We're Not Going Anywhere!

The last day of Christmas is tomorrow (if you celebrate the 12 days of Christmas) but Mouseford Falls and it's inhabitants will be around until February.  It's set up in the kitchen greenhouse window and it's such a cheerful sight...sometimes they even stay through March, if March is a particularly blustery and grey month.  It was snowing when I took this photo and I hope we get lots more of the white stuff.

Now I'd better get outside and put out more peanuts and water for the birds and scatter seeds and peanut bits for the real mice that live in the real Mouseford Falls by the creek and in the woods around my cottage.  They're all very hungry this time of year!

Strange May

Yesterday, Sunday, the weather acted as it used to in May...in the 1950's, 60's and 70's.  We had several inches of 'corn snow' which is not a hard ice ball like hail, but a ball of solid, yet friable, snow, along with a humdinger of a thunderstorm that was centered right over us for over an hour. 

I had gone over to the Arrowhead Resort, which is a hotel with a nice restaurant and spa facilities, to have lunch with a friend at the restaurant, Bin 189.  It's a little expensive, but the food is wonderful and, hey, we all need a little treat now and then, right?  The photo above is a bit of Lake Arrowhead looking down from the hotel. 

This is a photo of the pool...the unheated pool.  We couldn't believe that people were swimming in it!   (This picture is blurry on purpose because it has people in it).  We also watched some teens jump into Lake Arrowhead, whose water is still COLD.  Those teens got out of the water so fast it was like watching a movie in fast-forward, lol.

The snow melted quickly and by today just a few patches were left here and there, like the ones on my studio porch (which still needs a winter cleanup), below. 

 

And there were a few patches left in my studio garden.  Odd to see snow on the ground and the Dogwood trees in blossom.   

Glynda, the good witch that guards my studio, is glad to see that the snow is almost gone.  I'm sure she knows, though, that the weatherman is predicting more snow for Wednesday and Thursday.  Strange May...

It's On Its Way

Spring, that is. I saw this guy (or girl, who can tell with Robins?) while trudging out to fill the feeders this morning, the first Robin of Spring. We still have a lot of snow on the ground, but today warmed up enough so that the snow is starting to melt off the tree branches. The Ponderosa Pines are, mostly, around 200 feet tall and they collect huge clumps of snow in their branches. These clumps solidify during the various thaws, freezes, and grow a little larger with each snowfall, so when they do finally fall out of the trees they come down as one huge chunk. When I'm inside it sounds like someone is dropping large rocks on the roof, and when I'm outside I feel like I should wear a hard hat!