This Week At the Aerie

SO....

Busy week with lots of doctor visits

Monday morning I went to the Guthrie Clinic in Mansfield as soon as they opened. While the doctor was at the hospital doing rounds, I did get to see the nurse practitioner who diagnosed my aching neck as an irritated nerve caused by muscular spasms. She prescribed Naproxen (500mg tablets) twice a day for the pain and Flexoril (10mg) once a day before bed for the muscle spasms. I started taking them that night and WOW! What a difference!

Tuesday I was pain free and I've remained that way all week. Of course, they have also allowed me to sleep very, very soundly.

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I went birding a couple of times this week and added a new species or two each time. Despite the super spring weather, we're still waiting the big rush of migrants here in the Northern Tier of PA. We've had a few waterfowl show up but not the huge numbers we've seen in the past. If the warm weather holds, the next week or two should see a rush of species heading north for breeding purposes.

Redhead pair on Tioga Lake

Common Mergansers (2 males & 1 female) on Tioga Lake

Green-winged Teal at The Muck (Wellsboro)

Ring-necked Duck at The Muck

Pair of Mallards at The Muck

Pair of Wood Duck on an old beaver pond near Hills Creek SP

Even with a 600, lens, the birds always seem to be just t-h-a-t much too far away for a good shot.

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Terry's turn for a steroid shot to her spine (L2, L3) occurred Friday morning. She has a couple of bulging discs (along with some stenosis) that have been creating pain in her hips and thighs. The pain management doctor thought cortisone injections might help alleviate the problem. We'll know in a day or two how that's working.

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Small Town America

The township secretary called on Thursday to give us a heads up. They were sending out a crew to work on a culvert on our street and the road would be closed from around 8 AM until 1 PM. She (the secretary) knew we normally go down to get the mail and do some shopping on a daily basis so she wanted to let us know to plan on taking the long way around.

Well, because of Terry hospital procedure we were gone long before they came to shut the road down, but when we returned, we took her advice and drove the long way around only to discover that the culvert they were working on was the one running across the road right at the end of our driveway. We couldn't get in.

We parked in our top most driveway (we have three parcels of land and three driveways but only one--the blocked one--leads to the house) and walked down the hill.

Long story short, two of the work crew were also township supervisors. They had noticed we had a small drain pipe running across our driveway (not on town right of way) that was insufficient (6" cheap pipe), partially compressed and in need of replacement. They wanted to know if they could replace it with an 8 inch pipe, stone the driveway for me and generally do what I wanted to do for two years--for the price of the pipe. I said, "Go for it!" They then told me to pull my truck down and into the house and not to worry, they would be done before I had to take Shadow to the vets at 2:15. They did the work and were done by the promised time. I expect I'll get a bill in the mail, 'cause they didn't even come up to the door.

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About Shadow...she's become something of a problem child. Not that she's fighting or anything like that, she's just moody, off her feed, vomiting, and full of scabs. Some of the vomiting is hairballs from licking the scabby areas, but some of it is from food.

She, too, went to see the doctor this week. (Her visit will end up being the most costly out of pocket. No insurance.) Shadow lost five (5) pounds since last April when she was 14+ pounds. She tipped the scales today at a svelte 9.4 pounds. That's not good.

The vet thinks she may have irritable bowel syndrome, or a food allergy. She prescribed some steroids (for the existing skin condition, another drug for the irritable bowel, and some B12 (because poor digestion leads to a lack of B12 intake). She also suggested we change her diet. No seafood, beef, egg, milk, cheese, wheat. Just poultry, rice and oats. She had some moist food (at $2.50 a can!) and some dry food (also very expensive) to get Shadow started on a healthy diet.

I was given a pill "gun" to get the medicine into the back of Shadow's throat and was shown how to give B12 injections. Shadow will probably need those B12 shots once a month for life. When all this stuff gets put into motion and runs for a couple of months, I think I'll just go get a veterinary license and treat cats.

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This weekend is the Maple Weekend in Potter and Tioga counties. There will be demonstrations of tapping and boiling at the sugar house at Hills Creek State Park and a number of sugar houses will be opening their doors to the public for tours and samplings. Terry and I will be going out early because one of the places is offering all you can eat pancakes for $7.

Then later in the evening, the Mainesburg Methodist Church has a chicken and biscuit dinner. And Sunday morning the Mansfield Fire Company has it's monthly breakfast.

*Sigh*

Diet is what you eat.

There is some snow in the forecast for Sunday into Monday, but nearly all of it will be to the south and east of here. We may get a dusting. With any luck, these will be the last flakes we see this "winter." The forecast also calls for 70 degrees next Friday.

Aerie Report, March 26, 2011

Terry made it home safely from South Carolina late Thursday evening arriving at the Aerie at 8:30 PM. She drove straight through and reports that she didn't see any snow until she reached Williamsport. She was thoroughly spoiled by the 70 degree days in Columbia.

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The sun has been shining since noon on Thursday. It's a welcome sight after the dreary, snowy days earlier in the week. In fact, we've nothing but clear, cloudless skies.

Of course, there's a down side as well. Those clear skies are the product of an absolutely arctic air mass that has caused the temperature to plunge into the "oh my God it's cold!" range. This morning it was just 10 degrees outside at 7 AM. Daytime highs haven't gotten much above 35 degrees either. (The average highs are supposed to be around 50 degrees this time of year.)

While the sun has caused some melting where the snow has been thinned by plowing, the stuff on the lawn and in the woods has simply become ice encrusted. Mud season is on hold--or at least limited to the afternoon hours when the sun has managed to melt a wee bit of the snow along the edge of the road.

The cold and the snow cover, as you might surmise, has forced the birds to once again rely upon my largess. The common redpolls continue to hang around, perhaps instinctively fearing even colder and more sparse food supplies to the north.

The robin I saw eating a worm on the lawn last Tuesday evening is probably hunkered down somewhere mumbling about the sudden turn of events that has put his amorous activities on hold. And as for the poor Phoebe ai saw eating flies on Sunday? I hope he can find takeout somewhere.

I've seen a song sparrow or two in the yard under the feeders picking up seed tossed about by the redpolls, chickadees, and super sloppy eating blue jays and squirrels.

I'm still waiting for the goldfinches to return. They are usually wintertime visitors and have been mixed with the redpolls. Last year, when the redpolls didn't show, they were our primary visitors all winter long. I was able to judge the approach of spring by the shifting color of the goldies. This year? Nada. Zip. We haven't seen a goldie since Thanksgiving.

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I noted the swelling of leaf buds on the aspen trees on the hill in front of the Aerie and the appearance of catkins on the birch trees this morning. I can see wet spots on the maples where the activities of woodpeckers or the rubbing of branches have caused a leakage of sap. This is the second weekend of the maple syrup open houses throughout Tioga and Potter counties and, for once, the producers have things timed things perfectly. The super cold nights and somewhat warm days must have the sap running like the streams during spring thaw. The longer the cold nights last, the happier they (the syrup crowd) will be.

Me? I'd as soon we get on with the business of Spring but these things can not be forced. The sun--and cold--will be with us until at least Wednesday when there's a slight chance of some snow flurries. Then, as we turn the calendar page to April on Friday, there's a prediction of slightly warmer weather and rain/snow showers for a a few days. Figures, New York's trout season opens on Friday as does the season in a dozen PA counties to the southeast part of the state. (The rest of Pennsylvania doesn't start trout season until the 16th.)

Until then, I'll enjoy the sun while pondering where the heck MY global warming is.

Farm Wars: Conflicting Nature Signs

Running around to do some things this morning I happened to notice lots of plastic tubing running through the sugar bushes capturing sap for maple syrup. Syruping requires lots of luck in that there's a definite benefit from warm days and cold (below freezing) nights. The warmth draws the sap up the tree during the day and the cold forces it to run back down at night. (If it stayed in the smaller twigs, they might burst from expansion of frozen water in the sap.) So these contrasting temperatures are a boon to the person tapping the trees. They get a heavy rush of sap into their tubes (or buckets if they are old school) when the sap goes up and another rush when it comes back down. If the night time temps aren't cold enough, that night time rush doesn't happen and the next morning there's no big flow going up since it's still up there. Plus, when the sap stays in the twigs and buds long enough, they start to bloom and the sap flavor changes for the worse.

Anyway, my main chore this morning was to visit a place in Millerton, PA, that sells fishing licenses. Not only did I need to purchase mine for 2010, but the Tiadaghton Audubon Society has had some posters printed up for the eel project and we've been trying to get to all the license vendors in the county. Along the same road and in the next town over is Draper's Super Bee Apiary and I was asked to stop and get some Orange Blossom Honey. (I also picked up some Pure Clover for myself. Delicious stuff!) I commented about the spring-like weather and said something to the effect that the bees would be active soon. The clerk told me that they already are active and that they are working some of the red maple flowers appearing in the trees across the yard. That is NOT a good sign for the maple folks.

Watching the dairy cows milling around the barns and feed piles of hay, I got to thinking about something Threecollie of Northview Dairy said the other day. She was wishing mightily for the pasture grass to start growing so they could turn the herd loose amongst this "free" food that is better than stored hay. Of course her wish for fast growing fields of grass might not benefit the syrup man working the sugar bush on her property, but if they got some bees....