Bogieblog

Trees and Birds

Last Tuesday I went out to check on the bird feeder and saw this in the back yard

That limb was 14.5' long. There hadn't been any wind, nor was there a snow load, so I assumed the dead tree is just starting to break down. When I went to remove the limb, I saw that it hadn't actually landed on the chair, but had landed but down first at some point (probably during the heavy snow the previous week), then fallen over after the snow had melted the previous evening. The hole is 9" deep and the but end of the limb had dirt and mulch on it.

Guessing this is the tree it came from

Later that same day, I heard the call of a big woodpecker as it was flying overhead. To my delight, a Pileated landed in trees just to the right of the one that had had lost its limb. The first 2 pictures are at a slight zoom, and then cropped to bring the bird "closer". The 3rd picture is at a high zoom

As if that wasn't good enough, after I quit taking pictures I saw another one coming over the trees, and it landed behind the first. That distance was a real stretch, and this is the best picture I could get

And to end things, here is Spot being cute. She had originally burrowed completely under the pillows, but by the time I grabbed my phone, she had moved out some.

Instant Winter

Last week at this time I had absolutely no snow. There had been a couple of flurries at my house, but not measurable and blew awya or melted.

Last Monday morning that all changed. 7" of snow on the rail (I measured after taking the picture)

About 9" of snow by the time I got done snow blowing

There was a break Monday afternoon, and then the second storm hit. I got another 7-8" (guessing because I didn't measure). I didn't bother with pictures, because , well, it was just more white stuff. I was lucky, Antrim (a town abutting part of Hillsboro) got 27" and Rindge (not too far from me) got 36" between the two storms. Sure, we've seen those totals before, but really, it would have been nice to get some lighter storms first to get our shoveling and snow blowing muscles in practice.

I brought my work computer home that weekend so I worked from home both Monday and Tuesday - why deal with slick roads and less than competent drivers when you don't need to?

I've had several mornings that were 11 so far, yesterday being one of those. This morning it is 1, I mean 0* - it just went down some more.

It is supposed to warm up thru Tuesday, when we are supposed to get sleet and rain, so we'll see how much snow is left after that.