Despite all the snow and ice that have plagued blessed us in recent weeks, this is not going to be a white Christmas here in northeast Ohio. Warmer temps and light rainfall have melted most of our snow, so there will be no beautiful pictures of birds or deer in gently falling snow. It's just not …
It can be a challenge…
... to keep up with the visitors to my back yard buffet. Looking back through recent posts, I realized I'm not doing a very good job of keeping up with the ordinary little birds who visit the "buffet." The fallen tree episode, starling invasion, Christmas cookie baking, and rapscallion deer visitors have dominated my posts for the …
Return of the Rapscallions!
The new bird feeder, destroyed by the rapscallions last week, has been replaced, thanks to a warranty from the manufacturer. Yesterday I hung it in the back yard buffet, in place of the feeder the deer had destroyed, wondering how long it would take for them to discover it. It was mid-afternoon, well before dark, but unfortunately …
A rare event
Many years ago, when Bob and I relocated from central Pennsylvania to the south shore of Lake Erie, I was a stay-at-home-mom with three little girls. We moved into our new home in January, and we hadn't been living here for long when I realized that something was missing, something I was accustomed to in my former …
Cellpic Sunday: Cookies
I think I may have eaten my fill of Christmas cookies with these thumbprint cookies and the sand tarts Becky and I baked on Sunday. Enough is enough! It was way too icy to take a trail walk, but the baking was a great substitute activity. As soon as the ice melts and the trails …
Rapscallions!
Walking into my kitchen, I glanced out the window and there, staring straight at me, were two deer...in broad daylight...the penalty we pay for living next door to Chagrin River Park. Why, you might ask, would I call these beautiful animals rapscallions (an old-fashioned word for rascal; rogue; or scamp)? It's because they consider my Back Yard …
If you can’t beat them…
I've been trying, with a remarkable lack of success, to discourage the starlings from taking over the Back Yard Buffet. So now I'm beginning to think about changing my attitude toward these pesky colorful birds. Until someone can come up with a good idea for encouraging these invaders to change their behavior and move on …
Hawk incursion!
A few minutes ago, while I was in the Back Yard Buffet, refilling the water bowl and keeping an eye on Gulliver as he wandered around the yard, a small hawk zoomed into the Buffet. It paused very briefly right in front of me as I stood near the brush pile, but thankfully didn't linger. …
A little bit of water…
...is a very good thing to put out for the birds. Unfortunately we don't have an electric outlet in our back yard buffet, so we can't keep a fountain running throughout the winter. The best I can do is put out a fresh bowl of water in the morning and refill it when it begins to …
It was a cold and cloudy morning…
It was a cold, cloudy morning at the end of November. A storm had blown through the neighborhood during the night, but we hadn't heard a thing (although others did), and this is what Bob saw when he took Gulliver outside for an early morning walk. The top of one of the very tall oak …
SEEN ALONG THE TRAIL 