December Dawns

December 21, 2011

December 21, 2011

December 23, 2011

For more skies, visit Skywatch Friday.

Skies and Reflections

Gray skies 12-6-11

A gray day with gray skies,

Deerfield River

and silver reflections.

For more skies visit Skywatch Friday.

Festival of Trees

Festival of Trees, Springfield

On Tuesday afternoon I was signing my book at the Festival of Trees at Springfield’s Tower Square. There were the trees of course.

Brookings School Gospel Choir

I particularly enjoyed these singers from a local school

I got my picture taken by this tree with some extraordinarily colored poinsettias. What a  wonderful day. AND I  sold books. Do you have all your presents bought yet?

Bridge of Flowers Season Ends

October 31, 2011

We don’t usually have snow at the end of the season, but it has been a remarkable and difficult year with extraordinary weather. I think the Bridge is ready for a rest.

See you on April 1, 2012.

Monday Report March 14

Entry and Welcoming Platform

This is an end-of- winter Monday Report. Next Monday it will be Spring. The temperature this am is 32 degrees and we are enjoying a snow flurry. Grrrrrr.  But you can see there has been a lot of snow melt. Warmth is predicted for this afternoon.  Although the season has been most unusual, the maple sugarers seem to be having a good run.

Daylily Bank

Even though the snow was very deep with plow piles along here, the exposure is to the south and snowmelt always comes early.

Front Garden

It is because of the warmth that come early that comes here, not to mention protection from the wind, that I prepared a new garden last spring using the lasagna method. Early lettuce, lots of broccoli, parsley and a nasturtium transition to the Daylily Bank. I can’t wait to begin again.

Krishna

The metal Krishna and the stone wall absorb enough heat from the winter sun to cause some snow melt at the far side of the Sunken Garden. The snow is still three feet deep here, and even deeper in the southwest corner.

It’s a good thing spring is almost here because the woodpile is seriously depleted. Two cords of wood – gone up in smoke.  Fortunately, there is more wood waiting to be split under the big plow pile.  Spring is coming. I can see it through the snowflakes.

Still Winter

It rained heavily all Monday night and continued lightly through the morning. Then the temperatures plummeted to 24 degrees. When I went out to my car at 11 am it was covered with ice, and all the locks and doors were frozen tight. I wasn’t going anywhere.

At 3 pm the sun began to shine brilliantly. It turned the trees and shrubs into crystal sculptures. Happily, even though the temperatures were still in the low 20s, the ice melted off the car and released the doors.

Autumnal Scenery by Orra White Hitchcock

Fortunately I can enjoy other scenes in my mind’s eye. Recently I traipsed down to the Mead Art Museum at Amherst College to see the Orra White Hitchcock (1796-1863) An Amherst Woman of Art and Science exhibit. I expected to see  delicate botanical drawings, and I did, but I also enjoyed her landscapes, landscapes that are very familiar to me, and most unexpectedly, the large classroom charts that she made to help her husband, Edward Hitchcock, teach the natural sciences at Amherst College.  You will be hearing more about  Orra here soon.  Don’t forget today is International  Women’s Day, and  it is Women’s History Month when we make a particular effort to explore the lives of intelligent, skilled and talented women we may have lost sight of.  Last March I wrote about landscape architect Beatrix Farrand and you can read about her here.

At Least We Have Sun

For more Wordlessness click here.

Winter Night on Muse Day

Cold moon, cold moonlight

Tucking another blanket

around the newborn.

by CarolPurington  from Family Farm: Haiku for a Place of Moons

We have no newborn, but this haiku captures the way I feel as the winter night falls. When bedtime arrives I gaze out at our snowy landscape,  chill and luminous in the moonlight; I am happy to slip between my flannel sheets, and tuck a warm quilt around me.  Then I dream of spring when the snow is gone, when veils of green appear and when peepers in the Frog Pond sing me to sleep.

Thanks to Carolyngail who hosts the muses the first of every month.  Click here to see how others are inspired.

Weasel – Trapped!

Saturday morning I substituted for our wonderful Assistant Librarian, Lyra, who is on maternity leave and tending lusty young Jupiter. Needless to say the three chickens I had lost to a weasel during the week was a topic of conversation with library patrons. I said we put out a rat trap and a Havahart, but did not think that peanut butter was the kind of bait to attract a weasel. Everyone agreed that peanut butter did not sound like weasel food – and one knowledgeable patron confidently suggested liver.

When I got home I learned that another chicken had been killed. The traps were empty. Liver was our next strategy.  We found frozen liver at the supermarket and briefly balked at the $3.50 price tag. If successful we were only going to use an ounce or two; if unsuccessful we were going to give the chickens away and save them from certain death.  Finally we did toss the beef liver into our basket.

Sunday morning Henry gritted his teeth and tromped out to the hen house through more inches of new fallen snow.

He came back in the house and made me scream; the weasel had been seduced by the bloody liver. I will say no more about the weasel’s fate.

Snow – And Blood

February 25 8 am

The snow was falling when I woke.  I hope this is the first of the four final snowstorms predicted for this winter.

While the snow is beautiful, the view inside the hen house was not as lovely.  For the third morning in a row I went out to find a dead chicken, killed by a weasel. I don’t know if it is possible to keep a determined and hungry weasel out of a hen house. I will spare you the image.  Only a dozen chickens left, including a rooster.