the ice-ing on the cake (brrrr!)

 It's 3 degrees outside, down to -4 tonight!  Brrr!  We are having periods of flurries, and still have snow on the ground.  It's so pretty.

back pond

lots of sunny days...

...and beautiful sunrises.

I love them!

The initial snowfall was pretty powdery, and we've had a little bit of melt, so animal tracks have been  hard to identify.  There are four separate lines of tracks below.  At least one rabbit, not sure of the others!

at least this one's easy!

Even in the cold, bright sun makes icicles.

The tree branches are covered in a heavy frost.

The kittens have been glued to the windows, watching the birds.

Animals are still active outside.  Sometimes we see them...

...and other times we catch them on the trail cams (you can expand these videos to make them easier to see!).

bobcat

coyote going out on the back pond ice!  

We've got plenty of food out for the strays and the birds, including a heated water bowl.  We're hoping that it's cold enough to KILL ALL THE TICKS, but not so cold that the animals are injured!

Meanwhile, we're staying inside as much as possible.  We've just celebrated our 2nd "fun" holiday of the month, Nothing Day.  We had to watch a show about nothing (Seinfeld), learn about something that we knew nothing about (competitive dog grooming with dyed fur), and bake with an ingredient that I knew nothing about...in desserts, anyway.  I chose sauerkraut, and make an old Depression-era recipe:  sauerkraut chocolate cake.  Looks normal enough...

...until you look a little closer.  That white shred is a long, disgusting strand of sauerkraut.

The recipe recommended pulverizing the sauerkraut, which I didn't do because my food processor bowl was in the dishwasher.  I will admit that you could not TASTE the sauerkraut, but the long strands threw me off.  If I had pulverized it, I think it would've been an amazing cake.  Todd loved it!  Another successful holiday!

Until the cold breaks, we're staying inside.  Working inside, exercising inside...

I'm on the exercise bike, and Barnabas is waiting impatiently 

to be fed.  I'm getting the long stare...

...and enjoying the OUTSIDE views...from the inside.

Stay warm!!

(G)Oz Fest

It's been quite a week for our feathered friends.  Finally, birds have found our clear trough feeder!  I love to watch them.  So far we've had house finches, cardinals, sparrows, and titmouses (titmice, apparently, is frowned upon in the avian community).

Not to be outdone, squirrels have finally cracked the code, too.  First, a cautious look from a safe distance.

Then, the eyeball.

Finally, the leap of glory and ultimate reward for daring.

But alas, the stinkeye, given after he'd been rousted from the feeder.

In other "feather" news, I found these cool red-tipped ones outside while working in the yard last week.

Aren't they pretty?  They're secondary feathers from a cedar waxwing.  It's not known exactly what they're for, but apparently they're likely used by males to attract females.  They're the most beautiful birds and I'm so glad to find evidence of them around the yard!

Finally, second-generation "goz" have just entered the picture!

Sadly, the parents have nested at the far end of the pond, so I've only seen them once - with the wrong camera lens on hand.  Still, we hear the geese calling daily and I'm hoping that they'll start making the trip down to our end of the pond soon!

I almost walked past this mating pair of anoles on our porch this week.  So much of their activity takes place in the shadows, so this was an amazing treat.

There's always a bit of tension when it comes to nature photography.  I want to get the close shot, but I don't want to disturb my subject.  I tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, but once the female started dragging the male away, I had to back off and forfeit the great close-up.

Later, I found a sole anole in one of my ferns.

I love their tiny scales, beautiful coloring, and strangely intelligent eyes, but I know that when I get close, they get anxious.  I can see their sides expand and shrink like tiny bellows, and I try to get a shot quickly, sometimes sacrificing a really great and crisp shot, so that their stress is minimal.

Another example is our turtles.  There are a seemingly endless number of them, sunning on fallen trees.  I love to photograph them...

...but when I get close (and not really even that close), they do perfectly synchronized dives into the water.

I am constantly refining my technique, but ultimately my goal is to get a great shot, but not at the expense of my subjects' safety or comfort.  Hopefully I'll get better with time!

Our last little bit of wildlife from this week:  Todd called me from the driveway yesterday, muttering something about "hounds from Hades."  I went outside and found this little fellow:

It's just a black rat snake, totally harmless.  This one was about four feet long ("Six! Eight!" Todd insists), and moving slowly into the woods when he was spotted.

I love their skin.

Real beauties, and great to have around.

Looking forward to many more months of wildlife around here, now that we've got hot weather (low 90s all week, ugh) and the sun is officially OUT for months.

Have a great week!

Thorns, weeds, and errant seeds

It's May, and that means WORK TIME in the yard.  We've got almost two acres.  Much of it is wooded, but we do have a big front yard and huge swatches of mulched areas that have to be weeded.

But first comes the pruning.  Trees need to be pruned, vines need to be pruned, and shrubs need to be pruned.  These "mystery shrubs" were clearly not intentionally planted, because they come up everywhere and have to be cut down.  They are spiky, shaggy, and thorn-covered, so it's best to prune them into submission early.  I like the yard to have a natural look, so it's nice to have a few tidily-shaped shrubs to keep it from sliding into chaos.

When our large trees came down, a gigantic shaded, mulched bed suddenly became a full-sun bed. The spearmint, which had been tidy and contained, suddenly went wild.  It's the tall, spiky plant in front of the ferns here.

Mint is pretty tough to eradicate.  Even worse is this weed, which also spreads through an underground runner system:

When you try to pull it up, it falls apart in your hands.  Even one small segment remaining behind will sprout new growth.  I like groundcovers, but this could get out of control fast.  My goal is to not try to eradicate either, but to not allow them to spread beyond a certain point.  I'm also going to add 3 or 4 spiky purple plants, like salvia or speedwell, to give the space more structure.  I like it to look messy, but not so out-of-control that it looks like a weed patch.

Like this, actually.

These are all weeds, and just a fraction of what has to be pulled from our mulched beds.  The recent rainstorms and 85 degree days have caused them to go crazy!  After weeding, we're going to mulch again and plant easy annuals, like cosmos.

It's not all work, though.  Without any effort from me, and in spite of the fact that I haven't divided them in 5 years (gulp!), the irises are blooming nicely!

This pretty bush blooms every spring, nice white flowers that make beautiful tiny bouquets.

These bushes are blooming too.  I used to know their name...

Sedum is spreading and flowering...

...and so are the herbs we planted, like this oregano.

The ferns we moved to the back yard are doing well, too.

We hear birds all the time, but they're harder to see because the trees are fully leafed out.  I bought a clear trough feeder and attached it to the door of our sun room.  It's very unobtrusive...

...maybe too much so.  Five days and not a single bird!  I'm going to try it in a different space.

In my spare time, I've slowly been working on my quilt.  I did do a craft project recently, for Easter. I took foam sheets, traced plates, cut out the circles, and used brads to pin them in to a giant fortune cookie shape.  Tyvex envelopes, cut up, made the fortune cookie paper strip (and address/postage location).  I used Peeps stickers and the fortune was:  "Easter is better when you spend it with your PEEPS!"  It was a quick and easy project, but alas...I used thinner foam than recommended for the project and many of them were shredded during transit.  This is how they were supposed to look:

That's all that's happening here - work, and the cats grabbing naps wherever they find a spot.

Have a great week!