Unusual Clover

Our son Matt has always had a knack for finding 4 leafed clovers but recently he found this unusual green and white clover.

A Bird in the Hand ...

Back in March of this year I had a couple of postings of a "Roadside Grouse" that would wait along Joyce Road and pose for pictures. Soon after I posted the story on the grouse I stopped seeing the bird and thought it had met with an accident. Yesterday, my son Chuck and his fiancée, Nikki, returned to our house after a walk and told us of being attacked by a grouse. After showing us pictures of the grouse attack my first thought was the "Roadside Grouse".

This morning I proceeded to look for the "attack" grouse in the area where it was last seen. After about 45 minutes of searching I detected some movement in a brushy area. To my surprise, a grouse came out of the brush and started walking towards me.



At first the grouse started to circle me and stayed 10 to 15 feet away. Within a few minutes the grouse was only a couple of feet away and I had to put my camera in macro close-up mode to take pictures.



For the next hour the grouse would charge and peck at me in some sort of mock battle. I played along with the fight and the more I charged the grouse, the closer it got. A photo of the grouse standing on my leg.



At one point I was able to catch and hold the grouse. I had assumed the grouse would run away after being held, but it returned for more fighting and was caught three more times.



After an hour of "grouse fighting" I got up and started to walk back to our house. The grouse followed me for the next couple hundred feet until I started to walk faster. Several hours later I returned to the same spot with our son Matt and his girlfriend, the grouse was ready for more "fun and games".

Fall Leaves

For a brief period of time each Autumn, the hardwood trees in our neighborhood put on a show of color that is gone too soon. While the color of the leaves were bright this year, the recent heavy rains have lead to an early exit of the color.

A view of Miner's Pond from Joyce Road.



A view of our barn from the cabin property.

Barn Projects

Within the last week our old barn has taken on a new look as a couple of projects have been completed. At the entrance to the barn, old broken concrete was removed and a new 26 by 32 foot section of concrete poured to form our "courtyard".



With the rebuilding of the wall at our barn complete we turned our attention to landscaping the work area.



Crushed stone was added around the new concrete and drive way area.

Harvest Time

Our recent summer-like weather has disguised the fact that it is now October and harvest time. The lack of a killing frost has allowed our garden to continue to produce but we decided it was time to dug our crop of sweet potatoes. We planted a few sweet potatoes last year, for the first time, and had great success. In fact, last year's sweet potatoes kept so well we had a meal of them this week and they were still perfect.

This year was another successful crop of sweet potatoes.