Tuesday’s Things....

It is cold this morning.  We dropped to -6 degrees F. in the night and it won’t warm up very much today. Our next snow session starts at 11:00 tonight.  We will have snow onto of snow when it happens.  That isn’t an unusual thing but we haven’t experienced for quite a while.

This is the second time that I have had to shovel to get to the feeders. My measure of 17 inches still stands.  The drift from the roof snow will probably get deeper after Wednesday.  The birds were glad that I could get out her and fill up the feeders.

My big bird was happy too for my filling up of this feeder.  Since I only have one squirrel I found it is easier to just tolerate him.  I still don’t have the activity at my feeders this year compared to last year. I am thinking that there might be a feeder two backyards over as it seems birds do fly that direction when they leave my place.  My hunter neighbor keeps things thinned out of both rabbits and squirrels. He seems to be very secretive about it but I know he is shooting them.

The back yard is getting to be boring. I am going to start to imagine the plants to come up in the flower garden. We are going to venture out today to get groceries.  Early morning is a better time to shop as the people are at work and the stocking of the shelves took place very early morning.

I wish everyone to have a good day.  Thanks for checking in today.

Monday Moments.......

He landed on the feeder for about 8 seconds and then flew to the nearby tree.  I zoomed in and got four shots from his being in the tree.

The winds cause the snow to fall from or roof and it landed on the deck.  I found this old yardstick that shows it got up to 17 inches.  I need to shovel a path to get to the feeders this afternoon.

We have never seen this drift here on the deck like this before now. I guess it was why I wanted to measure it. When I shovel the path to get to the feeders this won’t look so nice. We did get 9 inches of snow in total and it really was too tall for my little snow blower.  I guess I should have gotten out earlier and blew it off before it got to hight.  Then I could go back again.  There was a layer of ice underneath it.  As long as I had a hold of the snowblower, I didn’t fall down.  When I went out with salt for the sidewalks, I did fall down. I actually just lay down in the snow in slow nothing which was a better way to fall.

As we drove to my dentist office this morning we saw many trees that looked like this. The roads were good but some areas were slick. I had my teeth cleaned and then they suggested that I have a vertical filling put in along a tooth that was with a cavity.  I am trying right now to drink coffee with my top lip still frozen and the bottom lip mostly thawed out.  I could see how someone like me who could burn out my mouth with very hot coffee.  I think that within another hour I will be back to normal.

As I searched through archives for photos of Barney I noticed that I had taken photos of my wife’s wonderful pies.  She made a cherry pie yesterday while I was out snow blowing. My wife makes the best pie with the greatest pie crust.  There are two pieces out of it and I bet today two more will be removed and eaten.

It is a sunny day today but it is still cold.  I am going to stock up the feed again as the birds are really hungry today.  We are told that another snow will start late Tuesday night lasting through Wednesday.  I don’t really know where we are going to put this snow but we seem to always adapt. I am looking so forward to spring these days.  Thank you for checking in today.

Snow and More Snow.......

It has snowed all night and you can see how tall the snow is on the roof of the feeder. The camera actually picked up the larger flakes. The birds are trying to eat during the heavy snow.

The drift on the deck is twenty inches or more as the wind has place more snow there than a normal measured area would be. I will try to put a measuring stick in it later today when it stops snowing.  We really are told that it isn’t going to stop snoring for most of the night.

My one way to measure the amount of snow is to see when the raised garden has been completely covered and also comparing the amounts on the blue spruce.  This was taken earlier in the morning.

This shows the build up on the tree.  The birds are still landing inside the tree and scatter snow when the fly out of it. I have yet to hear an official total from the officials.  We stayed home today as the Sunday school was canceled today.  We can watch our church service on tv as it is live streamed. It was cozy to watch the service while seeing the snow accumulating and the woodpecker feeding.

We did get the framing done of our new photo.  It took awhile to figure out where and how to hang it but we did get it accomplished. We ended up moving the past mantel picture to another location. We haven’t hung pictures quickly as we still would like to live in the house for a while to know where to put things.

I was down stairs to take a photo out the windows and when I turned I saw this sight.  The room had earlier been full standing fake Christmas trees. They were wrapped in old sheets waiting for me to move them on to the store room.  I should of taken a photo as it was a bedroom full of trees.  Anyway, I see I still have some nutcrackers to get put away sitting among my wife’s dolls.

Hey, thanks for stopping by today.  I hope all are safe and warm.

Cold Glow.....

The sun may be hot but our air is at 3 degrees F.  Fortunately there is now wind and by late evening we will warm up enough for it to snow.

I bought some more suet for this guy but he still had plenty.  Maybe next week he will be ready for the new peanut butter one that I bought for him.

I didn’t take a lot of photos as Barney didn’t approve. I think he had fears cause by his running the streets in a Missouri town before he was captured.  I did find some fun shotss that showed him excited about being out in the snow.  He was younger in this photo and you can tell by his tail that he really was having a good time.  This is a fun photo as he couldn’t see me taking the shot.

He was always alert to be sure he didn’t miss a thing that was going on outside.

I always like the fullness of his tail and that thick fur.  He has been gone a week now and we still are adjusting to his loss.  The guy lived a full life and really did get to live a great life.  I keep being amazed as to how God places time limits on the lives of animals.  I know that different dog breeds have different lengths in life and Barney did live longer than some border collies.

We are off today running some errands that relate to a grandson's 6th birthday.  It is unbelievable that he is going to be six and yet he has a little brother that will turn three.  As the boys grow up the gifts for birthdays change. We have fun picking out toys for them. In April we will have a new grandchild to be celebrating.


Thanks for stopping by today.

Friday’s Here......

It was a struggle to get a good sunrise.  All the clouds seem to be hovering over the area. It is a zero degrees and warmed up to 3 degrees F. by noon.

There were some pretty colors at the edge of all that was going on on the horizon. It just did not get very dramatic.

One of the frame jobs that was on the list is now completed. The photograph is of a very large painting in the Kansas City art museum.  Our friend knew that it was one of my wife’s favorite paintings and so he photographed it and gave here a print of the photo. We have to decide where we can hang this.  The opening of the frame is 18” by 24” in size.

The painting was done by Frederic Church.  It is a huge painting, seven feet wide,  that takes up the whole wall of one of the rooms in the Nelson-Adkins Art Museum. The view is of Jerusalem showing great detail of the city. It was painted in 1870. It is said that the artist and his wife camped there at the Mount of Olives and he sketched and photographed to give him reference s to create the artwork.

This snow all melted away yesterday off of the tree. It dropped to extreme cold late afternoon but we did get rid of some of this.

We are staying inside today as it is very cold and will maybe warm up a little tomorrow.  We have a coat of ice on the streets now as the melting in the morning yesterday was refrozen into large patches of ice and rough surfaces.

It is Friday and the weekend is coming.  I wish you all to have a good day.

Red Day.......

                                                                                                                                           We stopped at a Culver’s yesterday to pick up sandwiches.  We ended up sitting by a group of older men who looked like a coffee clutch group but they too had eaten sandwiches.  This photo reminded me of them as the ate and talked the weather and such. The one cardinal showed up here but didn’t stay very long.  He was gone by the time that I turned on the camera.

I do have evidence that he was there as I got the shot of him hanging out in the tree way beyond the blue spruce. I have not seen a female with this guy so he must be a loner. That pussy willow tree almost looks like it is budding even though it is February.

I recall last summer that the house finches had three batches of birds and they were all at my feeders.  This one kept walking the railing looking for something better as he surveyed the area. The sun is shining today and the temps are forecasted to be up in the lower 40’s. It has started melting this morning and that temp is higher than what they were expecting yesterday. I will be glad to see some of the snow go away.  I do know we are to drop into the deep freeze then again soon.

Across the street we can see the suburbs of children’s play houses.  The newer one in front is there for two cute little boys.  Since they have moved here the littlest one learned to walk and I can see him running around behind the car to get to the back car door in the morning. The other small play house, gray, is in the opposite back yard and I think those kids are too old now to play in it.

Barney and I use to greet two other boys in early morning as they walked to school.  The older guy really grew in height in the summer and he was so pleased that I had noticed.  They both have such great smiles and both waved at me earlier this week while I was snow blowing.  The younger guy always stopped to pet Barney on his way to meet the school bus. I am not certain but I am thinking that their parents are the ones who walk by in the summer with two bulldogs.

I bought this shot a few weeks ago out on the deck.  The Canada geese keep moving around to find food.  With the lakes frozen over now completely they have to find farm fields to find grain.  We have the constant moving of them because of the big lake four miles away and the Des Moines River Valley not three miles away.  They also like the community college lakes and the others that have been built next to businesses.

I found this shot from my archive, a year ago in February.  We are going out to eat at a Chinese restaurant this evening because everywhere else will be crowded. It is a good place to eat and we like the excellent service.  Living so close to the place makes it easier to eat there once a month or so.  Thanks for stopping by today.

Middle of the Week....

The sparrow is perched firmly in the lip of the feeder. The snow covering and cold air is making the birds feed readily.  This guy stayed in the one  corner of the feeder for a very long time.

This is not a scientific measuring tool but it does seem that last few days of snow has built up quite a few inches of snow. We had the warm up last week and the table was completely free of snow.  The number of days of snow on here are t least three and some wind may have helped to build this up from off of the roof of the house.

I am seeing a few more house finches at the feeders now.  The one at the bottom of this feeder posed for me a lot for many different photos.

The sun is shinning in its face helping the red colors to show up better.

I succeeded to get my sidewalk and drive cleared yesterday.  The strong winds did blow a lot of snow but my area really wasn’t bothered enough to cause me to work on it again today.  We are suppose to warm up to 30 degrees today.  We have a shopping trip to take about four miles away and we will pick up a sandwich on the way home.  Also we have to drive an distance to get our taxes done late this afternoon.  I just happen to catch the date yesterday which reminded us that it was today and not Friday.  It will be nice to have that done.

Life is slow for us right now as we continue to heal up from our last six day’s with Barney.  We have had a one then two dogs in our house the past twenty years. It is lonely and empty around here and yet we know we can not have changed a thing. We will redefine ourselves and things will be better.  It does seem like we are starting over in some ways and the future looks good.  I appreciate you all who hang around and check in each day. Thanks for stopping by.......