This pic doesn't do it justice...but here it is anyway. I was walking some laps this afternoon on my "pasture loop" and it had been a mix of sun and clouds. On my third lap, the sun popped out and hit these gold/orange leaves with a brilliance the pic can't really capture. It reminded me of the scene in The Return of the King when the sun hit the flowers around the head of a fallen statue of the realm of Gondor and Sam said to Frodo, "Look, Mr. Frodo, the king has a crown again".

Ahhhhh little slice of heaven! Colours are looking cozy cozy cozy! Some nice reds!

As you know, the pics clearly do not do the colors justice. There's just something lost in shitty JPEG compression that can't replicate the experience of standing under them with the human eye. But, for you JP, I try!

Oh yes I know it. My pics never compare to reality, but I also try! My buddy got one of the newer Samsung phones with a sick camera. It captures landscape pics way closer to how the eye sees everything. And then with some tweaks of colour saturation gets views pretty bang on.

Nice pics! I would birdwatch the fuck out of that place.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Sushipunk Nice pics! I would birdwatch the fuck out of that place.

You'd be welcome any time, Stu. And though we have nothing unusual or exotic here, I swear we have about 100 of every bird native to the state, lol. It gets quite loud at times. We have one of these little guys, occasionally, and they will make their call from sun down until sun up. I don't see how they have time to eat or fuck, to be honest, because they never stop.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck-will%27s-widow

quote:

Originally posted by Zoso And though we have nothing unusual or exotic here...

Not to you, maybe, but I'm willing to bet most of the birds you get there I do not get here

quote:

Originally posted by Zoso We have one of these little guys, occasionally, and they will make their call from sun down until sun up. I don't see how they have time to eat or fuck, to be honest, because they never stop. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck-will%27s-widow

Cool, nightjars! There are a few species of those around here too, most commonly the Tawny Frogmouth. They look rad.


post a picture

___________________

I love to hear them calling. We get their cousins, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_whip-poor-will

A few years back, when my grandmother was alive and living here on the farm, she had a whip-poor-will that set up shop right outside the house. Now, you have to understand that she grew up as the middle child (number 8 of 16) in a 3 room cabin in the mountains of North Carolina. She did not, therefore, believe in air conditioning (she often related she had 2 nieces that were "addicted" to it - and I'm sure their huffing and puffing and red faces had nothing to do with morbid obesity and everything to do with an AC addiction). So she always slept with the windows open. So, the bird sets up shop every night right outside her window. Fuckers calls from sun down till sun up. Now, granny was like me, and she had a very active mind that often made her have bouts of insomnia. Add the bird into the mix, and she was really loosing her mind. She "begs" my dad to take care of the situation. He tries and fails for a few nights. Finally, exasperated, he sets up with a shotgun and a spotlight one night (probably not totally legal in the eyes of the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency), finally catches the little guy in a tree, spotlights him and blows him to hell.

During this time in my life, I still worked for a bank, but it was a single-branch, independent bank here in town, nearly 100 years old (the bank I work for now ended up buying them in 2011). So the bank was 2 miles from the farm here, and I would stop by every day at lunch time to eat a bite with my grandmother. So I come in the day after said spotlighting event, and I mention offhand, "So, I hear dad took take of your bird problem." Granny says in the most seriosu tone, "Yes, David took care of it. But you know what? I sure do miss that little feller (slang for fellow)!"

As they say in these parts, "she was a pistol". Never seen a woman quite like her, lol. I don't know that I ever saw her truly happy with any given situation. Content, maybe, that it was as good as it was going to be at any given moment, but not stupid, blissful happy.

PS, it's amazing how effective the mimicry of that bird's feathers are juxtaposed with the bark on that tree!

It's been a while since I posted any pics of the cabin. These are older, taken a few years ago right after dad finished it, but you get the idea. You can't see it, but dad has a solar panel on the back side of the roof, and a pair of batteries for storage in the loft area. It's wired for both electric and piped for liquid propane. I take my little Asus Zenbook laptop down there with all my transcoded movies and enjoy them in seclusion.

Coming down the hill:


A closer shot, showing the porch and cedar shake shingles on the sides:

Man, that looks so chill. What a great place to have available.

___________________

quote:

Originally posted by Sushipunk Man, that looks so chill. What a great place to have available.

It truly is. Dad was an Oracle and SQL database programmer for 30 years. Never did carpentry work. He built that himself from the ground up. My younger brother and I helped erect the walls and helped with the roof trusses some. That's it.