late, late summer

I heard the perhaps-barred owl again tonight, just a few minutes ago, and went outside to listen.  It's definitely the same call I heard earlier, eight notes with a pause in between.  And later, as I've been uploading these photos, I've heard a different owl call: one long tone that sounds like it's underwater.  I realize that the same bird can create drastically different sounds, but I think this second one is a screech owl.

Today it became clear that we needed to take an afternoon road trip.  We drove out to a local goat farm, befriended the goats, and bought a pile of cheese and eggs.  We buy their goat cheese regularly at the grocery store, and it's good, but the fresh samples at the farm were altogether amazing.  The proprietor's granddaughter led us into the barn to meet the goats.  I was expecting a setup like the state fair or the zoo, where you reach over the gate and say hello.  Instead, she led us straight back through a milking room and a storage closet and right into the pen.  And there we were, surrounded by a dozen cheery curious creatures that crowded around us, nosing and maaaaa-ing and chewing on our clothes.  I held Eleanor up on my hip, which happened to put her toes right at goat level, and she was alternately concerned and delighted with their curiosity.  It was fun.  We will go again.

We also bought some goats' milk peanut butter fudge, which is very, very interesting.  It's unmistakably tangy yet does not taste like a barn . . . that might not sound like an endorsement, but it is. 

Sadly, I have no pictures of owls or goats to share.  But here are a few from a recent blueberry mission.

oobleck

E and I got bored, so we took out a box of cornstarch and a bowl of water. 

 
Probably everyone except me knows what happens when you put together cornstarch and water.  Somehow I missed this one.  It turns out it becomes this oozy smooth indescribable suspension that is neither liquid nor solid.  I don't get how it could possibly work (and yes, I understand that I could google it, but I prefer to enjoy the magic).  All I know is that it's a "non-Newtonian fluid".

Given E's toddlerish sensitivity to textures, I wasn't sure she would be into this project yet.  But she was. 

a gradual project

We're in the middle of a terrific thunderstorm, so I'm half waiting for the internet to disappear, but it is definitely time to start posting photos of the new house.  This will be a gradual project . . . let's start outside.

Here's the front of the house, taken from the porch.  We're looking at the open kitchen window and a cherry sapling that might be planted too close to the foundation.

There are great trees: a truly venerable willow, numerous branchy and upright evergreens that I can't yet identify, a sweet pine that I hope will someday shade a yet-to-be-built playhouse, a  tiny grove-let of birches, two or three small maples, and one young lilac standing alone in the middle of the front yard. 

Despite several attempts, I just can't capture both the scale and the gravity of the willow in a photo.  It's got to be five stories high.  It's a tree you just want to listen to.

With all these trees, many of which are maybe only 20 years old, it's odd that the flowerbeds are empty.  We'll set up the gardens next year.  In the meantime, I pulled a ton of mugwort out of the raised beds and we'll replace it with garlic for now.  Garlic is a hardy and reliable annual (watch, now that I've said that it will fail us this year) and it's rewarding all the way around.  The anticipation of scape-cutting and bulb-drying ought to keep us engaged while we figure out the sun and soil and critter situation.

Next year I'd like to add a couple of flats of pachysandra and hostas on the shady north side of the yard (that's the side with the tetherball post), two or three currant bushes in the sun near the back deck, and old-school upstate perennials in the front bed -- peonies, bee balm, echincea, black-eyed susan.  Beyond those indulgences I'm hoping we can plan out a native and wildlife-friendly garden, one that will encourage birds and foxes and even groundhogs (will that sound naive later?) instead of fencing them out.  So far we've seen and/or heard and/or found evidence of foxes, moles, groundhogs, toads, frogs, bunnies, chipmunks, jays, giant dragonflies, fireflies, deer, birds I can't yet begin to identify (as well as the typical jays, crows, robins, and turkey vultures), owls, and coyotes.

Yes, owls!  I've been excited about owls since we took E to the bird show at the zoo last week and last night I'm certain I heard one calling.  The internet tells me it could have been a barred owl, but I don't really know enough to claim that.  I just know it let out a clear and consistent eight-note call, and I listened to it move slowly into the distance from a perch nearby.  SOOOOO cool.  I'm going to make it my business to know all the owls in our neighborhood.

Currants

 

Fort Eleanor

You know, moving isn't all bad!

And, I suppose, neither is summer, since the humidity gives Eleanor flippy-Dutch-hat-hair.

We've been in the new house for over a week now.  We're still all sleeping downstairs until we find a baby gate for the unusually-shaped upstairs hallway, but otherwise we're settling in.

This first week has been full of tiny surprises: goldfinches, a kestrel, a shooting star.  I often think of van der Rohe's phrase, "god is in the details" . . .  well, there are many details to discover on this hill.  The camera got separated from its cords and batteries in the move, but they've all been reunited and we'll add photos soon.