Someplace Special

I always knew there was something special about this place, the eagles, the ospreys and the otters were a clue. But yesterday after the heavy rain I was convinced.

I may take the dinghy and a shovel and go dig around that deserted duck blind – who knows?

Growing Short

Only six days left for those growing pictures, here’s a few to be going on with.

Mountain Laurel

Close up

Some of it is White

Veggie Garden, Peppers (hot, hottest, green and red, Tomatoes (cherry, plum and bigboy), Zuchini, Squash.

Local Cornfield

One for CO – Overgrown asparagus on roadside.

I’m Here

Well not exactly. I was there yesterday but then I moved out to the big city, well Great Missenden is a big place compared with the creek.

Today is the day for the comps, it’s the last day and there are only a few HOURS left.

A few observations

Apart from a goodly number from Janus which do not meet our rigorous standards of rhyme, I see only one entry for the pomes right Soutie?

Short stories are also very short this month, so far entries consist of a vague promise by Araminta.

Photos are a better represented but there is still time to enter before “Last orders please.”

Judging tomorrow early GMT.

Nice weather here.

It’s a Wrap.

No, not 2011, but it is all over for a while.

Maybe when the weather gets warmer we can strip her off and get her going again.

Sob.

Sign of the Times?

Back in the late summer the Creekers met and decided to pave our access road. It had once been maintained by the County but about ten years ago they decided the last half mile or so was not theirs and abandoned it to it’s fate.  Several of us appealed the abandonment, pointing out that the road had been regularly plowed during the winter and the local school bus used it when there were schoolkids to be hauled. “Nope” they said “If we did that it was a mistake, it’s not ours and we don’t want it”.  The road had never really been paved it was made by spraying tar and rolling fine gravel into the surface repeatedly over the years  and twenty years of use had almost destroyed the top.
We got some estimates from several local paving outfits and decided on who would do the job. Not a cheap process building roads, they all proposed stripping the surface completely and relaying the lot in two three inch layers of  hot rolled tarmacadam.

I will never understand the female mind.

You may recall that in various posts in the past  I have mentioned the severity of our recent winters, cold and snow in abundance.

Well, a month or so ago, during a discussion at the dinner table concerning the upcoming winter and expectation of another doozy, the first mate made an offer to help in clearing the white stuff from about the property.  “I’d like to help” I heard her say quite clearly.  Being the considerate soul that I am my response was probably “The big tractor with the snow blower up front is a real handful especially on the hill”   but I did remember the conversation and, again showing great consideration quietly acted upon it at the appropriate time.

Pokes

Gene Weingarten writes for the Washington Post, his column last Sunday was the latest in a series labelled “Bad Poetry”initiates a new genre  “Pokes” a merger of poetry  and jokes.  This one is from there.

“The Camel”
in the style of an English heroic sonnet

An officer takes up his new command:
A desert outpost, lonely and austere.
He asks the sergeant how the men can stand
To be so long without a woman near.
The sergeant shyly shows his commandant
A tied-up female camel in a shed.
Whene’er the men are paralyzed by want,
They make good use of her, the sergeant said.
While horrified, the captain did not speak.
His feelings, though, were of extreme unease.
But after months he, too, was feeling weak
And very much in need of some release.
He found it in the way he’d so condemned;
But this the sergeant spied — the deed, unmasked!
Embarrassed now, the captain hawed and hemmed —
“That’s how the soldiers do it, then?” he asked.
“It’s not,” the sergeant said with measured frown —
“The soldiers ride the camel into town.”

A Happy Redneck Christmas Tree from the Creek

Redneck Christmas Tree in Moonlight

Speaking of Birds

Saw this one on my nearby stump yesterday.

A Yellow Shafted Flicker, a kind of Woodpecker, and a female I think.

Now I see some red and some black and some gray and some buff brown, but Yellow?

If you look real close to her port side wing tip, there is a peep of yellow showing where the feathers are not quite smooth.

Here’s where the yellow hides

Not my picture, and almost impossible to get with the camera, these birds have the swooping flight, typical of Woodpeckers, that is hard to follow.

All at Sea

I had planned a blog about a local event that is usually well worth a visit  and in preparation I moved the boat about 60 miles on Friday, about 30 miles on the Bay and 28 miles up the Chester river to Chestertown, Maryland, an interesting little town of some character.  The event is the annual Downrigging Weekend  which marks the end of the working season for many sailboats, the event attracts a large number of original and replica sailing craft, ranging in history from The Kalmar Nyckel a replica of the ship that established the first Swedish settlement in what was to become Delaware  in 1636 through the Schooner Elf built in the 1880′s and still afloat.  My personal favorite and a winter resident of Chestertown is the schooner Sultana a replica of a colonial revenue cutter built ten years ago from original lines taken off the ship when she was bought by the Royal Navy  in about 1770.

We got in late on Friday and anchored opposite the Chestertown waterfront  in time to see the firework display.  After that things got dark and interesting (well it is close to Halloween).  A gale of wind and heavy rain descended, forcing the few of us who were anchored out to seek out the more sheltered local creeks to ride out the storm.   Saturday came slowly, bringing with it gale force winds and driving SNOW.  So far all the Saturday events have been cancelled together with my plan to take lots of good pictures of the various ships under sail.    The forecast looks none too rosy for tomorrow either but we will hang here in this creek and see what happens.  More later.