• Home
  • Blog
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • Publications
  • That 1st Novel
  • More!
  • Contact
AMY SMITH LINTON

Happy Halloween

10/30/2017

2 Comments

 
It's that time of year. Keep a weather eye open for things like this.
Picture
Roaming? Oh heck, they are everywhere these days.
2 Comments

The Would-Be Farm: Automatic Paparazzi*

10/26/2017

3 Comments

 
White Tail Deer
One of the many pleasures of returning to the Would-Be Farm is the ritual of checking the game cameras.

​As we have gotten to know the various gamey crossroads, we've added to the numbers of these nifty little devices. In fact, this time we forgot where we'd put that one for several days...

*Sidebar factoid: the term "paparazzi" comes from the name of a character in the 1960 Fellini film La Dolce Vita. That name (Paparazzo) also harks back to a kind of large Italian mosquito. 
A few highlights from October 2017 at the Farm.
3 Comments

Birdwatching: Handsome Stranger

10/23/2017

0 Comments

 
It's less about watching birds than simply noticing them.
Red Shouldered Hawk
Couldn't ask for a more obvious identification of this attractive fellow: the Red-Shouldered Hawk.

​You can tell what kind because of his long yellow legs. <exits, snortling.>
0 Comments

The Would-Be Farm: Bears Plus Woods

10/10/2017

2 Comments

 
Wooden Bear
Rumors about the return of the black bear to the neighborhood of the Would-Be Farm started some years ago. Black bears, like wolves and wood bison, were hunted out of the area a hundred years or so ago. 

I take most such rumors with a grain of salt. There's a black panther, according to the locals, as well as deer-eating bobcats to be worried about when walking in the woods.

Not to mention the often-repeated story about a covert government plot to re-introduce mountain lions into the Adirondacks.  

None of this is impossible, of course, although I'm pretty confident that a bobcat could not manage to get its jaws around the spine of a white-tailed deer. Still, I put it in the wishful category of "maybe, if I see proof."

​Kind of like the skunk-ape of the Everglades, Uncle Markie's sighting notwithstanding.
Our game cameras don't lie, however, and a couple of years back, we had a blurry but unmistakable ursus americana ​sighting.

And chunks of the Would-Be Farm's landscape do seem rather bearish: big patches of brambles and some nice blueberry barrens and broken-rock formations that seem well suited for a bear's long winter torpor. 

As time passed, and given that the black bear is a rover, I figured this one must have just been cruising by on its way someplace else. Just a tourist.
Black Bear Game Camera

But the other thing that doesn't lie? Scat.

(In the interest of kindness, know that the blog is going to take a bathroom-minded turn. With photos.)

​In July, I took a quick snap of what might be the product of an over-indulgence of berries for a big raccoon. 
​
Picture
In October, I took a photo of what's clearly the kind of thing a bear would do in the woods. 
Black Bear Scat
As they say in scatological circles, "That is one big fecal coliform, baby."

Okay, maybe they don't –– turns out that "coliform" doesn't mean what I thought it meant. Huh. 


Still, anyone with an eye for such things would be given pause by the appearance of such a display of large-caliber dung in the middle of the trail. 

Let's hope it doesn't end in statistics and blood.
Bear Attack
2 Comments

Non-Musical Selection: O Scuppernong!

10/7/2017

2 Comments

 
Jeff Linton christens Scuppernong
Like the Butterbean, the new Flying Scot boat is named for an obscure edible. In this case it's a kind of muscadine grape that can be found in the Carolinas, the Scuppernong.  

Scuppernongs taste like beefed-up Concord grapes. The skin is leathery and tannic, and it's riddled with seeds, but the meat is fragrant.

My favorite skipper claims that they are inedible, but I think he's wrong on this one.
​
A quick perusal of the interwebs shows a LOT of scuppernong-related music.  I cannot recommend any of it. 

On an earlier draft, I linked some YouTube Scuppernong highlights: experimental plonk-plonk music, an chaotic atonal jazz composition, an odd spoken-word performance, some only-for-serious-fans-of-high-and-lonesome bluegrass.  

​These were videos with maybe a couple of dozens of views and no comments after years of waiting in the ether.  Linking to them was akin to finding something in the fridge and offering to your buddy, saying, "Here, sniff this, it's awful!"  

You're welcome.  

2 Comments

    About the Blog

    A lot of ground gets covered on this blog -- from sailboat racing to book suggestions to plain old piffle. 

    To narrow the focus, select one of the  Categories below.

    Follow

    Trying to keep track? Follow me on Facebook or Twitter or if you use an aggregator, click the RSS option below.

    RSS Feed

    Old school? Sign up for the newsletter and I'll shoot you a short e-mail when there's something new.

      Newsletter

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Beauty Products
    Big Parks Trip
    Birds
    Boatbuilding
    Books
    Brains
    Contest & Prize
    Dogs
    Everglades Challenge
    Family Stories
    Farming
    Fashion
    Feminism
    Fiction
    Fish
    Flowers
    Flying Scot Sailboat
    Food
    Genealogy
    Handwork
    Health
    History
    Horses
    I
    International Lightning Class
    Mechanical Toys
    Migraine
    Movie References
    Music
    Piffle
    Pigs And Pork
    Poems
    Sailboat Racing
    Sculpture
    Social Media
    Song
    Subconscious Messages And Dream
    Travel
    Wildlife
    Writing

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Me. Me. Me.
  • Publications
  • That 1st Novel
  • More!
  • Contact