'tis the Season, be jolly!

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, the latter thanks to the Better Half. My contribution was figuring out how to make the new-fangled kind of Christmas lights work. They aren't like the old fashioned kind that plug together end to end and we needed two strings.

chickadee after a snow storm

Photo by J. Harrington

Woods and fields are snow covered Winter wonderlands. The back yard is full of deer(?) and other tracks. Road ditches are full of snow and snowmobile tracks. Roads are passable but still covered with slushy and icy patches. The driveway has been blown clear for the second time in a week. (Duluth, with its 22" snowfall, put an end to our intermittent thoughts of moving there. There's such a thing as too much of a good thing and Duluth just did that with snow. Even without all the scenic hills, a 2 foot snowfall is too much.)

Winter, pileated woodpecker

Photo by J. Harrington

Usually, about this time of year, a pileated woodpecker starts appearing at the suet feeder. We've not seen one yet this (meteorological) Winter although the suet feeders have been up for a couple of weeks now. We'll keep watching and hope our usual Winter visitor arrives soon.

I'll confess, much as I dislike snow and cold and shoveling and snow blowing, Winter does bring a different kind of beauty. At the moment a blue jay has just landed on the sunflower seed feeder. Splashes of bright blue brighten a scene's snow white background. Male cardinals, with their bright red plumage do it even better.

December Notes

By Nancy McCleery

The backyard is one white sheet 

Where we read in the bird tracks 

The songs we hear. Delicate 

Sparrow, heavier cardinal, 

Filigree threads of chickadee. 

And wing patterns where one flew 

Low, then up and away, gone 

To the woods but calling out 

Clearly its bright epigrams. 

More snow promised for tonight. 

The postal van is stalled 

In the road again, the mail 

Will be late and any good news 

Will reach us by hand.

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