west coast creature feature

Happy New Year!  We're finally done with our holiday traveling and getting back into the swing of things again.  Besides seeing friends and family, it's always nice to hike in a different place.  Especially if that different place happens to be by the Pacific Ocean. 

We saw quite a lot of wildlife on this trip.  Hiking along Cape Meares in Oregon, we startled a pair of black Oystercatchers as they poked around for food along the rocky beach:

We saw lots of herons around the coast...

...even captaining a boat!

I love seeing Sandpipers.  They're master foragers, spending most of their time at the water's edge, probing for food.

They move en masse...and they are fast!

We saw more than birds.  These clear blobs...

...are moon jellyfish!  They aren't strong swimmers, which is why you see them washed up on beaches so much.

Even though a moon jellyfish sting is on the less painful side of the spectrum, it still hurts to get stung.  Don't try to urinate on your sting, though...just rinse off in the ocean and apply a little baking soda/water paste mixture to the sting site if it still smarts.

Someone was here and gone before we crossed the trail.

Deer and elk scat are similar, but elk scat has trademark dimpling.  Elks are often seen around Cape Meares...I wish we would've seen a herd while we were out!

Of course, we did see one of the most common sea creatures of all, Canis familiaris.

Everyone brings their dogs to the beach.

I loved watching them frolic in the surf.  Interestingly, most of the dogs were off-leash, which is legal at many Oregon beaches.  

We enjoyed a little beach frolic ourselves!

Triple-dressed against the cold, as usual!

Of course, our canine was back in Indiana.  She made the most of her reunion time with "Dad," including cuddling up during one of his jet-lag naps.

Puppy love!

Have a great week!

nine patch and squirrel thatch

I've had great progress on projects this week!  I finished the quilting on my Farm Girl Sampler quilt.  Now all I have to do is bind it, which means adding a tidy red gingham border strip around the edge to cover the raw ends.  Binding strips are sewn on with the sewing machine, folded over the raw edge, and whip-stitched on the back.  I'm waiting for my additional red gingham fabric to arrive.  In the meantime, I started another quilt.  It's made with 1930s reproduction fabric, although some of it looks a lot more modern to me.

These are 2.5" squares that are sewn together in a Nine Patch pattern, which just means stacks of three, like a tic-tac-toe game.  They come together quickly and easily.  I plowed through almost 50 in my free time last week/weekend!

I'm not a fan of pink, so I'm a little apprehensive about the profusion of it in this pattern.  I'm just going to press on, though.  Hopefully the other brighter colors will even it out.  If I continue at this rate, I could possibly have the whole quilt completely pieced within 2 weeks!  I know that the cats will be especially happy.  ;)  They can't get enough quilt time!

Bosewichte in particular loves quilt cuddling.  Whenever I curl up under a quilt to read, he's on my lap in a flash.  He's basically the best cat ever! 

Cuddly cats or no, I don't like to spend too much of my free time indoors, especially during these brief cold periods in South Carolina.  There's a lot going on just within the boundaries of our property!

Lots and lots of deer.

Squirrels are very active right now...

...especially at our feeders.

This is a really busy time for birds, much busier than November and December.  Finches, cardinals, bluebirds, jays, phoebes...they're daily visitors here!

We had several days of rain and even with the weather, birds were constantly flitting from branch to branch.  I'm glad the rain didn't suppress their activities.  I feel the same way about rain.  It's quite a dry climate here, and when it does rain, it tends to be a torrential downpour (or "gully washer," as they say).  I miss long, dark rainy days, so I really enjoyed the two we had.

The squirrels stayed nice and dry in their nests...

...and Clotilde was cozy in our carport, although she napped under the gardenia bushes whenever the sun came out.

I'm looking forward to another week of chilly temperatures and hopefully, a loooong, cool spring.

Have a great week!

Pond Perks

It's very popular here in upstate South Carolina to live "on the lake," but I don't think I would enjoy it very much.  Noisy boats, loud parties, close neighbors, people talking right offshore?  No thanks.  However, I can't say enough about living on a large semi-private pond, and having a sun room overlooking the water.

PEACEFUL.  Quiet.  Beautiful light.  Best of all, we don't even have to go outside into the heat to enjoy the water, although we do, quite a bit.

After all, how can we resist a visit from our "goz," who come right over when we walk down to the water's edge?

Our resident heron is always around, although he's pretty cranky and squawks in irritation when disturbed.

I've talked a lot about the little mammals we've had...the river otter, beavers, and muskrats...but we also enjoy a dizzying array of dragonflies (this is a Slaty Skimmer, single and mating pair)...

...and colorful butterflies.  By the way, this is Limenitis arthemis.  The tiny orange spots tell predators that it's poisonous, but it's actually not.  It's mimicking the poisonous Battus philenor, but this little guy is perfectly harmless.

A hawk pair hunts here regularly.  They're really beautiful, majestic creatures. Check out those talons and the strong beak!

Here's the male across the pond.  He dove onto some small rodent and then ate it leisurely.

Really beautiful birds. 

We've got an abundance of anole lizards here.  More beauties.

Not always seen, but always leaving their presence felt, is our pack of white-tailed deer.  Scat all over the driveway and garden...

...and they're nibbling everything.  This liriope grass should have large arching fronds, but it's trimmed tidily by the deer, all over the yard.

The deer don't turn to the liriope until they've exhausted everything else, so this drought must be having quite an effect on them.  There's more scorched grass than tender young shoots at this time of year.

Staying inside, I've been doing a ton of crafting and cooking in my spare time.  I'll try to devote my next post to those projects.  Have a great week!

I hear a symphony...

"Whenever you're near...I hear a symphony..."  Diana Ross said it first, but I have been saying it all week.  The Eastern Towhees, so elusive in early spring, are now everywhere.  I just can't say enough about their bombastic "CHA-WHEET" and "DRINK YOUR TEA!"s.

Have a listen.

It's hard to actually catch a Towhee outright, because they like to hang out in bushes and brush.  However, I caught a glimpse of a beautiful female recently.  She's brown headed, but has that distinctive orange and white coloration on her abdomen:  

Most of the time I see males, and mostly in the shade.  Their red eyes are so beautiful in the sunlight, but they move so fast through the underbrush, they're hard to photograph.  Usually I just get a glimpse, like this one. 

They are singing their hearts out now, and so many others are, too, including one mystery bird who runs through a dizzying scale of notes, over and over.  I have my binoculars handy and hope to catch him soon. 

The music continues at night with the frogs and toads.  I was working in the garden recently and saw this tiny Cope's Tree Frog.

Theirs is the predominant song we hear at night:  Cope's Tree Frog

But there's also this guy, who I found in a front flower bed, burrowed in the dirt among the weeds.

He's an American Toad, and also much heard:  American Toad

I would never, never disturb a nesting creature, even if it meant forgoing my only sun bed and leaving a protective patch of weeds in its center.  However, toads lay their eggs in water, so I knew he was just having a rest.  I weeded around him...

...and then built a protective cover of leaves.  I went back the next day and was happy to see that he stayed around:

I also saw a juvenile version in the brush:

!!Creature love!! 

There are so many others.  I caught a glimpse of a raccoon just outside my office window yesterday, climbing a tree.

 Up, up, up...

He watched me from his high perch until I went back inside...

...then climbed back down and ambled off into the woods. 

A White-Tailed Deer (that nuisance!) has been here, as if I didn't already know from my sadly chewed hydrangeas:

 More creatures down by the pond.  So many fish, from the numerous schools of "normal"-sized ones...

 

...to our monstrous three-footers.

 

So many turtles, too.  We just look for the "sparkle" on the water and inevitably, it's a turtle's head popped up.  

Now that summer is unofficially here, we can sit by the water and watch the scene unfold in front of us.

There's still more yard work...

...but we're enjoying the things that happen automatically, without any help from us, like the blooming of the irises. 

So beautiful!  It's no wonder that my baking and craft work has taken a back seat to nature lately, although I may try to squeeze in an extra blog post soon so that I won't fall so far behind on projects.

I hope you're enjoying the beautiful weather and lovely creatures somewhere, too.  Have a great week!