A nice meal at their favorite restaurant…
Then a monster movie (Cats in the Window!)…
And a tasty dessert…
I hope spring brings baby squirrels to the yard!
In the Yard
A Sunny Mid-Winter Day
Today’s bright sunshine lured me into the yard, where I spent the afternoon starting (but not finishing) a number of chores. My first job involved two small bird houses, which have become a winter refuge for spiders. Determined to avoid more encounters with black widow spiders, I wanted to clean out the webs and evict any venomous guests.
I’ve been dreading this task, and I was relieved when a clump of weeds with tiny white flowers gave me an excuse to put off confronting the spiders.
After photographing the unfamiliar weed (I believe it might be hairy bittercress), I crawled through patches of henbit and speedwell, trying to capture their enchanting beauty.
I crossed half of the yard on my hands and knees before I remembered the bird feeders. Dusty and empty, all of the feeders needed attention. Under the second feeder, I found a cicada molt.
A short time later, I moved into the front yard. Before reaching the final bird feeder, I stopped to take a photo of paperwhites.
Beside the paperwhites, a single hyacinth was trying to bloom. Trying unsuccessfully, for the moment, because something has been grazing on it.
A quick search for suspects found a rabbit hiding in the irises and a squirrel trying to hide in a nearby tree. They both looked guilty to me.
Distracted by rabbits and squirrels, I never finished the last feeder. I also didn’t get to the windows, which are disgracefully dirty.
But I don’t regret my disorganized day, which ended on a sunny, sleepy note.
I can clean bird houses, feeders, and windows some other day, some cloudy day when the yard doesn’t sparkle with wonders.
Birds in the Sky and Weeds in the Yard
Yesterday’s sky made me dizzy. High cirrus clouds drifted eastward while fair-weather cumulus clouds surfed brisk lower currents. Vultures and seagulls spiraled on afternoon thermals, swooping low over the house before soaring out of sight too rapidly for my lens to focus.
Underfoot, chickweed and henbit sprouted through mulch and rotting leaves, spreading beneath the pear tree and creeping into the iris beds.
The sky made me dizzy, but every time I knelt to photograph a weed, quarreling gulls called me back to my feet. Then weeds lured me back to my knees. I spent a distracted hour switching the camera in and out of macro mode, kneeling and standing and kneeling again. It was almost a relief when the batteries died…
December Skies
The last few days have been warm enough for open windows and bare feet. The yard looks like winter, but the sky looks like summer.
Warm wind rattles through bare branches and ripples over a raveled carpet of leaves. Migrating birds gather in restless flocks, and I wonder if they regret flying south too soon.
Or maybe the birds know best. After all, the calendar insists that December is here, even if the sky doesn’t agree.
Warm Spell
With swirling breezes and temperatures in the seventies, today might have been mistaken for spring.
The pear tree shrugged off its cloak of leaves and stood all day, bare-limbed, in a pool of gold and brown.
Robins and warblers perched on sunlit branches, their restless urge to forage temporarily forgotten.
But today’s weather shouldn’t fool any of us, trapped as we are in winter’s web.
An early dusk approaches, wheeling night behind it. Sleep is creeping through the yard, with months to go before waking.
Rae Spencer 