Life is Good

Salted in the shell peanuts, my trusty sidekick and a frosty beer from our friendly neighbors to the north…. 

Butterfly

Compared to the abundance of pollinators we were witness-to during COVID butterflies seem to have fallen in numbers of late.  At least that is my anecdotal observation.  Especially Monarchs.

Anyway, while having coffee on the porch a Red Admiral paid a call.

  

Porch Beer

After working in the garden it's always good to retire to the porch with my sidekick to enjoy a bowl of salted in the shell porch peanuts, a frosty Canadian lager and watch a spring thunder storm roll-in.

It's quitting time after-all.

Raising a toast to our friendly neighbors to the north!

Bachelor Life

Doggo and I are roughing it for a couple of day while Jill is away. 

This evening we enjoyed porch peanuts and a frosty import.

Fresh sautéed mushrooms.

Steak and baked potato - including snipped chives from the kitchen garden.

And a beautiful peninsula sunset for for desert....

 

 

Pretty good chow if you can get it......

Affordable Housing

Inspected and cleaned nest boxes today. Fifty of them. 

 

Evicted four families of mice and in a Caddy Shack moment Jill was attacked by a squirrel hiding in a box.

 

After three decades of building these this is the final nest box design. Constructed of cedar they’re very durable. The right side wall flips-up for cleaning or inspection.   Took a page from Henry Ford's book on manufacturing - interchangeable parts make for efficient repairs.  Affordable housing for cavity nesting songbirds.

 

 

Our woods was thinned during COVID and now that the canopy has been opened all sorta natural regeneration is happening.  Like these spruce seedlings. 

 

The resident pileated woodpeckers are disassembling this snag.

 

 

Recently deceased coyote. I wonder what the backstory is.

 

 

Fetched a load of firewood from the north forty. Including a Smirnoff Ice bottle from the ditch.  Not from my tribe.

 

A whitetail that didn’t survive winter.   I wonder about the backstory. 

 

 

Me and my side kick catching some rays with a Guatemalan Lager

 

 

Focus

Morning coffee on the porch.

Must be a critter out in the yard that has our focus synchronized....

Ruby

Because you cannot get enough cute dog photos there are these.....

 

What A Difference A Few Days Make

 

 

Started the day with some snow-covered whitetails and finishing with a photo from last Saturday.

65F on the sunny side of the porch.

What a difference a few days makes..... 

Feels Like Spring Lately

Nevertheless, the astronomical first day of spring here in the northern hemisphere is tomorrow; with the arrival of the spring equinox.

That said, we've scored some spectacularly warm days lately that are mindful of summer weather.  Just the other day I popped-open the windows on the west side of the house so I could watch the news with a glass of Merlot and listen to the finches feeding just the other side of the screen.

There has also been several porch beer days in the 70F sunshine.

And the first patio burger; loaded with Poly-cyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, Hetero-cyclic amines and advanced glycation end products.  All of this notwithstanding; real men grill on charcoal.

I have lived to bear witness….

Sunny Sunday

 

Good day today. 

Got in a nice walk and the dog figured out how to bust ice in the rain garden pond and go for a swim. 

Waiting on the return of the sandhills, redwings and robins. Bald eagles have been just about daily for awhile. 

Dried-out on the sunny side of the porch where it’s 60F. 

First porch beer of 2024…..

 

 

 

Morning

We rotated a new coffee maker into the kitchen on Saturday.  For any of you that live in rural America, and obtain your life-giving drinking water from a well, you know of what I speak.  The struggle is real.

Sure, our water is clean and tastes terrific.  Not at all like the water city folks have to tolerate.  City utility water that smells and tastes of bromine anti-bacterial chemicals when you raise a glass to your lips.  

An additional reason my water tastes great is because it is rich in calcium having originated 267 feet deep in the dolostone rock formation of the Niagara Escarpment upon which we sit.  Dissolved calcium eventually clogs the works of your Mr. Coffee machine.  And with the passage of time no amount of cleaning can reverse the impact of calcification on the slow brewing of a cuppa joe in the morning.  Yeah, first world problem.  And I digress.

Fall mornings are a terrific way to start your day with your pup and a steaming mug of black coffee.

These are the views I wake-to....

Swamp gas floating just above the ground

And the morning sun peeking-over the machine shed

Life sucks in flyover country, eh?

Porch Setting

Whether it is coffee in the morning to watch the sunrise.  Or a glass of Merlot or a beer at the end of the day; the new pup is a natural at porch setting.  Although I suspect she is going to grow out of the part about sitting on our laps...

 

 

Blowout Labor Day Celebration

Teaching the new dog old tricks.  The art and culture of porch-setting.

 

Possibly my new favorite. 

Packerland Pilsner from Hinterland. 

Two row malted barley, Hallertau hops, and a Czech pils yeast combine to create a classic European pilsner.

Very drinkable 4.5% ABV. 

Schönes Feiertagswochenende. 

Prosit!

Spoiled

We are blessed with a proliferation of songbirds around these parts.

I suspect it's a combination of a variety of habitat - forest, open areas, native pollinator plants and as a consequence of the summer drought conditions some presently very dry wetland.

If you were sitting on the porch having your morning coffee or a beer after chores or maybe just a glass of Merlot as the sun goes down you can hear the birds calling back and forth.

I'm reasonably OK with bird ID using only their call; nevertheless, There are apps like Merlin that will assist.

Sunday morning was particularly busy because in the space of about fifteen minutes Merlin informed me that all of these birds were sharing my space.

Is it no wonder I like living here?  We're spoiled.

You can learn more about Merlin here and download the free app to your Android or iPhone device.

Quitting Time

 

The old pickum’up truck needs a bath but the shed is swept, vacuumed and organized so that new deer stand components assembly can occur indoors if needed. 

Quitting time….

 

Critter Buffet

It occurred to me the other day that there are more than a dozen species of tree in the space between the house and the county road - our front yard.

And several are bearing fruit.

Pin oak

Mulberry

And an unspecified variety of apple

The critters gonna be happy.  And I hope the birds leave some mulberries for our ice cream...

The Trifecta

Good things come in threes today. 

Wordle in three

Rototiller started on the third pull

 

Garden tilled, radishes planted and garage swept = three chores

Three Drop Dead Blondes in the garage fridge to pick from 

 

Third consecutive day of +80 F and sunshine

 

Stovewood and Beers

 

This amber lager has a dark reddish-colored body with good clarity and a decent white head. 

Born of Two-Row Pale, Caramel, Caramel, Roasted Barley malts and Zeus, Willamette and Cascade hops. 

Moderately malty and a bit more hoppy than average.   Crisp lager finish. 

6% ABV

Quitting time.

 

Getting ready for Old Man Winter. 

 

 

Life on the Porch

This is a Pale Lager direct from the motherland.  It has sweet malt aromas with some floral hop scents. It is a medium bodied brew that goes well with porch-setting at the close of the work day. 

Since it’s bottled in metric it’s 11.2 FL OZ

Guinness Brewing, St. James Gate, Dublin 

 4.5% ABV

Pro Tip: $14.95 for a 12 pack at Tadych’s Econofoods , Sturgeon Bay

Porch Beer

 

Sitting on the porch enjoying one of your basic, go-to, American lagers. 

Built-upon a foundation of Wisconsin two-row barley malt it has a mellow and smooth body. The hoppy nose and taste are derived of imported hops from Germany and the Czech Republic.

Assured of a steady supply and with an ABV of 4.25 this could become a daily feature.