The Hodaka Club Forum

Thanks Victor. We live on a 40 acre wildlife area that we have created through the years with wetland and prairie restorations. There are many Canada goose nests on the property but we call this couple the early birds. Each year they come to nest on a pond next to the house. I shot the picture off our back deck. Even they are about two weeks early.

Max

PS--they tolerate us but they just hate Hodakas and the four wheeler. Riding season occurs after nesting season each year. Being a conservationist and an off road rider I know both sides of the story!

That's great! It's wonderful to encourage wildlife on your property. And it's nice that you don't hunt them as well! Victor

I can't resist teasing my snow laden friends of the North! A little time in the photo blind this morning and I bagged this shot of Hooded Mergansers socializing with Red Eared Sliders, Not bad if I do say so myself! Next my wife showed me a fresh batch of Morel mushrooms from the woods! Great start for the day, hmm, what's next!

Spring is indeed here at least in Kansas!

Maxie

PS--Did I mention that Wild Turkey season opened last week and the crappie are biting? I really do have the battery charger on the Yamaha XS-650. Lots to do here all at once.

Max how many baby geeses will them gooses have in a normal season. Is a baby really a gosling? If A daddy goose is a gander what is the momma goose called? and will they go on north before they go back south? Why is everything begin with a G? Goose, Geese, Gosling, Gander and Gaggle and will knowing this make a hodaka run better? -----------Clarence

Clarence, only one question per post please only because these are all important questions which might require extensive thought to answer properly. Let's do the last and easy one first. Will it make a Hodaka run better? Maybe. I'll have to contemplate the others and maybe consult with the Old Man.

Max

I just looked in the Ducktionary and the answer for the first question is only one nesting per year with 4-6 baby geeses (Is that a word? Spell Check has it underlined for me.) Alright, two answered, I''ll work on the rest.

Maxie

Geese is the plural of goose. Geeses is the pure Redneck plural version! LMAO!!! Victor

Ah, just as I suspected, thanks for clearing that one up Victor. Being from Kansas I already knew that.

Maxie

Well, the Morel mushrooms are gone, down the hatch with steak and a good Red. Part of the Kansas rite of Spring, Wow! Fried crappie and mushrooms are another way to do it, all Spring related. Who started all of this? Victor of course. Being a fan of Spring I try to do each and ever event after my least favorite season, Winter, hate it. I need a new Hodaka project and this week-end I'm going to visit an old life long friend and motorcycle racing guy. He's been procrastinating and sitting on a hoard of Hodaka stuff for years. He does talk about building something, but it ain't gonna happen. I wish it would happen and we could do the Last Great Ride. I need to buy, borrow or steal this hoard before both of us get any more ancient. I could get maybe one more project out of this. I hate to build his machine for the Last Great Ride but I would, he's a great friend.

Well, that's the continuing Spring, and hopefully new project, report. I'll keep you posted.

Maxie

But, but...
How much wood can a woodchuck really chuck???

Depends on how far you want him to chuck it! Victor

He can chuck as much as a woodchuck would chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood. -----Clarence

And If I could find a good wook chuck he can chuck his wood right into my wood chuck shed
MTRob

While you guys are still chucking around with that woodchuck, we had fresh asparagus tonight just cut. Actually we do have woodchucks on the property but I don't know if they are awake from hibernation as we haven't seen any yet. I do have funny woodchuck stories good for a laugh but today it's the Spring report for you northerners. May you thaw out soon!

Maxie

Yay! We be back from a roadtrip thru the aether.

No woodchucks. We do wombats.

OK, a couple more and I'll leave you alone. Being a photographer and living in the middle of 40 acres, I'm always documenting seasonal changes from various places in the restored wildlife area. The set-up is a full frame Nikon D3x with a 16mm Fisheye lens that sees about 170 degrees wide. In this case I have semi-permanent mount on our back upper deck and I try to shoot something every week or so. I'm looking NNE so I can't get sunrise an sunsets but I'm always on the look-out for weather related events such as towering thunderstorms or snow. I've always envisioned a tornado passing but you have to look out for what you wish for I suppose.

I guess my point here is that this place has turned into a jungle the last few days and it always amazes me how fast this all happens!

Maxie

PS--big files, it make take a minute to load. My that lens is sharp! Also notice the big limb blown out over the dock by the first Spring storm. I missed that shot!

I've done photography since I was a kid, too. Mostly variations on nature photography.

My latest excursion is time lapse photography. I got a dedicated entry-level time lapse camera with a weatherproof housing. A simple camera with basic exposure bells and whistles, it has a lot of flexibility with it's intervalometer. Fixed lens, 40mm equiv FL, but an add-on fisheye lens is available.

My primary interest is cloud photography. Storms, lightning, sunsets and billowy summer cumulus clouds. I've tried a couple of snow storms (which fizzled) and a couple of squall-line storms which were interesting but not spectacular. And practicing using the camera on this or that type of cloud or storm. I'll just have to be in the right place at the right time.

And, of course, the Wombat is running like a top.

OK! I am sure it looks similar in Colorado today, but this is what I woke up and saw today! And it's still coming down! Victor

Wow Victor! Hard to top that! Ours came as rain with 4.25 inches last night for a total of over 10 inches in the last week. The pond was up over a foot from the last picture even before last nights "toad strangler" as we call it in Kansas. Yearly average total here about 39 inches so we got about 1/4 of our yearly average in a week! Reporting at full pool for pond and wetlands!

Maxie

Since I'm between motorcycle projects and have nothing to write about except my silly encounters in "old Man Going North" and you have to share that space with Clarence along with not seeing the Old Man that often leaves me in the writing desert for days on end.

Ah, finally a bit of excitement this morning worthy of show and tell. Around the pond shown above and many other wetlands on the property, My wife and have installed many Wood duck houses for our on-going wildlife conservation projects. One of the side benefits of all this is that I'm also a wildlife photographer and occasionally things happen to be recorded.

A few minutes ago while drinking coffee on the back deck overlooking the pond in the view shown above, I saw a duck fly down from one of the nesting structures. It was a Hooded Merganser, an unusual and secretive tree cavity nesting duck of SE Kansas. Suddenly baby megansers began to jump from the entrance hole and I ran for the big lensed Nikon. It was all over in less than two minutes and here's one of the six shots taken. I've never seen this happen let alone get to photograph it. A good start for a photographer's day!

Maxie

Pretty!!