Sun peeked out this morning (Friday Feb. 26); the scenery was beautiful with thick clumps of snow clinging to branches.
Schools closed again today–probably so everyone has a chance to dig out. It was time for me to clean-up and open up too. I spent about an hour and a half horsing the snow blower. JoAnne and I measured about 15 inches from this storm so far. It was about the weightiest snow I remember trying to move. What normally took one pass with the blower in 2nd gear now took 3 trips, two of them in first gear. The plowman had opened our drive a little but later I heard he blew his transmission battling the heavy stuff. Later he brought in a Bobcat and finished the job here, piling up 10 ft. banks in places.
The birds were busy at the feeder including the flock of about eight mourning doves and another of four or five pigeons. The male and female cardinals look so beautiful against the stark white. My regulars are the chickadees, white-breasted nuthatches, and juncos, with the goldfinches at the thistle seed feeder and crows and gray squirrels on the ground. My suet cakes attract Downey woodpeckers and red-bellied ones as well as not-so-welcome starlings. Occasionally we’re visited by blue jays, titmice, hairy woodpeckers, and house/purple finches. Hawks drop by now and then to make life tough for the smaller birds. To me, feeding birds adds so much more interest to the winter.