One Man’s Trash…

…is probably Mark’s treasure.

Northwoods Journal

Friday, May 23, 2014

Mark was up before 7 a.m. but I found it hard to crawl out from under the covers.  Mostly because it was COLD!  The overcast sky didn’t help matters, nor did the droning of the logging equipment.  All combined to make me want to stay put in my warm cocoon.  But Mark had other ideas.  Today, he was a man on a mission – a mission to find undiscovered treasures at the multitude of garage sales around the county – and they started at 8 a.m.!

I was ready in record time, throwing a baseball cap over my unruly hair and taking my coffee and yogurt out the door with me.  Needless to say, no bird watching this morning, although all our regulars were here bright and early for breakfast.

I soon found out I wasn’t dressed warm enough in my t-shirt and hoodie.  There was a chilly breeze blowing which created lots of good-natured grumbling among all the garage salers.  Many of us wanted to know if this is really late May or are we stuck in April?  I shivered most of the morning.  We were out for about 5 hours, with a brief stop at Northwoods Gallery and Coffee House for coffee and cocoa, and also a stop at The Baklava Shop for streusel and shortbread (and baklava, of course!).  Mark and I were both disappointed at the selection at the sales this year.  Neither one of us found anything worth writing home about.  And to think last year we had the back of the FJ stuffed to the doors!

It was after 1 p.m. when we headed back to our place for a light lunch and a short break.  We groaned inwardly when we saw that the “stupid people on the corner” had shown up for the weekend.  They always have a huge group of people and ATV’s for the long holiday weekends, which means our peace and quiet is at an end.

We lounged on the porch with our lunch and I was able to take a few photos.  I had put out an orange half before we left and it was pretty much eaten up by lunchtime!

Chipping sparrow.

Female Baltimore oriole.

Hairy woodpecker.

Mark wanted to take a load of stuff to the landfill, including the old toilet and sink.  I left him to load it all up while I took the beagles for a quick walk.  Mark was anxious about me walking on the road, due to the logging trucks, figuring the odds of me getting smooshed were significantly increased, but I was extra careful.  I just walked them up to the gas field then cut through the woods to this trail up the ridge then back to the road and then cut through our neighbors’ woods on the way back.  The sun had finally come out and I was ready to shed the hoodie by time we returned to the trailer!

Unfortunately, since we had more than household waste, we couldn’t use the landfill’s dumpster, we had to go into the landfill proper.  Ugh.  I needed sanitizer for my nose by time we got done there.  Truly an odiferous experience.

We hit a bunch more sales before ending our outing at Freddie’s to pick up water, ice, bird food and other supplies.  By time we got home I was starving and ready for a real meal.

For more than a year now I’ve periodically been having trouble with my feet.  Since the pain comes and goes, I’ve done what I do best – ignore it.  But today, by time we were done going to sales, I was really hobbling and when I took off my hiking boot and sock I found my right foot to be red and swollen just below my big toe.  I used this as the perfect excuse to let Mark cook dinner!  He wanted to use the Coleman stove, so was happy to oblige.

We ate dinner on the porch but the stupid people on the corner have a dog that they let bark non-stop, so that is what we had to listen to – their beagle, Buddy, howling/barking every twenty seconds while one of the people from the family egged him on by howling/barking in response.  This is only one example of why we have labeled them the SPOTC.  I have a myriad of other reasons on a list that is nearly 13 years long, including drinking and partying until the wee hours of the morning and then firing off guns and running their ATV’s up and down the road.  Who doesn’t love such behavior at 1 a.m?

I took more photos while I waited for Mark to feed me. 🙂

Downy woodpecker giving me the hairy eyeball.

Male Baltimore oriole.

Male Baltimore oriole.

I couldn’t decide which oriole picture I liked the best, so I’ve added them both.  I have also followed the advice of some of my blogging photographer friends and done some judicious cropping.  They all advised me to not worry about zooming in so closely, to crop instead to avoid blurriness.  The photos from the new camera crop so much better – the Kodak photos always got grainy when I cropped them.

Since I had walked the dogs by myself earlier in the afternoon, Mark offered to take them after we did dishes, but I told him I thought my foot would be okay.  So, I put my socks and boots back on and we loaded up the dogs and drove up Stevens Spring.  There is a really nice, little used trail that runs between the ATV trail and Brush Creek Truck Trail so we walked that.  At the truck trial we walked the road for a short way then cut back on another little used trail that ends up making a loop.  We saw another scarlet tanager and I attempted again to get photos!  These turned out a tiny bit better but it’s hard when the bird is at the tippy-top of the tree and the tree is swaying in the breeze!

Scarlet tanager.

Scarlet tanager blowing in the breeze.

After we got back to our vehicle Mark suggested we go to Hillman for ice cream at the Dairy Queen.  He has plans for tomorrow night and then we hope to go fishing Sunday and Monday, so this could be our only chance.  I wasn’t really hungry for ice cream, but agreed anyway.  How could I pass up DQ?  We saw these four deer in a clear-cut area along Brush Creek Truck Trail.

Small herd of white-tailed deer.

I just got a mini-Blizzard and we even got the dogs their own baby cup of vanilla ice cream to share.  The people at the DQ were pretty impressed at how they take turns getting their bites!  I wish I could have gotten a photo but I was holding two leashes and two cups of ice cream!

Needless to say, I was wiped out by time we got home.  Everyone got their tick checks – we found about a dozen between the three dogs and us.  Blech!  Now it’s time to crawl into bed.  I am not even attempting to stay up to see the meteor shower that is predicted for tonight.

My bird species count for today is 13, though I have a feeling I might have missed a few:  hummingbird, chipping sparrow, Baltimore oriole, rose-breasted grosbeak, chickadee, white-breasted nuthatch, goldfinch, purple finch, hairy woodpecker, downy woodpecker, mourning dove, blue jay, robin.

Hey, I think this is my 100th post!  Do I win a prize or something? 🙂