Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

(to go along with the .35" of freezing rain), there is a small flock of mostly male red-winged blackbirds in the front yard. There are finches at the feeders in the backyard, and the cardinals (who have been here all winter) are starting to sing their spring songs.

SR wandered in to the den "what kind of bird are *you*?"

"Hrm. I don't know." To the BirdBook!

The birdbook (Tekiela's Birds of Michigan Field Guide) tells us that it was a pair of Eastern KingBirds. We are in their summer range, but I don't know if they will be living here or if they were just passing through. We may see them again.

In other bird news, the bright blue bluebird is back (if he ever left) and has at least one bright friend.

This morning:

At the feeders, a pair of red-winged blackbirds and a pair of bluebirds. The bluebirds wintered over, we think, because we've seen them every few weeks, and it's entirely possible that the blackbirds wintered over as well, but now the red is visible. And the goldfinches are just starting to gain their summer color, which means that a few of them are more khaki than drab.

Flying over, a trio of sandhill cranes. On the one hand, when we have cranes frequenting the yard, we don't have deer. OTOH, the cranes are really loud, and are noisiest just before dawn. Right now, that's not such a problem, but when it's summer and dawn comes at 0530?

We cleaned leaves out of the edge of the pond/on top of the ice yesterday -- if we do it now, they don't fall to the bottom of the pond and get difficult to remove. And of course, we found a dead frog. Whee. At least it was intact, and floating, not wedged into the pump intake.

FCB Halloween concert was yesterday afternoon. It went pretty well -- no major trainwrecks -- but it's a relatively easy concert. It's short (about an hour) and mostly pops stuff (movies, popular songs, etc) -- the heavier stuff is in the December and April concerts. It's still a lot of notes, though, and the setup for this one is a little bit more involved, as we decorate the stage. My hand seems to be holding up pretty well, but I'm still doing the stretches and the taping.

In a twist, I didn't do much musicking at church -- the choir director is out of town, and her deputy had just come back from 10 days in China....

There will be high school football on Friday; so I expect that I will spend my Halloween at a football game. Current weather forecasts are saying it will be chilly but dry. I can live with that. There will be stadium coats, but I think they'll be able to avoid doing halftime in them. (DB just texted that, in a *stunning* turn of events, they will be playing Thriller!. oooh. the shock!. He will ask if they're doing the dance.) DB will be working crew for the Orchestra Halloween concert tonight, and tomorrow after school is set/scenery move-in for Footloose!.

The kids and I did some raking/garden clearing on Thursday (DB was not called for show rehearsal, so I put him to work at home) and got a lot of leaves moved out of the front yard. I also trimmed back the edges of the sidewalk and cut back the lilies in the front flowerbed. I remembered to move the short orange lilies from where they've been hiding to somewhere more visible (they were planted when SR was in 3d grade, to honor a classmate). Today I need to spend some time clearing the East garden, and plant the new early spring bulbs.

There is a redbellied woodpecker who has figured out that the tube feeder is a weird tree, but hey, it's got good stuff in it. Over the weekend, it brought another, so now we have two pairs of woodpeckers at the birdfeeders.

Between the storms yesterday, I saw a hummingbird darting around the backyard. Erm. ooops. We didn't have the hummingbird feeder out yet. During the second storm, I remedied that -- dug the feeder out of the basement, mixed up some nectar, and put it out after the storm passed. Less than an hour later:




This morning, I saw another female and a male at the feeder. SR said there was one in the front yard yesterday evening being noisy. I think I'm going to put out another feeder in the front yard -- maybe it will cut down on the skirmishes in the back yard.

lots of them! The ones over the field are blinking quickly, and SR says it looks like glitter. It's very pretty. SR and I are fairly certain we saw a pair of Baltimore Orioles in the backyard a couple of days ago. Guess it's time to get an orange feeder for them.

In other news, 500 sq feet of hardwood floor is a lot. There's a stack in the living room and a smaller one in the den.

( house natter )

Weather service says 0F in AA, the weatherunderground station in town says -11F, we've warmed up to a balmy -9F. The pond is mostly skinned over with ice, but there is water running down the rill.  Most of the rocks that don't actually have water running over them are snow-covered. There's ice on the slower running side of the rill, and the water is flowing under it.  There are a few birds poking at the running water.  Also?  Fluffed out blue jays are really quite big.

There is also a disturbing amount of cold air coming in around the french doors, mostly underneath.  Ick.  Not looking forward to replacing *that* weatherstripping -- I think I'll just use a doorsweep for the winter, and actually replace the weatherstripping later in the year when it's warm enough to take the door off.  (I should also put something along the center, but I'm thinking I'll just use a sweep there as well. Non-traditional application, but it should work.)

I went to Confusion last weekend.  It's a nice little con.  I actually went to programming!  (I also got minioned by fluffCthulhu, which is good.)  A new hotel which wasn't bad other than traffic flow at the elevators and really thin walls.  New guy running reg did it 'his way'.  *that* could have been much better.  I discovered that Better Made makes Salt and Black Pepper potato chips.  I am *not* going to look for them at my local store -- I'd probably eat the entire bag in a day. om nom nom.