This immature pheasant better hide behind the round hay bale instead of standing on top of it since the hunting season is still open. The ring-necked pheasants are native to China and East Asia, but they have been successfully introduced in other parts of the world, including North America when introduced in 1881. In very bad weather, pheasants are known to stay on a roost for several days without eating so he before fill his tummy before the snow comes.
Pretty Pheasant
The sun is finally out today but it is not bright and sunny like these summertime daisies. It is believed that the flower’s name came from a combination of the words “day’s eye,” because the head of the daisy closes completely at night and reopens in the morning.
Daisies are very good at self-propagation. One healthy daisy has the ability to produce more than 25,000 seeds and that daisy seeds buried for six years still have over an 80 percent germination rate. It is no wonder that my brother’s hayfield sometimes looks like it has more daisies than hay!
“Day’s Eyes”
This rooster has nothing to crow about this weather with another cloudy, chilly morning.
Silent Rooster
Some would today is an ugly day since it is another cloudy, chilly day but maybe tomorrow will develop into a sunny day. You never know what will emerge from something very ugly. The caterpillar of the Giant Swallowtail has one of the ugliest caterpillars around. The caterpillars need extra protection since they grow large and camouflage is their main form of defense but rather than blending in with with the leaves or flowers, they appear unappealing to predators; very unappealing since they look like bird poop! And yet something that looks like bird poop can morph into something so magnificent.
Ugly Bug to Beautiful Butterfly
I bet there are critters are hiding in this wooden barn gathering heat on this cold morning! I wonder how many dreams and memories this old barn holds for the farmer that originally built it.
White Barn Standing Proud
I’m happy the regular deer gun season is over so I can hike through the woods again but I bet the deer are happier, especially the big bucks that the hunters are always after.
Big Buck
These Herefords look like they are heading south like the geese after another cold night. Or they may be wishing it was summer like I am!
Herefords Heading Out
The weather did an abrupt swing yesterday afternoon and with the blowing snow and wind chill down to 4 today, the sheep around the countryside are making good use of their wool coat although they might need a scarf for the nose and ears.
Wool Coats
The history of Thanksgiving began when Pilgrims and Native Americans gathered together to celebrate a successful harvest. The first Thanksgiving was held in the fall of 1621, sometime between September 21 and November 11, and was a three-day feast. The Pilgrims were joined by approximately 90 of the local Wampanoag tribe, including Chief Massasoit, in celebration. They ate fowl and deer for certain and most likely also ate berries, fish, clams, plums, and boiled pumpkin.
It is not certain that wild turkey was part of their feast. But it is unlikely that the first feast included pumpkin pie. The supply of flour had been long diminished, so there was no bread or pastries of any kind. However, they did eat boiled pumpkin, and they produced a type of fried bread from their corn crop. There was also no milk, cider, potatoes, or butter. There was no domestic cattle for dairy products, and the newly-discovered potato was still considered by many Europeans to be poisonous.
For more than two centuries, days of thanksgiving were celebrated by individual colonies and states. It wasn’t until 1863, in the midst of the Civil War, that President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national Thanksgiving Day to be held each November.
Edward Winslow’s account of the 1621 Thanksgiving in a letter dated December 12, 1621. Our corn [i.e. wheat] did prove well, and God be praised, we had a good increase of Indian corn, and our barley indifferent good, but our peas not worth the gathering, for we feared they were too late sown. They came up very well, and blossomed, but the sun parched them in the blossom. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.
Happy Thanksgiving!
The last couple of evenings I have wanted to take some photographs of the setting sun, but since deer gun hunting season is open and I didn’t have enough blaze orange clothing to safely hike to the position that I would need to be to take the picture without a chance of a flying bullet, I picked a sunset from earlier this year; one that has plenty of orange to protect itself.
Blaze Orange Sunset
