our carefree retiree

It's almost Christmas!

Our mailman is kind of a saint, carrying our business packages every day, so I always like to bake him something around this time.  This year, I made fudge (for the first time!).  It was much easier than I expected.  It sliced like a dream...

...and packaged nicely.

I also made gingerbread cookies with maple glaze...

I love packaging this stuff up! 

We managed to squeeze in a Christmas play during this busy time, too!

A Christmas Carol

It's been cold, and the birds are still raiding the feeders.  The cats are riveted.

Well, most of them.

Strangely, Claudia has become unwilling to spend much time outside.  In the past, she was completely unbothered by ice and snow...

...and was grumbly when we forced her to come inside when the temperature dipped too much.  Even with a foot of snow outside, she wanted to be out there in it.  

"So what if the snow is almost over my head!?!"

Now, she doesn't want to be outside at all.  Even on 50 degree days, she sits on the barn doorstep and scratches piteously until Todd lets her in.  She spends most of the time asleep in an old chair.

I mean, when she's not snugged up against my foot at my barn work station.  It makes it kind of hard to move around, but I don't mind!

She's quite the elderly lady now, and I think she's pretty sensitive to the cold.  It's not ideal to have a cat living amongst our merchandise (hair, litter box, etc.), but I'm hopeful that we can work something out for her.  She's been a hard worker and deserves a cozy retirement!

Meanwhile, our boys are still pretty spry and keeping us on our toes.

I've been able to observe the beautiful sunrises lately...

...but you may have noticed that I haven't been posting many nature shots.  The fact is, my Achilles tendon is still pretty painful, and I have not worked out or walked in well over a month.  I've tried resting it, and now I'm trying massage and physical therapy.  Walking for more than 15 minutes is pretty excruciating, so unless I can see it around the yard...

interesting mystery fungus by the pond

bird nest revealed when our maple tree shed its leaves

mysterious scrapes in the ice on front pond

...I'm not photographing it.  I'm working on tendon strengthening over the next two weeks and I'm hoping that by the new year, I'll be able to take some gentle walks...fingers crossed.

Have a great week!  

fleeting cold and sheeting, old

Beautiful spring weather has helped to make our outdoor-work time really pleasant. Todd has been hauling wood...

...and clipping out extraneous metal debris on our old fences.

They were in pretty bad shape...

...so they're all being replaced this week!

Many of our old fence posts have bird houses attached, but only one of the houses is chock-full of bluebird eggs.  Todd set up a post about five feet away from the old post and quickly transferred the bird house to minimize nest disturbance.  Mama bluebird has been happily visiting the new spot and hasn't seemed to notice her new real estate!

We've also got nesting finches in our front porch eaves.  See the little head?

We're pretty suspicious characters and the finch pair watch us closely as we traverse the porch each day.  

Besides regular work, I've been planting cold-hardy seedlings out into the garden. I've planted in about 1/4 of the space, and we're plowing up another plot in a week or so.  Hooray!

Sunny days...blue skies and fluffy white clouds overhead.

Such a nice variety!

The apple tree is in full bloom and the blossoms have an intoxicating scent.

Dead nettle is rising in the back fields, and their little purple tips are the exact color of the redbuds that border their space.

The woods around our house and all along our main road are full of redbuds and dogwoods.  Coupled with the chartreuse color of the tender new leaves, the colors are gorgeous!

I love cutting a few branches for the front porch.

We've got horses directly and diagonally across the street, and I've discovered that there's a grazing pasture just beyond our back woods.  I can see a group of horses out in the mid-afternoon, peacefully eating.

It all makes for a wonderful and bucolic atmosphere for being outside.  

My perennials are starting to fill in!

Claudia is feeling more frisky with the warmer weather too.

Blooming apple tree, rapidly-sprouting roses, peonies, hydrangeas, and lilacs, unfurling hostas and maple leaves, all after a prolonged period of warm weather.  And then, directly in middle of two 70-degree stretches, we have...dum dum DUM!...snow.  

Snow!

Tuesday night's forecast:  rain turning to snow, with up to an inch of accumulation.  Temperatures dropping down to 27 degrees.  

If I do nothing, we would have another year with no apples.  Many of my seedlings would be toast.  My bleeding hearts and roses would probably die.  Just like last year, our hostas and even hardier perennials like ground geraniums would survive, but be blackened.  

I'm going to have to pull out every old sheet in the house and cover as much new, tender growth as I want to salvage.  All seedlings will have to be covered, again.  It's a big frustration with a midwestern spring.  Hardy annuals prefer cooler weather, so if you want beautiful May and June blooms, you need to get them into the ground as soon as possible in April so that they can establish roots and set up buds. Moving them into the ground frees up space under grow lights as well. But, of course, you run the risk of these random freezes.  So I'll be rolling up my sleeves and covering, covering, covering on Tuesday afternoon.  Gritting my teeth and reminding myself that this hard work should pay off nicely in a month or so...I hope!

Have a great week!

twice as ice

After six years of living in the south, you've never seen anyone more ready for some real winter weather.  You can imagine how I felt when I heard the brittle tapping of ice on the roof last week. 

Alas, it was gone within a few hours, but it was great to crunch through a field and admire the view.

Call me crazy, but I have missed these scenes:

There's a Danish word called hygge that translates roughly into "winter cozy and contentment."  It's apparently become a big deal in the U.S. lately, but I can safely say that I've been hygge-ing for as long as I can remember.  Flannel pjs and sheets, homemade quilts and hand-knitted sweaters, hot water bottles, winter baking (bread!), cozy fires, candles, seasonal fabrics, knitting in my lap...the colder it is outside, the more delightful it is to be inside.  Living in a three-season climate made me feel so out of sorts, so I am loving everything about the cold so far, being back home again in Indiana. 

After the ice melt, Borga was ready to get back to business.

I was pleased to spot this female downy woodpecker.  The males have a red patch on their heads, so it's easy to tell the difference.   See how she's using her tail to brace against the tree for support? 

Speaking of birds, I found an old warbling vireo nest on the same hike.

Warbling vireos are one of the many small, dull-colored birds that you probably haven't seen but have heard a thousand times in the woods.  "Fresh as apples and as sweet as apple blossoms comes that dear, homely song from the willows," said William Dawson, early ornithologist, while birder Pete Dunne had a more colorful observation:  "[It] sounds like a happy drunk making a conversational point at a party."  That makes me smile!

I also saw a fairly large tree burl.

This deformation is caused when the tree experiences some sort of stress...fungus, insect incursion, etc.  It doesn't really hurt the tree...I think it's rather like a scab.  They can take decades to reach their full size, and some are incredibly enormous...in coastal redwoods, burls can grow up to 26 feet!  Burl wood is prized for its odd, twisty patterns and has been made into jewelry, furniture, and sculpture. 

I'm seeing a lot more dried seed heads.  I think they're so pretty.

I love how I see something new on every hike.  We're headed out again in a few hours, to get in some miles before a big Thanksgiving meal with friends.

Have a great day!