Come, Sit....Maybe Later

It is getting to be time to think about spring.  I know it is a few months away but sitting out on the bench again would be a welcomed idea.  Today we start to melt some of this snow off of things. The burning bush next to the bench doesn't look so hot right now. 

Outside..........

The snow is staying for a few more days.  We have a slight warm up today that may start to work on its melting but I doubt that it will be very much.  The ornaments on the tree paid off in decoration once the tree received some snow.  I have not had a single ball fall from the tree even in strong winds. Our house has a lot of ice cycles this year.

Looking Out.......

Looking out the living room side window I see very little change in our snow.  Some of it has fallen off the branches but there is still a lot on them.  The new thing is that my neighbor guy snowblowed out my sidewalks.  I can see that I need to clear the snow that covers the connection of the sidewalk to the street.  The city is good about keeping the streets cleared but they are also good at piling the corner snow right on top of the pathway to the street form the sidewalk.  We are required to have our sidewalks cleared but they do make it seem silly when they pile excess onto it. I will have to go out this morning some time when it is at least above zero. In the night we had -19 degrees F.  It is up to -9 right now.

Plastered......

The snow we received over the weekend was spread around with strong winds.  Most everything did get covered with snow and it is still there today.  Tomorrow we will see melting and that will start to fall off.

The height of the drifts on the fence shows how deep the snow was once it stopped.  Today we are receiving a fresh coat to clean up anything that might need to be topped off.

Tuesday's Shots.....

This is our view just outside the kitchen door.  My weather rock is covered and so is the bird feeder.  I will have to excavate snow to get the lid off for filling it with seed.  The sparrows are still reaching way back into the holes to get what they can from it. They won't starve as I just filled the triple tray feeder and also a ceramic platter with seed.

The birds have trampled down the snow while eating at the cafeware plate.  I tried to remove it this morning and it is frozen down right now.  I need to go ahead and put seed in the rundown one on the table. It has to warm up before I will deal with that.

Our little button dog is old.  He is 16 years old now and he has decided he needs help up that first step.  I nailed an extra board to widen the bottom step but he insists that we need to help him.  Once he is lifted up to the first step he quickly trots right up the next two levels.  This means in the middle of the night we still have to go out in a snow storm with strong blowing winds and lift his hind end up that five inches.  We love him and would do it all day if we had to. He actually can jump from the floor onto a couch but I think at one time he must have hit his nose on step number two and he isn't going to do that again.

Many Photos Today.....

I have too many photos taken to only show just one.  A blizzard provides a lot of things in which to snap photos. Picasa must have liked this one as they turned it into this special look with the frame and all. I thought maybe they would put the fake snow effect on it like they did  last year.

Sometimes in the summer I shoot this scene showing the deep green of all the plants and trees.  You can see we received a foot of snow or more.  The yew shrub in front and the burning bush are weighted down to the ground.  There is the ornamental wind mill in the background if you look closely. The snow at first was a very wet snow which helped to weigh every thing down and then it just didn't stop snowing of a whole day.  The eastern states are getting this storm now and they share the effects of it from out there.

The female cardinal and the sparrow are glad to get food.  The wind is blowing them into their faces as they hold on to the top of the feeder.

As the wind keeps blowing snow the birds do have to hold their own while standing in the snow.  The cardinal's topnotch made some interesting shapes as the wind blew it around. At one time the top feathers were blowing scattered like an Indian headdress. The camera person didn't catch that as he was not clicking the camera fast enough.

The record number of bluejays at the feeders is now at 6 at one time.  I took a bunch of photos of it with four at one time on the table while two were in the standing feeder.  I have never seen them come in to eat in groups before now. I guess things are so coverend with snow that they really do have only a chance to eat at free feeding sites. I have pictures of more at one time at the feeder but they are on the other camera. As I said before I have so many photos that I will be sharing large numbers of them each day until I have to go back to one photo a day.

Looking Out Today........

Our snow storm that was predicted did happen.  It is still happening as this wet heavy snow is be added to as I blog.  The winds are going to start and then this all gets to be rearranged. This is my first view as I look out a window in the upstairs hallway.

If I were to only pick one photo for today, which is normal for me, I would have picked this one.  The birds were greeted with too much snow this morning and they were trying hard to find seed in my feeders.  I did a rescue and took out new trays of food to place on top of the snow.  These two birds are underneath the thistle seed feeder and are scampering around in the snow to get the best seeds that have fallen from above them.