Twenty-eight(28) pounds of Brandywine tomatoes, roasted and run through the food mill, yields eleven (11) quarts of soup before cooking down.

After a lengthy snake-free period the basement was visited by a three foot rat snake today. He eluded my usual broom by diving into the sump so I had to resort to the long handled grabber/reach-extender to snatch him and dump him into the usual tall kitchen trash can ( Read more... )

Hanging the bird houses out of sight from each other this year has increased the occupancy rate. We have three families of wrens serenading us daily. There was also one family of chickadees, pleasant to watch but not very musical.

And now we have attached a hummingbird feeder to our bedroom window. Our first diner arrived the very next morning.

The eglantine, which in the past has held an unsuccessful cardinal nest, is now home to a nest of four robin eggs. They appeared at the rate of an egg per day since my beloved anisoptera spotted the first about a week ago. Have not sighted the parents yet.

There is a trio of tiny golden-crowned kinglets darting about in the big maple outside my office. I tried for a picture but the little buggers won't hold still long enough to get one in the frame let alone focus ( Read more... )

( You know where this cut-for-profanity line is going. )

No April fooling here. Our first daffodil bloomed today, a yellow trumpet with white perianth. Runners-up were two clumps of all-yellows. Looking at the clumpiness of the shoots it seems we will be dividing some this year and filling in the bare spots ( Read more... )

Maybe there is something to these rumors of springtime approaching.

• A gang of robins has been prowling around the property settling en masse in this tree and that. Then there was the occasion when my beloved anisoptera, gazing up at the skylight, called me urgently to do likewise whereupon I saw a quartet of robin butts looking back.
• In cardinal news I ( Read more... )

Monday was not all snow removal and errands. The falling and fallen snow was so picturesque that we had to take some photos. A culled if unedited batch has been uploaded to my beloved's Flickr.

The first few showing Ratatosk, our local red squirrel, are actually from an earlier day shot from indoors. He keeps trying to reach the feeders by ( Read more... )

Snow delivery seems to have gotten its addresses sorted out. We woke to a foot of the stuff on Monday. ( It ate our day. )