Some Observations On a Snowy Day

It looks like an amazing winter wonderland here in our corner of the world.  Right now we have about six inches of snow in our little town outside of Winston-Salem, N.C.

The snow was beautiful -- it came down hard and fast.  Several times this afternoon, I looked out the window and it was blowing in big gusts and swirls.  That's not something we typically see with our snows around here.  However, this is a doozy of a winter storm.  Right now, it's sleeting, and we've been listening to the little tap, tap, tapping sound that it makes for the last few hours.  Thankfully, we still have power.

We've been watching the birds, as we are so fond of doing.  Last year in March, I wrote about how an animal had stolen our bark butter feeder during the night.

I didn't get around to putting an update on the blog, but Mr. Forest Manor found the feeder a few days later in some leaves at the edge of our woods.  I was really glad we recovered it because it's my favorite feeder.  The blue birds love it too.

Then back in the summer, an animal stole our other bark butter feeder...

...and the squirrels kept getting into our seed feeder, so we just took them all down.  We bought a new feeder that the squirrels can't get the seeds out of, a new bark butter feeder, and we now have all the feeders back in place.  We have to bring them in at night; it's the only way to keep those pesky raccoons from making off with them.

Today, hubby and I both saw dark-eyed Juncos on our suet feeders.  They're so cute to watch.  In addition, we've seen a Yellow-rumped Warbler on our feeders, and I'm kind of excited about that.  I talked to the lady at our local Wild Birds Unlimited®, and she said a lot of people are seeing them here this winter because it's been so bitterly cold up North this year.

**Note:  These are not my photographs.  They came from Wikipedia, and I've linked the sources below the pictures.

Dark-eyed Junco

Yellow-rumped Warbler

I don't know if you do much bird watching, but I get pretty excited when I see a new variety of bird and am actually able to identify it.

In other news, Mr. Forest Manor says he's going to throw these guys...

into the fire because this weather is all their fault.  :)  He just likes to tease me; he doesn't really think they conjured up all this snow.  And speaking of snow and the weather -- can you believe the temperature was 50° in Sochi, Russia, today and it was around 25° here in North Carolina.  By the way, the Olympic Committee called and they want their snow back.  :)

 And last of all...

...the latest puppy picture from this past Sunday.  I typed Duncan's name in red (hope you can see it).

The breeder writes in her e-mail that it's very hard to take pictures of moving puppies, especially when they're black.  Tell me about it.  Our first Scottie was black, and she just seemed to disappear in the pictures we took.  The breeder says they're very friendly and they gravitate to her voice.  She also told me that they have started to growl at each other now when they play, and it's really cute.  I guess they've got to work out who's in charge.  :)

Well, that's all I have at the moment.  We're cozy and comfy in our house tonight; I hope and pray we'll keep our power tomorrow.  I hope you and your loved ones are safe and warm.  Signing off for now.

Denise


"...the only other sound's the sweep
of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep." 

Robert Frost

"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"