Spring and a Bit of Summer

 We had a wonderfully cool May and June.  Rarely got above 70 degrees.  Many days the Marine Layer was hugging the mountains and engulfing the valley.  

I bought a new hydrangea called Mysterious.  It’s a mystery to me how it has so many different colors.  Just gorgeous.  

Wild flower season is well underway.  Wild Sweet Peas in the top photo, Seep Monkey Flower in the bottom photo.  

My cherry trees are loaded this year.  For some reason, the birds are leaving quite a few cherries for me!  

The lake is looking particularly beautiful since it’s so full from all the snow last winter.  

The forest is wonderfully green, too, although the July heat is turning the grasses to gold pretty quickly now.  

Sylvia Squirrel getting a drink from the birdbath.  How squirrels manage to drink while upside down is a mystery to me.  

Cute and Pretty

I saw this little guy in someone's yard recently.  So cute! 

Down in Waterman Canyon a cherry tree that's already in bloom caught my eye. 

The blossoms are so pretty, and so fragile in appearance. 

I wish the cherry trees in my garden bloomed in pink, but they only have white blossoms.  However, they produce delicious cherries, so it's all good. 

To see more beautiful animals and pretty pink things, click here and here.

Squirrel Thoughts

"Yum, this seed cake is delicious...wait a minute.  There's that woman with her camera.  Really, a squirrel can't eat in peace around here!  I'll just zip over to that other food place..." 

"OK, now.  Wait, WHAT!!??  There she is, again!  Ya know, there oughtta be a law..."

Linking with Saturday's Critters

Five S's

Two very young gray squirrels eating peanuts on the feeders attached to the huge old Ponderosa pine.  They're such a delight.  We have five (5!) squirrels visiting our feeders now.  Thankfully, the squirrels seem to be making a comeback from the terrible plague of 2008 that nearly wiped them out.

Mrs. Primrose (on the left), Mrs. Rose's daughter, brought two of her babies to our porch to eat.  This is their first visit; all three were pretty nervous even though Mrs. Rose was just a few feet away from them.  I only took one photo and left, not wanting to scare the babies.  Also, given what they were "facing" me with, I thought discretion might be the better part of valor!  Hopefully I can get better photos when they visit again, although I'm not sure when that might be since DH is out there sanding the porch preparatory to painting it.  

Linking with Saturday's Critters

Snow!

We finally got a semi-decent snowstorm!  Not two or three feet like the storms before 2006, but better than the light dustings we've been getting for the past several years.  

A little ways up the mountain in Big Bear they got about a foot and a half, which made the local business owners and ski resorts really happy, too.

Well...maybe not the birds and animals.  It's always hard for them.  But I keep the feeders well stocked so, at least here at my little cottage, they don't go hungry. (That's a Northern Flicker in the photo above and a Steller's Jay in the photo below).

I apologize for the blurriness of some photos, it was still snowing pretty hard when I took those photos.

The snow started to melt a little this afternoon, but I think there will probably be plenty left for tomorrow and the weekend!

Already!?

Yesterday I visited a friend down in Crestline.  I was amazed to see daffodils blooming already!

And an ornamental fruit tree (I always forget what these are called).

And dandelions already in the puff-ball stage!  Crestline is around 5,000 feet in elevation, and Spring usually arrives there about a week and a half before it gets up here.  It's just crazy that these things are blooming in February!  (Usually, Spring arrives in April, sometimes as late as mid May, and gardeners never planted annuals until after Memorial Day).  Also, her Camellia bush is blooming.  So pretty...

But, this little creature was such a wonderful surprise:

A squirrel!!!  She said she's been feeding two, yes TWO of them for about a month now.  We're both hoping that they're a breeding pair, but she can't get a close enough look at the "deciding factors" to tell.  A plague wiped out all the squirrels up here in 2008, so most people are very happy when a squirrel is sighted.  There were three visiting my feeders, but I've only seen one lately.  I'd like to think that the two at my friend's house came from my house, but the distance is just too far.

Meanwhile, the weather people are saying that we're supposed to get a light dusting of snow on Sunday.  I'm hoping that this is the first wedge that will break this weather pattern that we're stuck in so the west can get cool, wet weather and the east can thaw out.  My thoughts and prayers are with all the animals and people in parts of the U.S. and Canada who are struggling with the terrible cold and huge amounts of snow.

Three

I was so happy to see this little person today on my walk up to my studio.  In 2008 there was a terrible squirrel plague of some sort (no one has ever been able to say exactly what it was) that killed most of the squirrels.  I went from 15 to 20 squirrels visiting my feeders a day to none in the space of a few months.  The following year there were 2 squirrels living in my area of the forest, and I thought they were making a comeback, but their numbers didn't really increase.  But, this little one makes three!  I hope this one is a girl because the other two are boys.  Maybe (hoping wildly) next spring there will be babies that are immune to whatever it was that killed so many...

A Bit of Christmas Cuteness

This little one is just adorable.  (I found the photo on Pinterest, attributed to Squirrel Hugger on Flicker).  I wish I could convince the squirrels who come to my feeders to pose in a Santa hat.  Or, I wish I could at become proficient enough in Photoshop to put a hat on my photos of squirrels.

Spring Fluctuations

"Oh, NO!  Not this cold stuff again!"  I wonder if that is what this little squirrel is thinking. 

Personally, I'm very glad to see the 'white stuff' even though it turned to heavy rain later on in the day.  Rain, snow...it's all good! 

Our high today was 30 degrees F.  Tomorrow it's supposed to get up to 55 degrees.  That's normal Spring weather up here.  We have a saying (similar to many other places, I'm sure) "If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes!"

Wordlesss Wednesday - Mine

Attitude

Some of the squirrels I feed aren't as appreciative as they might be...

Sam: "YO, lady! Yeah, I'm tawkin to YOU! Get that camera outta my face! Doan make me say it again!"

Stan: "Yeah...that goes for me, too! Freakin' paparoo...uh...paparara...uh...slimy voyager!"

Stella: "Sigh...lighten up, you guys. The peanuts she puts out for us are our modeling fees! Haven't you figured that out yet? And Stan...you mean 'voyeur' which she is most definitely not! Sheesh. Some boys..."

New Babies

There is a family of skunks that lives under my potting shed. I'm not sure what generation this little one is, but they've been there for over 15 years. Neither I nor my husband have ever been sprayed. We move slowly and quietly around them, speak to them softly and they seem to know that we won't hurt them. They even brush against my legs like cats do when I'm sitting out in the garden at night! I have to admit, the first time I reached down to pet what I thought was a cat and then heard the little whirring "chirp" they make and realized it was a skunk it scared the you-know-what out of me.

I let them eat the leftover cat food that I put out for the strays and they repay me by eating Japanese Beetles and lots of other insects that would "bug" my garden if not for the skunks.

When the mother skunk first brings them out (she had 4 this year) they don't move without being in constant contact with each other. They look like they're "velcroed" to their Mama's sides...maybe it's the skunk way of holding hands. After about fifteen minutes the babies do begin to move away a bit from their mama, but she doesn't let them out of her sight, and she doesn't let them get more than a few inches away from her. She doesn't let them stay away from her for very long either. A couple of minutes apart and she's chirping and whirring to her babies, who all rush to "velcro" themselves to Mama. The little one in the picture above rejoined his, or her, Mama and siblings shortly after I snapped the picture. (Their little bodies are only about 4" long from tip of nose to the...um...business end, and their tails are only about 2 1/2" to 3" long. When they're grown their bodies are about 12" and their tails are about the same length).

Soon we'll be seeing the new baby raccoons and squirrels. We've already seen the fledgling Stellar Jays, Black Headed Grosbeaks, Nuttall's Woodpeckers, Robins, Northern Flickers, Acorn Woodpeckers, Goldfinches and Purple Finches.

I feel so blessed to live in an area where I can watch and interact with so many of the wildings who graciously share their forest with me.

Spring Cloud Day

It was a lovely, cloudy day here today. I don't say "foggy" day, because this isn't fog. At this elevation we're actually up in the clouds. When I took this photo yesterday it was sunny behind me, and I was watching the clouds pour over the ridge down into the deep hollow where I live. Last night we had "tree rain," which is what we call the moisture that condenses on the trees, some of them 200 feet high, and then falls to earth.

The silence of a day like today is different from the silence of a snow shrouded winter day. This silence is also devoid of human noises, as in the winter, but not animal sounds. I made a large fire in the fireplace and then opened the windows. My animals always think I'm nuts for doing this, but I like to hear the sounds of a spring "cloud day". The quiet patter of the tree rain dropping down, the creek gurgling along, happy to be free of the ice...

The Red Breasted Nuthatch checks out one of the feeders...

so does the Chickadee.................

while the Steller's Jay has his peanut!

I can hear these birds, along with the Purple Finches, Acorn Woodpeckers, Northern Flickers, Robins and a flock of Song Sparrows calling to each other as they wait their turns at the feeders. Maybe they're sharing the latest news of the day; who saw what, the fine piece of yarn Mrs. Jay found for her nest, and the trouble Mr. Chickadee got into with the Mrs. when she found out he was twittering at that flirty Miss Chickadee!

The squirrels come in for their peanuts after the birds have left. I can hear their little claws on the bark of the trees as they scramble down to the feeder...

I love the sounds and the sights of a spring cloud day, and it always makes me happy knowing that the birds and squirrels who have come here hungry are going back to their homes with full tummies because of the food I've put out for them.

The Delegation

These little Purple Finches were waiting for me when I went out this morning to fill the feeders. I felt like they thought that somehow the snow that fell last night was my fault, and they were the delegation elected by the other birds to let me know they did NOT approve. I told them, "Hey, don't look at me in that tone of chirp; I don't control the weather!"

I know many people would scoff at my anthropomorphism, but I believe that, if you pay close attention, it is sometimes possible to discern what animals are trying to tell us. I believe this is especially true of our companion animals (known in this cottage as "our children in fur.")

And sometimes you don't have to pay attention at all. They make it crystal clear. I remember once, in early autumn, I was sitting in a chair under the apple tree closest to our house and reading a book when a green apple hit me in the head. I thought, "Huh. Must have had a weak stem." Then, about a minute later, another one hit me. This time I picked it up and looked at it. It had had one tiny bite taken out of it. While I was pondering this, another one hit me in the head. I looked up into the tree and there was a squirrel. He pulled another apple off the branch, took one bite and threw it at me! I think he was telling me the apples tasted terrible. Well yeah, they weren't ripe. I caught the last apple and threw it back at him. I have terrible aim, so I missed him and he just smirked at me. He reached for another apple and I yelled, "Touch that apple and you're dead meat, buddy!" I would never hurt any animal, but he didn't know I was bluffing, and he left in a big huff, scolding me as he went.  Hmmmm...

Just DO It!

That's what this red-headed fairy who flits around my painting area in my studio seems to be saying. I have a bad case of the Winter blahs (you can see all the snow on the roof of our garden shed behind her) and I don't want to do anything except blog a bit and curl up by the fire and read. I think my creativity has been buried under the snow. I slogged along the now icy path I've beaten down in the snow to my studio, got out my paints...and just sat there staring at them. Not a flicker of inspiration, let alone a spark of energy to actually do anything if inspiration had actually showed up. It's horribly windy outside and the sky is covered with fast-moving, heavily laden gray clouds that will, the weatherman says, slow down tonight and dump several more feet of snow on us. At least I can see a little green peeking out from under the snow on the branches of the hollies, ivy, pines and cedars. Oh, yawn. I'd fall asleep right now, but it's time to go fill the feeders (again!) for the birds and squirrels.


The squirrels love the baffle I put up to keep the feral cats that I feed from jumping up and snatching the Chickadees and other birds right off the ledge of the feeder. Well, maybe not so much in summer, but in winter it makes a handy perch for them. In summer, they just jump onto the roof and scoop up peanuts and black oil sunflower seed.