Armadillos in the 'Hood

As Jack and I headed out for a short visit with Mom and Dad yesterday afternoon, two buzzards were in the middle of the road, feasting on the remains of a smashed armadillo. We didn't have to slow down or look twice to know what it was - the pieces of upturned shell and prehistoric-looking tail require only a glance to anyone who has ever seen a dead armadillo. 

I've never taken a photo of an armadillo, so here's my take on an illustration of one.

We knew they were coming. Like fire ants, what once was a resident of the bottom half of the southern tier of the United States has been steadily moving north over the last decade, and now Middle Tennessee is officially "armadillo country." 

While we haven't seen a live one, we've spotted roadkill "possum on the half shell" in this region for a few years now. The first one was thirty miles southwest of here, but since then, we've seen them in the Smithville city limits and as close to home as the Shiny Rock community. This one was fifty feet from the corner of our yard. 

I don't know much about armadillos other than that they carry leprosy and can do more damage to a garden than a family of machete-wielding raccoons. Considering what kind of havoc the raccoons and squirrels have caused in Lucia and Beatrice's little garden at the farm, I shudder to think what will happen when large, armored marsupials (are armadillos marsupials? I must google...) move into the neighborhood.

Hopefully the population will stay manageable, and local gardeners won't have to resort to spending their nights on backyard stake-outs with armadillo guns in hand.

The clip is from the movie "Bernie," starring Jack Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConahghey. It's available streaming from Netflix and is one of the funniest movies I've ever seen. 

We Love Visitors: Pileated Woodpecker

For as long as I can remember, Pileated Woodpeckers have been regular visitors to our yard and the woods around us. Dead tree limbs and old stumps are some of their favorite feasting places, and we intentionally leave things like that in our landscape because they do attract so many interesting species of birds, insects, and fungi.

Spotting these beautiful creatures is a completely different ballgame than successfully photographing them, though. They're fast and nervous, ready to fly away at the slightest perceived threat, including noisy dogs, passing cars, and humans with cameras.

Last year, Jack managed to snap some great shots of one during an ice storm.

A few days ago, I got the photo at the top of this post from the shelter of the house - not bad for a shot through our dirty sliding glass door, I think.

Read about Pileated Woodpeckers at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology:

All About Birds

Dinner Company

Last night we had another wild critter visitor.

And before anyone asks - no, we haven't started feeding raccoons, because that's trouble with a capital everything.

With the arrival of fall, we've seen increased activity from the squirrels and chipmunks in our yard, and that bowl of walnuts, which neither smell nor taste like something people should eat, was placed on the deck to draw them close to the sliding glass doors for the amusement of the dogs and cats. And us.

One brave chipmunk has entertained us the last several afternoons with his scurrying about and insanely expandable cheeks. Watching him is like having a hamster, but there's no smelly aquarium to be cleaned of urine soaked wood shavings and hamster turds (hamsturds?) every four or five days. Jack and I are, quite seriously, as fascinated by him as the pets.

Last evening, as Jack and I were winding down and thinking about heading to bed, Jack suddenly said, "There went a raccoon," and pointed toward the door.

As I looked over, sure enough, a little raccoon carefully walked out of the shadows and approached the chipmunk bowl. He looked at us through the window and was unconcerned when I approached to take his picture with my cell phone camera.

Diva wandered up, and we stood there together as the raccoon checked out the stinky walnuts and tried to figure out what kind of creatures we are. 

Diva didn't know what to think. She'd just had a bath and endured the trauma of me trimming her soft-from-the-tub toenails. I believe she thinks she was seeing things.

The chipmunk station is getting moved for the evening, because we can't have this, but it was still really cool to see.

A Nighttime Visitor

Jack has been busy lately with several around-the-house projects, and one of them was a refurbishment of our garbage trailer.

Without the convenience of curbside pick-up, county-dwellers like us have to lug our trash to the dump, and for the last several years, Jack and I have used a small trailer Jack purchased secondhand shortly after we moved from McMinnville and needed a better way to transport bags of sometimes drippy, smelly bags of garbage than in the back compartment of our SUV.

The trailer has served us well, but it was looking AND getting rickety. The sides were in bad shape and susceptible to critter invasion, the lights no longer worked properly, and the frame was plagued by rusty patches.

After coming up with a plan, Jack launched into his project, carefully measuring and cutting two-by-fours and rabbit wire to build secure new side panels, painting the frame, and installing a new light kit.

His hard work resulted in a trailer that looks brand-new and is actually street-legal.

And all this time we'd been blaming raccoons for the infiltration of our garbage when the culprit is actually a healthy-looking opossum.

Jack used the "new" cart for the first time Tuesday, and while walking the dog that evening, he spied our visitor, perched on the side of the cart, looking sad because there were no garbage bags for him (or her) to rummage. 

Neither of us have ever looked an opossum and thought, "how cute," before, but this one is kind of adorable with crinkly whiskers over his eyes and a perfectly pink nose.

His photos were a big hit on facebook.

Cat Pictures Win the Internet. Every Time.

In an unrelated follow-up to the story on Dr. Lucia, CarltonKitty is feeling much better and getting back into the swing of hunting for vermin.

Several weeks ago he had to have a procedure to drain an abscessed tooth. We thought it was a problem with his eye, but no, it was a tooth, and the infection involved the whole side of his face, which is why he's shaved and missing whiskers there on the one side. He was on antibiotics and house arrest for a week.

Last night we had the door open to let in some fresh air and give the animals an opportunity to come and go as they please. Carlton brought us this trophy. He'd been playing with a piece of paper towel but then we noticed "something else."

While we prefer that he keep his "catches" outside, we're glad to know he's back on the job.

I'd also like to note that of all the beautiful photos I've shared on Facebook; of the landscapes and sunsets and lovely portraits of the little girls, the flowers and beautiful dog portraits of Moose and photos of tasty food, the ONLY picture I've ever posted to achieve so many "likes" as this shitty cell phone photo of a half-shaved cat with a dead mouse (currently 125 and rising) is one of Dad that I posted on his birthday a couple of years ago. It holds my current "most popular photo" designation at around 200 "likes."

We could be looking at a new record. Figure that one out...

Sis' Birthday and Some Ducks

First on the agenda for this blog post is wishing my beautiful sister a Happy Birthday!! I love you, Sis, and I'm thankful to have you in my life every single day - especially days when we have the opportunity to laugh together about some little something or other. 

Here's a picture of some ducks on a pond I pass on my way to the grocery store. There are probably ten pairs of mallards hanging there every afternoon. They look like decoys.

Here's a picture of them flying away after I scared the hell out of them. They look less like decoys when they're flying overhead.

"Quack! Quack! Quack!"

They really say that.

No, we don't watch "Downton Abbey".

I see this horse every time I drive to town. Today I took his photo.

First of all, congratulations, Jack! Yesterday he was crowned by his dentist and now has a permanent replacement for the tooth he broke while eating ribs during our Valentine's Day celebration last year. Eleven months and thousands of dollars later, we celebrate by chewing carefully and trusting no take-out.

Josie.

And there's a new dog in the house. We call her Josie, and God help us, she ain't nothing but a hound dog. Forgive me for the corny joke, but today is Elvis' birthday, and I couldn't help myself.

I found her running down the road last month, dragging half of a string of Christmas lights, which had been tied to her collar. After seeing her almost get hit by two different vehicles, I pulled my car over and called her over. She jumped into the car and passed out in the back seat.

Since neither Jack nor I were too keen on adopting another dog into our crew, I contacted a local rescue about finding her a new place to live, but "long story short", the rescue is over-burdened, we've found this beagle to be a good fit for the family, and she's evolved from being "puppy-girl" to "Josie".

She's been fixed but has no micro-chip, and while she's likely "someone's dog", who ties up a dog with Christmas lights? I posted her photo on facebook, but the only inquiry we received was dubious, and the caller became disinterested when he found out the dog was spayed.

The other dogs have adjusted to having a new pup in the house and she's good with the cats...

The elusive Pileated Woodpecker re-appeared in the neighbor's oak tree this past week.

Winter sunset.

In other news, we still have daylight in the sky at 5:00 p.m. -- spring is coming.

The squirrels seem to know when the dogs are sleeping... 

-- soft landing... 

Snake Day on Sink Creek

Greetings and happy weekend, blog readers!

I am happy to report that Jack and Pam at the Lake have actually spent some time on the lake this week.

Our first trip was a short one - 3 miles round trip - from the base of Potts Camp Road, which is really near the house here, as far up Cedar Creek as we could go. We spotted herons, geese and a couple of families of ducks, but I was so busy soaking in every moment that I barely took my camera out of its case.

The second trip was longer and more involved. We paddled from Pates Ford Marina upstream as far as Sink Creek would take us, stopping on the way back for a creek-side picnic of ham sandwiches and potato chips. We had a marvelous time and enjoyed the whole adventure. This is the same trek we've paddled before and seen American Bald Eagles, but we didn't spot any today.

We didn't spot much of anything today. Except snakes.

At several points during the trip, either Jack or I would spot a tiny head sticking up just above the water, checking us out as we slid by...

This one was sunning on a warm rock and appeared to have just eaten lunch, given the significant bulge in its mid-section.

As we approached the cooler water upstream, there were several more to be spotted moving along the bank-line and hanging out in sunny shallow spots.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of snakes at all, but when I see them before they see me and I have a chance to get in the right mind-set to encounter them, I'm OK with it. And when I'm in the kayak and the snake is in the water, it's totally cool. There's no possible way for one to get in the boat with me, so I feel comfortable getting closer than I do when I'm on foot.

A really good zoom lens helps, too.

The Wildflowers of Hippie Hollow. And a Pony.

Spring is, without any doubt, the loveliest season in Middle Tennessee. Don't get me wrong - I love all the seasons, even winter, but when the woods are alive with color and the first of the season's bugs and butterflies start hitting the windshield, nobody can argue that there's a more beautiful place on earth.

A couple of weeks ago Jack and Pam at the Lake took the long way home from a Sunday lunch hook-up with Mom and Dad and ended up in the famous (or infamous) Hippie Hollow, where we were totally overcome by the beauty of it all...

The entire floor of the forest on both sides of the road was carpeted with Dwarf Larkspur. Violets, phlox and another type of blue flower added additional layers of the same color to the scene.

Upon closer inspection, bright yellow and white "violets" provided bursts of contrast.

Huge trillium towered over the forest floor... 

 

This Prairie Trillium was particularly lovely.

Fire Pinks are actually true red. And spectacular.

This friendly pony had the BEST bangs...

The weather is crazy - warm and wonderful one day; breezy and brisk the next. By starts and stops we are making our way toward spring. Daffodils are blooming all over the place, even though we're still a few days from March.

I'm optimistic that the next few weeks will be uneventful and as normal as possible, but in the back of my head I remember the April ice storm we had six or seven years ago that wiped out a lot of fruit tree blooms and other things which had been coaxed out of hibernation by unseasonably warm weather.

Like we're having now.

I got to hang with Mom and Dad at the Baby House for awhile on Wednesday evening after going to a work function in Cool Springs. It was nice to spend some time with both of them there at the same time. The banquet was long and late, so I didn't have a chance to visit with Lucia, but I'll be over again this coming week and will get some Lu time then.

Earlier today I had to run a couple of errands in town and took my camera with me in case any photo opportunities presented themselves. And they did.

The sky was absolutely gorgeous today - not in the classic sunny, blue sky kind of way - with layer upon layer of scattered clouds that picked up so much color and texture that in the late winter landscape provided plenty of things to shoot.

I detoured home on backroads and encountered some great shadows and light, interesting old structures, cute goats and a spectacular sunset.

I wish Jack could've been along for the ride, but he's still nursing the tooth he broke on Valentine's Day, which has been giving him increasing amounts of pain the last couple of days every time he eats.  His appointment with the oral surgeon is on Monday, so relief is just around the corner, but having to wait two weeks to get this thing taken care of has been a bit ridiculous. He's taking it like a trooper. And we're eating lots of soup.

"Living the Dream"

Did anyone notice that about as soon as I mentioned how we'd had no snow this winter so far in that last blog post, we got snow? Of course there was no accumulation and the only things it managed to accomplish were creating a rush on the bread aisle at the local Food Lion and further dashing the hopes of anyone who hopes to see a nice snow before the winter is over.

We got a few more flakes this morning, but they were wet flakes that melted as soon as they hit the warm ground here on the southeastern tip of the county. Based on a couple of pictures I've seen on facebook today, the fine folks in the downtown area got a little more. But very little. Jack and Pam at the Lake did enjoy sitting here with a fire in the stove, watching the snow fall for what time we had it.

Despite today's nasty weather, we've had a great weekend. I had the day off on Friday, so after taking care of a few things here around the house, we loaded up our gear and hit the road, heading for the Caney Fork River below Center Hill Dam where Jack took the excellent Blue Heron photos I posted last week.

We hoped to see herons again, but with temperatures in the fifties, trout fishermen were everywhere in boats and on foot, there was enough activity going on that the herons were scarce. We did spot a Pileated Woodpecker way-high in a tree, and I managed to catch a couple of frames.

There ARE other things to take pictures of besides birds...

Other things to take pictures of was the whole theme of the little car trip we took yesterday as we backed out of the drive before 9:30 in the morning.

The temperature was nice with a sunny sky overhead when we first embarked on the journey, and we had no idea where to go. We had a couple of ideas for nice photo opportunities in mind - my dear friend, Ward, e-mailed several months ago to tell us about a one-room school house near his family's old farm and told us we should go take pictures there sometime, so I looked up the directions. The route itself was up in the air until one of us mentioned the "Living the Dream" scandal that's been all over the Channel 5 news this week while waiting in line for our Sausage McMuffins at the local McDonald's

"Let's go there!" we both said at the same time, and the route plan came together within a minute.

Repairs to Hurricane Bridge are in progress.

 Driving into Baxter on the "old road", not much appears to have changed.

 Someone is building an interesting eyesore. Jack and I will probably be subject to similar criticism once we start construction of our new home one of these days.

Other things about Baxter have changed quite a bit. 

 This "mama llama" and her baby were sunning in a field. Mama was watchful but not concerned.

Finally we found "Living the Dream", a project currently under scrutiny in the Upper Cumberland region because of the public funds that have been misused in establishing and promoting it. The entrance was open, but we didn't feel all warm and welcome, standing there in the cul de sac with our big cameras hanging around our necks. 

The place is splashy. There's no telling what the grounds maintenance alone costs. And this place is remote. Sure, Putnam County is growing and developing as fast as anywhere, but if my elderly loved one was in the kind of shape that he or she needed to be in assisted living, which is what this unlicensed facility purports to be, I would not want them to be so far from the nearest hospital...

Not wanting to wear out our welcome and needing a pit stop, we moved on down the road toward the rest of the day...

We stopped at a bus graveyard for the sake of curiosity and lack of "No Trespassing" sign --

We ended up in little town of Doyle, which moreso than Baxter hasn't changed but for the devastation to the beautiful mountain to its immediate west by the quarry companies.

We found the farm and one-room schoolhouse much more easily than I found the directions from Ward in my phone's e-mail files.

The school was fascinating. It looks a lot like a church at first glance. It is fairly well-maintained, and we were able to go inside. There was even a nice outhouse - a much-appreciated discovery for both Jack and  me.

Ward's family's old farm was even more interesting to explore and photograph. Those of you who know much about my photography also know that I try to find beauty in abandoned things and the structure in that which has fallen, and the farm was photography heaven. We were there for a good hour, carefully exploring.

With all my heart I find ramshackle sheds and heartworn houses a lot more visually appealing and welcoming than countryside that has been stripped of its trees and dignity and infested with new homes.

I heard Jack's stomach growling as we got back in the car at the farm and suggested that we find something to eat soon, knowing that one of the best hamburgers on the planet was only a stone's throw away. But lunch would be delayed.

On our way to Gribble's Landing, we passed a lovely, well-tended alpaca farm and stopped for pictures.

"Wait.. what?! That isn't an alpaca!!"

Yes, there was also a friendly camel at this farm, and as soon as we stopped the car, she got up and quickly ambled our direction for some attention.

She was soft and friendly and really seemed to enjoy getting her picture taken. She was so delightful that I didn't even mind getting my picture taken with her...

Three words. I want one.

Lunch at Gribble's was late but delicious, and after one more photo stop at Great Falls near Rock Island State Park, we brought the action back to the house.

If you want to see the full slideshow with the best photos from the day click here --


Road Trip: Living the Dream - 02/18/2012