Snow and Rain and Freezing Fog

Sorry I have been out of commission these past 10 days. It seems like every day is running together. The amazing thing is that no matter how quickly time passes, there are always extraordinary changes everytime we go out for a walk. The weather here has been harsh this winter. A lot of wet, heavy snow, plus cold wind, and now a new weather term: freezing fog. It's different from sleet. It's very fine crystals just wisping around like you're standing in a snow globe.

A lot of tree branches have broken off and fallen in heaps along our paths. Bruce, the farmer next door, tries to keep up with them so sometimes they are trimmed and cut for firewood not too long after falling. But up on this end the big fir trees have lost enough limbs to make a huge pile of evergreen bowers at their bases. And often the wet snow is weighing down the lower limbs so you have to duck under and go into a perfect little fort. The raspberry hedges have gotten so scrunched that I can see over them and Blue and I even made a new path over some flattened branches. Poor Blue's paws must be really tough to walk over all those little thorns ("jaggers" as SIE calls them). There are 2 woodland alcoves that are quite open now after loosing the blackberry walls.

The pine siskin have moved on. But one day a small flock of evening grosbeaks filled the big feeder. They're the first I ever saw and so pretty. They are about the size of robins and the females are gently colored gray and pale yellow(like the evening sky at sunset). The male have a more contrasting black, yellow, and white pattern. Pictures in my books do not so them justice. It was truly a delight to watch their little flock feeding - no nipping and fighting like the pine siskins and jays.