It opened under the Thanksgiving lights!

Here he is!

He was back on the feeder again this morning. Hanging out with a bluejay.

Anyone identify him?

Woodpecker, woodpecker

Little guy has visited yesterday and again today. Yesterday he alighted on the end of the deck railing, peeped through the sliding door into the house, then hopped off to the feeder and ate for a while. Today he was back again. Looks very much a baby still.

Either a Downy or a Hairy Woodpecker (most likely one of these two), or a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker (but probably not as he should be further south by now), according to http://www.whatbird.com

Happy Thanksgiving!

I guess his wife sent him out to catch the dinner.... hunter, his boat, and his "hide" on the little island in the bay. Um... it's pretty darn obvious that this is a hide... don't the deer/duck/geese notice it????

(Sound of dawn on thanksgiving... gunshots. The hide was gone by quarter to ten. Saw this several times last year. If they are hunting deer, do they expect them to be swimming? If ducks, how do they pick them up before they sink? Or maybe I have completely misunderstood the scene and it's something totally unrelated to hunting? If it's hunting, are they allowed to shoot "my" deer on the William Floyd Estate? I guess there's a lot I don't know ;-)

Turkey is in the oven. Ours is named Herbert the Huge. We did not pardon him. He is wrapped in bacon and foil right now, and the giblets are cooking, for gravy, and for a treat for Fury (just the boneless bits). She always wonder why there is just one set of giblets...

Real tile in hall!

At last, I was able to just-about save enough money to replace the peel-and-stick tiles in the downstairs hall, and the kitchen, with real porcelain tiles--and to carpet the bedroom and sitting room (which will then become my official home office).

It's almost a year (I am finding that very hard to believe, but it is--it was just before Thanksgiving) since we put the peel-and-stick tiles down: the colour was perfect, but they definitely looked peel-and-stick due to some unevenness (i.e., holes, bumps, dips and spikes) in the underlying floor.

I managed to find almost exactly the same colour and pattern tiles in porcelain! For both the hall and the downstairs kitchen! Home Depot must do this on purpose--why else would they stock the same designs in both versions?

Remember the hall had that really, really nasty vinyl tile that I managed to scrape up from the kitchen floor, but which wouldn't budge in the hall? Well... the guys from Eastern Carpet in Shirley did it. They scraped it all up. It took them hours and hours and hours, but now the real tile will be laid correctly and will hopefully last for many, many years. I'm glad I did decide to have them lay the tiles; if I'd done it myself, I would probably have cheated and laid it over the old tiles, and then suffered problems within a month. (Now all I have to deal with is a lot of dust.)

Now once again I'm able to see the nice amount of space in the entry hall.

Does anyone want to buy a genuine, nicely-carved, really-from-Holland-I-know-'cos-I-imported-it Dutch dresser????

I saw a snowflake! I did! I did!

Chilly day, brilliant sunshine, cold breeze rustling the dry reeds. Sunset, and the sky turns pink and purple,,, and I saw a few flakes of snow. Just a very few but... there they were.

Beautiful colours.

Drying gourd

This one is drying out faster than the rest. Some of the patterns are a fine dusting of mould, but it looks very pretty!

If the sun gets up early every day, so can I, even on a day off!

No excuses! Can't miss this!

Osprey park

I only "discovered" Osprey Park a few weeks ago when driving around and just seeing how far I could go down various streets before reaching water. This morning, windy and cool, we took coffee and breakfast out there.

At this point, Forge River is really wide; the houses along the waterside have amazing, curved-earth views; giant irridescent fish-scales on the water-worn boards evidence to the Ospreys after whom the park is named, or more human fishers.

After over a year of living here, I know there are still a million other beautiful places to find. They are hidden around the next corner.

Mastic Beach Village Exploratory Committee

Been working on the Mastic Beach Village Exploratory Committee website. Take a look and let me know what you think!

November sounds

Woke up sometime in the very-early morning to an inhuman screaming. I hope it was non-human. It sounded hurt and angry and wild. I have no idea where the sound was coming from; there is a dog down the street that barks, often, and it always sound like he's out in the middle of the marshes when he's away up Park Drive to the north. So I really cannot say where this noise was coming from. But it seemed really loud, and it was repeated over several minutes.

I'm hoping it was raccoons partying, Hallowe'en a little late.

Other than that, it is really, really quiet now. Stillness, calm air, reeds dry but not moving. The pond pump and waterfall have been turned off, just the occasional splish when a fish swims close to the surface.

There are a lot of big smiles around this morning

And a lot of baggy eyes from the late night!

Sunday, sunday

Fall back and spring forwards.

Last night, the clocks went back, and we had another hour of sleep. Sort-of. No-one told the sun about this, so it got up and shone through the window at a few minutes later than the same space-time moment yesterday. The birds and the cat got up with the sun, and I wasn't long after them.

Two hours in the gym. Then more weight-training moving a load of floor tiles from the truck to the house. Then an afternoon in the garden. Decided to save a lot of money by "winterizing" the pond myself. Removed all the water hyacinth and water lettuce before they died; scooped out some leaves; cut back some of the leaf-shedding plants and frantic roses that were overhanging the water; disconnected and drained the filter. Then spent half-an-hour fighting a stupid net before giving up and thrusting it into a bin-bag. The idea was to spread the net over the pond, to collect falling leaves. However, it was so fine that I couldn't spread it out. Couldn't find the edges, couldn't disentangle it. Stoooopid stuff.

Guess I'll be out there every day with the leaf net. Oh well...

Now night is here early, and I need an early night.