The first cookout was at Mud Pond on lower Mattawamkeag Lake, I am guessing about 30 years ago, when snowmobiling was new and everyone enjoyed the long ride over the ice to the clearing at Mud Pond, where the coffeepot and bean-hole beans were cooking, hot fires were ready for the biscuits, and doughnuts and salads and hot dogs were ready to eat.
Nowadays, the event is still fun but not much snowmobiling is done , mostly caused by the lack of snow in later years and it’s easier to drive by car to the clubhouse. John Donahue does the bean-hole beans still, Bruce and Janet Willette and Louis Conrad bake the biscuits, first done years ago by Bill Sewall, and Ted and Terry Pettengill fry the doughnuts, which was once the job of Eddie Ryan and brothers.
Sherry Willigar is the head-honcho, so to speak, of the whole affair and has done so for many years, with the help of uncle Bobby Dunphy, mother and father Margaret and “Bud” Dunphy, and the dedicated members of the club. The attendance this year was quite a bit smaller than expected, and hopefully, next year it will be better.
I have a very large flock of female finches who are in my feeders real early every morning. They are everywhere — on the ground, where it is now quite bare, flying back and forth from the birch tree to the feeders and zooming around the chickadees, who are also busy trying to get at the sunflower seeds.
About 7 a.m. I happened to look out to watch the goings-on of the little birds when the male cardinal appeared. He sat for a few seconds on the limb of the cedar tree, then decided he was hungry and flew to the feeder and sat there eating away while the small birds flew about him. He wasn’t scared away at all, and when he apparently had enough, off he went. Shortly after he left, the female cardinal appeared, but she seemed more timid and would dart in and eat every once in awhile.
It has been several days now that I haven’t seen a deer wandering around my backyard or even near the treeline. I had thrown out some old bread a couple of times but they didn’t come near, and so the crows and pigeons had a feast of bread. Maybe now the weather is better they may show up to graze on the bare ground where the snow had been. I will keep a lookout for them.
