Duck duck goose

The inspiration for today's post title will be obvious a few photos down. But first up, a look at my newly-repaired walkway:



During my lunch hour today I went for a drive down Route 30 to see if anything along the way caught my eye. When I saw the Dorr barn standing out so vividly, I immediately began looking for a place to park. Happily, I spotted one that wasn't too far away, and one quick turnaround later I was out of the car and getting my feet cold in a snow-covered field. And yes, this vertical sundial works just as well as the more common horizontal versions:



I continued down 30 and was just thinking about turning around when I saw some Canada geese floating in a pond just off the main road. More important, there was a dirt driveway running between the road and pond where I could get my car safely away from traffic. Unfortunately, to get close to the water I'd have had to walk across someone's yard, so I was still a fair distance away when taking these. As a result, they're not all that great. But there was a mallard and its mate in the water among the geese, and I thought the green of the mallard's head was rather striking in the sunlight. So I decided to share anyway:



I even managed to capture the pair with their heads underwater at the same time:



After work this evening I decided to keep going down Route 7A for a bit rather than go right home; before my folks went away Mom had mentioned a spot she thought would make for a nice image—a field studded with big rolls of hay. I knew they'd no longer be covered with snow, as they were when she saw them, and that I was losing daylight by the minute, but I wanted to check it out anyway. And when I got there, I decided I liked what I was seeing—the hay bales against the snow, the darkened trees against a mountainside still illuminated by the setting sun—well enough to give it a try. Again, I managed to find a place to pull my car entirely off the road (sending up a silent prayer that I'd be able to drive it out of the snow bank I'd parked on/in when I was finished) and jumped out to take a few quick photos. I don't think the end result was too bad: