Don’t give up on me yet, folks. I’m almost back to posting on poetry. I’ve nearly finished Sharon Olds’ The Unswept Room
and should be posting on that tomorrow (especially now that I’ve said I would).
I probably would have finished my first entry today, but Tacoma got a rare snowstorm last night and today, so I had to spend much of my day running food out for the birds, both sunflower seeds for the sparrows:
and, more importantly, sugar solution for the poor little hummingbird who apparently forgot to go South. I had to run out every hour and bring the hummingbird feeder in and thaw it. Unfortunately it turns out that hummingbirds are harder to take pictures of than sparrows. Everytime I tried to move in close up to fill up the screen on my digital camera, the hummingbird buzzed off.
I had to settle for some pictures of Leslie and Skye on the trail:
Well naturally I had get out and hike in the snow. After all, this is Tacoma’s first real snow storm in six years. Who knows when the next one will get here?
Lovely pics. Odd, I think everyone has had snow but us.
If Leslie and Skye are on a path near your home, you do have a nice location.
Yep, that’s a little over a block from our house, which probably explains why I’ve burned less than a tank of gas per month on my car.
Don’t need to drive too far when you have an old-growth forest and deer right across the street from you.
I’d like to dive right into that snow in my birthday suit. It’s 33°C (91°F) in Sydney with a maximum of 38°C (100°F) expected.
Wow, it’s hard to remember how far apart we are, Jonathon. Turns out we’re a whole season apart.
Nice pictures Loren. Enjoy it while you’ve got it!
Yeah come on up here Jonathon 🙂 – I have three feet of snow in the yard and closer to 5 feet on the mountain out back. Of course there is a tradeoff 🙂 It’s damn cold here. It was around -20C (-4F) today and that’s without any wind factor. I’m approximately 100mi North of Loren and 400mi East.
Old-growth forest… deer… snow… how absolutely wonderful. And is that a blue merle rough collie I see before me??
I’m whisked straight back to teendom, the countryside, old mixed woodland, snow and my three rough collies (none merles, sadly). The woods had deer in (albeit only muntjack</a).
A real time-machine of a picture for me – thank you so much for posting it and removing me from the chilly urban greyness of today. I shall return and gaze at it frequently.
(sorry – should have been muntjac – http://www.deer-uk.com/muntjac_deer.htm)
Sounds like a good description of Skye’s heritage, though here he called an Australian Shepherd.
I’m sure he would be called something else in Australia.
Occasionally he’s even called other names here at home when he goes beserk because there are other dogs running free in the snow.
Coincidentally, my mother just included a tip on keeping hummingbird food from freezing on her blog: http://www.cherylsgardenparty.com/2004/Diary/DiaryJan04Wk1.htm (sorry, no permalinks). Turns out she used an aluminum reflector lamp.
I keep hoping we’ll get some snow down here – yours looks so lovely!
That’s probably an Anna’s Hummingbird. They hang around all winter at my place on the British Columbia south coast.