Sunday.......Late Today.

I seem to be feeding the squirrels here, three at a time.  Can you spot them all?  My wife says she has seen 4 in the yard at a time so the front yard squirrel must have come to the backyard for a visit.

The starlings have a purple gleam and also a green gleam from off its feathers.  This one really showed as green reflects from its surface. 

Working on some treats from the suet, the squirrel almost did not want to yield the feeder to me as I walked his way.

It seems to be slow for the cardinals as they haven't been that busy at the feeder.  We are having a very cold day today with an easterly wind.  It has warmed up some since early morning but it stilll is not pleasant to be outdoors.  I hope all are well and thanks for checing in on this posting today.

Saturday's Spot.......

An 80 year old Valentine that belonged to my mother.  She had a stach of 30 or more of them and each one different.  Some had the honeycomb decorations on them that could be spread open but 80 year old tissue paper doesn't work anymore.  You can check many more Valentines that I share on my Sepia Saturday site by clicking HERE.

Sharing on this day is nice.  The little sparrow must have just shaken his head as he looks blurry and ruffled at the same time. We have very cold Arctic air moving in this morning so the birds are sensing a change in the weather.  The starlings, juncos and sparrows are hitting the feeder hard.  The cardinals are somewhat bashful so they seem to be yielding most of the time to all the other birds.

We still have a lot of snow on the ground as  you can see. This is a photo from yesterday as we are having bright sunshine right now.

The chickadee is doing different antics for me today.  Normally they grab a seed and fly away into a tree to open it.  Today she is staying and breaking her seed on the side of the feeder.  I guess when the feeder isn't busy the bird feels safe enough to stay on site.

Here you can see the bird banging on the side of feeder its choice of seed.  I really like these birds and the fly like dive bombers as the zoom through the back yard.  The swoop and twist in air as they fly like a porpoise does in the water.

My last shot for the day is this squirrel who is actually standing on his hind legs eating a peanut.  Since he is on the other side of the feeder it looked like he was bobbing up and down.  Our three guys certainly challenge my seed supply.  Two squirrels can clean an ear of corn in less than three hours, I suppose taking the corn back to their nest for storage.

I trust everyone will have a good day today.  Some of my blog friends in the South are going to be cold today.  Not very cold compared to us but it will be very cold for them. Cold is painful so I hope everyone stays inside.  I will venture up to get the mail and I have to go feed the neighbors dog as she is with a very ill son at a hospital.  It makes it less of a happy day for us knowing what she is going through today. Everyone do take care now and thank you for you loyal readership of this blog.

Final Day of the Week.......

It was late morning before the birds started to come to the feeders.  The juncos were the first and their friends the sparrows showed up once the feeders became busy.  We keep having changing temperatures at both extremes.  I think the melting that we did have  helped the snow to come off of the trees and bushes letting the birds to naturally feed again.

Late afternoon birds were final feeding for the day.  This junco seemed to be right at home and ignored all the different birds that were flying in and out. On bluejay kept dive bombing in and grabbing a seed, then taking off immediately. 

The birds didn't seem so anxious to eat so I think they have been feeding naturally and were also at other feeders in town.

Late afternoon when the light was getting to be too low for taking pictures the cardinals came it for their last of the day snack.  Low light really makes it difficult for the camera to operate well and I took just as many blurry shots and I did clear shots.  My clear shots at the time of the day are borderline clear but good enough to share.

I scanned some antique valentines of my mom's to share today.  I can't really date them closely as I think some of them are from her early high school years.  A few were from students that she taught in country school. The dates could vary from the late 1920's to the early 1930's.  The one above looks like one that would have been given to a teacher.

Most of them look like they were made by two differnt companies but there isn't a company name printed on them.  I liked this airplane flying over the countryside below with clouds in the sky.

This other brand of cards that are in the pile were all cut into heart shapes like this one.  The boy is in his traditional sailor suit and the girl has her gathered collar. Most of the valentines came from students or girl friends. I don't think the boys would dare to give out a card without giving out the wrong signals. I remember we were still giving out valentines though as a tradition for a class party in elementary grades.  I think fifth grade was the stopping point though.  Everybody got a card from each student if they could afford it. 

It is a sunny day today and a little warmer.  We are going out for a meal today late afternoon as Saturday is predicted to not to be a good day to get out.  Strong winds with very cold windchills are suppose to be all day Saturday. 

I wish you all well today regardless of where you live.  The are different weather patterns everywhere and some are cold and some are hot.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday......

For as warm as we were for a couple of days, we still have a lot of snow.  Now that it is severely cold again with strong wind chills, the snow is very hard frozen on the surface. I don't like walking on it as it is very slick and icy.   Barney is enjoying being outside more as the days are longer but the cold does eventually bring him back inside again.

The sun shines in to warm the dining room a little. I can sit at the laptop and see this as I blog and also look outside.  The birds are scarce this morning.  I didn't feed them for a couple of days and they have vanished.  I expect they found all the other feeders in town and won't come back for a while. 

I put out some really good stuff this morning for them to eat and I haven't even had a sparrow come in to eat.  Maybe it is too early in the morning and the cold is too much for them.  It was 0.8 this morning when I got up.  We are to warm up to 15 degrees F.  today and cool down to 13 F. tonight.  It gets colder tomorrow.

One member of my family, distant cousin, set up a family facebook page that has me now involved with more photo searching.  I did get my mom's photo album scanned but I really have not had time to edit anything. The sheet of pictures here shows the first born child, my oldest brother, being photographed so many times. The house in the background on the right is a part of a story as to why my parents met and married.

The family facebook page has been great as I am being able to see and take old photos of the family that I had not ever seen. Some photos were taken way before I was born.  Seeing a photo of my grandparents on my dad's side standing on the beach at the Pacific ocean is one I never expected to see.  I will share later and tell the story.

I am also getting to see pictures of my brothers and parents before I was born that I too didn't know existed.  My brothers took big piles of photos from my mom while I was in college. I have a first cousin 20 years older than me that is letting the rest of us see what she has in her boxes.  We were strung out in ages so much that the first cousin always seemed to be more like an aunt to me than a cousin. I like seeing her shared images of the 30' and 40's.

I am home today and hope to be for the rest of the week.  Things do get piled up that need to be done when I go to school.  I like to catch up all in one day so the next day won't require so much pressure. Work will be done.  We will see what happens today.  With it being so cold I don't think we will venture out today except to go get the mail.

I know everyone is being effected by this cold in most of my friends' blogland.  I hope all can stay safe and warm.  Thanks for checking in today.

Middle of the Week.......

It hasn't toppled over yet but it probably will soon.  It is a homemade item from barn boards.  I wanted it to look like a form of a water pump and some years I pump water into it to have the water flow through the square spout into the tank. I may take time to rebuild it and make it better.

Another item that leans is the concrete swan.  Apparently the ground underneath it was vegetable in nature and it has disintegrated under it making it lean.  It isn't an outstanding shot of anything but it is an impromptu one for the sake of sharing.

Another valentine from another of my nieces that was given to my parents.  I am sure she picked it out not knowing that it said teacher.  I am certain that she cold read at the time that she gave it.  If you knew Kristi the giver and watched her grow up you would know that the pink card would be one of her favorites.  As a young person she had a canopy bed with cloth of pink and white stripes. Again this card is probably 40 years old or more.

I will finish off today with some sad looking snow.  The snow is melting but we will be cold enough for a while to keep this stuff.  The wind started to blow during the night to remind us that the Arctic circle still exists.  The wind makes it feel so cold that one hates to get out into it.

Yes, I am back in the classroom today for the other Middle School science teacher.  It is an early out so that is great.   Thank you for stopping by today.

Tuesday's Things......

There sort of has a beauty to it of the failing greens of the zinnia patch.  I just didn't get things cleared away this year and I am sure that bothers someone in my neighborhood.  It would be nice to have it all cleared and maybe later in the season I will clean it up while walking around in the snow.  

I shared two other photos of my river birch on my Photo a Day blog.  I never imagined that this  tree would have such great character with its shedding bark.  The branches don't hit me in the face so much as the leaves are gone but in spring I will have to prune back things so I can walk around it.  It acts a lot like a weeping willow as the bottom branches seem to always droop to the ground.

Ace is the place to buy your green wheel barrow.  I warn you though the directions are flawed.  They have you use all the same size of screws to attach the green bin to the wood.  That is wrong as they are three different sizes.

I had a eight year old boy, a friend's son, help me put this together.  He was a big help except when Isaiah would put a bolt or nut in his pocket forgetting that he had done so.  He is a cute guy who wants to say things that his dad would say.  As we tightened the nut to the bolt, he had the wrench and was doing so, he would say that we didn't want to strip the threads on the bolt.  He did make me smile.

I have been looking through old valentines to get ready to post on my Sepia Saturday blog.  I ran into this one in the pile that actually isn't so old but yet it is.  My mom received this one when her granddaughter was 4 or 5 years old.  That girl now is in her late 40's and has four children of her own now.  The oldest is in her second year of college. So old Pinocchio is about is about 44 years old.  The others that I am scanning are over 80 years old.

A final photo for today is a snap of my hardy geranium plant.  It has a bloom sticking through the blinds and I can't photograph it.  The camera either focuses on the background and or the blinds themselves.  It won't pick up in the shot just the flowers. 

I am back in the science room again today.  It will be my last job for the science guy this week as he is coming back for Wednesday.  His wife had to have a plate put into her ankle to fix the one break.  She will being taken home today.

We are having another warm day before we drop down into the deep freeze again. It is winter and we are seeing a lot of changes going on in a regular cycle.  Storm storm is coming by  Sunday or Monday.  Thanks for stopping in today. 

Monday's Mustering Up........

It has been warm enough for the branches to be cleared of snow.  The larger trees still have some snow banks inside the crotch of the trees.

The burning bushes are clear of snow but this yew tree collected a large amount of snow making them have their own snowdrifts.

When the weather gets to be warmer the neighbor's let out some of their house cats to roam.  We name them ourselves when then hang around and I am sure they aren't too confused with two names. 

"Mow Mow" is his name.  You pronounce as if you are saying a hay mow.  He has a very deep unusual voice.  It is a different sound than any cat I have ever heard make a sound.

I found in the store room a wooden church that I bought years ago.  It fits in with the wooded shore birds.

I am short on photos again so I will go out this afternoon and see what is going on outside.  The snow is receding and the mud is everywhere.  So far the dogs haven't brought in too much mud but I am sure it will be happening.

I wasn't going to tell you what I am doing today but a teacher had a family emergency when a wife who fell and broke her leg in two places.  I can't say no to those kind of situations.  I am watching octupus that live around volcanoes on a Youtube with biology students.

Thank you for stopping by today.