Snow bright

There’s days when you have to shovel snow, and then there’s days when you have to admire it. Today is one of those days. Even though it’s so cold, the squirrels get inside the feeders to eat, it’s a bright day. You look out on a bright blue sky on a swath of white snow […]

Today’s complaints about shoveling snow

Living in Boston and complaining about shoveling snow doesn’t exactly make you stand out as a unique breed of semi-sentient being. It’s like being a writer and owning cats. Well, I’m guilty of the latter, and I’m about to indulge in the former.

Birdie Slushies

We’re having a brief interregnum of snow days today, a warm (as in above freezing), drippy, rainy grey day that softened the snow enough to let me knock down the ice dome that was capping the birds’ water dish.

Icicle season

It’s icicle season. And amazing color of blue sky season. Look up! And dodge falling ice.

A blizzard of birds

Along with today’s blizzards, a bunch of juncos showed up! The snow piled up so high, some of the birds were hopping about right under the kitchen window. Most of them hung out in the bushes, or suddenly burst into flight, or one by one swooped down to the feeders. The birds even pecked at […]

January Collards

My New Year’s collards harvest was a little late this year, but here it is. There was just enough bare ground to walk on to get up the hill and reach that big collard plant under the pear tree. As I climbed, I’m afraid I didn’t see any of the other plants poking out.

Lair of the Cave Mouse

So that’s what the evil cat has been staring into — an ice cave just the right size for a mouse. There’s even a couple of leaves to curl up on and stay dry and a carpet of sunflower seed shells. Must have been quite a feast in there. But where’s the mouse? And how […]

Collards alive!

What’s that up on the hill? You know, the green clump at the foot of the pear tree with the plastic grocery bag caught in its scrawny branches. Could it be?

Scragglions

The storm was not very nice to my cold weather plants. The snapdragons are munged, the collards are covered, and the scallions are barely hanging in there, all scraggly on top of the snow. I’m sure the scallions will be fine, and the snapdragons will grow back. But I worry about the collards up on […]

Snowy birds

So we got a blizzard, but it’s not winter until the juncos show up. I’ve been wondering what’s keeping them. And I wondered last night, while listening to the storm huffing and puffing and rattling the windows, where do the birds go? I suppose they go the same places they go every night. By dark, […]