The Sunday Times.....

 The earth is titling back as in this familiar landscape that I share now shows the sun moving back across the horizon.  Most of the time during the winter it was behind the rouse shown on the right. I

The tilting of the earth is always leaving me confused.  I went out last evening to see the full moon and it was not t here. I know a few days ago I did see it in the east as a day time moon. I suppose it is over the horizon behind those houses. 

The starlings are coming in gangs now. My wife likes to go to the window and scare them away from the deck.  The are a  rough acting group and do drive away all birds when they hit the feeders. As I am not refilling the feeders for a while so the leftover seed on the deck can get eaten up by all the birds, I don't see the common starlings as much. 

It is slightly off focus but the Peruvian lilies still show off with great colors. They are a long lasting lily and will be the last to survive in a store bought bouquet.  I don't know if I mentioned it before but I ordered a set of new iris yesterday.  The are the kind that are tall and they bloom twice in the summer. I think there were five of them or more in their packaged deal.  The iris will come to me planted in plastic pots, already sprouting some leaves. I will have to get creative to find a place to plant them. My yard is getting filled up but I know there are some blank places 

I am a lot blurry today and I seem to have to type everything three or four times.  I guess it is a down day for the fingers and brain.  I hope I got it all edited to proper English.  Thanks for sstopping by today. 

I stopped by the fish after I had fed them and just watched them. They were so busy feeding that the camera could only get a blurred effect. Each fish has different size or different markings. Kids at school would name my fish when I was a teacher.

Dove Story.....

 I have stopped feeding the birds for a while until they get all of this cleaned up off of the deck.  I have the same mess down on the ground so they won't starved.  The mourning doves are bashful. Can you see the dove on the step looking up over the deck, checking out the situation. Starlings are ransacking the place so the dove is just watching and waiting on them.

The dove does come up off the step and starts pecking at stray small seed. I don't see what it is eating but it finds stuff.

Then all of a sudeen the dove leaves.  I guess it wasn't so hungry or maybe there is a feeder somewhere else that has better kinds of seeds. It is a warmer day and we will melt off some more snow.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Old House Stories....

 The house in Woodward survived the derecho and it now looks like this.  The last big tree that stood in the front of the house was torn up too much so the city took it down. The house had five big silver maples at one time, maybe more. Now they are all gone. It was a very shaded property back in 1976  when I first bought the place. 

The stump is all that is left now. The whole town lost a lot of trees including my neighbors across the street. They had four maples that were all cut down having been destroyed by the strong hurricane winds. 

The house was built in 1904 but there is no way of knowing when the silver maples were first planted. I guess ring readers could figure out the age of this old tree but I sure could not.

We went to the house for the first time since the crash of my health back in October. I wanted to see the windows that were replaced in our house but were not able to get up there to see them.  I let the men into the house and paid them the second payment, and then went home.  The right side of the original window was ripped off by the strong winds so the new window looks really nice. It had been boarded up for a lot of months waiting for the company to replace it.  I had a second old fashion window upstairs replaced as it wasn't energy efficient. The other reason we went up was to see where the furnace temperature. I wanted it to be set to keep the house warm enough  as the cold would not do damage the house. It was set at 60 degrees F. and that was good to see.  I had asked the workmen who installed the windows to set it at that. They did it correctly. 

It has been a long day with no sunshine. We warmed a little but not to cause a lot of thawing.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday, Recycle Day......

 A quck capture of this guy happened yesterday morning.  He wasn't too h ungry as he didn't stay two minutes. I am not refilling the tray for awhile until they get it really cleaned up.  The new tray was completely cleared this morning so I gave them a little more.

New kinds of zinnia seeds arrived yesterday.  I was disappointed in what the packages look like. I guess it is too expensive to put the color picture of the flower on the package.  I bought them because they were such nice looking flowers that show up on the net.  I am also confused as to how many seeds they are offering me.  I don't think it would be easy for them to count out 25 seeds for each package. 

The green bird house is almost blocked from view by the blue spruce. I still like the picture but should have leaned a little more to the right to get full view of the house. 

The deck is cleared so I should go clear the steps. It isn't easy to do it from the top down so I will have to wade through the snow outside to get to them. I could see this morning that my trellis has settled crooked over the winter.  I should have the strength now to dig better holes for its legs and straighten it.

My 12th year anniversary is coming up next month.  I have been dragging out photos of when I first did blogging.  I have mixed emotions of returning to the first blogs as we have lost  of dogs and cats that can be seen int the early years.  It is sad to see them young and healthy. I did write a  whole lot more on my blogs back then but there was a lot of things going on in our lives the year before 2009.  Two deaths in my family and another  one the next year in my wife's family. We also had a wedding in Maine that year.  I guess I started writing and posting pictures to share my life's ups and downs.  I am going to hang in there even though a lot of my blogger friends have just stopped. Thank you for stopping by today.

Wandering Thoughts on Wednesday.....

 

The warmer weather is nos so warm but it does feel better. The Canada goose, female, has enough melted that its face is exposed again. You can see the melt ring around the blue spruce tree. 

The sky is ever changing and looking out today of the sun room it looked promising as to be a great day. No, there is now sunshine so it didn't improve from the morning shot. The wind is blowing today and it helps to melt things a bit. 

The deck finally being cleared of snow is a good feeling.  I did two rounds of shoveling to get it cleared and by evening it had any remaing ice gone. I could have walked out in stocking feet if I was careful to take pictures but I didn't. 

I took another shot of my mew shelf giving it more of an angled. view. I am so happy with that and the building of it was fun. 

It has been a couple of years now since we had to say good bye to  our border collie. He is missed a lot by us both. What a wonderful dog and he gave us so much to us in our lives. He did not like the camera so he always turned his head away from me when I would take his photo. I am glad he was able to live the last year with us at the new house. He liked being on all one floor and could be with us everywhere and every room. Gosh we miss him so much.

I am coming up to blogging anniversaries on both of my blogs. I am collecting photos to share daily of the times gone by. Barney's photo is one of them.  Thanks for stopping by today.

We did get to watch our grandson on facetime open his birthday presents. It was fun. It is so hard to believe he is eight years old.

Things for Tuesday....

 The squirrel did discover the new tray feeder yesterday. It didn't fall off with his weight on it so the thing is secure. 

A project started as I needed to do something. It is of scrap wood. The best parts are from old drawers and  i believe they are made of birch.

The pine supports are left natural and the birch pieces were finished with paste wax.  I have about four coats of the wax on them.  I apply it with fine steel wool allowing it to dry out between coats. I rub polish between coats to help get the wax into the wood. 

I installed it this morning after moving things around on the wall.  It is now surprise that I didn't make it big enough for the collection. It happens too often. The three that don't fit on it are plae elsewhere. 

II really didn't have room for the shelf to be any longer so all is just going to have to be good. It is our oldest grandson's birthday today.  He turns 8 today.  He has really grown up fast. His photo is on the side of the screen. What I can also share is his gift from us.

AJ is a lego man so he gets one of these for his birthday. It is hard to find new ones for him as he already has a lot of lego things. The X-wing will be a hit for him.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Monday and Snow....

 The shadows from the fence aren't as great right now as the sun is still further east in the sky.  As the earth tilts back we will have stronger shadows.  Can you find the raised bed in the photo? Tomato growing doesn't start until after April 15th. 

 

Sunshine and 40 degrees F. will help to melt some of this. The shadows are strong with the full sun shining.

 

I am anxious to see the wooden deck again.  I did my day 1 of shoveling to start to get it off the deck. In a bout three days I should have it all shoveled and thrown off the deck. I may do some more this afternoon but it is still frozen and iced pack  right now. 

It took so long for me to attract this guy to the suet feeder. Now that he has found it, I can look out and see him there digging away with his beak.  I had to take this shot because he is in direct sunlight. His red top markings are so bright in the sun. 

It is Monday and things seem to be going better with the covid shot side effects. I had back pain for two days and now that seems so much better. I appreciate your stopping by today.

Snow's a Falling.....

 A snow day made the birds flock to the feeders. Junco birds seem to like the snow and are the only ones feeding during a heavy snow. 

The house finch pair eat together at the feeder while sparrows eat at the newly filled feeder. It is fun to see them all day coming to feed.

The falling snow messes with the automatic focus of the camera.  I rarely see her at the feeders but today she keep going to the new tray feeder.  As you can see she has to dig through the snow. 

Thanks for stopping by today.

Saturday Stuff.....

 My buck deer stands gaurd ovrer the place. He has lost his lights connetion as the people who clear the walks have buried him and his electric connection. We will get up to 31 degrees F. today so the snow will be melting a little. 

When I see the sparrow like this fly in I get excited because I think it might be a chickadee. No such luck as the mask is the same but is brown.  The size of the bird is larger and its shape really isn't the same.

It is one of the pretty sparrows with the chest feathers and the contrasting white and brown mask. The brown is a great color too with the red brwon tones on its head feathers. 

The tray is a hit for the birds. I will have to fill it each day.  I notice that some of the seed is being shuffled to the deck and ground but the birds will clean that up. It took a few days for the birds to eat there but then all of a sudden that I had an empty tray and I didn't see it being devoured. 

The last shelf has found a home on the stairway wall. It needs things to be place on it but for now I got the hardest part done, finding where to put it.  My wife did a lot of trial and error to see what looked best. 

Warmer weather on Sunday means also we will have some more snow. It will be interesting to see if the couple of inches will actually accumilate or will melt as it comes down.

Birds and Pots.....

 The view out my front step with the sun shining through. It isn't as cold today but it stil is cold. We may hit 21 degrees F. today.

As this photos shows we have plenty of snow left. The sun takes off a little of it each day but it isn't noticeable other than there is moisture seeping away from the edges of it. 

The birds have eaten down to the last to port holes of the feeder.  It went fast and I may fill it again this afternoon. I still have to wade through snow to get to it on the deck.  I guess I should shovel a path again. My wife doesn't want me to do that kind of exercise right now as we both are still feeling effects from the covid shot.  

I took this shot of my tray feeder yesterday and I was surprised to see that it was pretty much cleared of seed.  I added more and I am getting larger groups of birds at the tray now. 

I took a shot of my new display in the downstairs room.  I haven't done pottery for quite a while now but would sure like to start up again. I made a lot of these as examples for my students to see to inspire them in their pottery work. 

I have to venture out again today to get some meds. It will be a quick trip as I only need two things and my wife two needs two things.  I hope we hit the grocery store when it isn't too busy.  Thanks for checking in today.