Realizing just how quiet and away from it all Fish in a Barrel Pond really is.
Posts Tagged With: Rural Life
If You Think a Mouse in a Bag of Chips Makes Noise …
A mouse can make a pretty good living in the camps scattered along the shores of Fish in a Barrel pond. Toaster crumbs alone will support a surprising number of rodents but when you add open bags of chips and peanuts, puddles of grease on the stove and spilled cereal on top of the refrigerator, entire colonies can spring up, seemingly overnight.
Some members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society will adopt a mouse in their camp, as a mascot of sorts, leaving treats on the mantle and laughing with delight when their furry little friend descends the stone face of the chimney, grabs a Cheetos™ and scurries back up through a hole in the ceiling. Those folks marvel at how quickly the mouse returns for another load, forgetting that mice pretty much all look the same and that what they are seeing is really a multi-generational assault, with mouse after mouse lined up above the ceiling like paratroopers in a plane. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: bears, ghoti62, Humor, mice, nature, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont
4 Comments
Quill Gordon Meets an Important Man
If you are anything at all like me, when the forecast calls for high temperatures in the 70s, you jump on the tractor and go dig snow.
You know, just to help things along a little bit. We’re going to be fishing again in 18 days.
Categories: Humor, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: ghoti62, Humor, ice, important people, mud season, quill gordon, Rural Life, talking on the phone while driving, Vermont
5 Comments
Weasel in the Chicken Coop
(This post probably deserves a PG rating, at least. It contains photos of dead chickens and a dead weasel. Read no further if that sort of thing bothers you.)
It is a given, living in the sticks and keeping chickens, that a bird will be lost from time to time. I once lost four chickens to a marauding horde of raccoons who tore apart heavy-guage wire mesh panels to get them and I know that a determined predator — especially one with a family to feed — can get into just about any enclosure.
Sometimes we let the chickens out of their pen to forage in the yard and have only been able to shrug when a fox darted out of the woods, grabbed one of our birds, and ran away with it to feed its young. I get that. I can understand it. It happens. At least the fox was killing for a reason.
Dogs, whose owners are sure would never do such a thing, lose their heads around chickens, sheep, cows and deer, killing indiscriminately, for no reason at all, and they have taken a toll on my birds, but this post isn’t about my feelings regarding humans who let their dogs run loose.
Dogs, foxes, bobcats, coyotes, bears, owls and hawks are ever present and we do what we can to keep them away from our birds without breaking the bank. We have a sturdy, six-foot tall fence with the top three feet of wire mesh hung loosely to discourage climbing. Netting and small shelters provide protection against aerial attacks, the doors and windows on the coop are secure and the vents are covered with 1/2-inch mesh. So far, that has proven to be sufficient.
Until this morning. Continue reading
Categories: Rural Life
Tags: ghoti62, keeping chickens, killing weasels, quill gordon, Rural Life
11 Comments
An Impressive Start to Mud Season
A stiff, warm breeze has kicked the process of melting into high gear and mud season is upon us. Driving on an unpaved road can be an adventure this time of year, even for those who have experienced mud season before. Four wheel drive certainly helps, but so do ground clearance and a certain amount of good judgement.
We wondered all morning, Mrs. Gordon and I, if anyone would get stuck today and if so, whom. It’s early yet, so there is still time for my choices (the weekend people from New Jersey) to hit the ditch but they catch a bit of a break today by not being the first to get stuck in the mud of our road.
That honor goes to a tiny little car from Massachusetts.
And it only gets worse from here!
I once came across a Hummer with Massachusetts plates, stuck in a ditch during mud season but did not have my camera along so I had to settle for laughing at the driver before shifting into low and leaving him behind, not even twenty yards up a hundred yard hill. It still bothers me to not have a photo of that Hummer in the ditch so when the driver of this car knocked sheepishly at the door, looking for help, I said, “Sure! Just let me grab my camera.”
Frankly, I’m surprised they made it this far up the side of Nonesuch Mountain and I’m not sure why they kept trying to go further, but they did, plowing with the skirting at the nose of the car until they were stopped dead in their tracks. I did give them credit, though, for staying out of the ditch.
Of course I’m going to take pictures.
It doesn’t look like things will be drying out any time real soon — and I certainly don’t expect people will stay off our road — so maybe we can look forward to more entertainment like this in the next couple of weeks. And if, as I’m taking pictures before pulling you out, you ask how (other than a large 4×4 truck) I avoid becoming stuck in this springtime morrass, I will tell you I just don’t go out and about. That’s not dry Yankee humor; it’s good judgement.
Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont
Tags: ghoti62, Humor, mud season, nature, quill gordon, Rural Life, spring, Vermont
7 Comments
Signs of Winter’s Demise
The calendar puts it only a few days away but, for me, it’s not really spring until someone spots a pair of turkey vultures sharing a dead skunk on the shoulder of Rte. 5. We have a ways to go yet, before the peepers are in the pussy willows and the anglers are on the pond, but things are looking up, knock on wood.
Rain and melt water are absorbing into the snow on top of the lake ice, creating a thick layer of slush so heavy the ice groans loudly under its weight. Meanwhile, the snow piles out front are shrinking, the hay rake is once again exposed, and the driveway is a mess during the day but, man, you should hear the racket when it is driven on in the morning after freezing at night.
Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter
Tags: frost heaves, ghoti62, Humor, mud season, nature, quill gordon, Rural Life, spring thaw, Vermont, winter
Leave a comment
Vermont Ice Storm, Part I: The Day After (10 Photos)
Ice storms can be devastating and we dodged a bullet with this most recent one, up here on Nonesuch Mountain. The power stayed on and we did not get anywhere near the forecast amount of snow to complicate things so, for now, it looks like broken branches are the worst of the damage. The town road crew (bless their hearts) did a bang-up job getting our road clear, adapting to the icy, wood-strewn conditions by putting a plow blade and chains on the front end loader and shoving everything to the side, to be dealt with later.
Categories: nature, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, ice, ice storm, ice storm photos, nature, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont, winter
3 Comments
If I Had a Hammer …
April showers bring May flowers but rain in March brings ice.
Ice coats everything, a half-inch thick or more, and the barn door was not just frozen shut this morning, it was sealed that way. If only I had a hammer.
I used a hammer yesterday. I even remember where it is. It is on the work bench at the back of the barn. Fortunately, I keep another hammer in the truck, behind the seat, just in case.
Categories: Humor, nature, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, Humor, ice, quill gordon, Rural Life, Vermont, winter
2 Comments
Winter’s Back is Broken (and Mine is a Mess)
Meteorological winter, the coldest (on average) 1/4 of the year, is over. Winter’s back is broken but, as I’ve written before, you can’t shoot winter in the head and put it out of its misery. We must wait as winter kicks and fights with everything it can muster at this late stage of the game, while spring slowly asserts itself, a little bit at a time. Unfortunately, on days like yesterday, when a warm(-ish) breeze from the south brings mild temperatures and rain against driving snow and the cold(-ish) air still hanging on, both seasons end up looking foolish and the dooryard fills with slush.
We’ve had enough snow this winter that we were saying, “yeah, yeah, we get it” about four feet ago and we are ready to move on to the next season, which around here is mud. A lot of barns and other buildings collapsed last month, crushed by the weight of snow. Crews dug and raked as best they could, trying to lighten the loads on other roofs, but poor timing, gravity and uneven weight distribution continued to wreak destruction. Even with the sounds of catastrophe ringing through the valley, it was tempting to look at the roofs under my care, scoff, and say, “Hah! They’ve held more snow than that!”
I admit here and now, that is exactly what I did. Continue reading
Categories: Humor, nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter
Tags: Eugene, ghoti62, Humor, nature, quill gordon, roof rake, Rural Life, Vermont, winter
1 Comment
Return of the Shack Nasties
Coming down with a case of the Shack Nasties is a gradual thing. Fortitude and stoicism delay the inevitable, slowing its progress for a time, but sooner or later the Shack Nasties set in. I’ve had them before, I have them now, and I will have them again but these, too, shall pass.
Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont, Winter
Tags: ghoti62, nature, outdoor blogger network, quill gordon, Rural Life, shack nasties, snow, Vermont, winter
2 Comments
The View from Fish in a Barrel Pond 