Pretties and Ickies

While Creepy Man ruined the usual mood boost I normally get from a walk in the woods, our Sunday stroll did have some nice moments, too.  Autumn fields are awesome.  I've always loved the fields along the highway in the fall, with gold and red slowly turning to brown with fluffs of white.

I'll start with the milkweed, just because it has so much charm:

 

 

Then there were the lovely flashes of color in a sea of brown.  I love raspberry leaves and grapes because they're just so autumnal.  Anybody know what the purple is?  I can't seem to spot it in my flower book but have a nagging feeling I ought to know what it is.

A very blurry Basset hound at the end of a long hollow log (you'll have to take my word for it):

And just a few random pretties that I can't identify without a book, and haven't gotten around to looking up just yet:

 

Here's a "Where's Waldo" puzzle for you.  Or Waldoette?  Or perhaps just Waldoe.  Can you spot her?  If you click on the picture you can zoom in.  She's just about dead center.  I mean - oops - perhaps that's not the best turn of phrase during hunting season.  She's - ah - in the middle of the photo.

Then there were the moments that would have made a lot of people say "ick" but which make me say "oh, cool!"

One stretch of trail was covered, covered, I tell you, in pellets.  There were dozens of them.  I didn't have the time to hang out and dissect them, but wished I could have.  I am no good at identifying predator or prey from pellets, but suspect this might be a good place to go for an owl walk of an evening.  One fine example:

Methinks that might be a bad area in which to be a mouse or other rodent.

Then there was the fungus that looked like a Nerf ball that had been chewed on and left out in the rain until it started to grow mold.  That's about the right consistency for this thing, too.  I had to poke at it gingerly to make sure it wasn't actually a Nerf ball some camper had left behind.  Then I realized there were a whole bunch of them, of varying sizes but all looking almost exactly as moldy and munched on.  I couldn't even begin to identify it.

hm.  Nerfy.

We also stumbled upon a lovely hornets nest, long empty, sitting on the ground.  Out of sheer curiosity we did a little poking into it, and were astounded by how beautiful the striations were in the paper.

 

Funny to think they apparently mastered the art of paper making thousands of years before humans did.

And finally, the coup de grace, a rotting deer hoof in a tree.  I'm not sure if someone found it in the trail and put it up there for people to see, or if a critter made a meal of it while sitting in the tree.  Regardless, kind of cool. 

Spouse stuck with me through the hornet's nest and the owl pellets, but this one finally made him say "oh, GROSS.  That's just... ew."  When I protested that I though it was fascinating, he looked at me oddly and said, "I repeat, that one's really kinda gross." 

Grossing out Spouse?  Now that's a successful jaunt in the woods for this fearless female.  :)

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Day in the woods FAIL

Sunday, I woke up in a vile mood.  I stayed up too late Saturday night fiddling with a new (used) stereo receiver we were trying to hook up but which refused to work properly, and then reading.  Sunday morning dawned fresh and bright outdoors, but it dawned indoors for me with wafts of rotting fish mixed with something worse (garbage?  dead things?) as the hounds tried to get me up because they were bored.  I know, they desperately need their teeth cleaned, and that would help with the horrific dog breath.  I'm too broke for that at the moment.

Woof.  Woof.  poke - poke - poke.  Wiggle.  Nudge, nudge, nudge.  Poke.  LIIIICK.  lick, lick, lick.  lick, lick, lick, poke.  wiggle, wiggle, wiggle, pounce!  Mreeeeaow!  Purrr, knead, knead, knead.

Great.  It's a conspiracy and the cats are in on it too.  Once that happens there's really no hope of going back to sleep.  *groan*

All I really wanted for my weekend was some relaxation and a jaunt in the Adirondacks, up a high peak and back.  But there was way too much on the weekend schedule, and despite the intoxicatingly lovely weather, we were stuck with spots no more than about 45 minutes from home.

I figured that it didn't really matter where we went, the woods would be restorative.  It's always lovely to spend some time with the bugs and birds and plants and sun - we'd feel better after a walk.  So we rounded up the kids and camera, and drove over to Green Lakes State Park.

I shall post some pics of general autumnal sorts of things in another blog, but first I'd like to vent about the miserable wretched human who actually made a walk in the woods make my day worse.

Green Lakes has a campground, a couple of cool geologically interesting lakes, some fields, and a decent patch of woods.  It also gets an incredible amount of traffic.  There are boat rentals and swimming, and trails for hiking and mountain biking.  On such a gorgeous day it was very crowded with walkers, runners, bikers, and dogs.  Green Lakes isn't the sort of place one really goes for solitude in the woods.  We didn't venture very far (not much time) but wandered along a trail that winds through the fields, and through a little snippet of woods right along the edge of the campground.

In that narrow little wooded strip sandwiched between camp sites and picnic tables and playgrounds on one side, and a high voltage power line on the other, we were delighted to find some cairn art.  Some ambitious folks had come through and constructed a series of little stone cairns along the side of the trail.  They were quite appealing in a natural arts sort of way - at least to me - and I hoped as I looked at them that some kids had had fun building them while camping, and would want to spend time in the woods again.  I actually took pictures because I liked them so much.

We wandered past the power lines and through the fields a bit more, and were sorely disappointed on our way back through to discover that someone had decimated all those stone cairns.  Every last one had been violently dismantled, and the stones hurled into the woods.  It made me sad, so Spouse volunteered to rebuild my favorite cairn for me, since we had a picture of it still:

Part way through the rebuild, we encountered the individual who had destroyed all the cairns.  I expected teenagers, but so much for stereotypes.  Instead, what I got was a tall, paunchy, middle aged, aggressive creep of a man.  He announced his presence by running down the trail shouting at us: "Don't you know you're violating state law by doing that?  That's against the law!  You can't do that!  It's against the law to disturb anything in the woods!  I'm a citizen of New York State, and you're violating state law RIGHT NOW!" etc.  Seriously.

My reaction was to turn to him, look at him, and say "You're kidding, right?"
 

That, apparently, was the wrong reaction.  He proceeded to scream, yell, rant and rage at me for at least 5 minutes.  It felt like 20.  He got in my face and in my personal space.  He tried to physically take my camera from me (over my dead body) and actually threatened to sue me, and threatened to send park rangers to get me.  While I thankfully cannot remember the full extent of his commentary, the choicest bits I remember are that I "am one of those people who is DESTROYING the natural environment by building those disgusting human MONSTROSITIES" and that "the world doesn't need people like" me.

Oy Veh.

Spouse was hovering inches from my elbow through all this, adrenaline pumping through his body, wondering if he'd have enough reaction time to deck the guy the instant before the creep hit me.  It certainly seemed like creep was about to start raining blows on me.  Meanwhile, I was standing there wondering how much of my Tae Kwon Do I remember, and why he was screaming at me when Spouse was actually the one rebuilding the cairn.  I was also feeling incredibly sorry for the man's kid.

Because he had a kid with him - a shy young girl of about 9 or 10, with Down's Syndrome.  She was dressed in ragged clothing, hung back a little ways up the trail, paced nervously, and looked very worried and upset the whole time the man (presumably her father?) was shouting belligerently.  When I finally convinced him (I had to shout it to be heard over him and the frantically barking dogs) to go get his stupid park ranger to arrest me and leave me the hell alone, he stalked off down the trail, yelling back at me over his shoulder about how the world would be better off without people like me, yelling at the little girl to follow him, and walking way too fast for her to keep up.

It.  Was.  Horrid.

Now, should we have been off the trail?  Nah, surely not, although we were only about a foot and a half off it.  Should we have been rearranging the rocks?  Uh, again, no, prob'ly not.  But Green Lakes is not exactly pristine wilderness, and we were virtually in the much tramped-over camp ground that is intended for bringing people closer to nature.  Had we been in the High Peaks Region of the Adirondacks I admit I wouldn't have gone off the trail at all, much less rearranged the scenery, so a part of me has to admit the guy had a point.  But then again, the Adirondacks High Peaks are full of cairns, marking the herd paths up the trailless summits. 

I wanted to ask the guy what kind of car he drives, what kind of light bulbs he uses, how he heats his home, and where he gets his food and clothing.  What impact is his life really having on the natural world?  Because it strikes me that a small stone cairn along the side of a path in the woods is a lot less impact on the natural environment than an average American's daily existence.  I'm no angel when it comes to the environment.  No, I don't yet have a hybrid car, but it's not an SUV and we do at least car pool.  I'm not great about turning off the lights in the house as Spouse can attest (it drives him nuts), but they are CFLs.  I occasionally buy a piece of fish from Alaska or coffee beans from South America, but most of our food is local and organic.  We have a long way to go, but we really work at it.

I wish all humans could stand back and assess our lives from that orbiting-Earth-in-a-space-shuttle sort of perspective to recognize what our real impact on the planet is.  I wish it were easier to understand how all our little impacts add up and what the consequences are.  I also, however, refuse to believe that how we treat our fellow humans doesn't matter.  When it comes to the Golden Rule, that creepy dude gets an F-.  And don't even get me started on that poor little girl, and how much it worries me that she's with him.

It took a couple of hours for the adrenaline to fade from my system.  He definitely prevented the woods from doing their therapy-for-the-human thing that they usually do to me.  I very seriously considered filing a report at the rangers station about the guy, but in the end lost my resolve.  I was frankly afraid I'd cry if I tried to tell the story, which may have garnered me sympathy, but which would have made me feel pathetically female on top of feeling outraged, angry, frightened and violated.  Instead, we finished rebuilding the cairn (on principle), crept back to the car and got the heck away from the place.

Oh, and the icing on the cake of my day was that we all came home covered in TICKS.  Ugh.  I hate ticks.  The give me the hot-and-cold-crawly-all-overs.

Well.  I shan't be returning to Green Lakes any time soon.  Or building any more cairns.

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Apple exasperation, or, How'd I get to be the grasshopper?

Please forgive me today's tirade - it really is one big, long, grouchy whine, but:

Why, oh why, is it so hard to find an unwaxed, organic, New York State apple???

I do so love apple season.  Crunchy, sweet, tangy.  I tend to go for the tart ones, but any apple will do so long as it's not a Red Delicious, which I am not convinced should even be called an apple.  Mushy apple = bleeeeeeeeech. 

Spouse and I betook ourselves to the Ithaca Farmers' Market a while back, and found a farm stand there that had absolutely, spectacularly delicious everything.  Organic, local, all that jazz.  I got some of the best spinach I have ever eaten in my life there.  They even had a painfully cute Bernese Mountain dog puppy in tow, rolling about all fluffy and floppy.  He was not for sale, thankfully, or I probably would have bought him, too, and stuffed him in the back seat of the car with the Basset hounds.  (Our awesome old dog who died about a year and a half ago was half Berner, and I have a wicked soft spot for them).

That farm stand's apples were to die for, and we bought several dozen.  I was in the mood to purchase bushels of the things for eating, freezing, and baking, but saw that they didn't have terribly many left and was conservative in my purchase, idiot that I am.  I also failed to ask them if we could get more from them.  There were surprisingly few apples for sale at the Ithaca Farmers' Market, or we would have bought some from other folks, too.  Of course, the apples we did get were so good that we plowed through them in a shockingly short time.

We went to the Regional Market in Syracuse for a couple of successive weekends after that, and found a few organic apples at the one organic produce stand there.  They were good, but not nearly as good as the Ithaca ones.  And now that stand is about out.

Which leaves me...

appleless.

In autumn.

In Central New York.

Which strikes me as being ludicrous.  And exceedingly irritating.

Wegman's is our grocery store of choice, mostly because they do a better job than a lot of their competitors when it comes to organic produce and local produce, although those two seldom seem to overlap.  But a stroll through Weggies yesterday evening left me feeling Decidedly Disgruntled.  The vast majority of the apples were not from New York State.  But, wait - we're IN New York State, surrounded by apple orchards.  Is it really cheaper to purchase apples from Washington State and ship them across the country?  Our modern day food distribution network sucks from an environmental point of view.  Or are there no more New York State apples left?  Apparently one or the other or both. 

And of course, every single apple in the grocery store is coated in "food grade wax" to "preserve freshness".  First of all, the idea of eating wax at all is just icky.  But second, food grade wax is largely made from corn,  because corn is so heavily subsidized that everything possible is made out of it.  Do you know who cannot tolerate eating corn, even in tiny doses?  Yours truly.  It makes me feel incredibly crummy, with digestive discomfort and a variety of symptoms you surely don't want to know about. 

I can technically peel and slice those waxed apples if I do so veeerry carefully.  Even so, I tend to get trace amounts of corn that are transferred from the peeler, or the knife, or maybe even soak in through the skin.  It's less than ideal, and means I miss out on that incredible satisfaction one gets from just biting into a big juicy apple.

I also refuse to buy apples from the other side of the continent and support the gratuitous burning of all that diesel fuel to get them here, when there are local orchards that could use the support.

I can't seem to find a local organic farm to pick apples at.  I need to start looking harder.  Perhaps the Bernese Mountain Dog Farm allows people to pick apples?  Or even sells bushels directly at the farm?  It would help if I had made an effort to remember the name of the farm rather than just referring to it as the "Bernese Mountain Dog Farm". 

Sadly, we can't make it to Ithaca this weekend, and it's gotten past prime New York State apple season through no one's fault but my own, which doesn't make me any less grouchy.  I spent too many autumn weekends playing in the mountains, and not enough time working on my winter food stores.  Yup, just call me the grasshopper.  (You remember the old Aesop's Fable about the ant who builds up food stores all summer, and the grasshopper who plays all summer and has no food come fall.)  In fact, I think knowing I can largely blame myself for this predicament just makes me grouchier. 

Further investigation is definitely called for, if nothing else so I can have my fill of apples next autumn.  For now, though, it's looking like I may be appleless until next apple season.

Unless, of course, I find some diligent ant whose food stores I can raid...

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Cold bug stew

It's that wacky in-between time of year in Upstate New York.

Several times now I've received a vaguely amusing e-mail forward called "You know you live in Upstate New York if..."  One of the many "ifs" is "if you drive to work in the morning with your heat on, and drive home in the afternoon with the air conditioning on."  I'm not sure in how many areas of the country that kind of wild weather changeability is the norm, but it sure is around here.

Mornings this week have been decidedly frosty.

There has been thick, heavy frost on the ground, on the few remaining plants in my vegetable garden, and on the cars.  I've been having to start the car a few minutes early or use a credit card to scrape enough ice off the windshield to see out of it.  I actually ordered a new winter dress coat for work this year (long overdue), and wore it today for the first time with mixed feelings of excitement about a great new coat, and disgust at having to wear the damn thing at all.

Afternoons, however, have been sunny and warm for mid November, especially if one is behind glass.  My office faces south, and has been boiling each afternoon.  I hate having to close the shades and block the gorgeous view, but even with the shades closed it's been decidedly uncomfortable.  The view is the best thing about my office - or the worst, depending on how one looks at it.  Those lovely south hills taunt me when I'm stuck inside but would rather be out there.  Which, really, is most of the time.

While I haven't actually needed the air conditioning in the car on the way home, that may be because I generally head home after it's already dark.  Phoo.  I hate short daylight days.

We adapt.  I dress in layers for work and think nothing of it.  It's just the way it is around here.  The poor insects, however, seem to be struggling mightily.  On a couple of particularly warm evenings earlier this week we spent some time sitting on the front porch.  Swarms of bugs still gathered around the light on the porch, including some mosquitoes.  All of them seem a little sluggish and worse for the wear. 

This past weekend, the boxelder bugs were out in profusion, although not in droves as massive as last year when they practically obscured the entire front of our house on sunny fall afternoons.  The cats love it when they come inside.  Oooh!  Wiggling crunchy toys!  Pleh.  I actually find myself saving the poor little creatures and putting them outside so they don't have to face a slow, painful, crunchy death.  And if you think such little critters don't feel pain, read this.  Mind you, they're probably gathering on our porch because they want to come in and escape the cold, but I hear dying of hypothermia is not a terribly unpleasant death... at least compared with having one's limbs pulled off by a cat.

Somehow, mosquitoes are still getting into the house in droves - possibly even in larger numbers than they do in mid summer.  The peculiar thing is that they seem to all come to my kitchen counter to die.  I'll be standing at the counter preparing dinner, and a mosquito will suddenly fold up its wings and dive into whatever I'm preparing.  I'm not sure if my dinners are really that appealing that they can't bear not to become one with them, or they can't manage to fly properly to feast on my flesh, or what.  But I'm getting tired of picking dying mosquitoes (and a few other winged things) off the counter and out of my food.  Them, I don't save.  They get drowned in the sink.  I'm all for saving fellow creatures, but even I have my limits.

Much as I complain about them, though, come January I'd probably be happy to see a mosquito.  Oh, how I'll miss all that little irritating insect life in the deep dark days of winter.  The grass is always greener, especially in January when any grass is bound to be more colorful than the white cold drifts out in my back yard.  Actually, they'll be white if we're lucky.  More often they're just ugly gray/brown gritty snert (snow/dirt - get it?). 

Remind me again, why do I live where there's winter?  Oh, that's right - for the other three spectacular seasons.

*sigh*

Batten down the hatches and order some more wood.  It's almost time for the human to hibernate.

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