A Visitor

We had a visitor this morning. I was afraid he\she would fly off if I went outside, so I took the first photo through the kitchen window. It is a turkey vulture on the telephone pole across the street.

A Visitor

I took these pictures a couple of weeks ago. One of two young peregrine falcons that practiced their hunting skills in our back yard and hung out on our trees.

Bugs and Birds

Tuesday Morning

When I stepped outside this morning to hang the laundry, my watch bird was being harassed by some blue jays. I am still trying to find out what kind of bird he might be as he seems to be too small for one of the hawks.

It was rather cold but the sky was beautiful and the frozen puddles looked pretty cool.

I don't care what the groundhog said, it was raining and windy here yesterday and there was no way he could have seen his shadow, so I am preparing for an early Spring.

The Watcher

Keeping an eye on me while I am hanging out the laundry.

Birds

When I went outside this morning I noticed two big crows, one on the lamp post and the other one on the roof of the house next to ours. The one on the roof was attacked by a mocking bird protecting its nest.

Cat TV

I hung our brand new bird feeder outside our bedroom window this morning. Now we have to wait for the birds to discover it.

In my kitchen

Making yogurt cheese for St. Brigid's Day. (You might notice the white coffee maker in the background. Our pretty red one called it quits and we needed a quick and cheap replacement. I view it as a temporary solution.)

Dinner preparations. Thursday/Friday dinner is usually soup and something baked, today it is onion soup and cheddar cheese and mustard muffins.

The kitchen sink faucet has been on a slow drip since it got so cold. The collected water goes into our water filtering containers. Nothing is wasted.

My constant companions - Jackie and MamaCat -, complete with favorite felt mousie, just in case I have a hand free to toss it for him.

A huge hawk on a tree across the way. It was later chased off by a Squirrel! I tried to take a quick picture through the kitchen window. If you click on it you should be able to see the bird, it is above the text.

And meanwhile on the pantry window this guy is trying to butter me up for more treats. This is his 'purr-face'.
(Yes, he was successful.)

What I am not going to show you is what happened when the butter, instead of melting nicely, exploded in the microwave.

Tuesday Morning

Can you spot the birdie?

Weekend

It was warm enough to start some garden work. We removed the weeds and vines that grew over the azaleas by the carport. The azaleas took quite a beating with all the rain last year and look poorly. I hope they will recover and bloom again. A lot of the plants around the house are quite old and I am afraid the trees in the front yard will give us problems in the coming years.

I also removed all the weeds and the honeysuckle from the lilac bush. While doing so I discovered that a big branch of it was broken, probably during one of the storms last year or from the heavy wet snow we had. It came away when I pulled off the vines of the honeysuckle.

And we also bound up the raspberry bush I planted last year. I have decided to let the strawberries take over the bed (they have to share with the raspberry) and find a different way to grow herbs this year.

The big stump that sat in the corner of the garden when we moved in is gone. It looked like that when we bought the house.

Thanks to the rains last year it is now completely rotten and we just raked the remains flat. Maybe we just sow some grass over it.

We saw the resident red tailed hawks, the flew in very low and then sat on a branch across the way. They are so beautiful. One of them flew low over the house once and looked at me. But I guess both my cats and I are just a bit too big to qualify as prey.

And after all the garden work was done, I finished my second pair of socks. This time without a pattern. They fit much better than the first ones.

Visitors

Look what I found in my garden this afternoon. My first reaction was to get the outside cats in, just in case, the turkeys might get some ideas. ;) Then I got my camera and then I got Miss K. to the window to show her the birds. She had this look like "what now, first all these cats and now BIRDS!?". That was something she had not seen in all of her 16 years. I guess I better go and tell the neighbor his birds got away (once again).

Bird Watching

View from the Kitchen Sink

Spotted the other day while washing dishes.

Saturday Afternoon in the Garden