Handsome!

Please enlarge for better viewing.

In our rambling yesterday, we were going right slow along the road when I spotted this rooster and another one in a fenced-in area of someone's yard. I couldn't resist a shot of him. Isn't he the handsome one? I don't know what it is, but I like chickens, and think roosters are just so handsome. Not cute, but handsome or beautiful. And colorful! Black, white, red, orange, etc or a combination. One I seen at the fair was this deep, deep auburn red.

They also bring back good memories. When Roger and I moved to Tennessee when we were young, my best friend/sister-in-law's dad gave us our own chickens. We kept them in a pen for a while, then let them have the run of the place. We always slept a little late on the weekends, and there was always this one little white hen that would go strolling by our bedroom window singing. I have no other word for it.

Also at the little place we rented, there were these little snakes about a foot long....one chicken would catch one and then all the other chickens would try to catch that chicken because they wanted to kill the snake. Roger thought it hilarious. There would go the chicken with the snake and a whole line of other chickens chasing her.

Of course, the thing we still laugh about is the rooster. One time Roger and one of my brothers were out in the front yard after work one evening practicing with their bows and arrows. Not sure how to explain it, but our little house set right against a big ridge...hill, or some might even call it a mountain. So they had bales of hay to have their target on, but if the arrow went through the bales of hay, there was the hillside right there to catch it.

Well, up the side of it were some younger trees...I cannot remember what kind. But they were not huge...and after we let the chickens run free, they started roosting in those trees. Well, while Roger and Robert were shooting their bows and arrows, the chickens were trying to get situated in the trees. It was that time of day where it is just a few minutes before dark takes over.

I didn't see this, nor hear the beginnings of it, but I heard the end Cock-a Doodle-Doooo and I heard Roger and Robert laughing so ran outside to see what was going on. The hens had all settled in those trees, and the rooster was trying to get situated and Roger said you could hear him flopping all around up there and disturbing the others, making them squawk. And in a second or two, he came falling out of the tree, rolled down the hill, and jumped up and crowed!

Roger still laughs about this, and it is funnier still to hear and see him tell it. I told Neal about it one night and he said he woke up that night after going to bed and started laughing about it. i am sitting here smiling just remembering it...and if Roger came and went through his routine about it, I would be laughing out loud.

From today

Today Bubbie came home from the vet...he had to go in yesterday to have the pin taken out of his leg. He was still too groggy to come home yesterday evening, so I went and got him first thing this morning. He was just soooo happy to get home.

This morn Roger and a buddy of his that retired at the same time decided to go get breakfast...and after they ate, Roger took him to show him a few of our favorite fishing holes.
They didn't get home till after lunch, and soon as his buddy left, we headed to this place south of Linton, Indiana called Goose Pond. It is a Fish and Wild Life Area. It was a big area, but we really didn't see much. We saw a few mallards, some geese, and these birds....I hope Mary or Leedra or someone can tell me what they are. I am too tired to look them up. These two photos are cropped sections of the same photo.
From this area we went to the Greene-Sullivan State Forrest. I must say that while we were a little disappointed in Goose Pond Fish and Wildlife Area, the Greene-Sullivan State Forrest was very nice surprise. It is an old, old strip pit area. and lots and lots of strip pits, and a couple or three reservoirs that we seen. Excellent places to go fishing.

We actually fished a little bit at two or three of them...but apparently we were there at the wrong time of day or something. I caught one little bluegill, and Roger only got a couple or three hits. I can't wait to go back when it gets a little bit warmer.

I need to post this and see about getting settled in for bed. It feels so good to be home...even though I love going to places like that, I am always glad to be back in my own home in my own chair.

Update: Thanks go out to Deb of Notes from the Cloud Messenger for telling me that these are American coots.

Not here yet

I am trying to be patient and wait for spring, in the meantime I thought I would post this dogwood blossom again. Dogwoods are probably my favorite flowering tree...though I really love them all.

This is in my front yard, lucky to be alive. I don't know what happened but it got injured when it was young. Almost killed in fact. The bark was missing at least half-way around and probably a width of 8-10 inches up and down the little trunk of the tree. I left it alone, not really believing it would heal itself but it did.

However, the blooming was changed. It was a pink dogwood when I bought it, and though it had only bloomed a few times when it got injured, they were always pink...at least when it was in full bloom. After the injury, the first year or two it bloomed, the flowers were much more white with just a touch of pink. Slowly, it has come back to basically a pink dogwood again. Yet there are usually a few blooms with a touch of white to them. I guess in time it the white will disappear.