This is half of my back yard. The trees have not completely leafed out yet but they are working furiously on it. This is one of my flower beds (or maybe I should call it a rock garden!). [Note: all photos were taken this weekend.]

Above is part of the other half, and my big flower bed which will soon have a large variety of things taking their turn blooming.

With all these trees it figures that we get lots of different birds. Some of them are not residents of our mountain highlands and live a bit further south, while others live here year round. The red-bellied woodpecker is one of those residents. [Please don’t ask why they call it “red-bellied” when it’s obvious that it’s head is the only red thing on this bird.]

This male Rose-Breasted Grosbeak (and the female, next photo) we only see occasionally.

One of my favorites is the Indigo Bunting which we only see coming to the feeder in spring. They are so bright blue you can’t miss them even when they sit in the trees!

Of course we gets lots of these pesky (but cute) creatures.

This is growing in the woods just off the big flower bed. It’s a kind of Jack-in-the-Pulpit. I consider the woods inside our fenced area to be “my yard” as well, so this counts.

Rick found this on Sunday morning as he started to plant the marigolds in the front flower bed. It’s a white morel! More on that story in a different entry ...

And last, but certainly not least, the newest repeat visitor to the front yard. Patch(es). As I drove in the driveway returning from a grocery trip yesterday, there she was laying in the same spot again. I think she likes it here. I managed to catch her on video as she was leaving.

I do hope you’ve enjoyed your tour of things found in my yard!

Our hummingbirds arrived on May 2nd this year. Nice to have them back!
(Yikes! I am so behind in my ABC-Along ... )

As promised, on Thursday we had a fast moving storm go through. At first I thought it wasn’t going to do anything since they had said it was to start around 9:00 a.m., but by 10:30 the sky was light and all we’d had was the skiff of snow that the dogs left their snow angels in. All of a sudden the sky got dark and big fluffy flakes started to fall. Within an hour we had two to three inches of snow. Then that pretty snow changed to sleet.

Rivers of frozen ice poured from the sky. As the gutters on the house filled to overflowing, I could hear them ridding themselves of their heavy load in the form of a grainy waterfall which spilled noisily over onto the barbecue grill on the deck. At one point I opened the door because the dogs thought they might want to go out. They just stood there looking out, then looking up at me as if to say “you must be joking, we aren’t going out in that!” Of course, while the door was open, eBay the cat decided to make a mad dash for the great outdoors. That lasted about a minute before she was pitifully holding up her ice-cold paw wanting back in. Honestly, that silly cat does love snow.

Once in a while it would try to change back to snow, but the sleet won out until after the sun set. We got a total of about six inches of “whatever.” We would have had a lot more had it not changed to sleet.

Yesterday we had a glorious sunrise.

The sun came out, the temperature rose to 40 degrees F and we had some melting going on. All the little creatures, birds and squirrels alike, took advantage of the weather to stock up on the goodies I put out for them.

Today is equally calm. So far. We’re supposed to get a Nor’easter overnight and throughout tomorrow. Sadly, the heavier snowfall is going to miss us and they are predicting the same mix we got on Thursday. Sounds like a good weekend for just staying inside by the fire! We shall see ...

I love having different birds at my feeder. I have a feeding station out front where I basically just spread seed on the ground and in a bird bath, plus two hanging feeders on the deck. Yesterday to my great regret as I looked out at the front one I saw the large stray cat (not my kitten; a grown cat) rush towards the birds and it caught one. NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! I rushed outside and shooed it away. Alas, it still had the bird in its mouth. Listen guys, this is supposed to be a bird feeding station, not a bird eating station. Sigh. Poor birdy. I felt so badly. I felt as if I had contributed to its demise.

Here are my “back yard” birds.

We have a pair of Downy Woodpeckers that come to the suet I have out. Here is Mrs. Downy.

And Mr. Downy seen through a blur of snowflakes.

The goldfinches are wearing their somewhat drab winter coats.

We have tons of Tufted Titmice around. I love their little top knots. They are sweet birds. Looking very penguin-ish is a nuthatch in the background.

Here’s the White-Breasted Nuthatch. He looks like he’s wearing a toupee to me.

And the Junco looking very cold this morning.