A Farewell to Blogs

Yes, it's official. I have lost my long-running battle with excessive laziness and am forced to cease publication of Four Seasons in Vermont. I appreciate everyone who has stopped by for a look, but I really appreciate the readers who thought my posts were funny. Good-by from the North Country and happy lives to everyone!

The Great Wall of Vermont

The local masons pose in front of their handiwork.

Some of you readers are well enough read and travelled to be familiar with the so-called "Great Wall of China". Even though that wall can apparently be seen from space, I'm not convinced that China's "great" wall is all that great or can even come close to comparing to the wall we have recently completed in our yard. There are similarities however. The chinese built their wall to protect them from the ravaging barbarian hordes of Mongol horsemen. We have built our wall to protect us from the ravaging barbarian hordes from outside Vermont (New Hampshire comes to mind for example). It will also serve as a retaining wall for some flowers and shrubbery. Eventually we hope to extend the wall all around our property and then build a moat. That will be followed by the guard towers complete with catapults equipped to hurl copious quantities of Greek Fire. When it comes to home security, no excess is excessive. I'm not sure what that means but it's a motto I try and live by.

As Dumb as a Duck

The piercingly unintelligent gaze of our drake.

The ducks at their little hideaway on the brook.

The expression "as dumb as a duck" is not a colloquialism in the English language as far as I know. That is a great pity because ducks are some of the dumbest animals I have ever encountered. Cute perhaps, but their overriding quality seems to be dumbness. Our ducks, for example, refuse to go out on our 1/2 acre pond. The same pond that was the main motivation for us to get ducks. We imagined seeing the cute little creatures serenely cruising across the pond, lending a wonderful touch to our little bucolic paradise. The 4 Rouen ducks we have, unfortunately, appear to be hydrophobes. O.K., that's a little harsh. They're not afraid of all water. For example, they will splash around all day in the 2 gallon kitchen basin we used to leave out as drinking water. The million gallon pond? Not so much. They have also found a secluded spot along the brook where they like to hang out, and of course the brook is made up primarily of water. They can even float for 2 or 3 whole feet along this stretch of brook if they tuck their feet up real tight. In another sign of limited IQ, the ducks also appear to believe they are chickens. They don't sleep with the chickens, they don't look like chickens and they don't hang out with the chickens all day. But leave the chickens closed up in their run and the ducks will hang out by the gate wondering why their compadres have been singled out for such harsh treatment. If they knew what has already happened to a couple of the chickens (eaten by yours truly) they might not be so anxious to hang out with them. Anyway, we've got the darn things now and I admit they are much too cute to, how can I say this delicately, turn into 'canard a l'orange', so we'll just have to put up with them. For the time being anyway.

"Just try to ignore him."

Some alert Reds notice the intruder.

A quick strategy conference ensues.

The strategy? Ignore the snapping turtle and try to eat as much as possible. You never know.

I recently took down the fencing that was meant to keep the ducks from exploring the pond too precipitously. Tommy the turtle immediately decided that the lawn near the duck shelter was a good place to sunbathe, and for the last two days he's come up to loll around and check out the poultry. Snapping turtles can eat small ducks apparently, so out of an excess of caution, the ducks haven't been in the pond since Tommy made his first appearance. I've begun chasing him away so our Rouens can have their little corner of the pond back. After all, if anyone's going to have duck soup around here, it's going to be me.

J'accuse ! ! !

Giselle casts an accusing eye in my direction after the untimely death of her friend, Gertrude.

The ducks hasten to the safety of their shelter as I approach.

Sauve qui peut! (every chicken for herself!) the Wyandottes shriek as I saunter up.

An impromptu memorial for the dearly departed Gertrude.

Our poultry plan has run into something of a headwind. Originally we intended to eat 10 of the 20 birds we recently acquired and keep the rest as our laying flock. Things started well. The 10 Wyandottes were scraggly and a bit wild. Just the thing for roast chicken. The 10 Rhode Island Reds on the other hand were handsome, tame and two of them have just started laying. Wonderful how the stars align sometimes! So yesterday we decided to put the plan into action and butcher our first "roaster". The deal was that I would kill the bird and Catherine would pluck and clean it. (As deals go, I think I did O.K. on this one.) We identified a particularly unsympathetic chicken; I caught and killed it and proudly presented the headless fowl to Catherine. (No heads was another part of the deal on her part.) Then the trouble began. Catherine it turns out couldn't see her way clear to pluck and clean a chicken that "she knows". I'm not sure what she means by "knows" but I suppose that after 3 weeks our chickens are at least passing acquaintances and that apparently qualifies. Catherine also claims that she didn't know that "cleaning" a chicken meant removing the innards. So after beheading this unfortunate chicken I found myself finishing the plucking and doing all of the cleaning. The whole operation took just under a couple of hours. The bird itself was scragglier than we had suspected when we originally identified it. It may weigh 8 ounces, but I think that's optimistic. The moral of this story is that we now have a new plan which works wonderfully for everyone. All of our chickens now are "layers" as opposed to "roasters". As a result none of them are looking at imminent death. Catherine is relieved that she won't have to pluck and clean any of her new-found friends. And I'm happy I won't lose another two hours of my life butchering an animal that barely has enough meat on it to make a good fajita. We'll still eat chicken of course. All we'll have to "pluck" however will be the plastic it comes wrapped in.

The Chicken Slave

The grandkids preparing to help catch our chickens at the farm on pickup day.

The ladies inspect their new home.

The flock looks over the park of Chateau Poulet.

The four Rouen ducks. Much cuter than the chickens.

You may have noticed, dear reader, that there haven't been many posts of late. There is a simple explanation that can be summarized in one word - chickens. For the past several weeks I appear to be working full-time for the chickens. And when I say full-time I mean 20 hour days, 7 days a week. We picked the demanding birds up 10 days ago and since then there has been no rest for your hero. First I had to work feverishly to finish the fence around the park of Chateau Poulet, so our new residents could leave the coop without running off. My oldest son was here to help me or else I would still be working on that darn fence. Then there has been a constant back and forth at all hours of the day to feed, water and otherwise tend to the demanding flock. Toss in the 4 ducks who have their own special demands and you can understand why I'm exhausted. To add insult to injury, 10 of the birds we got (the Wyandottes) are pretty scraggly. They were raised in a very small coop and got to picking each other's feathers out. They're the black and white ones in the photo above. The Rhode Island Reds on the other hand are pretty handsome birds. All of these young chickens should start laying any day now. So far however we have seen zero eggs. Nada, zilch, rien, etc. If they don't start laying soon, starvation could well start gnawing at our innards and then the inevitable will inevitably arrive. One of those scraggly Wyandottes will find its way into our oven. Not a pretty thought I admit. But then again neither is starvation. Pray for eggs because I'm not very practiced at butchering chickens.

The Quest for Moby Trout Ends

Moby prior to a short stay on the grill.

My granddaughter caught the big one this morning in our first fishing outing of the year. Moby came in at 17 inches and 283 lbs. We bought a second freezer to freeze all the extra meat. My son also caught a good sized trout, 16 inches, and for a moment today the $382,596.76 we've spent stocking the pond and feeding the fish seemed like a wise investment. The fish were grilled and Moby (minus 280 lbs put away in the freezer) was eaten tonight. I must say, he tasted pretty good.

A Tattle of Turtles

Tilly in a recent photo.

Tommy, the "Mother of All Snappers". At least around our pond.

We now officially have three snapping turtles living in our pond and/or river. I stumbled on Tiny, the smallest of the bunch, down by the river yesterday. Of course, I didn't have the camera, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Tiny, as his name implies, is considerably smaller than Tommy or Tilly. He was only about 12 inches long from head to tail. Tommy on the other hand is a real monster. His head is about 4 inches wide and 6 inches long, and his overall length, head to tail, is probably 24 inches. Tilly is somewhere in between. Our three turtles could come straight out of Goldilocks except that they are turtles instead of bears. A small detail. What is the word for a group of turtles? We all know about a herd of cows, a swarm of bees, a gaggle of geese, a murder of crows (what's up with that?), a school of fish (also very odd), and a pack of wolves. You get the idea. Animal groups are supposed to have names. But what's the name for a group of turtles such as Tommy, Tilly and Tiny? I didn't know, so I made up a name to use for the title of this post. I'm hoping it catches on ... as are the turtles. They've been discriminated against long enough.

A Couple of Odd Ducks

The hybridized male Mallard / Black Duck

The happy multi-ethnic couple.

This couple of ducks spent the better portion of the afternoon napping and resting on the big log that's stranded along one stretch of our river. I haven't been able to make a positive I.D., but I think that the female is an American Black Duck and the male is a cross between a black duck and a mallard. From what my birding guide says, there's a possibility of hanky-panky between black ducks and mallards, and the resulting offspring have coloring that borrows from both parents. In any case, they were a pretty pair and I was glad to get a chance to snap some pictures. For some reason seeing these two visitors got me to thinking about all of the slang expressions that employ the word duck, and there are quite a few. He's a dead duck; like a sitting duck; like water off a duck's back; she's a lame duck; like duck soup: ducky (british for darling); and so on and so forth. I'm not sure what it is about ducks that inspires such linguistic gymnastics and tangential references. Is it their endearing waddle? The heart-rending "Quack!"? That odd beak? I really couldn't say. What I do know however is that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck. . . well, then chances are it's a duck.

Chateau Poulet se construit dans le Vermont

Le Chateau with the formal gardens in the foreground.

A closer view of Chateau Poulet.

Chateau Poulet from across le plan d'eau.

Rambouillet, the inspiration for Chateau Poulet.

The work has been arduous, but no great edifice is built without sacrifice, struggle and suffering. In the case of Chateau Poulet, the future abode of our chicken flock, the sacrifice, struggle and suffering has been all mine so far. I've been working on the chateau for 10 days straight and I'm pretty sore, very tired and my hands are full of splinters. As the French would say, "Je suis creve!" (Literal translation, "I'm punctured!" With all the splinters in my hands that's literally true.) The chickens will be coming in two weeks, so there's really no time to lose getting their digs done. I'm pretty happy with progress so far. The lines of Chateau Poulet are inspiring without being ostentatious. The whole seems to me to be quite harmonious and balanced. I'm sure all of you readers immediately spotted the uncanny similarities between Rambouillet, ancien chateau de chasse des Rois de France, and Chateau Poulet. They both have walls, windows and doors for example. Despite the obvious resemblance, I did not simply copy Rambouillet as some have accused me of doing. Let us just say that I was inspired by that other great work of architecture. Move over Frank Lloyd Wright!

Spring and a young man's fancy turns to...

Our connection to civilized behavior hangs by the thin cable of the well repairman.

In the Spring a young man's fancy turns to well pump repair of course. Some of my readers may object that I'm not a young man anymore, so how can I judge what young men might be dwelling on in the Spring. A reasonable objection, but I can guarantee you that up here in the North Country when you live out in the country and you have a well pump problem, that's what your fancy turns to, be you young, old, infant, adolescent, tweener (whatever that is) or centenarian. You can even become quite obsessive about it. That's because a well pump failure means no water and no water means, among other things, no functioning toilets. Now even though bears can and do take care of their "business" in the woods, and I have been persuaded by necessity to do the same on occasion, it's not something I relish. Catherine I can assure you relishes it even less. So it's Spring, our well pump has been on its last legs for some time and today we got it replaced. They're not actually done with the repair as I write this. There were some "complications". I'm confident they'll be done by nightfall, however. If not . . . I guess I'll be going out to say Hi to Bruno the bear. Wish us luck.

Out of Africa

Some of our neighbors on the military base where we lived and worked.

Street scene from Parakou, the big city where we stayed on the weekend.

A local gas station.

A typical village with cooking charcoal for sale.

On the way to school.

Typical room at the Visiting Officers Quarters. Neither the light nor the air conditioning worked in my room.

Our favorite local restaurant.

The kitchen of our favorite local restaurant.

The well just outside our rooms. The water looked a bit brackish.

Our "office".

The bathroom in one of the "visiting officer's" rooms. The far left corner is the shower. We actually had water for an hour in the morning and an hour in the evening.

The Visiting Officer's Quarters from the outside.

The last supper at our "upscale" weekend hotel in Parakou. "Upscale" meant the air conditioning worked, there was water all day and the showers had shower curtains.

If you haven't already figured it out from all of the pictures, I have just returned from Benin on one of my exciting globe-trotting trips. Why are these trips so exciting? Because you inevitably get the trots, and that's pretty exciting when there are no toilets available as is often the case at the places I end up working. This post is my farewell (for a while at least) to Africa. All that globe-trotting has given me pause (as well as chafing), and I'm taking a break at least until January from my job training peacekeepers. After that we'll see.

Why Spotted Salamanders Don't Make Good Pets

Our 6" long eastern spotted salamander.

Despite having a ready made pet name, namely "Spot", the eastern spotted salamander does not make a good pet. Sad but true. We researched this extensively after finding one in our yard doing a little gardening. In the spirit of David Letterman, here are the top ten reasons why spotted salamanders don't make good pets.

10. They live under ground most of the time.

9. They only come out at night when pet owners are usually asleep.

8. They only breed in ponds, making the mating trek to their breeding pond one night in the Spring when conditions are just right. (Not sure why this disqualifies them from being a pet.)

7. Their yellow spots can make a baby cross-eyed.

6. Since they're black and only come out after dark, it's easy to step on them when you get up to go to the bathroom late at night.

5. They're cute (for an amphibian) but not as cute as a golden.

4. They can regenerate a limb should they lose one, and that's just creepy.

3. If threatened they can secrete a poisonous fluid. Creepy and disgusting.

2. It's very hard to find salamander kibbles in the pet food section of the supermarket.

And now the number one reason spotted salamanders don't make good pets:

They can't be trained to fetch a stick if you throw one in the pond.

In other unrelated news, Nella our mutt caught and killed a squirrel out on the deck today. One down, millions to go. We have finished gutting and remodeling our upstairs bathroom without a.) a heart attack or b.) a divorce. It looks very nice, but the project kept me from posting to the blog, and for that, I apologize. Tomorrow I'm off to Benin for a two week stint in order to pay for a portion of the bathroom remodel. The irony of this is really quite stunning. I'm going to work in a place where there is running water only 2 hours a day (no hot water) and only pit toilets, so I can pay for the super-duper bathroom remodel. I can only pray that I don't get cholera.

Return of the Natives

One goose keeps watch while the other grazes...

... before taking a little nap on a quiet stretch of the river.

Are Canadian geese "natives" even though their name isn't "Vermonter" geese and they don't stick around all year? Well, we're pretty tolerant up here in the North Country, and since the returning geese signal the real onset of Spring and with it the coming of Summer, we certainly won't begrudge them the title of "native". Each year during April and May a few geese stop for a few hours or even a day or two in our yard during their migration North. They graze on what new grass there is, rest up a bit, and then head out. If the goose manure covering most of our lawn is any indication, however, the couple in these pictures apparently liked it here and stuck around for a week or so while we were away on vacation. Once we got back, the dogs quickly showed them the door. Their sojourn reminded us of why the expression "like s..t through a goose" is not only wonderfully descriptive but biologically accurate as well. I wonder, what's the best way to get this stuff off your shoes?

An Osprey Visits the Pond

Moby-Trout lolling around the shallows waiting to be fed and oblivious to the danger above.

In this scene from a trout horror movie, an osprey swoops down.

Dinner.

Breakfast & Lunch

A trip trout tremble at taking.

Osprey are birds of prey that are beautiful, quit large and feed exclusively (I think) on fish. They soar or perch over open bodies of fresh water until they spot a fish (like a trout) just under the surface, and then they dive on the unsuspecting fish, grab it with their talons and fly away to enjoy their meal on some cozy branch. Trout, as you might imagine, are not particularly fond of Osprey. As a birder on the other hand, I really enjoy seeing them as they are not at all common. Imagine my happy surprise then when I saw one swoop seemingly out of nowhere this morning and slam into our pond. Unfortunately (or fortunately if you're a trout) the Osprey came up empty-taloned and flew off in what I can only imagine to be an embarrassed huff. I'm hoping this one little setback won't discourage this beautiful bird from returning. Obviously I don't want it to empty the pond of trout since it's nice to have something for the kids and grandkids to fish. On the other hand it's priceless having a front row seat at this sort of life and death nature show. Well, maybe not priceless. But the trout only cost about $5 a piece, and at those prices, I'm willing to feed the Osprey once a week.

If You Melt It, They Will Come

The pond a week ago.  All of the ice is gone now.

The bufflehead (on left) and the green-winged teal.

Another view.

If you melt the ice the ducks will come that is.  Every year around this time we see migrating ducks land on the pond for a quick rest and pit stop.  Since our pond is rather small, it doesn't attract that many ducks, and I've never seen any particularly unusual ones.  Just the usual suspects of mergansers and mallards.  This morning however I awoke at dawn (closer to 8 o'clock really) to discover an odd assortment of waterfowl on our little body of water.  There was the usual pair of mating mallard.  But there were also two other ducks that I had a terrible time identifying.  After feverishly consulting all of my guides, I came to the conclusion that the other two were a male Bufflehead and a male Green-winged Teal.  This seemed rather odd to me as ducks usually travel in pairs or flocks of the same species.   I leave it to my readers to correct my identification after studying the photos.   I'm guessing these two fellows are just making the trip north together, kind of like weekend bikers, and will rejoin their own kind once they get to their Summer breeding grounds.  We've all noticed that some birds, like the Bufflehead,  have odd names, and you may have wondered where the name "bufflehead" comes from.  Some cursory research led to two possibilities.  "Bufflehead" used to mean dunderhead which is derived from the old Norse word "Tunder" which is where we got our word thunder.  So these ducks are called "Buffleheads" either because they were Thor's favorite duck or they tend to attract lightning.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Why Some People Should Not be Allowed to Own Cameras

The heron looks right.

The heron looks left.

The heron ponders the meaning of "ice-out".

As you regular readers know, this past Summer I purchased a gee-whiz, big zoom (18x), point and shoot camera with the intention of becoming Americas next great wildlife photographer.  Sort of a later day Thoreau.   Then again Thoreau didn't take pictures; he just sat around in the woods but let's leave that aside for the time being.  Anyway, I've tried to become a decent photographer but with little success.  In fairness to myself I have to say that the animals are really difficult models, never sitting still, showing up at odd hours, striking bizarre poses and often lurking just out of camera range.  If the animals were fashion models, they'd be out of work.  (Or maybe not.  My description sounds a lot like a fashion model now that I think about it.)  Today was another example of the frustrations I've faced in my quest for wildlife photography stardom.  Late this afternoon a beautiful Great Blue Heron swooped into the yard and settled on the banks of the pond.  There are two or three feet of open water along the near bank, and he immediately set up his still life fishing vigil while I scrambled to get the camera set up.  The photos above are the result. (If you click on a photo it will enlarge and you can actually see the heron among the bush stalks.)   I never did see if he caught any fish.  We've seen some of the minnows stirring in the shallows lately, so there were fish to be had.   Despite the challenges I've faced getting good wildlife photos, I'm going to stick with it.  After all, I've pretty much mastered just sitting in the woods and relish mastering this new skill.   As long as it doesn't interfere with lunch that is.