reassurance of warmth

It's always amusing when you describe your old wood stove to someone who knows stoves, and he says, with respect, that you've got a work horse and it'll probably put out as much heat or more than the other one(s) you've been talking about.

Our stove is old. I've had it since I bought the deep camp this place used to be, and always assumed it was at least 5 if not 40 years old. I wonder if it is older than me. That'd be amusing too.

a toddler's approach to squirrels

LittleBirder went outside today with a bird book, notebook, and crayon. Came in to tell me of a "chipmunk" eating seed in the green feeder that is (in his mind) for chickadees. We talked about how he could scare away a red squirrel by going out and talking to it. In the back of my mind is the idea the squirrel might become habituated to him and he could eventually feed it. I wonder how likely that is? And I wonder if the uneven bit of fur on a red squirrel (the same one? A different one?) is a scar (thus earning it the name "Nibbles") or just a rain-soaked and temporary look.

I wonder where Stubbs is, and how -- whether he survived the summer.

Handy-Dandy Notebook

LittleBirder went outside with his notebook and crayon. I asked, "Is that your 'handy-dandy notebook?"

He replied quite solemnly, "No, Mama. A 'handy-dandy notebook' is for Blue's Clues. I have another one."

scrap of journal, quick rough sketch of chickadee nape

One of the 7" chickadees has a little pale patch at the nape of its neck, in the black hood. Some other one has an irregular hood instead of a smooth.

I love seeing little differences like this.

Same ol'

Same birds as yesterday except no hairy woodpecker, and six or more chickadees.

Sometime earlier this week, we managed to clean out the woodshed of stored cedar shakes and siding (on the new shelves in the tools shed and in the wood shed "ceiling" -- now that we put in braces to make such ceiling, respectively). And the ladder is now up under the woodshed roof, not under a leaky tarp, and not going to get thick with ice and snow. We even stacked some wood. I should do more of that today; it's great weather for it.

Birdly birds

LittleBirder and I started feeding the birds again last week, although he did it with Granddad a while back before that too (funny how right now I can't even remember when Granddad came up to visit... oh yeah, mid-September. I've not journaled much the past couple of months).

Today is very busy out there: between 8 and 9 a.m. we've seen a hairy woodpecker (possibly a female), a red squirrel who isn't Stubbs, a pair (or more) of juncos, two blue jays chasing each other, three or more chickadees, a titmouse, a white-breasted nuthatch. Nothing unusual, but pleasant.

We still have LittleBirder's pansies -- just 1 -- after 2 or 3 frosts. And sedum. And a few roses! The roses didn't do so well this year.

bed building

LittleBirder and I finally laid leaves, straw, and dirt in the shade perennial bed I'm trying to build around the well. I'm trying to create this bed as a buffer, for when I eventually start parking in the shade. My long term goal is to park farther from the house, in the shade of the woods, in a half-circle, and use the current parking area, which gets full sun, for garden. Raised beds, with some sealer layer underneath, because we've been parking cars there, but still, why waste full sun on the cars? This is still at least another year away (not counting that we don't have the money for a driveway surface, not even gravel).

colors of fall

Decorative crabapple, I'm told .... they look a lot like cherries to me.

 

Maple leaf in our driveway... sugar maple? Red maple? I've got to learn these one of these days.

 

Rounds Road, up towards the dead ends we go...

 

Thinking Autumn Thoughts under the sedum

chickadee vids

In which a chickadee proves its preference for black oil seeds.

I love my camera.