Backyard Birds

About a year ago, I wrote about two new bird feeders that we hung at the back of our house.  One was a double-decker seed feeder, and the other was called a bark butter feeder.  You can read about those in For The Birds.

Just a few weeks ago, we added two more feeders to this location -- a suet feeder and another type of feeder for bark butter.  Our kitchen window looks out onto this porch, and we get a really good view of all the birds coming back and forth to the feeder throughout the day.

Last Friday, we had a little bit of snow and a lot of sleet and rain, so my husband chose to work from home.  It was a good decision because his company ended up sending everyone home around lunchtime, which is a very unusual occurrence.

Since it was so cold and nasty, we had lots of traffic at the bird feeders.  I decided to see if I could capture some decent pictures with the point and shoot camera, and I did manage to get a few.  This is the male Downy Woodpecker (sorry about the fuzzy image).

Welcome To Our Foyer

I took all my Christmas decorations down over two weeks ago, but I'm still working on putting all of our rooms back in order.  I've never really shown you our foyer, except a glimpse of it decorated for fall or Christmas.  Like the other rooms in our house, it has changed and evolved over the 16 years we've lived here.

Foyers can be tricky to decorate, don't you think?  Our foyer is by no means large at, 11' 8" x 4' 4," but it's not really tiny either.  This is the first house we've owned that has a foyer.  We liked our little Craftsman bungalow in Greensboro, but it didn't have a foyer.

I think the first order of business in decorating a foyer is to have a few pieces of furniture for your space.  When we moved here from our first home, we didn't have any furniture that would have looked right in a foyer.  We were very fortunate, because my husband's grandmother gave us her lyre harp table with a marble top, and it's the perfect size for the dimensions of our foyer.

First Tablescape Re-Posted and Second Blogging Anniversary

Hi everyone!  Is it cold where you are --'cause it's very cold and...um, "breezy" here today.   Thankfully, the sun is shining and the sky is blue, but that may change tomorrow.  As of last night, we had a 50 percent chance of snow tomorrow, and I've got to get out and get all my errands done so we'll have food, just in case.  Mr. Forest Manor and I are hoping for a wee bit of snow.  :)

I didn't announce it at the time, but I celebrated my second year of blogging this January 19th.  No applause, please.  (JUST KIDDING)  :-D  Seriously, this is a big milestone for me because it took me a while to get up enough nerve to start a blog, and now I love it.  I've met so many nice people, and even met a few of you in person.  I've seen some beautiful homes and tablescapes and some amazing projects and crafty creations.  Thanks to all of you for your support and your kind, and often funny (Alycia), comments; and thanks for sharing all your wonderful creativity on a daily basis.

I'm planning to have a giveaway to celebrate the two-year anniversary, which I'll fill you in on later, but for today, I'm re-posting my first tablescape from back in February of 2011.  I linked to Susan's Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch then, and I'm linking this same post again today.  Susan's beautiful blog is the very first blog I saw when I googled "tablescapes" one day, and I was hooked immediately.  I'm also joining our very talented friend, Kathleen of Cuisine Kathleen for her Let's Dish party and Seasonal Sundays, hosted by The Tablescaper, who creates amazing tablescapes every single week.  Kathleen has a winter/snow challenge for this week's Let's Dish party.  I hope you'll stop by and see all the creative tables.  Here's my first tablescape re-posted.

     

Tonight I am linking to Susan's Tablescape Thursday at Between Naps on the Porch. I'm new at blogging, and this is my first time to participate in Tablescape Thursday.  I have enjoyed looking at so many of your posts for some months now and have decided to try my hand at blogging.

I put together this tablescape last winter and I've re-created it this year (with a few tweaks), so this truly was my first tablescape.  My dining room was always in limbo after the Christmas holidays because once I took down the Christmas centerpiece, candles, etc., the table and room looked so bare.  It was a bit sad to look at.  No festive holidays in January (with the exception of a few family birthdays), and it was too soon to put my silk roses back on the table; too soon to think about Easter, which was usually the next thing I decorated the dining room for.

A Trip to England, 1999 -- Part Two

Hi Folks!  Did you all enjoy Downton Abbey Sunday night?  I know lots of you were planning on watching the Season Three opener; we certainly did at our house.

Which brings me to the topic for this post -- our trip to England in 1999.  Back in the summer, I wrote about the London part of our trip, and you can read about our visit to Stratford-upon-Avon, as well.  We also went to Ireland at that time, and I've done two posts on that part of the trip.  You can find those Here and Here.  Since I'm still undecorating and putting away Christmas things, now is a good time to do a travel post.

We basically had one full weekend in England, plus the following Monday through Friday afternoon.  My husband had to work the Monday through Thursday that we were there, but we still managed to do some sightseeing.  We took the train to London on the Saturday, and we drove to Stratford upon Avon on Sunday.  In addition, the owner of the country hotel where we stayed kindly offered to drive me to a nearby town one day to see some sights.  Warning:  This post is photo heavy, folks.

I enjoyed seeing London (a whirlwind visit, to be sure), but without a doubt my favorite part of England was the countryside and the small villages.  We spent seven days and nights at the Bellows Mill, in Bedfordshire, just outside the small town of Dunstable.

Looking Back

Over the last few days, I've enjoyed looking at everyone's recap of their blog posts for 2012.  I hadn't planned to do one, just for the sake of being perverse and not doing exactly what everyone else does.  I know, I'm peculiar that way.  :)

But then I realized that I have a second blog anniversary coming up in a few weeks, and I wanted to look back and see just what I've done since my very first post back in January 2011.  It was kind of fun to look through the archives -- kind of like looking back through a photo album or memory book.  Anyway, I decided to give a little recap of my top five posts for this past year.

In fifth place was "Mom and Dad's Porch," which you can see Here.

Happy New Year

Hello New Year -- Welcome 2013!  Here at Forest Manor, we're hoping 2013 will be a good year for one and all.

source

Best Wishes,

Denise