A Crane for a Panther

The last time that a crane was on this property (that we know for certain), we were still building the Main House. As you can see in this picture from July of 2006, those cranes were ungainly blue things that were given to spewing gasoline fumes and were perched on big ugly wheels. (They were, however, extremely useful in getting stuff up high during construction of the new building, and without them we'd have no roof, no chimneys, and no siding above the first floor.)


And this morning we spotted another crane on the property. This was a single fellow who alighted briefly beside the pond as we were serving breakfast in the main dining room. He (she?) appeared to consider the likelihood of our koi population as a luncheon delicacy, thought better of it, proceeded to spread about six feet of wings and, with unbelievable grace, swoop off toward Mt. Equinox. It is definitely the first time in recent memory that a visitor has left the Panther without a good meal from Justin! Needless to say, the guests in the dining room were impressed by the morning's entertainment...we're just hoping that it doesn't become an expected part of our service!


This picture (stolen from someone else, since nobody thought to run for the camera to capture permanently a record of this morning's sighting) confirms it for us that our sighting was, in fact, a crane...just not the kind that can hoist shingles up to a roof! (Nor the kind that harassed Colonel Klink...but then, you probably knew that.)

Of course, now I'm keeping a closer eye than ever on our koi population...and I know where to point the finger of suspicion should there be a sudden decline!