Dorie’s Different Reality

Normally in January, I’d expect to see a lot of this stuff. Not so much the past 4/5 years. We seem to be in a cycle where we get a little snow in passing and it disappears right away. About 2 inches today at most. Managed to snap a picture of the elusive white stuff about an hour ago-
And no kidding, 20 minutes later, it looked more like rain. I thought I heard the dreaded patter of sleet on the deck. But I just popped out to take a picture of the bird feeder (since the wimpy birds flew away) and it’s still snowing a bit: the great big flakes that seem to come right before it stops.

Last summer I had a lot of fun blogging about bugs. For the rest of winter I think I’ll add The Bird Feeder Report: We have four bird feeders along the deck and it’s a happening place for bird customers. There’s mostly winter birds today- juncos, chickadees and finches. Yesterday, a red bellied woodpecker dropped in. I’m not sure if he’s the same bird that started dropping by about four years ago, but this was the first woodpecker sighting of 2008. I keep suet out mainly for the woodpeckers. This year, I’ve got about 4 great big crows dropping in to eat the suet. I tell myself they’re birds and they want to eat too- but I wish they’d go glean a cornfield or something!  Earlier in the week I saw a flock of starlings. I don’t know where they were going, but they usually don’t show up in large numbers around here until February so maybe Spring is coming early- yay! I haven’t seen a cardinal around here in weeks. I’ve been feeding safflower seed because the squirrels aren’t fond of it; maybe cardinals don’t like it either. Next time I go to the store I’ll get some sunflower seeds and sneak those in and see if the population increases.

I can’t call it a Fruitcake: So I’ll call it what it says on the recipe, “Martha Washington’s Great Cake” Well it’s full of nuts, and dried fruit soaked in whiskey- that’s fruitcake! I just wanted something sweet to enjoy with  tea,  so I’ve got Martha W’s cake baking in the oven right now. We’re having leftover vegetable beef soup for dinner and fresh bread sounded like just the thing to have with it. So there’s some of that going in the breadmaker! Ever notice that when it’s cold and the weather’s raw, a person’s thoughts do not turn to celery?

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 17th, 2008 at 4:07 pm and is filed under Birds, Maryland. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.