March 8th 2014, 2013 and 2012

2014  (after 2 or 3 days of melting...)

2013

2012

A Very Different Kind of Winter From Last Year

 Note the photos below from last March 8th.  Now here are a few from yesterday in Sunnyview Gardens, and there is more snow falling right now.  I'm ready for winter to leave, but it appears it will be here for awhile.

Clean New Snow

A light snow overnight has made everything pretty and white again.  Still not really much on the ground, but at least it looks like winter.  The birds are everywhere lately.  Lin next door gave me her peanut butter suet recipe, and we made a couple of birch log suet holders.  Many different birds seem to like them a lot, including the chickadees, a nuthatch, and woodpeckers. 

 

 

The favorite suet feeder in the yard seems to be the ceramic feeder in the gazebo.  It’s never worked well with seeds, because the holes are too large.  But stuffed with suet it attracts all types.  Looks pretty gross, but birds do seem to love it.

 

A group of English Sparrows has taken over one of the feeders, and they are also occupying the forsythia bush near the deck.  Don’t really want a sparrow tree in the yard, so I may discourage them. 

 

The new snow was pretty for sure.  I don’t love winter, and I don’t love snow.  But if I’ve got to put up with winter I would like some of the beauty of snow, especially in January. 

  

 

 

The gargoyle is still guarding the hole in the pond created by the aerator and sometimes the heater.  I haven’t been able to see the fish for awhile since the snow covered the ice over most of the pond.  Hope they are hanging on.  Looking forward to the melt in another month or two. 

 

Peanut Butter Suet Recipe:

Melt ½ pound Lard

Stir in 1 cup chunky Peanut Butter (or creamy PB and fine ground peanuts)

Add 2 cups yellow corn meal

2 cups quick oats

¾ cup flour

1/3 cup sugar

Store in Refrigerator or garage in winter.

January 9th? Seriously?

This winter has been amazing for sure.  We’ve had a little snow here and there, but it hasn’t stuck around for longer than a few days each time. 

Today the afternoon temperature is approaching 45 degrees.  It looks and feels like March, and its only the middle of January.  I’m sure that we will see some colder days in the coming weeks, but I’ll take this for as long as it goes.

Here are photos of the yard, including the remains of the willow tree that we had cut down in early December. They came to do it before the ground froze completely, so we will have work to do in the spring cleaning up. I hope the ruts work themselves out some before then. I think it will be nice to have that tree gone. Beautiful and dramatic as it was, it was messy for sure.

 

And the windstorm in early September really bent many of the branches and it was feeling dangerous to walk under there. I think we’ll also appreciate the earlier light on the vegetable garden, and the tree roots won’t be sucking up all of the nutrients we put out there.

The fish in the pond mostly hang around on the bottom, but come up to look around in the heat of the day.  There are so many of them that I’m afraid the air hose we have going may not be enough to sustain them if the pond freezes over more than it has.  But so far all are well. 

The Melt begins… and ends.

I’ve been taking snapshots of our yard over the last week to document what I had hoped would be the beginning of the end for our deep snow cover.  And although it has been pretty dramatic, the snow beginning outside of my window this morning foretells a reversal of this good fortune.  Tomorrow’s post will show the results of today’s storms, but for today, the week past in pictures taken each day at about 4:30 PM, starting last Sunday.

These are views of our pond

And here the view from the deck to the willow

Second Half of October, and Still Beautiful

The weather this fall has been unbelievably fantastic.  Day after day of perfect, warm, sunny days.  And with the amount of rain we got this summer we can handle the dry fall.  The yard is gorgeous even as it declines.  And it is so nice to be able to work on it an hour or two at a time instead of spending entire weekends doing essential chores.

Today a flock of Cedar Waxwings descended upon the spruce in our evergreen garden to savor the ripe berries there.  Two or three bold Robins joined them.  I expect that all of the berries will be gone by tomorrow or the day after.  The Waxwings are such dressy birds, like men suited up for a formal event.  Not flashy like the Cardinals, they are smooth and green, with a yellow border at the end of their tail and a small crest.  I noticed them earlier as they gathered at the top of one of the Ash trees along the creek.  They flew away then, but I suspected that they had identified the Juniper berries as a feast.  An hour later they were back, devouring the berries.  Couldn’t get any really good shots, but had a fun time watching.
 
Been cleaning up this fall more than usual, and have every good intention of being more disciplined next year.  This summer was so wet and hot, and I couldn’t get out into the yard very much when it mattered.  The vegetable garden was pretty bad, even though we did harvest at least 20 pounds of potatoes and 10 of onions.  Tomatoes died early, peppers never got going, great cucumbers for the first half of the summer, and must admit I let the zucchini get overgrown.  Next spring we will build raised gardens, with bark chip walkways between, and try to civilize the area once again. 

The pond was cloudy all summer this year.  But late in July I became aware that somehow the three fish that survived the winter had passed on their genes and created at least 30, maybe 40 offspring.  Some of them are almost two inches long by now, and I hope they survive the coming winter.   Working now to stabilize the Ph levels before we put in the aerator and heater for winter.

Summer Solstice

Amazing Spring.  Hot days.  Plenty of rain.  Things grew so fast.  Welcome to the Summer.  Hope the plentiful moisture continues, with perhaps less wind.  And it would be nice if the rabbits would not be quite as successful.  They have been eating everything, or at least biting into it enough to kill it.  I guess the good weather is good for everyone. 

It has been nearly impossible to keep the grass cut to a reasonable length.  And everything is growing SO fast! 

Shooting Stars, Warm Weather, Invasions

It is still hard to do much of anything in the garden, because I’m tired a lot, and I can’t lift more than 10 pounds at a time.  So I have to ask Bill to do the heavy work, and he’s already pretty busy preparing and painting the house, foot by foot. 

But the yard has a lot going for it, and as long as I can keep things from getting away from me it will continue to reveal its beauty. 

Today, the fish are showing themselves in the shallow parts of the pond – the Great Blue Heron of last fall finally has escaped their memory it seems.  The Water Lily leaves have broken the surface of the water finally, and it won’t be long now til they cover a significant portion of it. 

The Shooting Star plant has made one bloom, and will soon make more.  Seems late, considering how far ahead most things are.  But the native plants tend to be more careful than other things for sure, emerging later and not being as responsive to the oddities of the particular year.  The Pasque flowers are pretty much right on schedule.  It’s hard for me to be so disciplined.  I’ve moved several plants outside, perhaps earlier than usual.  Have to keep an eye on them, but I hope it will be OK.

Today we planted Cannas, earlier than usual,  but in fact a week or so later than last year.  I still have quite a few in the basement, and will have to find a place for them soon or they will be wasted.  My favorite tulips are the Darwin varieties.  The yellow ones that I planted in the first year or so in this yard have spread and I’ve moved them around, til there are great clumps in several places.  Very beautiful for a week or two in spring.

The big event of today was finding a clump of garlic mustard along the creek.  They were blooming, but not yet seeding.  This is an invader that I really don’t want to gain a foothold for sure.  So we spent some time this morning pulling up the plants, making sure to get every one, and putting them into a black plastic bag in which we can bake them in the sun and then toss them out.  Keeping the creekside free of loosestrife, garlic mustard, buckthorn, and other invasive plants is a constant challenge. 

Spring Work Resumes

Oh Boy!  We worked pretty hard the last couple of days transitioning the yard from Winter to Spring.  Many of the things that had been bent and broken by the first snowstorm back in early December were just so obtrusive now that the snow cover had receded.  And it was a dramatic melt for sure.  A week ago it was Winter, and snow still covered most of the yard. Yesterday and today it has seemed like mid summer.  And the snow is almost totally gone from everywhere except the front porch, where the piles left from shoveling are protected by the shade of the house.  

Yesterday and today we worked a few hours each day to begin the cleaning up process.  I cut or pulled the dead old stalks and shoots of perennials around the mailbox, around the pond, around the gazebo, and in the Evergreen garden.  Bill spent the days cutting down about 20 or 25 Green Ash saplings, which could have become nice trees but which we feared would become just more that we'd have to pay to cut down once the Emerald Ash Borer made its way into Outagamie County.  As it is, There are still 15 or 20 that are too large for us to cut down ourselves, and some day they will cost us a pretty penny.

We have a pile of stuff that needs to be burned soon, but have to go get a permit first, and also let the warm air dry things out a little bit more.  And then wait for a calm day of course.  We put most everything that we can in the compost, and put out the woody brush to be shredded.  but there is still this stuff in between.  Some of the neighbors have trailers and cart theirs away every couple of weeks.  I don't really like to burn, but what else?  

The pond is now completely ice free, and fish are beginning to be visible.  We took out the aerator and the heater, and cleaned up around enough to start up the pump.  It took a little cleaning and a little pushing of water through with the hose, but it's working now, and should be able to keep an open area unless the temps fall below 20 for more than a few days.  The water isn't as clear as I wish it would be, and the fish are hard to spot.  But I've seen at least 6 or 7 at a time, and I'll find a way to clear the water soon, I hope.  

In the last couple of days we've seen Robins, Bohemian Waxwings, red-breasted Nuthatches, heard Sandhill Cranes overhead, and of course, the usual Chickadees, various Finches, Mourning Doves, etc.  The Juncos are still around, but I imagine they'll leave any day now. There have been many ducks in the creek over the last week or so, and small groups flying overhead.  And the Cardinals are certainly sizing each other up and claiming territory.  I'm still waiting for the first song of the Red-Winged Blackbird - the true sign of spring.  

Oh, and the first flower of the season has bloomed - the Winter Aconite.  I looked for it yesterday and found nothing.  But today, there were two new emergences, each with a simple yellow flower.  More will come over the next week or two.  This bloom is about 9 days earlier than last year, and it signals the beginning of the challenge I have each year to keep something in bloom from the first bloom in spring until at least the end of October.