Back to Ordinary Life

Well, the Easter holiday is over.  The kids and grandkids have been fed a holiday dinner and my DH has gone back to work!  Of course, with all the activity, especially my DH working in the yard and garden, there's a lot of cleaning to be done - AGAIN.  But, I guess that's life.  I just wanted to be able to go into my studio and do a little painting since I spent a good bit of last week cleaning and cooking, the weekend cooking and entertaining, and yesterday as support for my husband's efforts in the yard and garden!  It seems as if it's been a month since I've been able to paint or even do any sketching!

We went to a couple of garden centers on Saturday and I did get some really nice photos of flowers.  We're between blooms as the daffodils, tulips and such have finished blooming and the azaleas, little native iris and lilacs are just beginning.  We haven't gotten any bedding annuals yet as it's still a little early for the warm season flowers to be planted.  We'd seeded some flowers a few weeks ago and did transplant them into larger containers though.  We'll plant them out in a couple of weeks.

In the meantime, we're getting lettuce, asparagus, arugula, spinach right now and hopefully some radishes, broccoli and snow peas soon.  The cool season stuff is doing great even though we've had 90+ degree weather lately!

Poor Bon is miserable as she's shedding and being as dark as she is, the heat really bothers her.  I brushed on her for about an hour this morning and got a couple of 5 gallon buckets of loose hair and it didn't look as if I'd even made a dent in what she needs to lose!  She's so itchy that she let me brush her way longer that she'll usually let me so I know it was a relief for her to get that stuff gone!

We also have bluebird pairs in all the bluebird houses (5 houses, I think) and some house finches kept trying to build a nest under the porch eaves.  We put bricks in the corners to discourage them as they built under the porch last year and it was a mess.  Not only that but the nest was right outside the kitchen door and the poor mama bird was constantly getting scared and flying off the nest.  We have a glass storm door and any movement in the kitchen would startle her off the nest.

So, life goes on out here in the country.  The wild turkeys are out in force and I'm sure the coyotes are mating also, if they haven't already given birth.

Oh, I have to tell you what happened the other night.  It was about 2 am when I heard a huge thud from the front part of the house (the bedroom is in the back).  I jumped up to see what it was and saw a huge Canada goose sitting in the side yard just out from the kitchen.  It would alternately sit or stand and wobble a bit but didn't move more than an inch or so and didn't try to fly away.  I watched it for about half an hour or so but finally went back to bed.  It was gone the next morning.  I wonder if it somehow flew into the side of the house and knocked itself silly for a while!  Fortunately, nothing got it that I could tell as there were no feathers scattered about the next morning.  My DH who has always been a light sleeper and says he can hear a gnat peeing on a cotton ball at 100 feet slept through the whole incident!  Maybe we should go get his ears checked!

Spring! Lovely Spring!

After such an abnormally nasty winter, it's been a delight to spend time outside these past few days.  The temps have been in the high 60's and it even got up to 80 degrees one day!  More and more flowers are coming into bloom and the wildlife is on the move again.

Here are some of the turkeys we've been seeing on a regular basis recently.  I don't know what it is in that back hayfield that's keeping them coming back, but they're there off and on all day and don't even seem to mind when I take their picture.  Before, they would scurry back into the woods but they're a bit braver now.  Yesterday evening they were all out there along with a small herd of deer and it reminded me of a drive-through zoo with several species intermingling.

While we haven't actually seen a live skunk yet this year, there's ample evidence that they're still around!  They're on the move also and many times get stuck on one of our country roads in the path of an on-coming car or truck. While I have a hard time with any animal getting killed, I don't want skunks around our place either!

Anyway, I may not do so well at keeping up my blog for a while.  And I've been too restless to do much art - the great outdoors has such a siren call that I've been grabbing my camera and spending more time with it than either art supplies or computers!

Maybe it's time to try a little plein air painting!  I'll keep you posted!

What a Difference a Day Makes!

 

On Friday, January 29, 2010, we had a really lovely day.  Yes, it was getting a little overcast and the temp was falling a bit but it was still relatively warm.  If you look closely at the photo on the top (click to enlarge), you can see that we still had green grass and those are wild turkeys foraging behind the trees - the most I've ever seen at one time!

Then, things changed very rapidly and and by mid-morning on January 30, 2010, we had a view that included snow as shown in the photo on the bottom!

You all know that I consider snow a four-letter word, especially with the very low temperatures and the wind that made it seem even colder!  Fortunately, we didn't lose power although we were prepared for that, and I had prepared some good old comfort food like homemade vegetable soup just in case.

The only thing we weren't prepared for was Bonnie going through the shavings in her stall so quickly.  She didn't venture out all day yesterday and she usually loves to be out in any rain or snow even if it's a cold/freezing rain.  But, she stayed in her stall all day and went through shavings as if the barn were full of replacements!  Of course, we thought we had plenty based on her past habits so her stall is down to the bare earth floor and there are even puddles standing in the stall corner.  Little minx!  Now she has no bedding to speak of as we couldn't leave soggy wet shavings in her stall.  

The roads are solid ice around here but I'm hoping we'll be able to get out later this afternoon and if we can get to the main road, we hear that south of us isn't so bad.  Maybe we can get to Tractor Supply and pick up a few bales of shavings IF they're even open today!

Oh, the absolute joy of winter!