemed like a good idea.

I was shocked to see how low the lake is. There are places where I'm sure you could actually walk to the island if you could handle the seven mile distance and the extremely sticky lake bottom.

Didn't see a great variety of birds. On the causeway there were some big rafts of gulls and large numbers of avocets already in their winter plumage. A handful of long-billed curlews and assorted smaller peeps. But the scenery was magnificent. 

In all the times I have been out there, I have always seen ravens on the causeway. He looks like a metal sculpture.

 

 The buffalo were out in big numbers. Going south on the island they were up near the ridge, but coming back north they had moved down to the road. 

These are spring babies. They were busy bumping heads, running around, and executing stiff-legged jumps. Very cute. 

I also ran into mule deer and pronghorn antelope. 

Only fitting that a jack rabbit is hiding under a rabbitbrush. 

You can usually count on finding Great-horned owls in the barn. I wasn't disappointed. I caught this guy in the middle of a yawn. He never opened his eyes. That is some gaping maw.

 His friend was tucked in the side beams. 

I had to get out and do some hiking. Nice path. Great views. 

 
On my way back across the causeway, it looked like plumes of black smoke were rising up along the sides of the road. It was towers of insects. Not sure if they were mosquitoes or brine flies. 
I pulled over to the side of the road to check out the shore birds and my car was immediately surrounded by flying things--as though I were in the eye of a bug tornado. 



I wanted to get the effect of the plumes, but no way was I getting out of the car. This is a bad picture, but you get the idea. The camera just did not want to see the towers of insects. These plumes were probably 10 feet or more high and about three feet apart for several miles. That's a lot of bugs. The swallows were busy flying through them, like whales and krill.

Then one last look and back to civilization.