Flowers showing,
Grasses growing,
Tuesday warm and sunny!
Then the beastie,
Blew in gusty,
Took sun out – not funny!
Ten straight hours,
Blizzard snow showers,
No trace of life to be seen.
The next morning at eight,
Sun broke thru the gate,
Leaving all white and no green.
But, Colorado this is,
Sun, rain, hail and blizz,
No worries ere last long here.
One day is seventies,
The next is thirties,
Just keep your snow shovel near!
The End.
Or The Beginning?
Sincerely,
The Bad Poets Society
– LOL-
This one is dedicated to my cousin Carol Jo in Wisconsin (and, of course, all rest of you – family, friend and frozen). I just now (2 pm MST) took these pics from our front yard:
The Honeysuckle is a bloomin,
The Iris and Mint are a poppin.
Tulips are a growin,
And the Lilly’s almost a showin.
Then there was this:
Late last fall I just shoved some Spice Bush shoots into this pot in hopes of transplanting them – last year. Well, best-laid plans being what they are, I didn’t get to them.
I just now, for grins and giggles, took a peek at the pot and the silly things have leaves! WHAT’S UP WITH THAT??? Open pot, left over from last fall, been sitting out all winter; yet they survived and are THRIVING?? I guess our friend is right – we must be in a blessed spot when it comes to mother nature.
Now, for those of you that remember Night Gallery the series…I/we are now officially the Old Lady in the garden, “Everything I plant grows!” Oops, I even lost ½ my finger (in 2014 – different story), but I forgot to get it from my doctor, save it and plant it so I could re-grow. I know, I know…sounds sick but the show was fantastic!
A Happy Garden is a Healthy Garden! Hee hee
This morning was a wakeup call for me and my attempts at taking pictures. There had to be a couple of thousand Snow Geese flying north over out little farm and these are my shots:
Pretty pitiful – but there are 2 major things wrong pertaining to these pictures:
1) Winning a great Nikon D3200 Camera with extra DX lens does not make one an instant expert photographer
2) All the Snow Geese flying north on March 3, 2016 is way abby-normal!
The first one I can fix by actually taking classes (I think they even have some online under Nikon?) to learn how to take better pics. I could also splurge on a neat little video camera (Walmart has several to choose from, at pretty reasonable prices), then I could have also shared the cool sounds they were making with you.
The second one is the thought that worries me a bit. This winter has been way to different, and I don’t think it’s just here in Colorado. It’s normal to get 70 degrees one day and 30 the next from October through January, but to get 60+ and stay there IN FEBRUARY – and no Freeze at all – now that’s just not normal. We prep all year for the one to two week period of below freezing day and night, not this year.
Have I also told you that I am an amateur Nature Enthusiast? I say amateur because I have never taken formal classes on the subject; however, I have lived on a working farm most of my life (My folks purchased the family farm when I was about 2, and my sister was born after we moved there so she has been at it since birth).
I am fascinated with all things nature and natural. The critters that show up unexpectedly in our yard (can you say opossum!). The deer that come out of the woods almost every sunset to frolic in the lower pasture (especially love watching in spring as they chase each other all around till dark). The increasing numbers of good bugs that are showing up here every year (Praying Mantis, Ladybugs, Monarch Butterflies – and some are endangered species). We do not use chemicals of any kind on our property, so maybe we have become the Favorite Bug Restaurant for the good guys (I can only hope!)? Who knows why they come, I’m just glad the come.
The numbers of sightings have increase about 10-fold since we purchased our little property in 2000. Then again we cannot take all the credit, the first 3 years we were here were the worst drought years Colorado had seen in 100+ years. That may have been a contributing factor (oh sure, blame the drought). However, all I know is that they are here now and in growing numbers.
So the geese flying north in masses makes me wonder what old (yes she is “old”) Mother Nature is up to now?
Is she in a playful mood and deciding to bring a nice early spring? Is she in a vengeful mood and going to trick us into thinking it is nice, then zap us with a wicked deep freeze in April (after everything is in bloom of course – happened before and not long ago.)? I cannot blame her for wanting revenge, we the people have abused her for too long. Some of us (wish there were more- boo hoo) have actually been trying to help her all our lives.
I guess there’s no way to predict what she’s up too, so we will just keep doing what we do – garden naturally, and hope for the best!
Maybe I will put a totem up for her in the gardens to try to appease her – how’s this?
We never clean up our leaves at the end of fall. They keep all of our flower beds, trees, and bushes nice and cozy until spring and add some great nutrients. Well, since it has been so abnormally warm out, we decided to start spring cleaning early.
The patio is always the first because it is where we do our resting and relaxing time. It took us 6 years to lay all the free brick (all we had to do was fetch it, clean it and place it)! We also didn’t follow normal patio ideas. We decided to go with the flow of the landscape instead of level it all off flat.
It turned out marvelous, however this year’s storms left us with an abundance of leaves and they were mashed down really well over everything. Well, when spring cleaning hits, it’s time to find all the planting beds again. The whole front yard was still full of left-overs. The dill stalks, small bushes, and end-of-season flower left-overs all collect up the blown, mushy leaves. This made it hard to tell a plot from a brick.
The majority of the patio was easily picked up and swept. The area around the pond is a very different story. I got down on hand and knees (not easy to do after having both knees replaced – ouch) and worked my way slowly across the area. There are several smaller plots, as well as a couple of large ones.
So, it’s about 60 degrees, the sun is on me, I decided that sitting on the brick was easier than kneeling, and I was singing a song ( “If I had a million dollars” by the Barenaked Ladies – for those of you wondering) and working away. My method requires a small hand/whisk broom, gloves, a good pliers and my handy-dandy weed between the bricks tool (it’s like a razor or knife, but “L” shaped with a handle for easy manipulation). I was using my hand and broom to push back debris, then pile the excess to be shipped off to burn. Carefully checking each plot to make sure I left a heavy mulch layer, just because our nights still drop below freezing. Singing and working and lifted back a big pile of leaves and this is what I found:
The tall spout is up about 2 inches! I was shocked! This normally does not happen until about the end of March (in a good year) or sometime in April – but here it is the middle of February!
I cleared out a bit in another nearby plot and discovered tulip sprouts – up about 1inch. What is going on?
The Boxelder bugs (or beetles) have been all over the south end of the house for the last 2 weeks. Not just one or two, but dozens:
From what I have seen and know of these bugs, the only thing they seem to invade are our Elms. They are supposed to prefer Maple and Ash, neither of which is on our property – AND – they are not supposed to be out yet! When they are out, they prefer the sunny south side of our home. Occasionally I will find one or two inside the house, but that is very rare. Maybe because we encourage our spiders – LOL!
We have a new skylight in our kitchen and all forms of critters love it – especially the spiders “It’s dinner time, chomp, chomp, chomp!” And we do not have to cook for them – woo hoo!
I know it’s been a wicked and wild winter again, but this is getting down right freakie-deekie! Always makes me a bit worried about what summer will bring – snow? LOL
The sun rises. The curtains are drawn. The damage – Act I Scene I:
The wind shows its ugly face again!
This time, it was wicked enough to take out my grandson’s playset and part of our fence in the front yard.
The fence I can put up by myself fairly easily, but this playset is another story. The sucker’s heavy!
So the first part of this “fun” weekend will be spent on cleaning and fix up. The Wind and its might are not uncommon here in northeastern Colorado, but ones this strong do not normally happen until the heat of summer – very odd indeed!
So, trying to keep in the lighthearted humor mindset, here is my children’s rhyme to the wind (sing to Rain, Rain go away):
Wind, wind blow away,
Come back on a 90’s day! (Oh it won’t do that cuz it would be helpful then – ha ha)
Wind, wind blow away,
Cuz I want my fence to stay! (ya, sure – pretty sure it’s using our fence for target practice!)
Wind, wind blow away,
Let my grandson go to play! (When it’s warm outside, he should be on his playset!)
Wonder if it is listening to me? Maybe you all can help and chant this when it comes to your area. Who knows, maybe we can all chant and send up enough hot air to counter its mean effect! It’s a though?!?
Ok, now I am officially shocked, and a bit worried! Only a short 10 days ago:
Then this week:
And my Christmas Cactus is flowering?
WWWWHHHHAAAATTTT????
This has got to be the freakiest winter I have ever seen – here or in Wisconsin! Colorado can have 60’s in January, and it’s not unusual. But to get this warm in February – now that’s down right abby-normal (I love Young Frankenstein!)! Not sure if I should let my spring fever run amok or batten down the hatches and prep for the apocalypse – oooohhhhh (that’s a ghostly ooh by the way – LOL – too spooky!)
It has been a weird winter for us this year (includes latter part of 2015) – even our poor little birds are confused. The Robins usually disappear around November or December – the idiots are still here? What’s up with that?
Last Friday I had 4 Chickadees eye-balling me from the tree out the window – kinda creepy! I filled their bird feeder out front before the storm (yes, there still is seed in it) so my only guess is they are thinking “It’s freaking cold out here lady – where’s our bird house with a heating pad?” Or – maybe they are mad cuz I didn’t wrap the gazebo this year?
We have heavy, greenhouse type, plastic on the top ½ and back ½ and I usually wrap a 6-mil plastic around the bottom, just to keep the summer stuff we have in there dry. Well, I didn’t get to it last fall, so the bottom is full of snow now. The sparrows have found that I missed screening in one small upper corner and will sneak in there. However, nobirdy (OK, bad pun) went in there during this storm?
One poor dove just hung on for dear life to the pine tree out front – made it! Unfortunately, the poor puppy is too fat to fit through that little hole in the gazebo. So it is resolved to perch snuggled into the pine branches. It’s safe; the branches are covered in snow, so I guess it has a nice blanket under it. Ok, yes I worry too much about all the critters on our little farm, why not?
She/he/it is still around – all by itself? Very odd since normally they are at least in pairs.
I thought I would be helping the birds out by placing some birdseed by the pond. We have a heater in it (keeps the water running) which helps them to get a drink when needed. Oh, Stupid Me! The fuzzy, 4-legged, burglars – IN BROAD DAYLIGHT NO LESS – hopped right up and helped themselves to it all (see Arlene – no buddies of mine! LOL)
They also managed to strip most of our fruit tree bark – even though they are fed quite well, I must say! One of my best 4-H projects, when I was a kid, was raising rabbits. They went from two to over one hundred within about a year – EEEKKK!!! I also remember that following spring we had a “freezer stocking fest” at our farm, along with our cousins (had too many pigs and chickens). I won’t go into details for those of you that love the critters, or are vegan – but Hasenpfeffer is delish!
If you live in the northeastern plains of Colorado, you better do it quick! This is the time of year I really get a kick out of Colorado weather. We have feet of snow (not as bad as the east coast – show offs!), but ours is in drifts. Seems the wind just doesn’t want to quit out here, unless it is 100+degrees. So we received a wicked, wet, and wild snow storm, perfect for building a snowman. Unfortunately, the wind was so wild; you couldn’t stand to be out in it – boo hoo!
You know it’s a blizzard when:
BUT – HAVE NO FEAR – IT’S COLORADO!
In about a week, we will have just remnants of this – so sad! (ok – NOT!) The best part is that this one was heavy and wet. This means it will soak in – wooo hoooo! Nice start to a spring planting season.
Yes, I am rather freaky in the fact that I love snow but hate the cold. Snow means fun, moisture, a snuggly feeling. Cold means my arthritis is gonna be screaming at me, my nose sticks together outside, and the water pumps (we have our own well) will freeze up. (Was stupid the first bad winter here and tried to force one open – LOL – had to replace that the following spring – idiot me!).
I think this is a big reason why I fell in love with Colorado. I must have my change of seasons, but the Colorado plains seem to know when I have had enough snow. Oh, did I mention that before this latest blizzard, I found green grass popping up beside the greenhouse. I took the time to yell at it for being too early, guess the snow showed it who’s boss right now!
If you are anything like me, right after Christmas and New Year celebrations you immediately start thinking about spring planting. Well, a fellow blogger, Flowery Prose, just helped me to remember what winter is for – a time of resting.
There is a time for everything, including resting, this is what winter is to me.
(even this Blue Jay appears to be resting)
Don’t get me wrong – I love my gardens and can’t wait to get into them every year. I love all parts of gardening from starting the seeds:
To moving those first starts into the gardens:
Even weeding:
Then there is that wonderful harvest:
Which always involves canning:
(this includes vacuum freezing and dehydrating)
So we should be like all of the other living things around our gardens (even the bad critters – grr!) and use winter as our time of rest!
Because once it finally starts to warm up outside – the work begins again!
Now, don’t-cha just love the time of rest – wooo hooo!
Baby it’s cold out side….
I really should go….but Baby it’s cold outside…
It’s starting to snow…Baby it’s cold outside…
AND THEN THERE WAS LIFE:
Our first seedling of spring – a Ficus is among us!
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