A RARE SIGHT!

It is so rare here to get a heavy frost or ice on the inside of a window… i was amazed the other morning to see this on the bathroom window. Rusty was complaining because he could not see out. His favorite aucuba is on the other side of this window… an apartment house to many sparrows. This stuff was blocking his view!

Looks like a landscape in ice to me.

HOW MUCH SNOW DID YOU GET?

ANSWER:

From shoveling out to get the CoCoRaHS cylinder to melt some snow and get the water content.

The birdbath from yesterday’s Bluebird post after 6-7 inches of snow.

See who came to get a drink today? Looks kinda deep to me! He shows up better when sitting on the frog’s head.

And, no, I have not seen any bluebirds today. I almost did not see any of my Buddhas either.

Buddha in a blanket?

BLUEBIRDS

Here on the Eastern Shore they have a saying that if snow hangs around,

it is waiting for more. And with the temps in the 20s, I was preparing for the next snow today when I happened to glance out the kitchen window and thought I saw a bit of blue where I seldom see any blue…

Forgetting my chores, I looked around the back yard and could not believe my eyes. Scattered around the yard were well over a dozen bluebirds (and spouses) sitting in the bushes,

on various perches,

and even on St Fwankie’s head!

 

Try as I might, I could not get more than 5 or 6 bluebirds in any one picture frame.

So, I gave up since I had to go to work, but imagine my excitement when I came home and saw 11 of them and a few other little visitors gathered at the birdbath. For those of you who are new to my blog, that is a birdbath deicer in the water.

It is the most popular watering spot in town as it is the only unfrozen water out there. It is usually empty in the morning as the deer come to visit at night along with raccoons, possums, and the gray fox family.

TAMING THE WILDERNESS

Its that time of year when many of us plan our gardens, leaf thru seed catalogs, plan new flower beds, wonder if the old mower will make it thru another season… some of us wonder if we will make it thru another season.

For a long, long time I have wanted to clear out the thicket on the acre east of the house. It has been a slow job, doing almost microscopic sections at a time, then watching the jungle grow back when I would have a summer with too much pain to do any work out there. Though actually, summer is probably not the right word – most of the work outside gets done in the spring or autumn, sometimes in the winter if it is a mild one, but summer is usually too beastly hot to get much more done than keep things watered and the basic grass cutting. Tree cutting is best done in the winter when the sap is not running. That is also a good time to not get into poison ivy as it is dormant unless you decide to pull its roots. Late fall, winter, and early spring are also the best times to work outside because there are no mosquitoes and ticks are fewer except on those really warm days when they wake up and decide they are hungry and you are delicious. Last year, a friend bought an old house to fix up. I gave him a load of camellias and another friend, an azalea grower, sold me a bunch of azaleas, at wholesale, for him. The only catch was, John had to dig the camellias up. So, while he was digging, he dug up more than he could use and we planted them out on the edge of my “thicket” and another friend put a park bench together for me in the middle of it all. Preston brought me a big piece of slate for under the bench, and things started to look good. I didn’t even mind the other half acre of junk trees and bramble that much. The middle was cleaned and slowly getting planted in baby camellias.

   

A couple months ago I posted a couple pictures from the bench toward the thicket. The cedar tree and the trees with yellow leaves are still there, but the jungle behind them is now gone.

Then I asked Charlie to cut down a 20 foot camellia for me next to the house as it was where the generator is going to go. It broke my heart to have it cut down, but, it had to go. I remembered it wasn’t much more than a twig when I planted it. But Charlie, chain saw in hand, decided to keep cutting. He headed out to the thicket and kept going. I never knew when he would be out there, or how much he was going to cut, but in a couple weeks, the jungle was cleared, his bush-hog chopped down the miles of vines and bramble and I could walk across that acre for the first time since I moved here. I could always see a beautiful old tree in the far end, but could never get even close enough to it to touch it. Now Charlie has even driven my truck around it! I lost count of the truck loads of wood he took out of there, much of it locust and cherry.

     

In the middle of this jungle, there is a tree that fell, rooted and kept growing, looking like the Loch Ness monster coming out of the earth. Charlie saved that, too, tho he cut the sucker branches off. It is sort of a built in bench out there. Used to ne that Punkin would follow me everywhere I went, but, he is gone. Imagine my surprise to see Spook, my scaredy cat keeping his distance, but exploring the “new” territory with me.

  

We kept a bit of jungle around the edges until I get Preston or someone to plant some evergreens as a wind break on that corner and slowly fill the lot with azaleas and camellias. My goal is to create a meditation garden, a place of Peace, perhaps prayer, contemplation… perhaps a couple redbud trees, a dogwood or two, maybe another fringe tree if I can find one… a beautyberry bush or so to round things out. I think I will sprinkle some digitalis seed here and there, see what grows. Maybe I will put in some daffodils next fall when I have a better sense of the form it will take. Of course, the big challenge will be keeping it clear as the jungle will try to reassert itself come spring.

If you are ever in the area and want to wander by, come on it, sit a spell and be refreshed. Or grab a shovel and plant a camellia!

FROST

While many of you are getting snow, usually we have been getting rain… but now it has turned cold – 28 degrees when I get up is considered COLD here… and the world is white in certain places – roof tops, some plants but not others.

  These are azaleas and Beautyberry.

And then it warms up again and the camellias pop open one more time. I was able to pick a nice large bouquet of “Aunt Alice” camellias for the holiday table. That is the name of the camellia and it is one of my favorites. Of course, it helps that I used to have an Aunt Alice years ago. I wish she could have seen these beauties.

MAKE A JOYFUL NOISE - 2013

In spite of a lot of illnesses, our group got together and headed out once again to carol in the neighborhood. The weather was very cooperative with temps in the upper 50s! I remember the first year – we sang standing in snow!

Once again we had singers from several different churches. The Baptists provided the words in English for those of us who learned out songs in Latin! We included the words for Ava Maria for them to ponder. We did not try to sing it. Maybe next year. About half way thru the men disappeared to try to get my van running. Dead battery. Oh well, it is the original battery… I added up how old it is and much to my shock, it is 7 1/2 years old. Since I only have 47,000 miles on it, and it is a Toyota good for another 200,000 miles or so, I don’t think about things like age. But I guess the battery did.

We did not have our usual police escort this year, so that limited where we went. We stayed off the Main streets because of the kids – they get excited and sometimes run across the street. So, to keep them safe, we stayed on the back streets. We sang at the homes of several people who usually come and sing with us. It has been a year for surgeries and such…

Anyway, we had a good time. Lots of cookies, hot chocolate, and a Muslim friend made us a tray of Turkish Baklava. I thought that was a good way to top off my 4th Ecumenical Moment.

 

AN IMPOSSUMBLY LONG WINTER

Where is Spring, you say! Here we have daffodils, pansies, even the forsythia is opening… the late camellias are starting and I swear I saw a little color on a couple early azaleas. I did! But if you listened to that dumb groundhog up in Philadelphia, well, I am sure you must be disappointed. You can see a picture of this liar on this blog: http://thefrogandpenguinn.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-shoot-piano-player.html.

Very possumly Phil should be retired – a suggestion that he can’t refuse, kind of retirement… I, the Onley Proud member of the Possum Prognosticator’s Club, President of Possum Patrol (always on the lookout for lying muskrats), and possumly the most accurate Predictor of a Pussumly early spring… I got laughed at, guffawed at even, when I said Spring would indeed be late this year. HA! But who gets the last chortle? MOI! As I curl up all warm and toasty in my heated nest down the street from those nasty muskrats, snug but not smug… Oh, no, not me… I remember the disbelief when I saw MY shadow and ran for dear life back into my snugness on the carport Pledging not to come back out until spring really arrives… or some delicious cat food gets placed in the dish a couple feet outside my door. Whichever comes first. We possums may get blinded easily by headlights but we’re not fools! My human CO (Can Opener) still has her snow shovel out just a few feet on the other side of the heated water dish. She even has a de-icer in the ground level birdbath, yes indeedy.

But I digress… Just how accurate is that dumb groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil? According to StormFax Weather Almanac, Phil has been right 39 percent of the time since 1887. It is amazing that he still has a job. I, on the other hand can never be replaced. Not only is my Prediction record Perfect, but where else can you find an animal this cute who eats copperheads for snacks, catches mice and rats and all sorts of buglies and does NOT ever get rabies? Can you beat that with a stick? Impossumble. 

In spite of all the wet weather we have had here, and I do mean wet – I mean, look at the yard! In the summertime this is where grass gets cut! We would need pontoons on the mower to get thru here! Or, maybe we could sell it to some unsuspecting Yankee as waterfront property, huh? No?

My human will tell you, “It always snows on the daffodils.” I bet you can check back to March of each year and find a picture of some bright yellow beauties bowed over with a layer of snow. My human also says, “Count your Cards,” to see how long winter will last. Translation: the more Cardinals at your feeders, the longer the winter. Unh huh, check it out. I taught her all these things. I did. She is not as impossumble as most humans. I am right Proud of her. Pay attention to Nature I told her. The more berries, the colder the winter.  Then there is the nutty predictor – the more nuts, the worse the winter will be, or the thicker shells, or the fatter… you name it.  Whatever. They are talking about edible nuts, aren’t they? Not humans… most of them are nuts, it seems. The point is, it is 4 days after the vernal equinox, and if you look real hard, it is snowing. Either that or these trees got dandruff!

(If you were a possum you would find that hairlarious!)

OK, so it is only 5 snowflakes an hour right now. Hang on. Just wait! You’ll see!