Spring and Wildlife....

26 degrees at 7 this morning when I left for work. I'd waited till it was light out to make sure I saw the ice on the roads. When I opened the door, I was greeted by light and birdsong. Oh Joy! Spring is on its way.

Yesterday's snow did little to change tconditions on the road. I am amazed, driving on Lawyer's Road, to see how many trees fell during the storms. and how many are clearly on their way down. When the snow melts and the ground starts to dry up, I think we will be discovering that a lot of trees need to come down.

We lost a tree. Not that I minded much. It was in the backyard, along the fenceline adjoining a neighbor's yard. I wasn't too fond of the tree, a scraggly cedar that wasn't happy with the little bit of light it got. I'll move the downed trunk further back in our woods, near the back fence. It will be reincarnated as a wildlife shelter and eventually part of our forest floor.

One of these days I will need to come up with a name for our little forest.

I keep thinking about the fox who spent the whole day sleeping in our backyard. It's mating season for the fox right now. I think I saw it the other morning in our driveway. At first I thought I saw a red cat (they are the size of a big cat) but it didn't quite move like a cat. I wonder if we should call animal control, but I hate to have a wild animal that isn't infected with rabies trapped and moved. After all, this land was theirs long before it was mine...

Wildlife-friendly yard

The yard is blanketed in snow, the birdfeeders and birdbath covered. We can't get into the back yard without tring to plow through crotch-high snow. But today we had a different visitor to the backyard. A fox (I wonder if it's the same one I have seen before), spent the day sleeping, curled in a ball at the furthest corner of the backyard. Come dusk at 6:00, up he got, climbed the fence, and trotted away. Will he be back tomorrow?

Another blizzard

There is something incredibly beautiful about a world blanketed in snow - at least for a while.  I love the way the air smells right now, the look of the snow on the bare tree branches against the white sky.  Graphic, clean, pure.

My office is now closed for the third day, but I keep on working from home.  Tomorrow morning the installers for the new closet are supposed to come to the house, so I need to make sure the closet is emptied out and the driveway and walkway are snowfree.  Hopefully the street will have been plowed by then.  Meanwhile, all I really want to do is snuggle by the fire and maybe read a book or stare out the window at the falling snow.  Maybe, if I get the energy, I will do all I must do.  Otherwise, I just might go in the studio to paint....