Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spring. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Rainy Wednesday



It's been raining all day, which should bring the pollen levels down. So far the thunderstorms predicted earlier in the week have not materialized. It's just a pleasant, somewhat cool, rainy, spring day. I love to listen to the rain and to see how it makes the greenery appear greener. It doesn't seem to bother the birds. The birdfeeders are well visited by birds and squirrels alike!

Purple finches



and Evening Grosbeaks



are some of the visitors to the front feeder. The squirrels ran away! And what a surprise when I looked out the back window to spot a turtle in the grass.



This is a good sized turtle. It's hard to judge with nothing nearby as a guide. But I took this photo from the distance of a second story window.

All in all, it's a lovely day!

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

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

Sunday, January 13, 2008

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. :-)

Friday, October 19, 2007

A Foggy, Drizzly, Chilly Day

Yesterday felt like late spring - sunny and 70 degrees. This morning feels more like fall. Muted tones of red, gold, and orange foliage peek through the fog. It's chilly and drizzly. Foggy days always make me think of Carl Sandburg's poem The Fog.




The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.



I've always loved that poem. Apparently the birds are not worried about those "little cat feet" as they visit the feeders and forage on the ground for seeds. It may be my imagination, but they seem more active and lively on rainy days.





As for me, I've had a busy morning and I am looking forward to a late lunch. I think I will fix a nice hot bowl of clam chowder and curl up on the couch with a good book. It's a little chilly, so I'll probably throw my afghan around my shoulders.

There's nothing like a foggy, drizzly, chilly day!