Back into the Storms

Snow on the hill

Once again - Birney in the snow

This morning - a rabbit tunnels in the snow beneath the bird feeder

He finds a little bird seed

winter bird

drinks from melting icicles

drinks part of my heart

After that lovely interval of warmth and mud, last Thursday we headed back into a snowy landscape once more. We had 6' on the ground by Friday, and added two more during that day. This morning another 4 inches with blowing and drifting. I have not seen my herd of deer in a while - my guess is they are in the brush near to the river where they have water and are sheltered. The rabbits are seeking food and one comes to seek the birdseed under the feeder.  Luckily for him I replaced the seed in the feeder with a better quality food and dumped the rest on the ground, so there is fodder there for him to reward his digging. 

My Townsend's Solitaire was drinking drops of water from the icicles last week, so poignant.  I saw him this morning eating snow and berries from the Cedar in front of the window. Winter seems so long that I know I will look back and just see it as a big blurr in my mind; I do the same things each day, work out on the treadmill, do a crossword, and read or write. So the days meld together with nothing much different from one day to the next. 

The critters in the house are still around. I thought that Fred had found a new home in the shower, but it turns out he has relatives - this Fred also has a Fredericka - or maybe Fred is Fredericka and the new one is Fred Jr. I am getting confused as I don't know how to tell a male from a female garden spider.When I worked with mice all I had to do was turn them upside down - doesn't work with spiders! The original Fred isolated himself in the bathtub again last week and had to rescued before I ran my bath water. I have also started to feed live Box Elder bugs to the shower spiders as they will not come out when I leave the door open. 

All my friends and I spend quite a lot of time on the phone. Without face to face contact with others we share our stories by e-mail and telephone and support each other as the snow comes down at a slant and the wind makes little whirligigs in its fine powder.

daily haiku

snow and more snow
friends reduced to images
across the phone line

Today the temps are headed down and into a night forecast well below zero.  So I just turn a blind eye to the electricity bill and turn on the electric blanket and I am a lot warmer than all the spiders in the shower!