Follow Us!
† Requires Javascript
Copyright © 1997-2009 Demand Media. All rights reserved.
|
There are a few hardy geese that winter over, on a couple of rivers that actually remain open all winter. But most of them go further south to eat and raise the teenage geese. Driving along yesterday on the way to town, we saw a lot of geese that have returned. Pretty optimistic birds, they are. Standing around on the ice, sometimes on one leg, pairs of them were looking over nesting sites. It's always a good sign to see their return to the area. Many go further north, but lots stay in MN due to the open lakes and large fields that provide good forage areas. We saw a few pairs of ducks, but not many, in another couple of weeks there will be lots of them, but the geese return first. No robins in the yard yet, usually we have several pair that nest in the spruce trees. We still have some piles of snow around, but the fields are mostly bare of snow, some are full of water, but draining. We are to have 50 degrees today, then cooling back down to low 30's for the next several days, so spring isn't really here yet. The temps, indicate that winter is lingering, but dissipating. Enjoy reading all the spring activity further south, so when you are all out planting gardens, we'll just be having the spring bulbs making their show up here. Have a great day in the garden of your lives.
Ok, so the poor eagle looks headless standing in the tree, and his beak is floating too. It's not my fault the bird has a white head and day was cloudy. Maybe a better camera in a different life. We have been watching a couple of eagles this winter, off and on. They were eating something in the field out back of the house. I didn't go to close, 1.) I didn't want to scare them off, 2.) The snow was too deep to walk through, and 3.) If you have ever been close to one, you wouldn't want to get too close either. But we enjoyed seeing them off and on this winter. I know there were 2, because they were both out there feeding together one day.
Sure is great hearing about all the signs of spring coming in from other parts of the country. I know some of you are sick of rain, but up here tis a lovely thing indeed. The temp has come up and we have been between 34-36 degrees for 5 days and nights now. Occasionally it rains, but mostly it's been foggy, so the snow is slowly leaving. For now it's slowly melting into the soil, which is great for our ground supply. For now we are still looking mostly at piles of dirty colored snow. So your pictures of spring bring cheer, besides, I can't grow everything in my garden, so it's nice when you share pictures and I can enjoy yours too. You all take care and think spring folks, it's coming soon to a place near you.
Just to read about spring is a good thing this time of year. Yesterday, I was browsing through a couple of last years gardening magazines, (they are so hard to part with). It makes you just want to pick out a flower and chew on it. We get like that up here in the north country about March. Signs of pre-spring continue. We could finally see the owl's ears yesterday, only 2 feet of snow on the level now. The snow slid off the pole shed roof, where it had been frozen for a couple of months. The banks of snow are everywhere, slowly melting, they went down about 2 inches yesterday. It's so cold out the computer froze up this morning and didn't want to start up. Boy, did I give it a think a coming, it's getting spring fever now. Now, at daylight, we have freezing fog all around. Then on top of that the news talks about low morale oversea's, I can see why. The best thing for today, would be to make some red pepper stew, that'll light a firecracker under you.
It's not really spring here, it's what we call pre-spring. Those are signs that we look for first. One of the most obvious signs of pre-spring, is when we can see the mailbox again. The snow isn't really melting much, mostly it settles. Now we can see when the flag is up or down and know if the mail has been taken or come in. It's a very important part of our ritual in looking forward to spring, the mail flag. Then again the ice is also disipating from the driveway and street, in some places. In the spring it will be all gone. Safe to walk again time as we call it. Last night the moon was so full yet, gorgeous shadows this morning from the church steeple. I heard an owl this morning, when I awoke. I got up to glass the trees behind the house, there he was in cottonwood tree, looking out over the field for breakfast. Well that's pre-spring here in the north. Now I'm going to be checking for blogs about the real spring down south, working it's way north, for we've a long way to go here.
† Requires Javascript
Copyright © 1997-2009 Demand Media. All rights reserved.
