Winter Scenes

First off, I wanted to show off the potted canna lily that's growing so nicely in my bedroom. At this rate, it'll be ready to bloom as soon as its warm enough this summer!

On the subject of killing two birds with a single stone (no offense, starlings!), I've also heard from a few of you requests for what the recent painting project entails...so I managed to work in the recently painted walls as the background here.

The pale blue walls already existed...on Sunday, I added the darker speckling, which has sort of changed the character of the blue walls a little. Now just wait until I've got a little time to do some stenciling.

Today I thought I would share a few random winter scenes with you, taken along today's more circuitous route to work. First, is this frozen pond and house in North Chatham, overlooking Pleasant Bay and the Atlantic Ocean beyond.


Next, I stopped along the road to capture a flock of assorted waterbirds who were splashing and feeding in the open water where Tar Kiln Creek feeds into Pleasant Bay. Of course, they flew off as soon as my camera was ready, but the ice formations along the shoreline were still pretty cool.

Today's final image is this frozen fishing boat, at Rock Harbor in Orleans.

So...we had this storm, with about twenty-four hours of pretty high winds and a full day of rainfall (four inches in some locations).

Today's weather was lovely by comparison, and if not for the physical evidence here and there, and news reports, I might not have known the storm happened.

For instance, the pond is looking like a pond again and the ducks were enjoying their newly-restored waterfront.





Much of the debris in our yard, luckily, are smaller chunks of dead branches the storm's winds pruned out of the tree canopy...and lots of leaves and pine needles, which were due to come down, anyway.





There are a few larger branches, like this one that came down outside my bedroom window, pinning into the rose of sharon tree there. The RoS is just fine, as it was a large branch, but not especially heavy or thick.



I did see some damage to one of the willow trees along Bridge Road while I was out today, but didn't see much else. I suppose I might've seen more if I'd been out earlier in the day, when folks were just cleaning up.

That clean-up's not quite over yet, if I judge based on the number of generators I can hear roaring in the night as I write this. Power remains out for lots of folks in town and in the general area. We know some who've taken to a hotel room for the night (though that was as much for the football game on TV as the shelter, I think...)

Cloudy Day

Here's a trio of those species tulips in the back garden, looking a little more formal and reserved today, in lieu of the sun's golden rays.

It was a pretty mellow day, all things being equal. We saw a lot of gathering clouds today, with little actual sunshine. Still, it was nice enough to get some serious stick-and-branch gathering and raking accomplished around here.

I like to make distinct piles of the many twigs, branches and large limbs the winter winds bring down for us, and then add the raked leaves and pine needles on top and around. I figure the process must create a reasonable dwelling for any one of a number of different creatures we see around here.

While raking, I spotted one of the Canada geese sailing peacefully around the pond.

I've noticed, too, that the water level in the pond is right up there, thanks to all our recent rains. It hasn't started to spill into the meadow yet...but it is raining again this evening, though it seems pretty light.

Those tiny daffodils are a continuing surprise, as they are putting out more than one bloom per stem. Their show just gets better each day. In the background here, you can see that our larger forsythia along the kitchen path has begun to bloom, as well.



Just couldn't resist another visit with one of our delightful hyacinths.

Rainy New Year

The new year brought us another windy and rainy Cape Cod day to get things underway. After the late night, it was nice to be able to listen to it all from inside the house, in between rounds of "Railroad Tycoon 3" and TV coverage of this year's Tournament of Roses Parade. Eventually, though, I heard something that drew me outside.

And that's when I discovered our New Year's Day visitors, a pair of Canadian geese who were swimming around with all our ducks, apparently loving the rain. Technically, I think today was supposed to be Seven Swans a Swimming...but you take what you get!

In the Front Yard

 

Here's a view from another part of our yard...out on the pond. For me, it's enough to be satisfied with the way the sunlight illuminates the leaves of the oak trees. But if you look really close, you may see A) about halfway up, between the two trees, a small wake is visible on the pond surface. The splash at the most distant point of the wake envelopes the duckling who was scramming so quickly across the pond as I quietly approached...and 2)just above the distant shoreline, you can see the street we live on. Luckily, no cars were passing as I snapped the shot.