WNY Idyll: An Autumn Leaves Postscript

 

       Well it seems that's it for another year and the balance is gradually shifting from tree to ground.  Not that the ground display isn't quite something. Gerard Manley Hopkins'  autumn-grieving Margaret would be blubbing her eyes out at this lot.

        There was a postscript to my leaf photography day . I drove down the Five Mile Road, which crosses the end of our lane and saw probably the best hill so far - evening light, old barn, cornfield, the works. But I couldn't stop easily. I tried driving up the nearest hollow but the view wasn't nearly as good. So I turned back again and pulled into a layby opposite the High School, hoping I wasn't doing anything illegal, still being a little hazy on New York traffic laws, which seem to be a moveable feast. (I was out driving with hubby the day before, with my camera handy and he kept unaccountably yelling, "You can't stop there!") Still, the addiction proved too strong and I jumped out of the car and started snapping. The next thing, a car pulled up on the other side of the road, the side I know you can't stop on. "Uh-oh" I thought, "It's law enforcement".  I was about to leg it back to the car, when a woman appeared beside me with a camera, "Just couldn't miss it! It's probably the last sunny day we'll have!"  Her camera was a little fancier than mine. I prided myself that she might be a pro. Great minds, I thought smugly, think alike.

    
  And great minds can be foiled too.  "I'm trying not to get those cables into the shot", she muttered. In my excitement, I hadn't even spotted them. It's the scourge of Western New York leaf photographers, the Heath Robinson arrangement of  thick,low-flying electric cables by every roadside.  So we had to make do with what we could get through the gaps.                                            

The Flying Turkey Travel Awards 2: And the Winner is....

 Well, too bad I didn't take her name.
 It was Heathrow Terminal Three, late on a Monday night and I'd just got off a seven hour flight and along with many other weary people was dragging my handluggage from the Air Canada gate, which is invariably the furthest away in the terminal, to get to Immigration. I always expect this long hike, up hill and down dale but this time it was worse than usual. I got to the escalator and it wasn't working.   The elderly couple in front of me didn't fancy toting their bags up a steep flight of stairs and neither did I.  Suddenly one of them said, "Oh look!" And there, sure enough, was a lift. We made for it, only to be stopped by Ms Jobsworth in all her glory - uniform, badges, probably clipboard as well, though in the heat of the moment I didn't notice.  "That lift", she said in the sort of voice only that sort of British woman has, "Is only for wheelchairs." Well let me say, first off, that there wasn't a wheelchair in sight and if a wheelchair user had happened along, I would be the first to say, "After you."  But that wasn't the case. So I said to her, "The escalator isn't working," She sniffed like a sarcastic games mistress trying to talk to the class idiot, "Sorry, no. This lift is only for wheelchairs."
  I wasn't giving in, " I've got an injured shoulder (true, alas); these people are elderly. We are taking this lift."  And I got into the lift.
 "Well make sure you send it right back," she grumbled. (Where did she think I was going to send it? Outer Space?)  Then I heard her say, "You shouldn't have so much handluggage." (Isn't she aware that the airlines now make you pay through the nose to check bags and that is why everyone travels with so much handluggage? Of course she is.)   At that point I nearly lost it, "I just told you, I hurt my shoulder!" She glared at me - all school playground again, "I wasn't talking to YOU!" And through the closing lift doors, I saw the poor elderly couple, who had by now been totally intimidated, starting a sort of relay with their wheelie bags up the steep stairs.  And that was their welcome to Britain. Bye Bye Olympic Spirit.  The Flying Turkey Travel Award goes to you, Ma'am, as the Americans would say.

WNY Idyll: Bon Voyage, Lads!

 And speaking of flying, we could hear the racket yesterday evening, from the very depths of the house.

 Here, in the country in Western New York we’re used to peace and quiet,  at least when our neighbour hasn’t started up his motor mower yet. But we’re also under a flight path. Not big jets, as I used to get in London, but Canada geese. At this time of year, they’re heading south. Each morning and evening, huge formations of geese make Vs in the sky above us, encouraging each other with loud honks.   Sometimes  you can even hear the rhythmic beat of their wings, almost feel the rush of air as they go by. In their meticulous symmetry, they remind me of Boat Race crews, with the coxes blaring out orders. Apparently the leaders get tired after a while and swap places with the laggards. They’ve got it all worked out.
  Love them or hate them, Canada geese with their distinctive black necks, white chinstraps and grey-brown bodies are as much part of our western New York landscape as the asters and the maple trees. Their numbers had drastically diminished due to over-hunting but now they’ve put that minor setback behind them and are flourishing – and how.  There are now 200,000 Canada geese who like New York state enough to stay here and that’s not counting the migrants that use us as a stopover on their way south.  Geese just love all the trappings of modern American life, like lawns, golf courses and gardens with ornamental ponds and once they’ve taken a shine to your pond, you’re stuck with them. You see flocks of them in the fields, grazing like sheep and in the marina on Lake Erie in Buffalo they fly low over the water like the Dambusters, swim among the boats, doing a bottoms-up when they find something tasty and waddle through the car park as though they own the place.  It’s not strictly allowed to take them from the wild, though a friend of mine did raise a couple of orphan goslings from eggs, teaching them how to fly by running in front of them.  When they could fend for themselves, she released them on her pond to mingle with the wild ones already there and they flew off happily.

  Geese are not universally loved since they leave an enormous mess – hubby has a horror story about a certain campsite he stayed in where you couldn’t tread anywhere for.. well, never mind. But every cause in America has its supporters and geese are no exception.

                                                                        
 

   Canada geese achieved notoriety in 2009, when a bunch of them collided with US Airways flight 1549 as it took off from New York’s La Guardia airport, forcing hero Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger to land in the Hudson River. All’s well that ends well in that case, except for the geese,  but then the question arose, where did the feathered miscreants come from? Were they New York residents or foreigners? Our local paper, the Buffalo News, cited some complicated research – apparently you can tell what sort of grass geese have been eating from their feathers – which concluded that the offenders were in fact Canadian aliens. Which still doesn’t solve the problem of what to do about them. You can’t exactly revoke their visas.
  Well there is one solution and sadly for the geese, there is a goose hunting season. You’re not supposed to open fire around garden ponds however and the geese know it.  
   But I still have a soft spot for them. To me, as a former townie,  they are one of the wonders of nature.  I always remember the day we woke to the most glorious dawn. Pink, rose and orange clouds patterned the sky and I rushed out, as usual, with my camera. Then, in the stillness, came the familiar honking. I craned my neck to track their course and there, sure enough, were a couple of stragglers, beating their way south, silhouetted black against the sky. Bon voyage, lads!

The Flying Turkey Travel Awards: Part 1

    Air Canada was going to win this hands down. I have been wanting to award Air Canada a Flying Turkey for the past eight years, since hubby and I started using them as our airline of no-choice to get back to London. Why? Because our nearest airport, Buffalo, doesn't have transatlantic flights and the temptation of driving - well all right, driving three or four hours - across the border and through the dullest part of Canada to the "most improved" (their words, not mine - but they don't say what it started off like) airport, Toronto Pearson, so as not to have to change planes just - but only just - trumped taking a US airline from Buffalo and missing our connection.
   Air Canada and I have shared many happy moments.
   There was the time when we stood four hours on the runway because they only bothered to check to see if any bits had dropped off the plane just before it took off again and not just after it landed, as any sane person would do.
   There was the other time we stood for four hours on the runway when the luggage conveyor belt broke at Pearson airport and we ended up flying without our luggage.
   There was yet another time at Heathrow when all the Air Canada computers went down because someone at HQ in Winnipeg decided one o'clock in the morning was a  good time for some routine maintenance. Trouble was, it wasn't one o'clock in the morning at Heathrow and 300 people waiting to get on a plane had to have everything, from boarding passes to luggage labels, written out by hand.
   There is Air Canada's state-of-the-art in-flight entertainment system. Anyone who ever takes an Air Canada flight will be familiar with the following announcement, on every flight, usually about an hour into it,  just when you've settled into the film, "Well folks, we've found some of the screens aren't working, so we're going to have to reset the screens, so we'd just like to ask for your patience...." If you're lucky, the screen starts working just as you're about to land.
  The fabled Air Canada pizzas have now gone - they were too awful, even for Air Canada. (Stewardess to hubby, "If you think this smells bad, try tasting it!") But there's still the fabled Air Canada breakfast. They used to serve croissants. I once got a croissant which was soaked through, as the little water bottle had leaked. I asked for another one. They didn't have any more. I had to wait until First Class had picked over their bread basket so they could bring me the dregs. Now, Air Canada is economising and no longer serves croissants. It's a choice between omelette and pancakes. Except, if you're sitting near the back of the plane, they've run out of omelettes before they get to to you. (Two flights ago, an enterprising stewardess - can't get used to calling them flight attendants - went down the aisle beaming, "LOVELY pancakes? Or, er, an omelette?" She did good. Her pancakes had a lot more takers, though that was before they'd tasted them of course.)
   On that flight, my reading light didn't work. After a hopeful suggestion from the stewardess that she try "resetting it" (the unions probably don't let them change light bulbs) it still didn't work. So I sat in darkness, even though it was a day flight because they make everyone close their blinds so people can watch the films, or those whose screens are working can.
  When the drinks trolley came round I said, "I think I deserve a free bottle of wine," and sure enough, she fished one out of the stash buried under the coffee pots and orange juice cartons, where they don't think anyone will notice them.  When we first started flying with AC it was champagne for breakfast. Then that turned into Buck's Fizz. Now it's beg and plead.
  And there are the announcements. If you hate in-flight announcement, imagine each one being repeated and in French! Montreal-to-Paris, maybe but Toronto-to-London? C'mon! Everyone on that plane either speaks English, or doesn't speak French. It's political correctness gone mad.
     Not to mention the fact that Air Canada is outrageously expensive due to all the taxes the People's Democratic Nanny State over the border piles on its hapless travellers. Even a so called "free flight" we got with our hard earned airmiles cost nearly as much as a paid-up flight from the US would have done. Oh and it's impossible to get an upgrade. And these clowns have no competition, at least not for the day flights, which are the only way to minimise jetlag.
  So, regrettably, we've now made the decision to take our custom elsewhere and throw in our lot with the missed connections.
  So you see, Air Canada was right up there in line for the first Flying T, with a long service medal thrown in but for two things. Someone else beat them to it (find out who shortly). And the steward on our flight back this time was such a sweetie that I didn't have the heart.....

WNY Idyll: Leaves in Sunshine

  It's a sunny day at last and the season for jumping in the car and exploring the country lanes, trying to find that elusive, perfect tree.  No tourist coaches here in Western New York - they're all crawling around the New England villages, getting stuck in traffic jams of leaf peepers. They really don't know what they're missing.

 

 

It's the sugar maples that have that vivid, red
colour.  Our neighbours will be making maple syrup early in the new year, hoping for bright days and cold nights.

 

Dried corns stalks guard the old barn like soldiers. 

 

 

 

Yet another tapestry hill. They are everywhere, competing with each other and we just take them for granted.  

On Golden Hill, a narrow country lane I'd never been up before, the road turned into a muddy track at the top. The best trees will always be just around the corner.

 

Or a little too far away. 

 

 

 

 

Rural Crime Part 4: Pure Vandalism

"What on earth" said hubby, looking out of the window, "Is wrong with that oak tree?"   We've got a beautiful, big oak in the back garden, simply groaning with acorns. And now, suddenly, there were bits of twig and bunches of leaves lying on the ground around it, like a ragged carpet. It wasn't the wind - the other trees were OK.  Then we saw them. Chipmunks, a whole football team of chipmunks, darting in relays across the garden, shinning up the tree, nibbling through the twigs and letting a bunch of acorns fall so they could grab them all at once. It saves getting them one by one after all. There's a limit to how many you can stuff in your cheeks.

 

                                                        

 

 

  And while some were up the tree, others were scampering back to the network of tunnels that will shortly make our entire garden cave in.

  To think that we once thought our little friend Chippy was so sweet, innocent and vulnerable. To think I actually put peanuts out for him. Peanuts!  After the summer  blueberry heist we should have known better. He has evidently told all his friends and relations about the rich pickings to be found at the Lawrence residence and now we have complete anarchy. I hope there's something of the tree left for next year.

...And in the rain

 

 

They say the colours should always be seen in the sun, against the sort of clear, clean blue sky that only autumn brings. But I have a soft spot for the rainy days, when the leaves are muted and cloaked in mist and wispy traces of cloud drift up from the hillsides as if from Indian campfires of old.

But the rain hastens the falling of the leaves, so we have to enjoy it while we can.

  Of course the best leaves are always in places where you can't take pictures - along Route 219, the motorway down from Buffalo there are clumps which could only have been arranged by a master artist: vivid red alongside gold, alongside fading green, alongside burgundy.

 

                                                                 
    Back on the country lanes, the Aberdeen Angus cows and their calves (yes, they were born in late summer) dot their sloping meadow.
    On the high, steep road over the hill called Chapel Hill, the last hill before our valley, there are pickup trucks already parked outside the wooden huts they call hunting camps around here. "Early bowhunting" deer season starts today. Well, each to their own.
  Over on the downward side of the hill, an ugly, dilapidated house went for auction a couple of months ago. Suddenly it's not there any more, the foundations looking somewhat blackened. I wonder what happened?