AstroGypsies

I know it’s a fleeting thing, these Fall colours, but I do mourn as they fade away, now only the gold and browns of the oaks remain with a few wild red sumacs popping out between, then this morning, our first snow flakes…sigh…The blue Jays are wildly getting ready for the colder months ahead, stashing sunflowers seeds and peanuts, they are the local bullies if you ask the somber yellow goldfinches and chickadees. The woodpeckers ignore them mostly and usually won’t back down from a confrontation. I placed our remaining pumpkins on the picnic table for some colour and the Jays stopped by to check them out, so I put a handful of peanuts out and watched their curiosity and love of peanuts get the better of them!

I call him James Jay, on his majesty’s service, he likes his martinis with peanuts thank you very much!

I am not obsessed with Blue Jays, ha! They are pretty colourful though and fun to watch, they would fall into the local mafia, narcos, extortionist categories if they were human I think. They are bullies lets not be shy here:) So I don’t mind setting them up to do my photo bidding every now and then. It is amazing how fast they can find a few peanuts, they have super sonic peanut radar apparently! We had one tree this week, a glorious little maple with a few bright red leaves left on the lower branches and I was thinking…blue, red, would be a nice combination, so yeah, they work for peanuts my models! I’m wondering if there is a minimum peanut wage for these stars and starlets! Ha!

I just couldn’t resist the last of those red leaves! Not all Blue Jays either, the White Breasted Nuthatches are out doing their acrobatic moves alongside the chickadees but it does seem a bit quiet out there after the hum of summer.

I walked out to check the mail, the road seemed so quiet, not even a rustle. A lone goose was on “Goose Rock” as I walked past the swamp on the road. No frogs in the ditches and not a single butterfly. Not even any mail! Ha! A few very small Autumn Meadowhawks were still whirling about, brave little flying insects. The bumblebees bees keep expiring in the few remaining dahlia flowers, curled up, gone to sleep, never to wake. I can’t bring myself to cut them down, not until all the flowers are gone. It’s like a bumblebee cemetery. Someone asked what happens to the bees, well, only new queens survive the winter, while the rest of the colony dies off. In the fall, male bumble bees mate with future queens from different colonies, and these future queens spend the entire winter underground or in holes in soft wood that are safe and dry. The boys curl up in flowers and pass…

There is the squawk of passing geese, or ones on the water having a disagreement. As I sat under the trailer hitch out of the wind photographing the blue Jays one looked very startled as three Sandhill Cranes flew over, honking loudly, as only sandhill cranes can! He watched them fly over as well! Fascinating as you can hear their wing beats if they are low enough!

It’s not all birds;) or blue jays! Ha! A few squirrels have ventured out of the woods, no red squirrels yet but several black ones and the local small raccoon pulled one feeder down early in the morning. I went out and had a chat, told it about the compost being far more satisfying than a few sunflower seeds, we’ll see if it heeds my advice! Time to put the wildlife cameras up again. The blowing leaves set them off so now we should be good now!

The chipmunk population has dwindled to the few Einstein’s left. Between the fox, we smell it’s pee out by the trailer on a few trees, and the traveling mewberries they are hard on small rodent populations.

It’s wonderful we all have time to work on our Shakespearean insults! So colourful! This morning was a shock with those funny white flakes falling from the sky, outrageous said Gamora, she wanted right back in. The boys hung out over the chipmunk producing hole then we went down to the dock to bail out the canoe, it was chilly! No fish biting at all…sad cats….

Tomorrow they are promising sun, we’ll see. We caught a lucky break Saturday night as Mike had arranged to take his telescope out to the local distillers here in Perth, Top Shelf, they were introducing their “moonshine” spirits, it had been cancelled from the last cloudy Saturday! Friends Graham, a local schoolteacher we know and Ingrid, from Ottawa brought their telescopes out as well to show folks the moon, Jupiter and Saturn. Fun times showing people the night sky and helping with cell phone photography, my only known superpower, getting phones to focus on the moon through the eyepiece! ha!! It has been sooooo cloudy, bienvenidos a Canada mis amigos!…and hey, FYI, Top Shelf is a Harvest Host location! Chatted with some campers staying the night there!

For the eclipse October 14-2023-We got a lucky break in the clouds as well. At 1:13 when there was the largest amount of the sun covered for our location. A few cool sunspots as well! With my Canon R5 and Tamron G2150-600 lens at 600mm. I used a Baader Solar filter Mike has for a pair of binoculars that worked well and fit over the telephoto lens.

We closed up the trailer yesterday morning, winterized the water system, swept off the slides and closed them, Rocket wanted to know where the stairs had gone this morning as he sprinted to what he thought might be a warmer place than outside. It’s with a bit of melancholy seeing it put away, almost, batteries still need to come out. Humming this morning…

♫♪♫ Carefree highway
Let me slip away on you
Carefree highway
You’ve seen better days
The morning after blues
From my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway
Let me slip away, slip away on you…Thanks Mr. Lightfoot:)

There will be other trips, plans for perhaps an East coast tour of Canada this coming Summer, a winter on the West coast? Could be, I could use a few tacos, wait, I will NEED a few tacos by then:) At least the snow stopped and has turned into a drizzling rain! No shoveling today! Ha!

It hasn’t been all clouds and doom and gloom, it’s actually been unseasonably warm and cloudy the last few weeks, that is why maybe the cold, or “normal” temperatures are a shock. I have had a few early mornings of pyjama (yes, not pajama) photography;) The hats, gloves and mittens are out now, time to find the snow boots as well! Every now and then the sun has poked out at sunset, bathing the far shore in a wonderful glow of soft colours and warmth, simply astounding.

I salute whoever was in charge of the colour palette!

The paper birches are white twigs now on the far shore, I am glad the pines add such a wonderful splash of green to an ever monochromatic scene of gray and blue. I will be relying on the light for the next six months to bring me some colour! And yes, there is beauty in the gray as well:)

….and there is always that wonderful red canoe. As I bailed it out this morning I was hoping the wind might die down, for a quick paddle to catch the last few oaks reflected in the waters surface. We’ll see! It’s better than what my thermometer told me the other morning, bit of a shock! Ha! It warmed up quickly when I replaced the batteries! Ha! Great joke pre coffee…NOT! Hahahahaha! Saludos amigos, hasta pronto! I have sushi photos and moonrises still to come! ♫♪♫ Rainy days and Mondays…I’m not going to let it get me down!