The Osprey are back!

 It's been a week full of critters! There are lots of 🥀Spring Chores, if the rain stops. 

A pair of house finches were looking for a place to nest!

house finch from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Our Osprey are back, as well as the phoebes who are house hunting.

 

I was down at the frog pond and spotted a muskrat. I took a short video and I'll be darned if I can find it! One time they came they had 6 kits, and cleared out all of the phragmites! In 2014 and 2016:  McGregor Muskrat is back📹  Muskrats in the frog pond .

I did not go down to the pond on Thursday. We had 10 mm rain. I made a fire and someone and his cat watched curling in the afternoon. I did not put the heat on. I may pay for that. They forecast snow at the tail end of this storm. However, it is14 ℃ and balmy, with more rain on the way. We had another  14mm in the early hours. This weird storm is rotating counterclockwise, and we've more rain on the way.

In the pouring rain, an emergency, JB had to go into town for more ground coffee. Coffee is the way to begin our days! 

I've been lousy at making meals. Stress does that to you. Happily flash frozen stuff is great. I did make pigs in a blanket with canned beans one day. A fast meal, for when I have a client. Thing is, I think they are putting fewer actual beans in the can! SHRINKFLATION is at work here. It had more sauce than normal, which fills up the can. It's 389ml. 

I wrapped sausages in Pillsbury dough, and we dunked. Not bad for a quick meal. 

 

Ah well. Such is life these days. 

The orchid cactus is really happy.

Poor Percy! The pond went down to 0℃, then slowly climbed up to 2, 4, and 6℃ on Thursday. Percy is on his own. He sits and stares in the corner. 

Spring unfolds. 

What did we get, rain or snow?

We had rain (14 mm/half"), freezing rain, snow (9 cm Thursday, 7 cm last night = 16cm)!

☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨 ☔ 🌨

A massive system. Turning counter-clockwise, starting with a comma shape, it dumped on us. 

In the afternoon, Wednesday, we had hail! 

The winds brought down a lot of wires between Wednesday and Thursday. It began to the west, and spread to eastern Ontario. 

We were lucky! We were surrounded by people who'd lost power. Ours went out in the wee hours, and came back on at 3 a.m.

Percy would complain if he could talk. He is there, in the pond, since my 60 gallon tank leaked! 

The mourning dove just sat there for a long time. It looks totally ticked off with the snow! The trees are drooping Friday morning, today. We expect 5 ℃ today, and maybe the snow will change over to rain. 

It accumulated on the back deck. I had the aquarium pump out back, preparing to clean it. I shall wait.

✿ The daffodils are happy, cozy under the snow. They should be fine as the snow blankets them, and holds in whatever heat there is in the ground.

🐹 Fred, 🐇 Labbit and 🦨 Skunk are hunkered down in dens. Suddenly – not a sign of them.

I ended up building a Leprechaun. Instead of shovelling the back deck (again) I summoned some motivation to make lemons out of lemonade. Sadly, we had another 7 cm overnight!

The good thing is that the ground is warm from our nice weather last month. I won't need to shovel!

 

It looks pretty. 

I worry about this pine tree, however. It lost a lot of branches in past storms [❄️ A Sunday storm ☃️, Dec. 2023]. We'd just had this tree cleaned up April 3rd, from the December 2022 storm.  We spent thousands of dollars getting them cleaned up. 

 

The two bags remaining from the ditch diving are buried under the snow!

🐡 It is still snowing today.  Indoors, my goldfish plant is in bloom, as is the orchid cactus. They are a welcome sight. I can look forward to spring. I appreciate seeing it in blog posts from warmer climes! 

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.

Bird watching, cat walking

I took Cinnamon out. We have had some melt and freeze, and more thaws. The pops of colour of the moss really makes me think spring!

icy Cinnamon from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

My orchid cactus has a bloom.

From there I did some birdwatching. I did not need to go far! Woody Woodpecker, the cardinal, is still after his shadow. I've been moving the contact paper around and the poopy situation is improving. Silly bird. 

 

woody woodpecker the cardinal from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

The bird feeder has been busy. Goldfinches are getting a tad more golden. There were 3 purple finches. 

The white breasted nuthatch found some cracked corn tucked into the tree bark. 

 

The red-winged blackbirds are back from the south, as well as the grackles. We've had 22 mourning doves at one time in the winter. 

 

The cardinal, goldfinch and purple finch and, finally, a woodpecker...

There were five turkeys and I wonder if Archie has joined a flock. This is through the window, on wobbly hands.
Now I must go put out garbage. The week begins anew. We taped the final 🥌curling game and the 🏆Oscars, which we will watch before we hear who won!