As we drove up the hill after Buddy's class, about 8:30 on Thursday, we spotlighted a barred owl in the headlights.  It was on the road, perhaps munching on the rabbit who lived in the culvert area.  The owl stumbled on take off, but didn't invite us to share much more than a silhouette view: a short but breathtaking moment.
As I came over the peak of Julian Pike on my way home on Friday evening I thought for an instant all of Julian was on fire: one leg of a brilliant rainbow lit up the town. That was another stirring moment.
We tried to have dinner at the new Otto's: the wait was 1.5 hrs.  We'll wait a week or two.  Not such a good plan on a home football weekend. We were on our way to the Trans Siberian Orchestra concert at Bryce Jordan Center.  We'd never been in the Center for anything but conventions.  Seats were great but the concert, their Christmas concert, was disappointing.  We left at the first chance.  Christmas carols a la headbanger with some Christian revival just really was more than we could deal with.  The light/laser show was fun, but the rest was uninspiring at best.  What a difference from the music we've heard on the radio and on their website.  I guess they were playing to the under 20 crowd although the audience was mostly older.
A huge female redtail, I think, has screamed over the house, low and slow, several times today.  Looking for chicken dinner perhaps. I saw her mate a bit further out.  They normally stay over the meadow and over the forest down there.  We may have to think about a tarp gazebo for the girls.
No owls tonight but JoePa got his 400th win and we went to the new Gamble Mill Brewpub for a new favorite beer joint and restaurant.   It's a private club still, just like we like it. One TV on the other side of the bar, just like we like it.  Much better night tonight.

Screech owl box  hidden in a white pine
off  Shannon's Curl trail

We installed 2 owl houses today in a couple of distinguished White Pines as part of the CSP grant. The boxes came from the Game Commission Nursery at Howard.
The box with the large arched opening is a home for barred owls and weighs about 20 pounds. The other is actually a kestrel box but is is also suited for screech owls.  It is smaller with a 3 inch circular opening.  They are mounted about 20 feet off the ground; we used the tractor to carry the extension ladder to the edge of the forest and then we had to carry the ladder uphill to the trees.   Other tools needed were a hand-held saw to clear away some of the dead branches and a drill and socket wrench.  It was very awkward holding on to the boxes and trying to use the portable drill and a socket wrench to fasten the boxes to the trees while standing on the ladder, but Paul eventually managed.  Leslie suggested using a rope to hold the barred owl box because it was so heavy and hard to position on the tree with an easterly door opening that will protect the owls from wind and weather. .

Her suggestion worked nicely; both boxes are ready for occupancy after a total of about 4 hours of hard work. The job seemed so easy on paper.

Barred Owl box 

Reading: Soul Identity ** Dennis Batchelder, just barely good enough to finish, must have been an Amazon Kindle freeby; company collects people's souls to pass on to them when they return in another life.  Security issues as takeover-for-revenge surfaces.

What a difference a week makes!

The 3rd week in October is apparently Ladybug swarming time. The house was covered; a rainwater bucket has layers of the red beetle floaters; we couldn't open the door without hundreds getting in; the vacuum cleaner fills in one go. Just like last year.
Our neighborhood bat is still around (but not eating ladybugs.) I've seen it at dusk the last 2 evenings. I may have heard a coyote howl about the same time. And this morning the owl was in close, but it quieted before I let the chickens out.
Gambol and I are doing OK without Paul around. He's visiting Bill and Patty so I come home for lunch and a walk in the woods. I could get used to this. We take a long evening walk. Gambol goes to bed at his regular time, so I guess he's getting enough stimulation.
Temps have approached 70 with clear blue sky; it's hard to be inside on days like this. Some of our rainbowed trees have recovered somewhat and we have most of the trails mostly cleared of downed branches. There's still a 12" diameter waiting for the chain saw along the east lower Jennifer trail. Looking across the valley the colors are still brilliant and it's hard to see the damage that the heavy snow caused on the leafed out trees.

From the Baron in an email to the mortgage company:

The hemlock timbers are all cut with the mortise and tenon joints and stored in our shed here. Panels for the roof and walls are ordered and should be available by mid-Nov with the electrical chases installed and the door and window openings already cut. Windows already ordered from Andersen--doors are next on the selection list. We have visited appliance, cabinet, countertop, plumbing fixture suppliers and have quotes from them.
We have looked at some floor/wall tile, but no decisions on that yet. Electrical fixtures are hanging fire, with Whitehill's move complicating connecting with them, but that isn't time critical stuff.
The excavation is scheduled to take place within the next two weeks--last weeks rain and snow backed up a lot of construction jobs, so we are slipping a little in our scheduled ground-breaking. The excavation footprint has been staked and painted on the ground and the electrical utility line has been marked, so we are ready and waiting on the weather. We were hoping for last Friday but the snowstorm changed that.

Tragedy in the coop

I came home midday to refuel and repack before leaving for the weekend in Philadelphia. The girls were nowhere to be seen. They didn't come running when I called. I thought they'd been hijacked by a turkey flock. The Baron went looking for them up and down the trail. After I left he discovered them under the buddeleia, roosting or resting, but very well hidden. Usually they are sort of under the bush but I can see them. A bit strange to be so quiet, I thought.
The Baron went out just before dusk to close them up for the night; as he approached the tractor, no chicks were to be seen, but he heard an owl hooting very close by. Very strange, he thought, to hear an owl so close and so early in the evening. When he was close, the chickens hurried out of their hiding places under the tall grasses and scurried into the pen. No dilly-dallying tonight. More strange behavior, so he decided to check to see that all were accounted for. He retrieved his spotting lantern and scouted around the chicken tractor: one dead body, already cold. She was intact, but probably had a broken neck. There was no sign of the predator. He saved some feathers but put the carcass at the Bait Shoppe with the game camera focused. How disturbing to think something just killed our chicken and didn't eat it.
Now the fun seems to have gone out of the girls. They still burst out of the tractor in the morning, but they head quickly for the cover of a bush. They seem to trust the turkey flock so they join those boys in the open but head back to cover when they move on. Something is still awry and unbalanced in the forest.