Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road

Or rather, goodbye to our beautiful azaleas and camellias.  It's the time of year when the buds are dropping off the bushes and won't return until next spring.  But until then, I'll always have the photos...

Well, the end of one stage is the beginning of another.  We do have lots of blooming clematis.

Ferns are growing new leaves...

...and our trees are following the 'out with the old, in with the new' philosophy as well.

Our tulip trees are dropping their buds, which I love.  They really do resemble tulips.

I'm working hard on my bird call identification, but it's tough.  We have a lot of birds and so many calls sound like random twittering.  Now the birds are able to remain concealed among the leaves, which make it a bit more difficult.  I feel excited that I'm able to correctly identify the calls of both the black-capped and carolina chickadee, the carolina wren, blue jay, cardinal, eastern towhee, eastern phoebe, grey catbird, and white-throated song sparrow.  I get a huge thrill when I hear any of these calls and I always shout out the name (even if I'm home alone!).  Here is one of our commonly seen birds, the carolina wren:

A group of american goldfinches appeared yesterday.  Love the bright colors!

I keep the feeders filled, but most of the visitors are of the rodent variety:

At least they keep the cats entertained. 

Have a great week!

Poxes on Boxes!

Oh, the Christmas rush!  I don't remember it ever being so busy, with 11-hour days and up to 75 orders to process at a time.  My office is absolutely buried in boxes and littered with faux styrofoam peanuts.

Dirty laundry is piled up, cat hair tumbleweeds are forming in the hallways, and I haven't made it through more than a paragraph of my book at night before falling asleep.  Christmas decorations?  Forget it!  We decided to forgo a tree this year, since we've just been too busy to devote an afternoon to digging out the Christmas decorations.  I'm really pleased that the business is doing so well, but I really need a break!

The mornings have been wonderfully foggy and warm...

...and we've had gorgeous sunsets.

Days are perfect:  sunny, blue skies, and in the 70s.

The leaves are gone, but otherwise, you'd never know that it's mid-December!  The animals do, though.  Birds are everywhere.  A flock of ducks have settled in our little pond.  I love the beautiful iridescent heads of the  mallards.

Our great blue herons have been out hunting more than usual lately.

Oh. the songbirds!  This white-throated song sparrow sang a lovely tune outside my office window today.

A dark-eyed junco keeps a close watch on everything.

The squirrels are incredibly active on these warm days.  They love to chase each other up and down the trunks of trees, and to scold me mercilessly when I come out onto the deck with my camera.

I've had little time to bake, but I made a few cranberry-orange loaves as Christmas gifts for some neighbors. 

The recipe is here and is highly recommended! 

I'll try to get back into a more regular schedule in the new year.  Happy holidays! 

Thar She Blows!

I had planned to do a strictly craft-centric post today, because I've done several projects and have fallen far behind on posting pictures.  The same with some recent baking experiments.  But we had such an interesting weather event this weekend that I couldn't resist a few pictures.

The forecast for Friday afternoon was cloudy skies with a 20% chance of precipitation.  Suddenly, the sky got dark, the wind picked up, and hail started pattering down.  We had a torrential downpour and heavy winds for about 15 minutes, and then the storm passed.  We had just experienced a microburst, or a weather system in which a small column of air sinks and pushes out, instead of in a circular rotation like a tornado.  I couldn't believe how much damage was done in just a few minutes.  Another large tree in the back yard fell over, taking a smaller tree with it.

Huge branches down, and lots of little ones.

A gigantic limb on our front poplar tree snapped and is hanging precariously from another branch.  Sadly, the tree, already damaged, is basically in shock and unable to be saved.  The whole thing is going to have to come down next week.

Birds' nests torn out of branches and eggs scattered everywhere.

 

Twenty-four hours without power, so lots of Scrabble by candlelight for us.

Despite the intense heat (almost two weeks of upper 90s), we've had some flowers blooming.  The mimosa trees that hang over the pond are gorgeous.

Spiderwort lines a shady path...

These Rose-of-Sharon-like flowers are blooming on a side yard shrub.  I prefer them after they've wilted for their beautiful blue color.

Our owls are staying busy and making regular appearances.

A heron pair is nesting nearby.

The squirrels frisk in the morning and disappear in the heat of the afternoon.

The cats have stopped begging to go outside in this heat...

...and are focused on indoor entertainment. 

And those trees in the pond?  We aren't worried about them.  Our beaver family is making short work of that job!

I will try to get that craft post up next week.  Have a good weekend!