Wordless Wednesday

Sdrawkcab

It was so windy yesterday that it blew the birds right off the log the boss brought me down to use as a table feeder. 

I had just tossed out the afternoon sunflower seeds.

A cloud of brown sparrows and crimson Cardinals had descended almost instantly to try to eat, when woosh, they were all swept away by the wind.

And then I saw it. A White-throated Sparrow was trying to fly to the log. The wind was so strong that it caused him to fly backwards for several feet, although flapping mightily.

It was weird. I mean, he wasn't exactly a hummingbird but he was moving backwards while flying forward.

He was smart though. When the wind swept him over the feeder, he just folded his wings and let it dump him right on it.

Later I attempted to look up into the honey locust to try to see which branch is grinding so ominously. The wind lashed snow crystals into my eyes, which sent me stumbling into the house in defeat. Couldn't see a thing.

Weather...we got it....but it doesn't mean we have to like it.

Walking and Tracking

Bunny trails

Jetsam, the mysterious disappearing cat

Diamond wants to come IN!

Ancient apple...no fruit in years and so.....

These tracks were made by a grey squirrel....really they were

Summer arrived yesterday. I don't know how warm it actually got...above twenty at least...but we were shedding layers like a maple sheds leaves in October.

So I went for a walk. Without snowshoes the walking is limited to where the guys have plowed but it was good to feel the sun for a few minutes.

This morning it is pretty cold again, but it is still, so it isn't too awful out. 

Sunday Stills...Green River

Will you settle for a green creek?
A favorite place to play when we were kids

Howsa about a green lake?

Green creek?

Green spring near a river? Manatee Springs right off the lovely Suwanee

Here is an explanation of this week's challenge from Ed, "Time for another musical challenge, this week it's from Credence Clearwater Revival waaaay back in 1969, its a great song. So, for the challenge its all about either the color green or rivers or a combination of both."

For more Sunday Stills........

Year of the Sheep

Lamb snuggled down in Daisy's bed

Daisy's revenge, resting in the lamb's bed

On the Lamb

Yeah, I spelled that right. Yesterday the kids picked up a bum lamb from a friend of the family in trade for some eggs. He is a cutie, Border Leicester and Clun Forest or so they say. I like sheep.

However.

I cannot begin to describe the chaos created by a baby sheep who thinks he is a person, a rotten little Dachshund who thinks she is a dire wolf, and a baby, who is already as animal crazy as her mother ever was.....remember Grandma and Grandpa's goat pen anyone?

It was so loud here last night that it was nearly unbearable. However, the rotten little dog eventually slept in her crate, and the lamb slept in a dog crate in the kitchen. I am assuming Miss Peggy, the new shepherdess of Northview Farm, slept in her crib. In my room, far, far away from any other room, I didn't hear them at least.

They named him Klondike in honor of our favorite Facebook game, and the weather. Please join me in hoping that it soon warms up enough for him to sleep in the barn instead of next to the kitchen sink. Thanks.

Can you Stand It?

Here are a few pics of farm life in the deep freeze. I will leave it up to you to judge whether it is still pretty or perhaps not so much. Stay warm....

Stuff goin' On

Taken from the driveway

Not much but sad news to report. Our area lost two very special people last week, icons in this small town farming world. One was the owner of one of the most famous farm stores in the state. He was someone we all liked very much and admired for the amazing things he did for the community....and a very special friend of Ralph's. Although he was not a young man by any means, the farming community was stunned by his loss. The wake is today.....

The other was a teacher at the kids' nursery school. Generations of area little ones called her "grandma", our own included. She was someone we have loved since my brothers and I were little kids ourselves. We grew up with her sons and went to her family's farm to pick out fuzzy little kitties to take home back in the day. We also went to that farm on field trips when we were in grade school. We weren't farm kids and we learned a lot.

The valley will miss them both for a long time I think.

Then there were the fires. This has been the worst year for fires I think I have ever seen. There were three major ones going on in the county all at the same time the other day, including this one right across the river from our house.

Although the people in these tragedies were uninjured, pets and belongings, in some cases everything they owned were lost......this area needs a break in this Godawful weather and soon.

Books

On March 6th Peggy will be one year old. I wanted to get her something she would especially enjoy, so I looked long and hard for some of those touchy-feely-type books for babies. You know, the ones with textured animals and fuzzy bunnies and all. I found one once for her cousin when she was smaller, and the sticky pig pen therein was a big hit.

Although I never did find another copy of that particular book, Amazon came through with a couple of similar titles. Not being the most patient of grannies, I gave them to her as soon as they came.

And........she likes them....in the photo above she is whacking her favorite with her stuffed giraffe, but that happened after she had "read" it to herself for an hour.

She even gets grandpa to "read" it so she can touch all the fuzzy and shiny and textured animals in it. Fun!

Now if I can just find the one with the pigpen. 

She likes lunch too!

All I have to Say

Start Your Day the Frostbite Way

Peggy taking advantage of Uncle Alan's toaster coat

Thanks to wearing glasses, it is hard to wear a face mask like the guys do, because they either get caught up in it or fog up so bad I can't see anyhow. Ditto with my big red scarf.

I'm sure it's not serious, but in only a few minutes outdoors helping the boss get some decent wood up to the stove from the heifer barn, I froze my left cheek bone.

Felt it right away, came inside and thawed, but it feels kinda....icky.....right now.

Dang this weather. Third coldest February on record. The days are just something to be endured.

I'm loving the heated hoodie Al bought me though. On low the battery lasts six hours and low is surprising warm. With a couple of sweaters and such under and a down vest over, I am toasty....so I call it my toaster coat.

Sunday Stills.....L

Laughing Gull....and fond memories of Florida

For more Sunday Stills......

Stuff goin' On

Crazy times around here. Jade hasn't been feeling the best and had to get checked out by a whole bunch of doctors.

Turns out he has Lyme's Disease, which is pretty awful stuff. Hopefully with treatment he will feel better pretty soon, but we have all been worried.

Meanwhile, his clever little daughter is just on the cusp of walking, cruising everywhere, and getting really, really mad if she doesn't have enough marauding-in-the-living-room time each day.

She said her first word, "hi" a couple of days ago, playing with an old house phone I took the batteries out of so she could have it. She holds it right up to her ear to say hi and laughs like crazy.

She knows.

A Sword

Sometimes the cold is a knife, cutting through whatever you wear, and biting at your flesh, like a frenzied fox. 

Fingers freeze to the door handle if you are too dumb to wear gloves to walk the sausage dog.

(At least she makes a nice, warm muff, when she suddenly becomes too cold to walk back to the house and must be carried. If anyone had told me during the Border Collie years that I would have a dog that needed to be carried to the house I would have laughed at them.)

And then sometimes the cold is like a sword. You swear it will sweep your head right off as the wind howls down the valley and even the windows in the warmest rooms are  shrouded in frost.

I know this weather is nothing to you tough folks who scoff at twenty below, but ..........brrr......

I feel bad for the boss, who has to load out hay today for one of our better customers. The hay mow might be a sauna in the summer, but not so much this time of year.

At any rate, having looked at the forecast, which does not show any improvement for the next week or so, I am glad that my boy is bringing me home one of the things he is wearing in the photos. I told him not to do it....but he did anyhow....and I am looking forward to wearing the rechargeable, heated, hoodie that he bought me.

He wears one for work...all those hours outdoors..... and he is very thin and feels the cold, especially after he does a lot of physical stuff like wielding what he calls a "muck stick"....and then cooling off when he stops.

Funny thing about that....his middle name is after my beloved maternal grandfather, who was all legs and arms and gangly like a stork, but a truly wonderful man. We couldn't know that our red-headed, newborn baby boy would grow up to be all long and lean and sweet just like the man whose name he carries.

He will be home tonight I think.....and I'm glad because we all miss him when he's gone.

Some of us Like the Snow

More Bunny Tales

Many bunnies hopping up the driveway to the honey locust tree

Winter is obviously not the best time of year for anyone but snowmobilers and skiers.

And ice fishermen.

Up and down snow banks higher than my head

Even rabbits must go to great lengths, or perhaps I should say climb to great heights, to get at the stuff of life...such as bark.

I had to use auto-contrast to make these tracks in the snow show up, but you can...kinda...see that they are climbing tall snowbanks and plowing through deep snow to get to the bark they want to eat.

Bark eater

Yum, yum

I would imagine that under the snow a lot of fruit trees and brambles are being girdled as they and the mice tunnel for bark. We lost a good sized apple tree to mice not too many years ago. I hope they leave the Ida Red up by the garden alone. It has a cage....but mice are pretty small.

This soft, fluffy stuff along the driveway is over my waist.

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

We have a plethora of cottontail rabbits. It is hilarious to watch them elude Daisy every morning. Being a scent hound, she does not see them as they hop by ten feet away, but carefully downwind of her. I see them every day, trying to remain undetected.

They are such sneaky little fellers that you can't really perceive the sheer numbers of them until the snow makes tracking possible.

Then, wow! There are a lot. The yard is laced with tracks if the snow is shallow.

If it is deep, then they make trails like a deer yard.

Like the one in the pics. This runs right along the side of the house to the honey locust tree where they scavenge for the seed pods, which are filled with nutrient-dense beans. 

I tossed some half-spoiled apples out yesterday under the bird feeders. This morning they are simply half-apples, having served as sylvilagus hors d'oeuvres sometime in the night. 

Housekeeping...or Not

Part of the kitchen sink barricade 

Housekeeping around this place has become a horror that I literally have nightmares about. I am not exactly Susie Homemaker at the best of times, but dogs, people, stuff....there are a lot of them living here and they have a lot of the latter, which results in quite a mess.

And water! Plus the objects needed to move it. With the cows gone, all the barn water lines promptly froze. Not much to do but turn off the water and haul what the remaining animals need.

There are four cows, four horses, a large flock of chickens and guinea fowl, and a buncha bunnies.

They all need to drink a lot of water every day, so Liz and the boss and Becky haul a lot of water every day.

FROM THE KITCHEN!!!

Yeah, those barrels in the pic used to contain stuff for the milk house. Now they move water from here to the barn. And there are chicken waterers, bunny bottles, pony pails, all kinds of water containers drug in and out every day, several times a day. 

I have to wait my turn at the sink to do dishes, as the waterline that feeds the cold water is a little frozen and it takes a long time to run all that water. (This is actually a fine excuse to put off my least favorite job.) All of the smaller animals buckets and bottles must thaw too, some at every heat register, kitchen and dining room.

There is always hay in the sink. On the floor. Everywhere. And sand from sanding the walkways gets tracked...lots of that too. Sawdust and wood chips from the stove ditto.

I have pretty much given up on any semblance of tidiness, opting instead to sweep the sand and hay back out the door a couple times a week, just because it makes me feel better, not that it makes any lasting difference....

Add in the mountains of outdoor clothing and mounds of boots, gloves galore drying everywhere there is heat, and you have the perfect recipe for disaster. These are the times when being nearsighted has its advantages.

Sunday Stills.....Sepia

This is always a fun challenge.

For more Sunday Stills.....

In the Middle

We are in the middle of winter now....lurching forward toward spring, one day, sliding backward on a tide of ice and storms another.

Poised on the brink of the brightest change of the year, the segue from ice and snow to Ice Follies Daffodils and Snow Drops.

I have been noticing.....

Outdoors in the late afternoon, almost evening, to try to photograph the crazy yellow sky as the sun went down.

Lo and behold the sun was setting halfway north on the cow barn roof!

By high summer it will set clear north of the heifer barn, which is now the kids' chicken and pony palace, but at least it is no longer sinking more south than west behind the 60-acre lot hill.

Just now a White-throated Sparrow sang its whole song. Over the past few weeks with the arbor feeder that Jade got me right in front of the kitchen window, I have come to know their richly whistled notes...so deep for a bird....quite well. However, their songs have been truncated, one short whistle here, another tiny tweet there.

This morning, right under the window in the not quite dawn, "Old Sam Peabody, Peabody, Peabody," rang out loud and strong and then was repeated. 

No migrants yet, and the snow is ever-deepening, but the birds know.....it will not be many days I think before we see the first Red-winged Blackbirds, Grackles, and Robins...although the latter stay all winter on the other side of the river and we might see them any time....

And soon it will be maple sugaring time.