Words are not very forthcoming at the moment, but maybe some pictures will help get things moving.
A team from the National Weather Service came to my little city this morning to survey damage from a storm that whipped through last night, trying to determine whether it was straight-line winds or a tornado. I can tell you from personal observation that there was rotation! These photos are taken from the alley behind Annie’s house — that’s her garage, driveway & tumbled bins. The tree was from an across-the-alley neighbor, which means that it fell from east to west (and a little north) — not the usual direction!
I’ve read posts on social media about people missing refuse bins, and another where someone found a trampoline in their yard — not theirs! Many, many trees came down, many cars got squished, an apartment complex was evacuated because part of the roof came off, a few thousand people were without power. It’s a mess. Luckily, I’ve heard of ZERO injuries/fatalities.
I did a quick survey of our back yard & ravine this morning and noticed one tree leaning against another… I don’t think it was doing that yesterday.
In other news…
I took the Eclipse (top down) to pick up plants at my CSA farm on Saturday — it’s about a 2-hour RT and down almost the entire length of Lake Winnebago — it was absolutely gorgeous!
The garden is shaping up and there’s something new happening every day! Veggie, flowers & herbs are all in — I have a couple of things to re-pot and bean seeds to sow, and that will happen this weekend.
I also plan to continue cleaning type and, hopefully, making a few proofs for a printing project that I have in mind. One color/pass? Two? That seems like a good project for a long weekend… I have Friday off, so will have a little head start…
I didn’t think I had anything to say today, certainly not much knitting to share. (I have been knitting, but it’s a pretty unphotogenic gnome shape.) Then I opened today’s newsletter from Colossal and was intrigued by one of Kate’s recent articles… thought you might find it interesting, too:
Then, y’know, I had to find a photo! I have posted without a photo before (recently, even), but I am loathe to do so. I found a few, and next thing you know, it’s practically a proper post!
On Saturday, I visited a really wonderful local market that I’ve been trying to visit more… Produce With Purpose. They had a pop-up, as they often do on Saturdays, and The Traveling Sharpener was among the vendors! I packed up nine knives, which were then nice & sharp for slicing up the morels & asparagus we found while we waited. (Not shown, the honey, cheeses, tomatoes, peas, gorgonzola & fig ravioli that we also found.) (The beer is new to me, not from PWP, but photogenic… and good!)
We (and by “we” I mean Kate… she’s been doing ALL the cooking lately and I’ll be forced to step up soon) made Pasta With Morels, Peas and Parmesan (a Bittman recipe in NYT Cooking and, if you know Bittman, it’s those things plus salt, pepper & butter… pretty simple).
Like many of you, we’ve been busy outside! There’s the rough start to a big re-do on the west side… the house next store sold recently & it seemed like a good time to plant the hedge. They are Taylor Junipers that’ll grow up narrow & tall. A bunch of other stuff will get trimmed back/tamed, some things removed, others added… a path, an arbor… other plants. The photo on the left shows our actual property line (the yellow string)… we inch over frequently and if anyone over there ever decides to build a fence, we’d feel the pinch the way things are right now. No timeline.
I’m so hoping that ant is checking out a bud on my oak leaf hydrangea — is this the year? Alliums are getting ready to burst open! The fiddlehead ferns are growing like weeds (which is how I often tend to think of them)… but we are going to be (safely) enjoying some of the shoots in a leek, asparagus & fiddlehead fern quiche tonight — every bit of it locally grown (including eggs from Ali’s brood). Pan is in the garden! Stored (light-starved) plants are out of the basement!
As I was trying to capture the photo above the other night, Dash (neighbor cat) walked by and bumped my arm…
…and I hit the button that turns the camera around while simultaneously taking a photo! Well, hi there!!
It should be a fairly nice weekend in these parts and I’m looking forward to getting outside!! I hope you can get out there, too (if you wanna). Happy Weekend!
Even though we live practically in the middle of a small city, our house is at the edge of a ravine, near a creek and a river, so there’s a lot of wildlife around — deer, fox, gray squirrels, black squirrels, chipmunks, mice, voles, rabbits, woodchucks, snakes… and birds! It’s been a while, but I’ve even had Bald Eagles perching in our oak trees (we see them a lot). All that wildlife is even more noticeable in our own actual backyard, so to speak, since we haven’t had a resident cat in a few years.
Thanks to Kym sharing info about the Merlin Bird ID app (free) a while back, we’re having a blast identifying and saving birds to our Life Lists. There are different “packs,” depending on location, so when we visited my sister in Peru I was prompted to download an ID pack for that location. Now, in addition to American Robin, Mourning Dove & Northern Cardinal, my list includes Blue-gray Tanager, Saffron Finch, Vermillion Flycatcher, Blue-and-white Swallow, Blue-black Grassquit, and Bananaquit — some of those right in her very tiny, very urban backyard in Lima.
And I’m just more aware, no matter where I am. It was thrilling a few weeks ago when, walking out to the mailbox at work, I heard a call I hadn’t heard before… opened the app and “listened” to discover it was a Sandhill Crane! A few days later, walking through the grocery store parking lot, I heard it again & a pair flew right overhead, on their way north.
The other day, Kate & I took a walk at Heckrodt Wetland Reserve and spotted a pair of Great Blue Herons across the pond; we’ve seen Red-tailed Hawks there quite often, too…
…sometimes even close enough to snap a crappy pic. (Birds are so hard to photograph!)
A long time ago, Rusty built a big birdfeeder that we put up in in the area of the pergola (before the pergola). (Told ya… it was a long time ago!) I tired of the mess — mostly the birdseed weeds that would sprout up everywhere — and it needed to be moved for the pergola, so it’s been in the lower yard at the edge of the ravine for a while and has been overgrown with grapevine, which, it turns out, provides a lot of privacy… if you’re a bird looking to site your new nest!
Anyway, the birdfeeder bug bit again — mostly Kate’s idea (okay, 100% her idea), and now we have a birdfeeder hanging between a couple of the columns on the back porch. It’s making an even bigger (but sweep-able) mess, but it’s only a few feet from our big kitchen windows — when you’re sitting at the table, it’s like watching BIRD TV (as long as we make no sudden movements).
Yesterday, as I was getting ready for work, Rusty alerted me to a new bird that was perched on the porch railing. By the time I got there, it was pecking seed on the floor… very content.
Turns out, it was a Rose-breasted Grosbeak, which is kinda rare in our area — they’re usually more to the east of us.
He hung out all day! We figure he was pooped after his flight from South America & we were a pit stop.
The other thing happening on the back porch… again…
…is that Candy & Carl Cardinal are trying to build a nest on the light fixture. This happened last year, too, and even a plastic snake draped on the fixture didn’t deter them. Alas, they didn’t actually nest there, and I’m hoping that they won’t this year, either. It’s a very “busy” location, but I’m thinking that all the additional activity at the feeder — only 10′ or so away — will discourage them more than anything. Don’t get me wrong! I think hosting Candy & Carl while they grow their family would be AMAZING… just not very practical for any of us.
I’m not sure, and I hope I don’t jinx it, but it seems likely that a Bird Buddy might be landing here for Mother’s Day this year. haha.
