Now showing in my part of the world...

Out at the strip pits I go to as often as I can, we saw these two whooping cranes....

Last week Mary at Faith, Fabric, and Photos went to Goose Pond which is south of me...probably just a little be farther east then me, and she came back with photos of some Whooping Cranes she shows HERE. When I heard about her trip, I immediately wanted to go out to the strip pits near here...just in case. I didn't really think there would be any there, but much to my surprise there were these two....

According to Cornell's All about Birds, the population of whooping cranes in 1987 was 100....about 250 in 1995 and in 2004 the population had reached 468.....only part of those were in the wild. You can read more about them here....

On the bird in front, I could definitely see something green when I looked through Roger's spotting scope...not thinking to look it up I told Mary and she told me they are radio transmitters used to track them.
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It is staying bitter cold here. I have my doubts of the temps even reaching 20º F today...the only thing I have done is let the cats in and out a time or two. Even they are mostly just laying around, taking it easy, and sleeping away the hours.

Bubbie was up this morn and wanting to start something with the other cats; he gets bored. He is also so rough, no one likes to play with him. Of the three cats, he needs the most attention, likes to play the most, and is probably into more stuff in general. Anyway, after a short stay outside, he calmed down and welcomed a nice nap in front of the TV.

I can laugh till I cry sometimes thinking about these cats and things they and the dogs have done. When my older daughter was going to college, she worked full time here in town at a Mini-Mart. She came home to eat a quick bite about 7:30. Her dog, Shelby, always had food available. But when did she eat...she would wait till my daughter was sitting down to eat. She would get a big mouthful of food, come and drop at her feet, and then CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH!!! CRUNCH, CRUNCH, CRUNCH! Which in turn got on her and my nerves both...because we were usually taking that opportunity to talk a few minutes.

After that, fast forward a few years and she is out of college, has been out on her own for a while, moved back home for a short while. In that time I had acquired two of these cats from her, and when she came back home, she brought their mom and brother. This time around she has a good job, and has to really be awake and aware of what is going on around her.

Every other night or so, soon as she went to bed, two of the kitties would go in the kitchen which is right off her bedroom. They would proceed to start some sort of game which involved the cabinet doors. This time it was rattle, rattle, rattle. Rattle, Rattle, Rattle! Sometimes it would just be one reaching and pulling a door with their paw; other times one would manage to open the door enough to get inside, then they would play with each other through the door. They would have did this right on if I did not go set something in front of the doors till they could not reach them.

And I cannot tell how Puss Puss does Roger...you would have to hear and see him tell how she comes when he is sleeping and gets right in his face and her little whiskers tickling him so bad. It is just so funny...she does not do me that way. But then, Cougar does not bother him...and Bubbie has no mercy on either one of us. He used to never jump onto the bed itself...he jumped up there but it was always to land on my back or side...now he actually jumps on the bed part of the time so that is a big improvement.

There's other stories but I will save them for another day...

More of the snowy day

I always get a slight thrill when the snow begins to fall...there is always that slight anticipation of school being canceled...or called off as we used to say. Yet how long has it been since I was a kid...longer than I want to admit. And several years since the chance of our daughters getting a snow day. But if I quit feeling that anticipation of school being called off, I will probably be dead.

When I see the snow capping everything after a fresh snowfall, I remember walking along and taking a bite of snow off everything....fence posts and heavy laden branches or anything that would hold a mound of snow. How thirsty it made me! I never understood why I could be eating what is basically frozen water, and be getting thirstier all the time.


Going through the strip pits pulls at my heartstrings even more...I want to be a kid again and take my dogs and go tramping through it all. To see if we can scare up anything. I don't ever remember us jumping a rabbit in all my times of taking them, but there was still that anticipation. I do remember finding a rabbit sitting in a feeding trough at a neighbor's barn, though but I did not show it to the dogs.

I also remember one time my niece and I were out rambling about after a new fallen snow. We were walking along the railroad, where honeysuckle grows. I think she was the one spotted this 'wad' of stuff in the vines about as big around as a softball , but more elongated than round. We got the bright idea to squeeze it. I don't recall which of us squeezed first, but each time we did, a mouse would run out....and we would jump each time even though we expected it.

After seven ran out, no more would come out. We left the nest...we didn't want to hurt them. We just wanted to see. I suppose it is a wonder we didn't try to catch one or two. That memory makes me smile after all this time....

Oh, baby its a white world.....

The above was taken was taken at 12:58 a.m. yesterday morn...it is a handheld shot off my front porch. I like it a lot...and would love to have walked the neighborhood taking more, but it was snowing too hard to have the camera out in it.
These were taken over in Illinois...as we were driving down the road above we were thinking all kinds of titles for it but sadly I cannot remember any except something about Edge of the World and wondering if this is how Columbus felt.
You have to click this to get a better view...although you will still wonder why I posted it...it is just to show how hard it was to see. I have some I took before we were this close, and I fear you could not even see it.
These trees just a bit farther down the road, and this was actually probably not even the length of a football field away. I love the misty feel of it.
And this one was taken late yesterday evening after we got back to the house...at 3:53 pm. It snowed all day long...never hard...but the ground was warm and the snow melted all day long sidewalks and paved areas were warm, and the snow on them melted all day long....but last night I started hearing the crunch of tires as the snow and slush froze.

It is a cold, cold world out there this day...the birds are flocking to the feeders. I see my little Jenny Wren out there...she is a Carolina Wren. I always name them Jenny...I don't know where got that but I heard someone else or read someone else calling them Jenny. So I just give them that as a name. I am hoping she stays here through the summer.

It is so cold the cats are staying inside with barely a thought to going outside. If they do go, they don't stay long, they don't come to the door begging us to come outside either. They come in and are glad to stay inside for a good long while.