More Snow than We've Seen for Awhile

This year we've had more snow in the yard than we've seen for many years. It comes in 2 to 4 inch bursts every day or so, and has covered the ground since Thanksgiving. This picture was taken the afternoon of New Year's Eve day. We had a lovely overnight dusting of 2 inches of fluffy light stuff that just cleaned everything up and left the hoarfrost on all of the trees.

All Mugo Pines are not Equal

About three years ago I decided that I didn't want to have anything on the south side of the bedroom that I couldn't part with, just in case I could persuade Bill to do the bedroom addition that I dream about. So I transplanted pretty much all of the perennials and planted a couple of Mugo pines that I hoped would fill up all of the space but not become too much a part of my attachment to the plantings here.

The pictures here were taken through a briefly opened window on a on a cold late December morning. It is the view I have of these two bushes every morning when I open the shades in our bedroom. Much of what I see of the yard during the late fall through early spring is what I can see from the windows in the early morning or the late afternoon. I look forward to being able to see things for a longer part of the day.


What I find most interesting is that one of them has thrived, and one has basically stayed even. I don't completely understand why. Microclimates / micro environments are still a puzzle to me. Are the roots cramped for one? Insects nesting there? An air space? I wish I knew.

Side Note: I was not successful in removing all of the perenninals in this area. Two Oriental Lilies still insist in coming up every year better than ever. An alium that I have dug up three times still comes up strong every year. And of course,you can't completely remove a Columbine that is happy in a place. Also, the Pagoda Dogwood puts out new seedlings each year, and the New England Aster is invincible. I do suppose that if I ever convice Bill to build the bedroom addition the concrete slab will finally defeat these hangers on. But until then I will appreciate them.

Lights at Christmas

This year we didn't think we could get lights up on Charlie Brown, so we chose to do the bushes at the corner of the deck instead. They are nice -- we can see them better from the living room windows.

But I feel that we have let Charlie down. He has been the Christmas tree since we bought him five or six years ago. That year my sisters and I and our husbands had Christmas together without Mom and Dad.
We didn't name the tree Charlie Brown. In fact it was several years later, after we had planted it out in the yard in a place visible to the neighbors, that we heard them refer to it that way. I think they called it that because this is not a standard blue spruce, and it grows a bit asymetrically and is smaller and less full - you could probably call it awkward.
But those qualities are exactly why I love it - I would never plant a blue spruce 30 feet away from the house on the south side unless is was a type that would never get to be huge and full. In our climate spruce is a great tree for the northwest side of the house, to block the winter winds.

Leftover Stones

Bill built his wall last summer. It is really quite nice, and adds a touch of formallity and structure to the front yard. We bought stones from a local quary that we thought would match the ones that are on the front of the house. They are a pretty good match, a little brighter, but since they are so much newer I guess that is to be expected.

This photo is of the remaining stones (the wall is buried in snow right now.) I took it last fall so I would be able to know how many stones we had left in order to plan another project for next spring.

Birds are not Careful

This is how the ground looked under the seed feeders last week. I've got to hope that the empty seed hulls are good fertilizer for the lawn, or else that there will be some way to remove the piles. Last summer the pile got pretty large under the main thistle feeder, and I don't know how the grass can manage to hold out.

Beautiful new snow for Christmas

Last night at this time it was 44 degrees, foggy and raining. Tonight there are 5 or 6 inches of new snow and it's 19 degrees. The winds have been whipping everything up all day, so there are 2 foot drifts and bare spots. I got up at 5 AM this morning and it was still warm and raining. At 7 it was cold and snowing. Didn't see it happen, but it must have been dramatic.

At least we have new snow for Christmas.

It's been hard to find new things to comment on in the yard. The birds devour the seed bags regularly, and the number of rabbit tracks increases daily. I didn't really get a chance to try to walk around much in the melted snow yesterday, but its too late for that now. We will have to break a new trail out to the compost pile tomorrow.

Of Persistant Leaves and Seeds

I like to leave some of the summer perennials standing for the winter. The birds continue eating the seeds, of course, but beyond that I think they add interest to the yard when the snow covers everything and could make for a plain white tableau were it not for the standing structures. Some things don't hold up, but the cone flowers and most of the grasses retain their beauty until spring. And for some reason it seems to be much less work to cut it all down in the spring than it would be in the fall. Perhaps just because there is no fear of loss.

When Mom died a year and a half ago, each of her daughters and her nephew planted a tree in our yards as a remembrance. Tom actually planted two, one for his Mom Jean, Dottie's sister. We chose different types of trees. Mine is a Japanese Maple. I made sure to choose a type that was hardy to at least zone 4, not wanting the tree to be taken by our cold winters here.


Mom's tree retains its leaves well into the winter - they haven't fallen yet. I don't remember it hanging on like this last winter, and maybe it is just part of the same phenomenon that kept the leaves on all of the local trees much longer this year than usual. (My friend in the City's public works department says that they didn't even get close to cleaning up all of the leaves in the gutters before the snow fell this year, and now they will stay until spring.) It reminds me of Mom herself - not wanting to part with her favorite embellishments - clinging to the knitted lap robe her friend Marian made for her wherever she went.

A Day at Home in Winter

We were home today to let in the plumbers and the stone guys who were replacing the countertop, sink, fixtures and toilet in our master bathroom and another toilet for the guest bath upstairs.

It was a beautiful, if cold, beginning. Sunshine and -11 when we woke up, with temps rising slowly til mid-afternoon. The remodeling work progessed as we watched the beautiful day outside.

We were watching the usual goldfinches, housefinches, sparrows and juncos when a new visitor caught my eye. Blue on top, a rosy breast, and white under. Robin sized. It landed on the arch right outside of our atrium window, then dipped down to quench thirst at the heated water dish. Another followed. As we snuck up to the window to see more, hoping not to scare them away, they flew up to the library honeylocust, then away to the southwest. Looking for photo ID, I swear they were Eastern Bluebirds - though they are not generally found here in winter. Nothing else matches what we saw.

Bill went out and refilled the feeders, and all day the regulars fed at the thistle feeders. Once I spied a red squirrel making an attack on the sunflower feeder, but a quick open of the door and "shoo" scared him back to the willow.

The mourning doves roost in the late afternoon in the honeylocust tree. Sometimes in the neighbors tree, sometimes in ours. Today in ours.

Snowstorm Ava

The first real snowstorm of the year is supposed to arrive today and tomorrow. Snow has started, and wind is picking up. The birds gather around the feeders, stocking up for a long night.



Around 3 in the afternoon the cats are starting to decline the option of going outside one more time. The snow is a couple of inches deep and this may be the last time we see the lawn until spring.



I feel so disconnected from the yard at this time of the year. Most weekdays, I get up and leave for work before the sun is up, and arrive back home after sunset. An entire week can go by without my seeing much in full light.

Sighting of a New Bird

This morning, not very early because I didn't have to go into work, Bill woke me up saying "there's a red headed woodpecker in the yard!" We've never seen one in our yard before, so it was worth getting up for.

He was moving back and forth between the Library Honey Locust tree and the black oil sunflower seed feeder, spending a minute or two in each location, before moving over to the other. Back and forth many times before flying away in little lurches, sort of like a very large goldfinch.

Once he was gone, I realized I hadn't even tried to photograph him. And then had time to verify the sighting. Turns out he was probably not a red-headed, but rather a red-bellied woodpecker. Still a new bird for the sunnyview yard either way. And a lovely way to wake up in the morning.

Getting Ready for the Holidays

Some time on the weekend after Thanksgiving, I suspect most of us start thinking about decorating and changing over the house for the winter holidays. We're not big here on decoration, but we do find ourselves sprucing up for the darker days to come.


Out in the yard, along the creek, our winter tree has been sitting all summer, covered at one point with vines and tall weeds. But now it is visible again, and its time to take it out and make it pretty.

We haul it to the front porch and adorn it with lights and cuttings from the persistent fall blooming plants. Over the season, it will pick up additional decorations most likely.


This year we are lucky. Although its windy today it is warm for November. High of 37 degrees, sunny and lovely outside. We did lights on the two shrubs along side of the deck instead of on "Charlie Brown" - the small scraggly but healthy blue spruce (Picea pungens 'Iseli Foxtail') that we bought in a pot 6 or 7 years ago at this time and used for a Christmas tree. We had to heel it in for the rest of that winter, and hoped that it would survive to be planted. Well, survive it did, and now I wonder if we will really want a large spruce just south of the house in another 10 years. Would be very hard to cut it down... More on Charlie Brown later.

Thanskgiving Weekend Grey

It was, typically, grey today. Windy and cold, with just a tiny bit of sunshine peeking through now and then. High temp about 35, low overnight about 30. Last night a beautiful ring around the moon. The pond is pretty much frozen over now, and the few fish left behind (because they were so skilled at escaping the net two weeks ago) are under the ice. They will probably not make it through the winter - not much air down there, and plenty of dying vegetation. But the water lily should survive once again, I hope.

Today's photo is of the east side of the house. We tore out a bunch of stuff last summer, and put up the two trellises. Next spring will bring the challenge of planting anew in this area, and I have to think about it. Should there be purple Clematis on both trellises? Or different color on each? There are hardy hybiscus on either side. Never tried those before and hope they do well. Then some Hydrangeas, which I've never had bloom, but which were beautiful in other people's yards last summer after the long drought. Would be so nice not to have a drought next summer...

A beautiful late fall day

Sunny and relatively mild. High temps in the 40's and dry. We went for a long bike ride this morning and found the wind to be more of an obstacle than we thought it would be. Luckily, it was worst going out - south and east. So we quit after half an hour, and coming back took only about 20 minutes. Certainly brisk, but nice to be out in the sunlight. Saw some sort of small hawk, guarding its territory. Not sure what kind, maybe a marsh hawk?

Then it was time to do one more lawn cut and leaf cleanup to keep things from matting down the lawn. The big old willow still hasn't completely let its leaves go, so we will probably have to rake that area before the snow buries everything. And today we finally got everything off of the deck for the winter - planters stowed where the snow will cover them, trough moved to the side so we can shovel around it.

I cut the straight shoots out of the center of the Harry Lauters Walking Stick plant, and took off the supports that had been holding the recumbant stems up all summer. There is one nice new vertical branch that might become the basis of the plant I really want at that corner - we'll see.

Zebra Grass and Juncos

This year we had a long enough growing season for the zebra grass to establish nice flower heads. We had a frost very early, but the blooms were still protected and didn't get damaged. Then we went a long time without another frost, and actually saw temps rise into the low 80's for several days, along with enough rain to keep things growing. The seed heads look so nice over the winter - I'm glad they are there.

I leave many of the summer flowers standing for the winter. The juncos are already here, scouring the ground for seeds. The finches work the seeds out of the coneflower heads until they are completely consumed. (Though they certainly drop enough of the seeds to create new coneflower plants in unexpected places.) And it seems to be alot more work to cut them all down in the fall than it is the next spring. The snow is pretty as it highlights the structures too.

Winter seems to be coming soon

It snowed this morning. Not the first snow this year, but the first that I was home to see. The cats went out anyway, Kate reveling in her freedom. Leaves aren't completely down from the trees yet, and we'll probably have to cut the grass one more time to mulch things a little more. But not today.

Today I cut some shoots from the Rosemary and Sage plants in the herb garden outside the kitchen window. I wish I could just let them be, and continue to harvest as needed - they both grow so well. But I know that when the really cold weather sets in they will go, so now is the time to make sure there is some for the winter.