'O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
Better yet, it is beginning to warm up. 40s? That feels right warm compared to what we've been through. Last weekend the sun was out and warmed up the brick and the deck area. I dragged two chairs and the patio table out of the garage. Spent an hour last Saturday morning sitting in the warm sun with a cup (okay, several) of coffee and absolutely delighted in doing nothing but feeling the heat through my jeans and listening to the birds.
I have previously mentioned my six o'clock ducks. They are still doing fly-bys at 6 pm, but in addition to that I now have morning geese. Unlike my whispering ducks, the geese are noisy. Sounds like they are all honking at the same time, some inner vee dispute about which way to fly? They fly overhead between 8 and 8:30 am. I usually hear them coming from some distance, so I can go out and watch them pass over. Lately I have been getting 3 large vees of geese about 5 minutes apart. Maybe all the honking is to keep in touch with the vees behind them.
Early in the evening, while low on the horizon it was caught behind all the trees. Here it looks as though the globe is being held between two long skinny fingers. It is also interesting that there were several branches that crossed in front of the moon, but she was putting out so much light that it blew them right out of the picture.
Saturday, March 19
I had big plans for today. I was going to paint the ceilings in the dining and living rooms. If I was on a roll I was going to continue down the hall. It was a plan. But plans change.
We are supposed to get rain tomorrow. All the snow is gone and I had to get out in the yard. So far I have raked all the leaves, branches and other winter detritus out of the front flower bed, the bed in front of the house, and the big fern bed under the kitchen window. I was going to stop at the point, but I couldn't let the March blooming lung wort languish under a heavy layer of wet leaves.Now that they are exposed to sun and air, I'll bet they will be blooming in a couple of days.
I was surprised to see how many spiders and small beetles were scuttling under the leaves I was raking. I would have thought it was too early for bugs, but I was happy to see them. Gives the birds something to eat.
I have a pair of tufted titmouses very busy in the yard and on the feeder. I also saw a pair of goldfinches. He was starting to lose his olive drab. Wasn't bright yellow, but kind of buttery.
In other first sightings, I saw a turkey vulture (or buzzard) today. Just one, making big circles over the neighborhood, slowly moving north. March 15 is the official day that buzzards come back to Hinckley Ohio. Hinckley is about halfway between Cleveland and Akron, a three hour drive from Detroit. I guess one left the party early.
The moonrise was exquisite tonight. Low on the horizon it was golden, getting lighter and whiter as it rose in the sky. The light it was putting out cast shadows on the ground. According to NASA Science New, perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon's orbit. I can certainly vouch for the brightness. Even though we had slight haziness, the light burned through it, but the haze also made a halo effect around the moon. Amazing.
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