Pileated Woodpecker
Photo #2
Photo #3 ▼
Here is the meadow after clearing. Now you can see the “lay of the land” and how it radically changes the feel and look of a pasture.
Photo #6
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One of my favorite spots—a small watering hole deep in the woods. A good spot to look for game and tracks in the mud.
Photo #15
A Pileated Woodpecker hard at work. You can hear the pecking sound a long way in the woods.
About the Author: Christopher Kimball
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Love the pictures I grew up in Washington state on a farm. I had a similar spot deep in the wood that held lots of deer. Good times. Now living in Claremont Calif. keep up the good work.
Great pictures. Thank you Christopher.
The pictures are very nice also interesting. However the video was way to short it was nice while it lasted. Keep up the nce work OK
Spokane WA
I enjoyed looking at each picture and vicariously harking back to my boyhood in Virginia. I wish I could enjoy your environment for the rest of my days – peaceful bliss. Alas, I live too close to northern Virginia, with all of its traffic and congestion. I would certainly like to know more about the bee house. Perhaps you could let us know more about your efforts to produce honey. I could write on, but I will let you go about your daily routine. Peace, good health, contentment to you and yours.
Reading your letter with my coffee this morning was a fine way to start morning. I am a painter and it was a pleasure to see how you captured the mood of the different locations. The wonderful thing about creativity is that it knows no boundaries, from cooking to writing to photographing.
I live in the north woods of Wisconsin, only 20 miles from where I grew up in U.P of Michigan. Not much different from Vermont, including equipment breakdown and the mud season. Enjoyed the pictures and your stories.
Did you replace the excavator or the hose?
My favorite Vermont saying:
“A farting horse is neve tired, but a farting man is never hired.”
When we first moved here I use to be really excited to see a woodpecker. Now after all these years they have become a menace. We have a blue million different kinds and they have pecked many large holes all over our wooden house. They like to peck around the house, all at the same level and run the wholes in long lines. The noise inside the house is very loud. They are very smart and know when they hear the door open it’s time to scatter. I very much enjoy reading about Vermont and seeing the wonderful pictures. I guess what I enjoy most is reading about the Vermonters!
My Grandad was a farmer who had a wonderful sugarbush that was
used for sugaring off every year, until he could no longer do it.
One of my fondest memories is of him sitting on the steps of the shanty with a pipe in his mouth and one of his dogs at his feet.
Another fond memory is my Mom feeding her birds every day. We would watch as the birds flew around her head and actually landed on her shoulders. She was proud to have pileated woodpeckers that lived near and even a wood duck that came. My Dad did complain about the 100 lb bags of bird seed and the 3# jars of peanut butter and large amounts of suet, and other birdly foods she would mix up into cakes and/or stuff into holes bored into birch logs. There were picnic tables with edges of 1″x2″ furring strips nailed on to keep the seed from falling over the edge. She carried milk pails full of seed out every day. Sunflower seed was put into window boxes on the side porch where grosbeaks would congregate. Later in the year Sunflower plants would grow.
Well just to let you know all your woodpeckers come down here for the season. We love them they make perfectly round holes in the trees for their nests and tap on the metal roof of our barn and make the horses crazy. We have several families that keep coming back. South Florida
Love the woodpeckers! Yours look small, ours are tall and brilliantly colored. Ours are most like Woody, the woodpecker, how come no color in your video?
Gig Harbor loves your Vermont.
When we lived in Woodinville, WA, among the local birds there was a woodpecker that was smart enough to bang on our metal gutters to magnify his love songs–at four in the morning, when the sky grew light in the summer! Now we’re near Austin TX on two acres with a huge variety of birds to serenade us all day long, probably because I keep them fat and sassy with sunflower seeds, etc. We now have giant sunflowers coming up in our orchard, the vegetable gardens, and other random spots.
Love the Vermont notes…and the shows.
Thanks Christopher! I always enjoy your tales of the Vermont woods! My grandpa used to hunt morel mushrooms and ginseng in his Hoosier woods. Dad looked today for morels, but no luck. Papaw used to say to look around an old dead elm tree, better luck next time. Turkey season began in Indiana yesterday also! Enjoy your springtime up there!
Myra