Monday, May 2, 2011

Animal News

Over at the farm yesterday, Lenny harnessed up the Belgian draft horses. He wanted to give them some practice with ground driving.


Even the miniature horse Skye was in harness. She’s pregnant. A baby miniature foal is due in the next few days. I’ll try to do some sketches when the day comes.


Lenny let me try ground driving behind Sofie and Abby. It’s the first time I’ve tried it. He told me to lean back a bit to let them know I was behind them.


I was pretending I was walking behind a couple of Anchiceratops, like in Dinotopia: Journey to Chandara.


The other news is that on Saturday night a big black bear came right up to the back of our house. I think he smelled the bird feeders. It's the first black bear I've ever seen on this side of the Hudson River.


Soon it will be time to close up the feeders for the season, but there have been some spectacular birds passing through, such as my favorite, the rose breasted grosbeak, a bird we see only one day a year.

Previously on Gurney Journey
Princess the Belgian filly
Christmas Surprise (birth of Joy, the donkey)
Joy in the Farmyard
Snow Plowing with Draft Horses

By the way, ACOPAL (America China Oil Painting Artist League) has announced its winners and finalists. The link takes you to a gallery of the work accepted. I'm delighted that my painting Chandara was chosen as a finalist.

7 comments:

My Pen Name said...

James,
My parents live upstate in columbia county- they had to remove their bird feeder as black bears tore the thing apart -they also broke into the outdoor storage bin for the bird feed.

A neighbor's dog treed one bear cub. at this rate they'll be in central park soon :) side note i hear nesting eagles are going to be in central park.

Erik Bongers said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Erik Bongers said...

Belgians will stamp their feet, when one tries to control them.
If you want to go left, they'll go right. And when they feel like stopping they'll just stop.
And when they notice that you're starting to get a bit enervated and irritated with it all, you may even catch them grinning and grinding their teeth with sarcastic joy.

And of course, the same goes for Belgian horses.

Carol Scown-Raynal said...

Dear James,
In Montauban, France, it is not the bears which come to town but the wild pigs (Sanglier in french) making happy Obelix from Asterix comic strip. I think the message our Sangliers are telling us : you mankind are invading too much our countries, please make a place for every living specy. Carol

Daniel Silberberg said...

We had a black bear demolish our feeder (Amherst). He stood there a long time, leaning against a tree, digging his claws into the plastic, and licking up the seeds that fell out until it was drained. He stood there a good long time, I got some great footage and a couple sketches out of it.

Casey Klahn said...

That is a good sized bear, James! Good job getting the photo. He has that, I just woke up hungry look.

Carole Pivarnik said...

I know this is an old post, but your "one day" comment about the grosbeaks intrigued me. I have seen a rose breasted grosbeak here in VA twice, on two different days in two different years. I guess they don't like to tarry on their way north in the Spring!