A few improvements

I am in a brief lull between major projects at the moment, so I have taken some time to make a few improvements for the summer season.  First of all, I purchased and assembled a handy plant stand that I plan to use for hardening off my transplants before I put them in the raised beds.  It has 4 shelves so there is plenty of room for me to use.

The entire stand is covered with a reinforced covering that has 2 zippers down the front.  You can roll up the middle section to have access to the shelves, and then close it to give them extra protection overnight.  I'm sure it will be useful at other times of the year as well.  I will probably bring it inside over the winter and use it in the basement as added storage space for garden pots and such.

The next improvement I put in place was to construct some pea and bean frames for vining peas and beans.  They aren't exactly works of art, but they serve their purpose! 

I used 2x4 lumber for the uprights and 1x3 for the cross supports.  I used deck screws to attach the cross pieces to the upright frames and sandwiched the netting in between.  Now I have great vertical space for my peas and beans.  I actually planted some peas as well.  It's early, but they can be sown as soon as the soil can be worked. 

My contractor and general construction guy brought new soil this past weekend to fill the raised beds back up to the top, since they had subsided a lot over the last season and then the winter.  Now they are ready to go.  I had planned on using some of our own compost pile but it isn't well composted enough yet.  Next year. 

Then, I needed to think about outdoor relaxation, so my final improvement was to assemble this fabulous double hammock on a deck stand.  The instructions were fairly simple and although it said you should have two people to assemble it, I managed just fine by myself.  The slightly hair-raising part was when I had to balance the overhead cover supports on my head when putting in the first screws.  Fortunately, I have a hard head and a decent sense of balance, so I managed to get it done quite quickly. 

I have already had a couple of rest sessions on the hammock.  It does take a wee bit of coordination to get in and out of it, but I'm getting the hang of it.  I think this will be a lovely treat during the warmer weather.  I do plan to get a mosquito net for it.

Soon the weather will allow me to re-plant my deck containers and hanging baskets and then deck will be ready for summer.  I can't wait to get the raised beds growing again!

More birds returning as spring progresses

I've been enjoying watching the birds for the past couple of weeks as more species return after their long migrations.  This spring in particular, I've had a lot of purple finches at the feeder.  I have had them on occasion in the past, but never quite so many.  Last week I had a day with 8 of them at the feeders at once.  The male purple finches are such cheerfully coloured birds and I do enjoy watching them.  I took a lot of pictures - here are some of the better ones.

Keeping an eye out for danger.

The flock at the feeder. 

Hey lady, are you looking at me?

I've also had more pine siskins this year, including some during the winter.  I love the flash of yellow on their wings.  Here are a group of them at the feeder.

Here's a pine siskin enjoying a sip from the bird bath.

The robins have returned and I do hope that they will build a nest in the area.  I've had a pair build a nest under my eaves for the past 2 years, but I haven't seen any nest building activity yet.  Here's a watchful male robin who could probably see me taking pictures of him through my home office window.

I see you!

The white-throated sparrows are also showing up now - I love their song and their lovely little golden head spots.

I think he saw me too!

I didn't see as many pheasants as usual this past winter, but I did see this female earlier this week.  They are so good at camouflage.

Finally, I have a tailless song sparrow that has been visiting regularly.  No doubt it was nearly caught by a predator - perhaps a cat or a larger bird of prey.  Its lack of tail doesn't seem to hamper it though.  It flies with no trouble at all. 

I think I'll name him "Stubby!"

So lovely to have spring finally appear with a greater variety of birds in my yard!

A Leucistic Junco

Today I happened to be looking out the window and caught sight of a dark-eyed junco with some unusual characteristics.  They are common birds for my area, so I'm used to seeing them, but this one was different.

Here's a "normal" dark-eyed junco.

Here's the one I saw today.  Notice that it has a crescent-shaped white marking on its chest.  This is not at all a normal feature.

In addition, it had several white bars across the back of its head, as shown in the following pictures.

Those white patches are definitely not a standard feature on the dark-eyed junco.

These unusual markings led me to the conclusion that this junco has a touch of leucism.  Unlike albinism, which is a complete loss of pigmentation, leucism is a partial loss of pigmentation.  It can occur in skin or hair, as well as feathers.  It can also be widespread across the animal's body, or just in small patches, as is the case with this junco.

I'm hoping that the junco will return to my yard on a nicer day.  The photos I took were in the rain, through my home office window, so they are not nearly as clear as I would like.  Unfortunately, we have rain in the forecast every day for the next week or two.  Spring showers...although it's a bit much for my taste.  I've already seen 2 mosquitoes and the snow isn't even fully melted!

It's Still Winter Here

Admittedly, there are signs of spring, and I am definitely encouraged by this, but one look around my yard today will show you that winter is still here in my part of the world.  I took a short walk this afternoon, although it's difficult here because there are no sidewalks and the snow and ice on the sides of the roads mean that the roads are narrower, so one must be mindful of safety when out walking.  I actually saw my first robin of 2019, so that's a good sign!

Here's a tour around the yard where you will see mostly winter, and a bit of spring. We have actually had a reasonably good March - it's further along in terms of melting than I'd expected it to be at this point.  Loads better than last year!  Here's the back deck, where you can actually see some of the wood steps.  These have only been uncovered in the past week - before that it was just a big heap of snow.  But, there's a lot of snow yet to go!

The path through the yard to the chicken coop is still completely snow and ice, especially underfoot where it has been compacted over the winter.  This snow is at least 2 feet deep still in some places.

The side yard where the spring bulbs live is still under deep snow.  We have a lot of shade from the woods so that does slow the melting process.

There has been a good amount of melting on the driveway, so you can actually see some pavement and gravel now, but as you can see, there is a great deal of snow on the flower bed in front of the workshop.  That flower bed is the one that receives the most sun, so it is the furthest along in terms of melting.

Look!  Bare driveway!! 

The snow piles left on the edge of the driveway in front of the house are also considerable.

The huge hat of snow that was on top of the arbour has mostly melted, but there is much yet to go underneath.

Here are the mounds of the raised beds, still enclosed in their snowy blankets.

The bird feeders were, at one point, covered up over the bottoms of the raccoon baffles, but now there is a lot of space under the baffles.  You can see that the sunflower shells, with their dark colour, have absorbed extra sunlight and caused additional melting in that spot.

Along the back of the house, there is a lot of snow but you can see where the drips from the melting on the roof have created a long groove.  

I've had a very difficult time with the chicken coop gate door this winter.  We had a lot of snow, so I kept digging out in front of the door so that I could continue to open it.  Over time, this led to a sort of deep "valley" right in front of the gate.  Now that we have some melting, it pools exactly in that spot, and there's no access to the ground yet.  As a result, I keep ending up with puddles that freeze overnight and it takes me a good 30 minutes sometimes to get the door free so I can access the birds.  I'm going to have it modified this summer so that next winter, it won't be an issue.  You can also see, in the picture below, that finally my feed bins are visible again.  The shorter one on the right had to be dug out a few times because I couldn't even see the top of it.  

The birds are all well though, and I only lost 1 chicken this winter, which is really quite good.  Here are Shadow the Icelandic cross hen, and Fancy Pants the Icelandic cross rooster, enjoying a bit of sunshine.  I love Shadow's grey feathering.

I might even call them lovebirds!  They do spend a lot of time together.

Inside the coop, here's a shot of Onyx--one of my biggest hens--and Sienna, a bantam hen. 

 One other sign of spring - egg production is in full swing!  Hooray!

Always busy!

Sometimes when I haven't blogged for a long time, it seems a bit overwhelming to get back to it because I really don't know where to start.  I feel that 2019 has been rushing by in a bit of a whirlwind.  I had an awful lot of work in the first 8 weeks - some regular contracts and then a few other projects I took on....a few too many I think.  I also had to travel several times so far this year - including to Charlottetown, PEI and Fredericton, NB - both to help facilitate workshops, and then I also went to Iowa for several days - primarily for 2 days of business meetings.  I was also able to visit friends along the way because I drove there.  In addition, my Iowa client is a former colleague who  hired my former administrative assistant, and we had a group meeting with a former attorney friend, so it was like 'going home again' in a way, sitting around a meeting table with people I hadn't seen in 8 years. 

After my work meetings were finished, I had a lovely time visiting with Teresa at Eden Hills, in particular helping her with an antique spinning wheel she had purchased at an auction.  Her Dad helped us out a lot too, and by the time I left, everything was working except the bobbin tension.  I need to do more research on that.  For the full story and pictures on the day of the wheel, Teresa's blog is the place to go, right here: https://edenhills.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/a-conundrum/

I had a lovely time visiting with Teresa's goats, llamas, chickens, cats, and of course, her lovable dog, Sky.  I think his one-ear-up-one-ear-down appearance is just so endearing. 

I also caught up with my friend Anne, a flautist who plays at the Des Moines Area Community College gourmet dinner series that I used to attend.  It was so lovely to see her and hear all her news.  Then I enjoyed a great visit with my former colleague Kathryn at a local barbecue restaurant - I do love good midwestern bbq!  It's really lovely to be able to catch up with old friends, even if it's only just a brief visit.

On my drive home again, I visited with friends in New York just briefly, since I had to be back in good time for a meeting in New Brunswick, so my visits were sadly short.  However, I got to cuddle with mini horses and goats along the way.  What better way to break up a long drive?!

Some long-time readers may remember the blog of Isobelle Golightly the Beautiful Goat.  This picture is with the mini horses where Isobelle lives.  Well, technically the one on the left is a mini mule, but they're all more-or-less horses!

I'm still in the midst of many work projects but I am hoping that things will ease up a bit in the coming weeks.  I'd really like to stop and smell the roses.  Well, not that we have any roses, because my yard has at least 2 or 3 feet of snow throughout, but I do have a lovely amaryllis blooming indoors, thanks to my mother who bought it for me for Christmas.  What a lovely blossom!

A Vulpine Visitor

I have a few minutes to do a quick blog post today, so I thought I'd share this beautiful creature who visited my yard yesterday.  In 2.5 years at this house, it's the first time I've seen a fox in the yard, even though we are surrounded by woods and I would think they are certainly about.  I can't say that one has never visited of course, because I don't spend my entire day scoping the yard, but I can say that I've never seen their footprints in the snow before, which would have been quite obvious.  

This one clearly isn't starving!  What a magnificent coat and tail.

I was a bit concerned to see it all the same, because the chickens would make a fine meal for a fox, but at the moment, the chickens aren't even going into their fenced side-yard because they do not like the snow at all.  The fox can't dig into the coop, and by the time the snow is gone, I'll be able to see if he or she has done any digging around the outer enclosure.

The fox did stop on the top of the brush pile to watch the sheep and goat, but foxes are not liable to take on full size livestock like that.  Here it is watching them.

I had to take the pictures through my home office window, so they're not perfect, but I'm glad I had the chance to see it.  That said, I hope it doesn't decide to keep visiting all that often - this is not a free chicken dinner restaurant! Run along little fox!  Thanks for visiting!

Long Time!

It's been a long time since my last post.  I feel as if things have been busy lately, which they have, but I also feel that I've been spending a bit more time on some craft projects, so that has been a focus and and blogging sort of took a break.  I'll try to do a little round-up today of the view from here.

First of all, we're in the grip of a really early winter.  Usually we have a couple of minor snowfalls in December but the real snow and bitter cold starts in January.  This year, things are all mixed up.  We have already had 2 significant snowfalls and have over a foot of snow on the ground.  It has been absurdly cold for this time of year - well below normal.  Temperature records have been set, as well as snowfall.  Many people in our area lost power in the two storms but we were lucky and retained power here.  Here's how the garden looks now.  It makes me pretty miserable.

Our menagerie of critters is well.  The chickens do not like the snow and typically stay inside the coop except to go out to the heated waterer.  They also like to eat snow.  Silly birds!  Not many eggs at this time of year, and I don't provide supplemental lighting to boost egg production because I think the hens deserve a break.  Here's a picture of some of them pecking at the snow. 

This year is expected to be an irruption year for finches on the east coast, and so far, that's proving to be true.  If you're not a bird person, you may not know what an irruption year is.  No, it's not a misspelling of eruption (those are for volcanoes).  An irruption is a significant migration of large numbers of birds outside their typical range.  Typically this happens as a result of food scarcity in the normal range.  Finches are particularly subject to irruptions when certain seeds are less available.  This year, seeds from conifer trees and birches are poor, so finches are poised for irruption moves.  If you're interested, here's some information on expected 2018/19 winter irruptions:  http://jeaniron.ca/2018/wff18.htm

I'm very excited to have a regular flock of evening grosbeaks visiting my feeders, which is certainly not normal for this area.  I'm hoping to see some siskins and redpolls if I'm lucky!  Here's a male evening grosbeak.

I have noticed very heavy feeding on all my feeders (currently 6 active feeders) for birds in the past couple of weeks.  We have a lot of black-capped chickadees (more than usual), red-breasted nuthatches, goldfinches, blue jays, dark-eyed juncos and both hairy and downy woodpeckers.  Keep your feeders stocked - it's a tough winter for many bird species.  Here's the flock of grosbeaks at my tray feeder.

I've been busy with yarn-related projects too.  I'm quite pleased with how this plain-weave wrap turned out.  I used a lot of different warp yarns with a rayon weft. 

It's so important to focus on colour when everything outside is bleak, cold and white or grey.

I also finished the first block of a crochet project I'm working on called the Stained Glass Lantern Afghan from Lilla Bjorn.  I'm quite pleased with how that's turned out as well.

So, that's a little bit of an update.  I'll see if I can write a few more posts in the coming weeks to try to get caught up with all the things I've thought about writing.