Look What I Found!!

Hooray!! Yesterday, I saw a patch of the ground, the bare-naked ground for the first time in months. Better than that, there was a patch of green. Moss never looked so good to me. I heard more birds during this past week. Crows cawing and the low whistle-like call of of evening grosbeaks fill the air. Mourning doves visit the feeder along with the regulars - chickadees, nuthatches, downy woodpeckers, hair woodpeckers, and titmice. I think I even heard a dark-eyed junco and caught a glimpse of a chipping sparrow. Dave heard a phoebe.

We still have quite a bit of snow, but the melting continues revealing more patches of beautiful earth. Tonight's forcast is for more snow, which will end as freezing rain and then plain rain. I'm not worried. I think we have turned the corner. A few nights ago, when I took my nightly peek at the sky before going to bed, the scent of spring greeted my nostrils. I breathed in deeply and slept very well with visions of spring flowers dancing in my head. :-)



Web Weaver Graphics

Please, No More Snow! LOL

I can say that all I want, but it looks like the snow is determined to break its own record set in the 1800's. We only have a few inches more to go to reach that goal. The latest weather forcast predicts more snow, ice and rain. Thankfully, a lot of what we had so far has finally melted. I can't wait to see the ground again.

This was taken early last week. That little spot of black near the street is my mailbox.

Here is a closer view of the mailbox and the street. The banks were getting high.

This is the path leading from the house to the driveway. The snow on the path itself was a good six inches of an ice pack dusted with snow. The sides just kept growing taller and taller.

I have to admit that as weary as I am of all this snow, it sure is pretty glistening in the sun!

Beautiful Eclipse!

The full lunar eclipse last night was a beauty! Unfortunately, my pictures are not very good. I had hoped to set up my telescope to photograph it, but my yard is still covered in ice. Enough of my whining. I'm lucky that I had a clear sky and do have some photos to remind me of this spectacular eclipse.

Even at this point in the eclipse, the moon shown brightly on the snow. I didn't need a flashlight to see my yard, but most of the stars in the sky were already invisible in the bright glow.

As the earth's shadow almost covered the moon, the sky filled with stars! At this point, it looked as though the moon might remain gray to grayish brown.

Just as suddenly as the sky filled with stars, the moon transformed from her normal gray attire to her stunning copper finery.

Totality ends as a sliver of light creeps across her edge.

The stars hide again behind the moonlight. The copper has faded. Soon the shadow will be gone completely leaving the well named Snow Moon reigning over the night sky. I hope you were able to enjoy this eclipse, too.

Would you like to see some lovely photos of the moon? Visit
Renie's "Shooting the Moon! In her shots, a tree frames the moon making for the most beautiful effects!

Finally, Deer in the Daylight!

In my December 9th post I told you about deer visiting the yard late one afternoon. I was disappointed that I wasn't able to get a decent photo due to the early sunset that left us almost in twilight. Dave installed a sensor with a bell that would ring in the house to alert us if the deer returned to the back yard.

I thought I would surely get an opportunity to take a good photo. But the days were still growing shorter. The deer would arrive at dusk, midnight, and before dawn. Usually, there were three: two larger ones and a small one. Using the nighttime binoculars, we watched the three. Occasionaly, there would be more. We never saw a "herd" because they visited late at night and in the wee hours of the morning. It could be that a couple of small groups visit throughout the night. Sometimes there are tracks coming from the driveway as well as from the woods. The high number of tracks leave no doubt that there were many more than our regular three!



Yesterday afternoon, my grandson, Zach, was in his room doing homework. Suddenly, he came running down the hallway shouting to us to go to the kitchen window - there were six deer in the woods heading towards the pond. (Since he placed his desk facing a wall, how he saw the deer while doing his homework is a mystery for another day. LOL) My son, Kevin, was here at the time, as was Keely. We all watched three of the deer walk to the far side of the pond and cross it; the other three remained in the woods. It didn't take the three long to find the deer feed buried by the new snowfall the night before. Finally, I got some fairly decent photos of the deer!

While I'm very happy with my photos,which are still a bit dark, if you want to see some excellent photos of deer, visit Renie Burghardt's World In addition to the deer in the side bar, scroll down to see the delightful photo of a deer "scratching an itch"!

Hello, Again!

The flu has kept me out of commission for a while. Both Dave and I had it, but we are much better now! I wanted to post to let you know I'm still around and will get caught up in the next few days. I've missed visiting here with my friends. :-)

The deer have been dining here almost every night. Unfortunately, they arrive after dark, sometimes not until midnight. Dave rigged up a motion detector to alert us to their presence. All the snow on the ground provides just enough light so that we can see them through the back window with the night binoculars. It's a treat to see them. There are two does with a little one and a solitary doe that are regulars. I wish they would arrive earlier so I could get some photos! Maybe as the days get longer they will - I hope.

As usual, the story here is the weather. We had a week of spring-like weather. Temps reached 60 degrees one day and upper fifties other days. There were two days of rain, a thunderstorm in Nashua, and lots of melting snow. The sump pump was worked hard. Despite all that, we still have a snow cover. Weather forecasters are predicting 6 to 12 inches of snow for tomorrow. I guess the silver lining to this is that all that snow makes it easier to see the deer. On the down side, if this keeps up schoolchildren will have a lot days to make up at the end of the year.

The photo above gives you an idea of all the layers of snow we've had. It would snow, then we would get freezing rain or sleet, which would freeze over so that the next snowstorm formed a new layer. Here you can see a sheet of the layers sliding off the old woodshed roof. The thin layer of ice held it together until it actually touched the ground and finally broke loose from the roof!

I hope you are all well. See you soon at your blogs. :-)

Snowy December in New Hampshire

Last year ski season didn't get started until late January, early February. I remember a few balmy January days with temperatures near 60 degrees. This year, the ski season got started before winter arrived on the calendar. Tonight I am awaitng our sixth snow storm. It will probably only bring a couple of inches to my part of the state before it turns to sleet and freezing rain. But that snow amount will be added to what has already fallen in the last two weeks.

As of today, New Hampshire has moved up to the 3rd snowiest December in the state's history since records were first kept in the late 1800's! Although there are only a few days left in the month, it is possible we will break or tie the number one record holder. There are two additional snow events in the weather forcast before New Years Day. This is the heavy wet snow. Many people have to shovel their roofs. On the plus side, New Hampshire is a tourist state with lots of skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling. All this snow is good for the state and it sure is pretty. I leave you with some photos I took recently. Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

The driveway is down there somewhere!

Sunrise kisses the treetop of one tree in the back yard.

The day after the storm, the sunrise peaks through the trees across the street.

Happy New Year!!! :-)

Nor'easter Hits New Hampshire!

It started snowing last night. Actually, it began as freezing rain. It switched over to snow by early morning. The roads were icy; there were many fender benders around the state. It is supposed to stop snowing here tonight. It will continue to snow in the northern part of the state until tomorrow. Skiers are delighted and shovelers are not!

Snow didn't slow the birds down. Chickadees, nuthatches, and titmice flew to the feeders, grabbed their seeds and were off to the branches to crack them open. They don't seem to mind the storm.

The kids are happy about a day off from school. My husband was not able to go to work. The driving was treacherous, even more so in the area near his workplace. The world will look pretty tomorrow and everything will be back to normal. We got through this first nor'easter of the season just fine. As for me, I'm looking forward to the last nor'easter of the season!

It Snowed!

We had our first snow on Tuesday, the 20th. There was only an inch or two accumulation. Since it remained cold for a few days, the snow coated the ground until Thanksgiving. It seems snow and cold temperatures made the birds very hungry. They were flitting back and forth between the bird feeders and the trees all day.


It was later in the day when I took these photos so it was getting dusk and the birds had gone, except for one little chickadee. He traveled between the feeder and the birch tree in the photo above. He must have been feeling a little insecure. Instead of flying directly between the two, he would disappear into the small pines in the walkway to emerge a few minutes later.




It was a bit chilly in the house. Oscar, our dachshund, pulled a couch pillow down over himself. His way of saying, "Turn up the heat!"