Things are greening up!

 Still no sign of the Harlequin Tabby visitor cat. That is a good thing. With the warmer weather, he might have prey closer to home. Maybe. 

Another cloudy day. Yesterday was amazingly sunny. I whipped out to take photos of the goldfish pond, beside the house. I'd hooked up the water barrel, then our rain filled it. With the cold temperature I opened the spigot to drain it overnight. 

 The gold fish pond froze overnight and the patterns were interesting. 

I went walkies the day before and checked out the frog pond. It's about 1/3 thawed. I took a drive to visit a client, and most of the lakes are open, with ice in some of the bays.

Searching for the owl (no luck!) I was amazed by the moss on the rocks in the gully.

Woody Woodpecker cardinal has been better. I don't know why I didn't think of contact paper before this. My carved bear is happy with it.

Indoors, the orchid cactus is budding up. The contact paper is good for it, since it was getting a bit burned in the window. Despite being a cactus, it doesn't do well in full sun.

Rain, snow, and walkies

 💉 JB had his cancer treatment Tuesday, his Lupron injection, at our local GP's office. We are good for another 3 months. I drove home from my client's house in a snow fall on Tuesday. It kept on snowing! 

🌡 This is really messing with my head, the upsy downsies. We had a massive melt and then a deep freeze, again.   It was 10° C. Tuesday, Wednesday it was -13° C. this morning it is -15°, and snow covered, again. We expect a snowstorm tonight, too.

This was from Feb. 10th. I'd climbed the ladder to try fix the drips. There was a bit of debris, which I removed with my metre stick.

 

It's melting from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I went walkies, as the icy snow crust had finally melted. 

The frog pond was melty. frogpond Feb 11 

  

The moss was green. In February!

I told Cinnamon it was cold and snowy, and he didn't have to come along. He didn't come any farther, and went back up to the house. I am quite certain he had an encounter with the fisher, and he's really careful.

Cinnamon walkies from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Feb. 12th vs. Feb. 14!

 

Feb. 8, when JB opens the garage door, prepared to throw out some deer food, all eyes focus on him. Even Archie, the turkey.

 

deer friends from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Poor buck is hanging in.

Duke Feb 9 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

NaPoWriMo Day 11 – on golden pond

Day 10

sunshine warms my sullied soul
under my wellies frost crunches
a skiff of ice on the pond
melting in diurnal smiles
mr. sun winks through skeletal tree branches
sticky snow has succumbed
verdant green mosses soak in sunny days
robins rip worms from warming a earth
phoebes flit in riparian splendour
trees sway in the aromatic breeze
punctuated by pileated 'peckers aiming for glory
mellifluous red-wing blackbirds trilling in chorus
grackles cackle with contempt
territorial stories of spring
sadly snow falls again on my golden pond

Write a poem in which you closely describe an object or place. Think of the “surprise” ending to this James Wright Poem. An abstract, philosophical kind of statement closing out a poem that is otherwise intensely focused on physical, sensory details.

Interesting prompt. I woke at 5:30 a.m. with a cat shrieking at another. We'd had 10 cm snow overnight, and things are a bit tense for my boy who wants to go outside and hunt. Lord knows we're overrun with mice friends.

The frog pond was frozen in the morning, but the mallards managed to break some ice. I'm so happy to see them. I anxiously await her desperate-sounding maniacal screams as mating begins. It's a sign, and it means she's building her nest with soft downy feathers.

Last year's downy feather in the nesting box.

This is what she'll soon do!

The greens are beginning to appear. The cattails are about a foot high, too!


Lovely green mosses and Rosetta Pixie Cup Lichen.


Daisy came down and traipsed on the ice. Pileated woodpeckers zero in on bugs.


A phoebe pair is beginning to establish territory at the pond. He's too fast for me, though. It's a game. I focus, he moves. I failed to capture the pair on the same fallen branches in the pond! He was eating actual bugs, almost captured in focus! Another bird-butt photo!

Daisy goes spelunking & 4 cats!

I love the rich greens of the moss. 'Tis more like an April photo shoot! It's been terribly warm this February. Daisy and I were exploring, shed hunting. Last February we had a foot of snow on the ground. Our grass is green, the deer well-fed, and the males are far away in their winter yard. I am afraid I won't find any shed antlers this year.


We were watching our DVDs one afternoon (Vegas), they were due back at the video store! It occurred to me that there were 4 cats in the living room.