If hunting is allowed in the area, it might be bait for the fall hunting season.

The squirrels can be a pain, and when the crows or starlings show up in mass, either specie will empty the feeder in a few hours. I have two solutions (1) we bought a feeder (shown on left) some years back that has a spring loaded shelf for the birds to stand on when eating. The spring has several settings we have it set so that access to the feed will close when birds larger than a Cardinal ( Crows are our nemesis) stands on the shelf. (2) The second feeder (on the right) has a cage around the feed reservoir that is just large enough for the smaller birds; sometimes a young Cardinal can get his head through the cage.

This particular shot (no PP) shows a wood pecker at the column feeder and probably a House Finch in feeder with the spring.

Hooked up, Your statement about taxing out of state shipments is the way it was until the Supreme Court changed their opinion last fall. It was left up to the individual states to decide whether or not to have their retailers charge the tax. Some states, the ones that are not constantly crying about not having enough money have not changed their law, but can you imagine NY forgoing that amount of money? You have obviously not purchased from B&H recently or read their post of explanation of why they have to charge tax in out of NY shipments; it's the law, and even B&H isn't able to take on NY over this dispute. Although I don't have my latest B&H invoice handy I'm sure it was taxed.

RCJets, I like the first photo best; the colors of the bridge are more muted and I suspect more Natural. We have sailed under this bridge but my attention was more on the several USCG vessels playing or practicing boarding small power boats than on the colors of the bridge .

Do/did you fly RC planes? I did but long ago (before the "jet age") from about 1966 to 1983 when a growing family, small business and a sailboat started to demand more time. I still miss it and have one biplane built in '75-76 in the garage for old times sake. I prefer the tail draggers and this one never crashed .

When I was a kid I use to take the Pennsylvania or Jersey Central shore line from Penn Station down the coast of NJ to see my grandparents in the Long Branch area. I seem to recall that both lines switched to diesel in the early 50's. The steam trains were more fun to ride.

And that is the way most of the states' laws are written.Do you really think they would let those in the non-tax states avoid paying just by being selective of the state where you order stuff? Get used to it. Are they taxing freight yet? As I posted yesterday most of the tax states call the laws a Sales & Use tax.

I would assume CT's tax law like most states is on Sales and USE! Even if bought out of state you are supposed to be a good citizen and report and pay the tax, usually at end of the quarter. I had a state tax collector tell me that line of payees was the shortest line in the state. When we had a small business we tried to be diligent about collecting taxes due because it was too much hassle to try to research three years back. We were a rental company and had to collect the taxes, but about 70% because that large percent of our volume was tax free--schools,colleges, churches, and a lot in NH & RI and our records were pretty good but some idiot in the tax collection division with nothing better to do sent three collectors to do a surprise Audit. They wanted to match every invoice against our Tax Exemption forms; it was a hell of a job for them (we didn't help), I just pointed our three five drawer files full of forms sorted, poorly, by names of the customers, and more boxes full of invoices marked only by year and invoices in numerical sequence by month. I have to admire their endurance; they lasted a month, but maybe they thought any job was better than being in the state house office. I think they found about $200 worth of tax due after the three months, and a large portion was from a church we had just forgotten to get the Certificate.

Actually the lead collector wasn't a bad guy. When he realized another large church (actually the Catholic cathedral) was one of the "miscreants" and a large customer, he asked if we could make those records 'disappear' until they left as they had already spent far more in salaries and expenses than they were going to collect . He also asked about rentals at the State House, and when I told him most were ordered by office the President of the State Senate, he decided not to dig into that can of worms.

They never bothered us again and cancelled scheduled audits of several other rental companies ; I guess we were the test run and it didn't pay off.

As I understand it, and it has been 50+ years since I have had any Physics and Characteristics of Light courses, no lens that the average or rich photographer can afford, can truly focus beyond infinity. Infinity has an indefinite limit. I think what is really meant by "beyond infinity" is the lens trying to focus the infinity mark on the lens. It is the lens designer's way of giving the lens a way "to hunt"t beyond its' extreme focus limit. I suspect, but have never checked" that the final focus point using AF will be very close to the infinity mark on the lens barrel.

Nice pictures! Would be even better if the snow was one more state to the west

fourlocks, From what I've heard about the weather Sunday night, it is most likely to be very cold, have a grey cloud cover with rain and or snow from coastal northern New England and south though at least southern NJ. In those conditions all you will get is wet and cold.

DNW, I didn't mean to imply that the bears were common; to the best of my knowledge they only came through twice in the 23 years we lived there; both times were in the early evening darkness, but thankfully well after sunset as the local kids were frequently outside until dinner or sunset, and all the parents used some sort of unique sound device that their kids recognized. Ours was a lung powered foghorn that had been on my father's boats. It probably dates back to the early '30's, still works, and later I kept it on our boats as a backup.

Momma bear had an easy way to get the seed to her cubs; she just pushed the steel rods over until they bent over parallel to the ground.

How is the local cat, racoon, groundhog, squirrel, & small dog, etc. population holding up? One year in Andover, MA we had a pair of coyotes that sometimes used our back yard as a route to/from the conservation land. I presume they were living to the neighborhood generally in the early morning and looking for breakfast. It was quite a sight in a not especially rural town. We saw him/her several times in the early spring, but only in that one year, and we had no problems that year with small predators such as raccoons, squirrels and woodchucks raiding the garden. Our house lot backed up to the conservation area so seeing wild critters deer 7 fox wasn't unusual; a mother bear and cubs, raiding the bird feeders (once) was unusual.

Our daughter, about eight or nine years old then, saw it first on that initial sighting; her first reaction was "What is that!?"

Paul, I didn't realize until last night that the main part of this post was deleted & sent, Sorry; a wandering finger must have hit some key that deleted a portion and then sent it out. I'll have to be more careful.

In my previous, unfinished post, I was raving on your workmanship and the finished product, but I can't recall the prose I used. Never the less your Bluenose is a gorgeous model and you and it are due all the praise you get.

I too am a 'part time' model builder, and about eight years ago built the Billings Boats (England) kit model of the Bluenose II as a winter project. I too was looking for something less time consuming than a fully square rigged vessel; however, it turned into a two year project. Since a young teenager I had looked for a model of her. I got interested in the Bluenose after my parents purchased a boat built (1950) in the same yard in Nova Scotia that built the Bluenose. However a business, house, three kids and involvement in building and flying model RC aircraft , postponed it until after I retired some fifty years later.

The Billings kit was a good starter for a new ship modeler, and like your model was plank on bulkheads. I am glad that I have had 30 years of owning sail boats It was a big help when I got to the spars & rigging, neither of which were very well documented in the drawings. After I started building I just couldn't bring myself to build a model of a 1921 fishing schooner with the modern stuff that "the authorities" now require so I replaced the midships deck house that sits where the first Bluenose had a fish hold and and hatch and eliminated the inflatable life rafts. I didn't add the sails but included the rigging. I think they detract from the running rigging, and I knew it's display location was going to be on a ledge just inside our front door where our guests see it. A previous model, similar to a Maine-ship sloop, sailed off that ledge when gust of wind came through an open door. There was little damage but it has heavier spars and didn't have my two years of work...so far the missing sails seem to be doing their job.

Schooner Bluenose: Very nicely done and finished. I

We've done two Caribbean cruises one that included the mainland (Mexico) Mayan and were only moderately pleased; the bus driver and guide seemed more interested in getting us to a roadside stand for blankets & other tourist goods (I suspect they got a commission/kickback on stuff purchased) which we found to be cheaper in town. The turtle farm and Hell (something that hopefully you won't see again) are interesting, were both part of the bus tour. Honestly, if we were to go again, I think we'd rather wander around downtown; the shops had stuff we'd never seen before and my wife got a lot of unusual stuff for Christmas presents. Overall, I'd rate Grand Cayman a good day visit.

I think the Private island stop's main feature is to save the ship fuel, steaming and dockside costs, but most seem to have been built up so much to handle the lunches (drinks not included) and swimming off the beach that they don't look native, but rather purpose built.

If you plan to take a camera ashore, have a well sealing plastic bag to protect if from the blowing sand; it's very fine and will penetrate a cheap plastic bag and unprotected camera.