sc 446 Stick It Out Your Back Door

Featuring fabulous all-new sound submissions sent in by our dedicated band of “stickers”!

Kathy Bacon took this photo of a bird on her deck who appears to be ready to do some grilling!

 

Kathy Bacon shows off the puddled exterior of her Mid West home.

 

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Call Toppie’s listener call-in line!
Comment! Leave a message!
Call: (607) 288-3673!

Don’t forget to keep your ears peeled and your recording device handy to capture a new “Stick It Out Your Back Door” submission for Toppie!

sc special: The Walk 2

A walk down a nature trail.

Write to Toppie at Smellcast@aol.com. Leave a comment right here on Toppie’s blog. Friend Toppie on Facebook and follow him on Twitter and Google+. Look at kooky stuff on smellcast.tumblr.com.

You can listen to this episode right now on your computer by activating the player bar below!

Please to subscribe! It’s free! Go to iTunes Preview.

Rss feed: http://feeds.feedburner.com/TheSmellcast

Call Toppie’s new listener call-in line!  Comment!  Leave a message!   Call: (607) 288-3673!

sc 339 Ancient Mysteries of the Dark Forest

Ranger John and the lovely Daniel from the Dark Forest Podcast return to Pickle Hallow in this back-to-nature episode of the Smellcast.  Join them as they learn “the ancient mystery somewhere deep in the woods”.

Find Ranger John and The Dark Forest Podcast HERE.

Write to Toppie at Smellcast@aol.com. Leave a comment right here on Toppie’s blog. Friend Toppie on Facebook and follow him on Twitter and Google+. Look at kooky stuff on smellcast.tumblr.com.

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The Smellcast is a member of the Rainbow Pod Squad Network.

sc 323 The Walk

A contemplative Toppie takes a walk to his frog pond.  Maybe sees a U.F.O.  Maybe.

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The Smellcast is a member of the Rainbow Pod Squad Network.

sc 321 Vignettes

Today on the Smellcast: Little Vignettes… scenes from the past two weeks.  Please to enjoy.  “It’s still twitching…”  HARRR! Poor lil’ spider…

Here’s my new-found swampy-frog pond place near my hidey-hole apartment.

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This is the old tree I rather heroically felled in a rather butch fashion.

 

The spider with which I was in a life and death struggle!

The crab apple trees in front of my parental unit’s home.

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sc 303 Visit to A Country Home

Join Toppie and his parents as they take a drive up the East side of Lake Cayuga to visit friends.  While there, Toppie works on a 1950’s MG, communes with nature and enjoys a bountiful harvest inside an old country kitchen.

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The Smellcast is a member of the Rainbow Pod Squad Network.

sc 276 The Light In the Forest (Part 2)

Toppie presents part two of his visit with Ranger John and the lovely Daniel from the Dark Forest Podcast. Today, Toppie, John and Daniel drive to Ulysses, NY, to see the wondrous Taughannock Falls!

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LEFT click HERE to LISTEN to episode 276 on your computer NOW.

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sc 274 The Light In the Forest

Ranger John and the lovely Daniel from the Dark Forest Podcast, have arrived in Pickle Hallow to visit Toppie and do some bird-watching!  Join the intrepid trio as they explore and listen to the on-location bird and environment sounds of near-by Sapsucker Woods, a 230 acre bird and wildlife sanctuary of spectacular aural beauty.

This is the Blue Heron Nest Toppie, John & Daniel saw in person at Sapsucker Woods. The inset shows Cornell’s web cam view of the nest.

You can see up close via a web cam the same Blue Heron Nest that Toppie, John and Daniel saw in person by clicking Cornell’s Bird Cam! As of June 8, 2012, there were still chicks in the nest!

The Visitor Center and Cornell’s Lab of Ornithology at Sapsucker Woods.

Baltimore Oriole, just one of the birds we saw at Sapsucker Woods.

A tip of Toppie’s top hat to Ranger John for teaching Toppie how to use his Zoom Microphone.  As a matter of fact, this episode of the Smellcast marks the first time Toppie really (really) used his Zoom microphone to record on location (and not audio extracted from his video camera).  It’s possible that in OTHER episodes of the Smellcast, when Toppie said he was using a Zoom mic…  well it’s possible he just sort of made it up.  Heh.

John snapped this photo of a deer that was so close to us we could almost reach out and pet her!

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sc 166 “Night of the Peepers.”

Toppie ventures outside into the night to capture the sound of Spring Peepers.

Noun 1. Spring Peeper  – a small brown tree toad having a shrill call heard near wetlands of eastern United States and Canada in early spring.  The Hyla crucifer tree toad  – arboreal amphibians usually having adhesive disks at the tip of each toe; of southeast Asia and Australia and America.  Genus Hyla – the type genus of the Hylidae; tree toads.

Toppie did not know that peepers are toads, not frogs (he finds this hard to believe, but what does he know?), but he grew up hearing the creatures sing their once-a-year song until he left Podunk Junction for the big city of Rochester, NY.

As heard in the Smellcast, episode 157, Toppie actually has a Zoom recorder — but truth to tell — he hasn’t yet learned how to use it.  So instead, one fine Spring night just days ago, Toppie grabbed his trusty old video camera to capture a wonderful night sound-scape, switching back and forth from the camera’s condenser mic to a shot-gun mic.

Listen for the trill of an unknown creature — likely some kind of frog (most likely not a Peeper — or maybe like the Peeper — another toad species).  A goose flies by and then fade to silence.

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Click the link below to listen to the Smellcast, episode 166.

The Smellcast/Episode 166

sc 108 My Father’s Bro’mance.

Toppie tells the bro’mance story of his father’s farewell to an old friend.  Plus, an audio greeting from the Fey Driver!

Above is a picture showing the growth of the forest on Connecticut Hill, something I go into detail about in the podcast. — Toppie

And above, you can see the stone for my father’s friend, cradled in its wooden sled ready for me to pull it up into the woods.  — Toppie

And a reminder to write down (or record) your spooky story and send it to Smellcast@aol.com for a Halloween reading all during the month of October.

For history buffs: With regards to Connecticut Hill, I tried to find information about why this piece of land in NY is called “Connecticut Hill.”  After several hours of research this was the best I could find:

The western boundaries of Connecticut have been subject to change over time. According to the Hartford Treaty with the Dutch, signed on September 19, 1650, but never ratified by the British, the western boundary of Connecticut ran north from Greenwich Bay for a distance of 20 miles[21][22]  “provided the said line come not within 10 miles (16 km) [16 km] of Hudson River. This agreement was observed by both sides until war erupted between England and The Netherlands in 1652. No other limits were found. Conflict over uncertain colonial limits continued until the Duke of York captured New Netherland in 1664.”[21][22] On the other hand, Connecticut’s original Charter in 1662 granted it all the land to the “South Sea”, i.e. the Pacific Ocean.[23][24]  Most colonial royal grants were for long east-west strips. Connecticut took its grant seriously, and established a ninth county between the Susquehanna and Delaware Rivers, named Westmoreland County. This resulted in the brief Pennamite Wars with Pennsylvania.

Connecticut’s lands also extended across northern Ohio, called the Western Reserve lands. The Western Reserve section was settled largely by people from Connecticut, and they brought Connecticut place names to Ohio. Agreements with Pennsylvania and New York extinguished the land claims by Connecticut within its neighbors, and the Western Reserve lands were relinquished to the federal government, which brought the state to its present boundaries.

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Please click the link below to listen to the Smellcast, episode 108.

The Smellcast/Episode 108