Trick or Treat or Trying at Least

Happy Halloween everyone! Hope you had a ghoulish night. Our Aiden Aiden Poop was a little green frog for halloween, although he was more than confused about the whole holiday. From this picture below, you can see that most one-year-olds really have no clue (with the possible exception of Eddy, lower right) what the heck they are doing all dressed up in animal suits and posing for a picture before they get paraded around to local businesses to gather treats.

Even after they got the candies, I don't think any of them even knew there was something edible inside those multicolored little plastic packages. Aiden was a little grumpy about the whole business, but his girlfriend Cassidy (black and red bug) was downright mad.

The crowd generally settled down after the trick'or'treat parade was over and they all sat down to some treats they could understand (raspberries, cookies, goldfish, etc.)

After the daycare party, Andy and I took Aiden around to about 6 houses in Williston to get the real "big-boy" experience of trick-or-treating. He was still clueless, but he did like grabbing a handful of those shiny little packages from each bowl. And of course everyone thought he was the cutest they'd seen all night (ok, he was also the first, since this was about 5pm).

To round out the evening, we had steaming bowls of chili at Grandma and Grandpa's house, and Aiden learned a new trick from Timber... hmmm...

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2007 World Series Champs

YAY SOX!!!

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Pumpkin Carvin'

Last year for Halloween, Aiden was a pumpkin, so this year we decided to show him what pumpkins are really all about before the big day. We stripped off most of his clothing to avoid the inevitable mess, put some old wallpaper we had meant to throw out on the floor, and went at it. Aiden played nicely with the guts for about 10 seconds at which point he started flinging them around the kitchen and we had to put an end to that phase of the festivities. I think he still had a lot of fun with the spoons and pumpkins, and we got some yummy garlic-salted roasted pumpkin seeds out of the deal.

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Did you know it's totally gross if you stick your hand in here?

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That's right! It's totally gross! Dadoo attacks his guts with industrial tongs...

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Take that, you nasty guts!

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So, you used this big spoon to scrape it out...I see...
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THIS is the best tool.

Scrape, scrape, scrape...
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Not our most artistic ever, but we had to be quick with the knife phase of the pumpkin carving to avoid invoking the wrath of fussa-bud...

Scoping the Snows

Today we kidnapped Andy's cousin Allison from UVM and went down to Dead Creek to gawk at the thousands of snow geese that gather in the farm fields there in October. It was a beautiful, crystal clear day and very warm for October, and everyone and their uncle was out goose-watching. (Really. There were like 40 people, quite a turn-out for a bunch of geese.) When we arrived the snow geese were not that close to the viewing area, but they soon spooked and flew en masse to a closer vantage point.

Allison scoping out the geese

Lots of non-birders come every year just to see the geese, since they are quite a spectacle with their noisy squawking and impressive aerial fly-bys. But the fun of snow goose watching, for birders, is not actully to look at snow geese but to find the non-snow geese hidden in the thousands of snow geese. It's a little like "Where's Waldo." Basically we're looking for somewhat smaller geese, still white, but with somewhat stubbier bills that don't have any black on them. Those are the Ross's Geese, and they aren't there every year. This year there have been reports of up to 9 of them at a time in this flock of roughly 3,000 or so snow geese. So we basically tortured Allison all morning looking for one of these 9 Ross's Geese.

Mama, can you read me this book? So far they don't make a toddler board book version of the Sibley Guide to Birds.

Thankfully, it didn't take Andy too many hours to come up with a few views of some Ross's Geese. Even Allison got a look at them, though I'm sure inside she was thinking, "Sure, they're different..." Even so, it was a great morning to be outside and enjoying the sunshine in the company of 3,009 honkers.

See it? I'ts right there!

Deer or No Deer

Every year we go up to the Parishville farmhouse in the fall for a "work weekend," which doesn't usually seem to involve much work, but funily enough, always seems to fall on the first weekend of musket season for deer. The guys all wake up at an ungodly early hour, slurp down some instant oatmeal, put on all the camo clothes they can find, and trudge out in total blackness to the back meadow to wait for the unlucky ungulates to arrive. By the time they arrive back at the farmhouse, damp and cold (and generally deerless, sorry guys) Mom and I have hopefully cooked up some experimental breakfast chow in our outdoor dutch oven. Over the years, we've found that it doesn't have to taste all that good or even look appetizing, it just has to be warm and there must be A LOT of it.

Sausage-Egg-Surprise!

Although we constantly tease them about the lack of venision each year, I really can't critcize the guys for the real effort they put into hunting every musket season. They generally see plenty of deer but are conscientious enough that they only want to shoot a deer if it's a very good, clean shot, which is a rare thing. Especially when you are using black-powder muskets... it took them about 2 hours to clean and load the guns, so I'm guessing re-loading in the field is no picnic. Anyway, since there usually isn't a whole lot (any) time and energy spent on deer gutting, hauling, butchering, etc., there is always time for other fun activities, like hiking and fishing and visiting the giant used bookstore in Parishville.





This year we hiked out to the small waterfalls on Barton Brook behind the back meadow to do a little trout fishing. I was impressed that we were able to get about 8 small brown trout to fry up for lunch, since the dogs were constantly in and out of the water chasing the fishing lines.

Aiden didn't get to go hunting with his da-doo, but he did get to do some other naughty things, like feeding Timber and Sable everything on his plate, and gnawing on grandpa's chewing tobacco canister. Although he took a few steps on his own this week, he's still not walking by himself yet. He loves to walk if he has two fingers to hold onto, and even sometimes when you're just holding one of his hands... he's definitely getting the hang of it, slowly but surely. Lately he has been totally obsessed with colorful leaves. Once he finds two he likes (only red-ish ones, please!), he clutches one stem in each hand and will hold them like that for hours. Literally.

It's harder to walk when I'm clutching my favorite leaves!



Still got my leaves....

Still got 'em...

October is National Cider Donut Month

In mid-October, Grandma Chris drove up to Vermont with the Rapps for UVM's parent's weekend (and also/mostly to see a certain one-year-old). It was a quick visit, only 2 days, but we had a great time despite the rain. (of course it rained, Grandma was here, wasn't she?) We went to Shelburne Orchards and wandered around the rows and rows of apple trees looking for the Macouns until we got totally lost, and then we spent a small fortune on cider donuts.

This is roughly 45 cider donuts, which translates into about 1,243,346 grams of sugar and 4,538,234,233 grams of fat in three plastic bags. Grandma Chris is the new Johnny Appleseed of cider donuts, spreading the warm fatty goodness over the land. Or at least over the greater NY-NJ area. We hope everyone who received some donuts enjoyed them as much as we do. Even Aiden loves them, because really, what's not to love?!

A warbler nest among the Macouns

The Rapps came over to our house for awhile before we all went out for dinner. Aiden and Aunt Mary played patty cake during snack time.

Fall Fun & Alfalfa

So hopefully you didn't give up on us the past month or so, assuming that we had been vaporized into cyberspace somewhere.... we haven't had internet access at home for over 3 weeks (stupid Green Mountain un-Access-able), so I have a lot of blogging to catch up on. I apologize for those of you who can't sleep or eat without catching up on the insanely exciting life of two birdwatchers and their baby! Really there hasn't been anything too earth-shattering happening at our house lately... we have been enjoying the cool fall weather and taking advantage of some local hiking on weekends though.

Umm.. da-doo... If you could peel yourself away from that warbler you'd realize we're about to be run over by some mountain bikers...

Aiden hamming it up on Mount Philo

On top of Mt. Philo

Mail Delivery!

One day Aiden came home from daycare with this lovely look- the girls at daycare thought it was adorable, but Andy was not too impressed. I think he was fighting the urge to put Aiden in his little Giants jersey and attempt to undo the damage with some manly-man father-son sporting activity. Though he did drive him all the way home from daycare with the tie in his hair so he could show me what had happened to his son. I thought he made a cute Alfalfa...

How many buttercup squashes can one family eat Grandma?!?