Have you ever noticed how spooky it can be in the, er, dead of winter?
Coyote lost.
Haunted magnolia.
Spirit of Groundhog Day Past.
PS, Punxsutawney Phil may get the last laugh after all. Heard the cardinal sing his spring song this morning (as I trudged through the snow!).
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Nothing beats the smell of fresh java when you return from the frozen yard, snow speckling your flannel robe, baby icicles tucked inside your boots.* As the rest of suburbia sleeps in or strokes the NY Post via iPad, you were dutifully standing knee-deep in the chilly white stuff, unraveling a frozen release cable on the coop door and sloshing water into bowls for patient poultry.
What are you, nuts?!
Okay, maybe a little crazy. Crazy about the special stillness when SUVs rest in pre-dawn driveways. Before snow-blowers and salt trucks and road plows rupture the post-storm silence. When the sky, etched in tree limbs, ripples quietly from purple-orange to gray-blue.
So, nuts? Perhaps. But you’ll take ducks over Page Six any morning.
Anyone seen the coop?
*Little House in Suburbia-style.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Squirrel GPS on high res.*
Destination.
*Have no idea how they work out the traffic lights.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
The calm after the storm.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Here we go, folks. This is the real deal. Stay warm; stay safe.
Note: Photo from earlier day–not taking my new camera out there yet!
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
I’m not trying to pick on the ol’ groundhog here but (who’s counting?) we’ve had three separate (OK, I am) snow-ish events since February 2nd and now they’re calling for a Northeast blizzard on Friday (Boston, not so much NY but we’ll still get sideswiped). Before the next installment of “spring” arrives, thought we’d revisit some gentler moments from our recent dustings.*
Angel by my not-so-little-anymore one.
Japanese pieris adds winter interest to the front yard.
Dawn’s early light.
*My metric: If I don’t have to shovel, it’s not “real” snow.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
After much trial and lots of error (don’t ask me about hoses and subfreezing temps–I’ll weep), it’s clear that winter may be the cruelest season when it comes to providing waterfowl with the wet stuff. Ducks don’t like anything but liquid water–they won’t break ice, don’t care for slush and only nip at snow. Unless it’s a balmy 32 F or above, our babies need supplemental (read: brought outside from a protected faucet) water that may need to be replenished several times a day when it dips into the ‘teens. Since we don’t have a barn and our garage is not connected to the backyard, giving them access to a covered, above-freezing space is not an option.* Here was the game plan:**
1: Be home all day. Then when either a) water bowl turns into large muddy ice cube or b) tips over during boisterous bathing, you can refill/replace with fresh supply. Because you have nothing better to do all day.
2: If above option not available, try larger containers that take longer to freeze until…
3: Even larger containers freeze. Go back to #1 or…
4: Carry water in buckets from unfrozen but still mighty nippy garage through gate down path to frosty yard. BTW, you may want to acquire one of those nifty farmer yoke things if you’re sufficiently sturdy. Otherwise, carry H-two-O in small buckets until you either a) fill up bowls or b) collapse.
5: Dream of finding time to deal with long-ago purchased heated base for poultry waterer. Worry about combination of ducks, water and electricity for several months as temps descend below freezing point. Then, after weeks of water-hauling and related cleaning/ice-breaking chores, finally find spare five minutes to rip open box, read fine print and discover heater must only be used…INDOORS!
6: Suppress expletives. Repeat above as needed until spring.
.
Mud? What mud?
*Should have married a farmer?
**Learn from my mistakes!
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Introducing, the all-new QuackBerry!
What do you mean it’s not for sale yet?
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Some clerk in the Department of Weather must be trying to make a phool out of Phil. Less than 24 hours after the celebrated groundhog predicts Winter Is On the Way Out, here comes (more) snow. Now don’t get me wrong: our local prognosticating rodents (the well-fed ground squirrels and Who Me, Hibernate? Eastern cottontails) made the same, albeit untelevised, claims. Yup, all agree that spring is right around the corner…
…but, first, a little more of the white stuff for your 2012-2013 shoveling quota!
For more phascinating phacts about Phil, et. al.
NOAA (U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) did a fun/wonky chart showing Punxsutawney Phil’s record vs. actual temps.
Weather.com compares the famous and not-so-famous rodents and their claims.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Left the backyard the other day to see what winter had wrought in the marshes.
Unbearable brightness of being.
Fluffy food.
On the rocks.
Happy Groundhog Day! Punxsutawney Phil just confirmed what our local rabbits have known for weeks: Spring is just around the corner…
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Morning has broken…time to feed the ducks.
Good if you’re stopping by woods on a snowy morning.
Snowed on a frozen urn.
Really, it’s warmer if you sit down?*
*Apparently it is, based on my observation of duck behavior. Also, it’s warmer in any body of water…because if it’s wet, it’s not frozen!
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
To the Marketing Department/Company Selling Me Something I Don’t Want/Compulsive Forwarder in the Family/Political Fundraiser/Pollster/Charity I’ve Never Supported & Never Would/Friend of A Friend of a Former Friend With Internet Access:
This is an official Cease & Desist Order. Please don’t send me any more email.* Or give out my addy even though you say you don’t share your list (right!). Or send me annoying advertisements for products you can’t sell or Please Tell Us What You Think Because Why Should We Pay for Market Research When We Can Get it Free From Our Customers via follow-up surveys.
My mama didn’t raise no dummies.
Yeah, yeah, I know about Spam Filters that if you blog, for example, come in super-handy. But with your personal mail—mail that you intend to use for all kinds of transactions, especially those involving a credit card or other financial payment scheme—you don’t want to get those Lost in the Spam Filter, so you let down your guard. You Add to the List. You Open the Barn Door and Let the Digital Fox In.
What were you thinking???!
Here’s how I do the Wasting-My-Life Math. For every email I have to download, identify as spam then delete as such (and possibly also add to the spam filter database), I lose approximately 3-5 seconds of my life, a bit more pre-coffee. Averaging that to 4 seconds per unwanted item, let’s call it (conservatively) 10 items per day, 365.25 days per year, rounded to 3650 X 4 seconds equals about 243 minutes or roughly four hours per year just deleting spam. Considering that I’ve probably already spent at least 12 years at this pace (again, conservatively-speaking), that means I’ve given up 48 hours doing something that gave me absolutely nothing back.** Well, I know a bad relationship when I see one so I didn’t take this, er, I didn’t take this forever.
When we first moved to Westchester County, I couldn’t replicate the same high-speed digital service we previously had in LA. For reasons too bizarre to go into, I put off the ISP decision for several months and lived with my vintage BlackBerry for intermittent connectivity. (My cell phone didn’t work very well either. On the plus side, I believe I lost five pounds.)
After finally choosing a new company, I realized I had a wonderful opportunity to continue to eliminate—at least temporarily—unwanted email and its temporal intrusion in my life. No one had my new email address…wow! To preserve that feeling of newly-fallen-snow, I guarded it carefully and dutifully unchecked all the boxes that were pre-checked Send Me More Time-Wasting Email. (Or some such thing.) I also unsubscribed from every list that added me even though I always uncheck the aforementioned box. And, yet, alas, I knew the e-honeymoon couldn’t last forever.
That’s right.
They found my BlackBerry.
*Or text the cellphone I almost never use.
**The only thing worse was being stuck in traffic spam on the 405 freeway.
Further reading:
From the Wall St. Journal
Junk Mail Thrives in the Digital Era
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Bet they have big screen TV.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Who’s smarter– cat inside warm house or human on cold lawn taking his picture?
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
To borrow, not own.
To use, not abuse.
To leave better than we found.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Many colors, much beauty.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
People, it’s cold outside.
[Everybody:] How cold is it?
It’s so cold that when our ducks shake water off their backs, it snows.*
Bada bing.
But seriously, peeps, it’s frost–eee. And as much as it should be chilly in mid-January, it hasn’t been this cold that much (it was 70 degrees F mid-December!) and it’s supposed to be back to balmy next week. From 15 to almost 50 in one week—yup, that’s normal. The new normal, that is.
Other signs of backyard weirding:
Meanwhile, I’ve been putting the ducks in the coop at night. Finally. I’d only done it once or twice—for the November Nor’easter and maybe one other frosty occasion. Somewhat arbitrarily, I decided that temps forecast around 10 degrees and/or exceptionally windy conditions would be the metric. Having spent enough time in the outdoor pen cleaning poop, I knew from personal experience*** that hay bales and the deep litter system were keeping the birds toasty enough. But we paid good money for that coop so why not use it on the bitterest nights?! I mean, for the sake of the story, don’t I need to clean poop in the coop, too?
Hmm, are you sure this is how George Plimpton started out?
Eggs cracked by cold before retrieval from overnight pen.
*Just a slight exaggeration. The water does freeze instantly on their feathers at these temps.
**Living in California all those years took its toll.
***OK, not overnight experience—there are limits to my participatory journalism.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Don’t try this at home.
Or this.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
Even the smallest flower knows the power of the sun.
Copyright 2013, Lori Fontanes
What the Ducks! 