mystery birds, cheese, daylillies, and heroin

Today was bee-yooo-ti-ful, just gorgeous. Mom and I went on an adventure and drove around somewhat randomly on the back roads of Windham County. We came across a strange brown-speckled bird with a super-long bill, in the middle of a dirt road, acting very strangely. Since we had long sightlines in either direction and there were no cars about, I pulled over for a closer look. Mom thought it was wanting to lay an egg but couldn’t get it out. It flew off before I could get a picture of it.

Thanks to this fabulous website, I have this to report:

The flexible tip of the American Woodcock's bill is specialized for catching earthworms. The bird probably feels worms as it probes in the ground. A woodcock may rock its body back and forth without moving its head as it slowly walks around, stepping heavily with its front foot. This action may make worms move around in the soil, increasing their detectability.

Here’s what he looked like (thank you, internet):

 Cool!

We continued our journey, the ultimate goal of which was – CHEESE. We swung by Grafton Village Cheese’s Brattleboro retail store. I’ll spare you all my memories of the political climate around that project.

They had samples of lots of cheddar – flavored (horseradish, garlic, sage…), young (a year old), old (up to five years old!), and everything in between. But best of all, they had samples of the best Gruyere I’ve had since we left Switzerland in 1976. Oh.My.God. It was good stuff. Gruyere is my absolute favorite cheese in the world. If you’ve only ever had the domestic stuff, you have NO idea what you’re missing.

This inspired us to continue on to the Coop’s cheese department, where Mom basically cleaned them out of all their interesting goat cheeses. Sadly, she plans on taking them home with her tomorrow. (!! I know! So…mean!)

And then we got home and I realized that somewhere in the past three days, the daylillies have sprouted flower stalks!

YAY! See, I thought that our having moved them during the construction last year might have put them into a sulk. I’m glad I was wrong! On a similar note, the two foxgloves over by the firepit have sprouted siblings.

 

We spent the afternoon lounging about indolently.

 View from hammock.

At one point I coaxed Maggie into joining me. That was fun, except for the part where she kept trying to lick my face, and then I’d wiggle around to avoid it, and that would set the hammock to rocking gently, and then I’d feel motion sick. Ah, the comforts of home.

And I finally got a picture of a hummingbird at the feeder. He’s so tiny, I’ll have to crop and zoom to show you properly:

That little splotch to the lower left – that’s our boy.

And that about covers it. Oh, except for the heroin. OK, OK, it’s not actually heroin. Maybe I have heroin on my mind because we watched “28 Days” last night and a character OD’s on heroin. No, I made my world famous chocolate brain-damage sauce, aka heroin sauce, for dessert this evening. I wonder how many miles I’ll need to run to undo the effects. How does eleven sound? Yeah. I’m supposed to run eleven miles tomorrow – it will have to happen Monday, because I’m taking Mom (AND HER CHEESE) to the airport tomorrow.