James Brubaker

This is a mystery essay “The Mystery of White Feathers Resting on the Lawn”

There are clusters of Gulls resting on our Bay – (Gulls,  my Favorite bird – some day I will do a photo essay for this blog on the beauty and interest of Gulls)

There are clusters of Gulls resting and waiting on my rock pile – a rock pile placed up bay from our dock – there to protect the dock from wind blown chuncks of ice in the spring “Break-Up”

Did you know?: Herring Gulls have the shown red on their bill Herring Gulls prefer drinking freshwater, but they’ll drink seawater when they must. Special glands located over the eyes allow them to excrete the salt that would otherwise dehydrate most animals. AND During courtship, males feed their mates, losing fat reserves in the process. AND An adult Herring Gull was spotted bait-fishing. It floated bits of bread on the surface of a Paris pond and attacked goldfish feeding on the bread. It ate none of the bread itself, indicating deliberate tool use. All this from a Cornell University web site”

They are even sitting on the rocky shore – Waiting, waiting, and waiting

Wow – the mystery continues – what happened to our house – Do you think these bugs will bit?

A closer look – Oh, this is my favorite bug – a Shad or May Fly – Look at the pattern in their wings – A ladies blouse or a man’s beach shirt with that pattern would sell well at any department store – Oops – I just dated myself – I mean on-line store!

Down by our dock – looking down – Some are hatched and some waiting to stretch out their wings. Did you know Shad Fly nymphs will spend up to a year underwater before they emerge as an adult. During this stage, the nymph will crawl out of the water by clinging on to a plant. It will then split its skin (called an exoskeleton) and a winged adult will emerge and take flight. Adult mayflies are not good flyers and cannot escape predators. Therefore, they have evolved a strategy to “evade” predators. The adults will time their emergence at the same time so that millions of them will appear. This essentially overwhelms predators, which cannot eat all the mayflies, and therefore many of the insects survive. The role of adult mayflies is to mate and lay eggs before they die. In fact, adult mayflies do not have mouthparts and die several days after they have emerged. Hence, we do not have to be afraid of them since they cannot bite!

Why are the Gulls leaving the cluster on the Bay, leaving the rock pile, leaving the rocky shore? Why – because there is a “Hatch” happening – Gull dinner is ready – But due to the Shad fly strategy – they will not get them all and the life of the Shad Fly goes on until next year.

Now you know the answer to the mystery of how the white feathers got on my lawn – hundreds of gulls waiting for a Shad Fly hatch are bound to drop a feather or two – hope this essay helps you find and enjoy a few bugs and Gulls in your life!

I call this a wild “Wood Lilly” what do you call it?

I call this an example of the “Minority” – A white and a red among the majority of yellow – racial integration in the wild flower community!

I call “Life Anew” one old like me and one new – ready to bring new life to the wild flower community!

I call this “Beauty” – the wild flower who is featured in my wildflower beauty contest!

Or is this the “perfect” wild flower – waiting to win the wildflower beauty contest in my mind?

OOPS! no beauty contes but “Spittlebug, common name for members of a family of plant-feeding insects, the nymphs of which cover themselves with a protective frothy material that looks like human spittle. Spittlebugs, like their relatives the aphids and cicadas, suck plant juices with their needlelike mouthparts. Although the bugs’ feeding can distort or stunt herbaceous plants, they are generally harmless. 23 species are distributed throughout North America.

What wildflower is this – Not “Queen Anne lace – is it?” Pretty anyway – but only a runner-up in my mind.

I put this here – just because I like this wild flower photo.

One more Wood lily” before I go – I sort of created this using Photoshop to rearranged and blurr some background.

Looks like a Perfect Wildflower – Soon I will do Drummond Bugs – Check back to see my Bug Post –

This is Charlie – Charlie first appeared in 1947, three years before Peanuts started, in a comic strip by Charles M. Schulz called Li’l Folks.

This Charlie Brown on Drummond Island?
Where did this photo of Charlie Brown Come from?

Charlie was found in an old rotting log beside the road which I took my bike on! – Who created it – An Islander did – just for entertainment, — while no Mall’s were available for entertainment!    — I vote for no malls!

Stones are great entrainment here on the Island – Ugly tele-boxes, alone, just do not add to the natural beauty of the Island.

Who wants to see a bare rock just sitting beside the road?

Now, let’s look at some sticks- when the snow is 10 feet deep, how does the snow plow driver know where the edge of the road is? By the stick of course.

Suppose, you want to tell folks where you lived if you were D. Staf…- You would dress-up the wood sign with a few plastic flowers!

Suppose you had an accident on a curve – you would want to warn others of the impending Dann`gerous Curve. – is it pointing to Dann Gerous’s home??? – Or is Dann a fish, with mouth open, heading the other way?  – I do not know – I do know the curve is in the dirt road and not extremely dangerous?

Love my things of nature – I do have many more photos sitting in the wings awaiting my need for a subject to Blog with you all about!

Mom is leading her flock off to school this morning – learning about how to search for food, how to stay away from humans in fishing boats, – you know all those things a duck must know. And all students are happy and lined up in a row. — the problem the one in the back does not want to be way back there – can’t see or hear what the teacher is saying and further more he probably did not get enough duck weed for breakfast – being the last one you know in line – it was all gone by the time he got to the duck weed patch!

So, look what happened – you can tell by looking at the grass in front of the ducks – that they did not travel very far before the last duck decided he had enough – he threw a tantrum and headed for shore – Mom grouped the others and sat patiently waiting for the tantrum kid to get over it!
All seen from my dock this morning!

And, that is the story from Drummond – Where the ducks are human, the Mayfly’s are hatching, and the tourist’s children throw no tantrums (That I have ever seen)

I find that if we ride single file – three horses – the front horse checks for danger in front of us – with ears pointed forward like this one.

Here is me on Perla – in the rear of the string of three – Mostly her job is to check the rear with her ears – for a mountain lion that may be following us getting ready to attack!

Now Perla and I moved into the middle position – her job, now, is to be the one checking on the quality of “watching” that the lead and last horse are doing (She does not trust “any horse”) – Perla’s ears switch from front to back and sometimes look sideways.

Yep, watch out! This duck may jump out of the pond and scare us – Oh , Sunday a Grouse jumped out of the woods – trying to lure us away from her chicks – ran right under Perla’s legs, squaking all the way – we have our horses  bomb proof most of the time -Perla was ok with the Grouse – but the other two horses did show a little reaction –  but no problem – it was really nice to see!

The amateur – What do expect – I only started!

The famous one: Maybe u knew this – maybe u did not want to know it, but here it is: Surrealism has come to be seen as the most influential movement in twentieth century art. Figures like Salvador Dalí not only had an important influence on avant-garde art, but through their commercial work – in fashion photography, advertising and film – they brought the style to a huge popular audience. Following the demise of Minimalism in the 1960s, the movement’s influence also returned to art, and since the 1970s it has attracted considerable attention from art historians.

The amateur – Now I I put another horses head in the photo – is it better or worse? – Too busy? – not to the point? – Hang in there I will study and get better!

I saw a frog like this! – I ask, “Are you real?”

Perla, love grass – even as short as this grass is – she will spend 16 hours a day shearing it with her front teeth – If the big bad flies don not chase her into the barn.

But, yesterday the big bad fly did chase her into the barn!

There are other things to see on our Island – Gulls having breakfast – You all know how a good restaurant always has a waiting to get served – Here is the gull’s waiting line at the “Fishing Dock” restaurant.

But, Grandma, me, and Austin like our berries for breakfast – and we do not like to spend much money for the berries (bing PA Dutch you know) so we go outside and look for frees ones that God put – just for us!

Hope you liked Austin’s and my morning story – now I must go mow and plant – and tend the horse – A game of golf in between.

Oh, He is just a sign created by the Tylers

Like these beautiful flowers created by God.

Like this Christmas tree farm created by a Christmas tree farmer – with Gods help.

Yep – There is probably one of these guys off-island too.

Yesterday’s sunset before the weather moved in – rain and I guess wind – no power for 4hours – no problem, I was sleeping!!!

In the morning – overcast – misty – good weather for gulls to hunt for breakfast. Really enjoy walking the shore watching them do that.

I have been studying the wing and leg movement of gulls, geese, swans, and sandhill cranes – mostly during take-off and landing – we all gotta stretch in the morning – just like this guy – but I am not near this graceful.

What do you think he is saying? “May I join this breakfast table?“

I think one is saying – “Look out, I”m coming in” the other “I give up”

Early evening to the tune of fog horns – “Fog sneaking in”

Threw this in to show how much work a Tundra Swan must do to take off – look at his/her left leg throwing water!

Exhausted – but caught up with my mate – now seeking refuge for the evening before heading north to ??? –  the tundra, I guess.

A little later – more fog

Later more fog – more fog horns – more beautify environment – Bet you could enjoy an evening of fog, gulls, swans, and  fog horns before dinner.

This is the sunset after dinner – lot different then last night – but in someway it is more spiritual

Wonder if Noah enjoyed big water. He is our great, great, ……..Grandparent, you know? (Check out Genesis Chapter 9) But, some think the jackass, most, likely, was a relative of mine!