Mysteries of the Lane

Dateline: Cattaraugus County, western New York 

The lane is in full summer mode and makes for a good workout when it's not pouring with rain. We are getting a little tired of the thunderstorms and the mud. But there are compensations when the view from the lane in morning looks like this....

 Or this....

Heavenly visions and fairytales spring to mind.

And the misty forest is full of the drumming of rival woodpeckers

But from beyond the stream, swollen by rain, way behind the trees and out of sight,  comes an odder noise. I've noticed it over the past couple of weeks and it definitely sounds like... chickens. At first I thought it might be the geese chuntering away on the pond but it no, it was fairly umistakeably clucking chickens. Do they have wild ones here like the wild turkeys? First I've heard of it. But the other morning I got proof. "Cock a Doodle Doo!" sounded piercingly across the valley. Several times. It seems an odd place to keep chickens, far away from any house and too close to a selection of hungry potential customers but they must have a reason.
  Another mystery - how wild flowers can arrange themselves so prettily against the road barrier.

And turn it into

A thing of beauty

And the flowers on the banks

Doing their bit too.

And yet another mystery. How Queen Anne's lace

Always manages to come up with

 A different design

 Is it Queen Anne or Anne of Denmark that it's named after? Americans so love their old monarchies.

 Whichever one it was, the tiny red dot in the centre, they say, comes from a drop of blood from the Queen pricking her finger.

Ouch. You can't keep a good fairytale down.