Spring Cleaning

Lest everyone who knows me well has a heart attack upon reading the title of this blog, let me assure you that I am not spring cleaning the house. Rather I am spring cleaning flower beds whenever the rain stops long enough to allow. The house is as big a mess as ever.

I took a photo a few days ago of blooming primroses. It did not come out well, but it serves as a contrast to the same (as near as I could figure) now-weeded area of that flower bed. Okay, so the lighting came out differently and the change is not too impressive. It will be when the daffodils bloom. We have snow low on the hills this morning and the weather folk say we may have snow on the ground by Thursday, so I predict the daffodils will open by then. We always have snow on blooming daffodils.












On the same day I took the photo of the unweeded flower bed, a Cooper's Hawk came hunting for the California Quail I feed in front of the barn every morning. He missed that day but he'll be back, rain or shine. We have so little shine around here the birds have to forage and hunt no matter the weather.




This morning, a very pretty squirrel was sharing the grain with the Quail in front of the barn. A few days ago, this squirrel was looking out of the Wood Duck nest box that is not far from the front of the barn. Two years ago, a Hooded Merganser nested in that box. Last year, a Saw Whet Owl wintered there. It seems to be a multi-species nest box. (The "very pretty squirrel" I've since been told, is an Eastern Fox Squirrel that has moved into urban areas of the west. We are anything but urban so I don't know what it's doing here. I still think it's a very pretty squirrel.)

The rain has stopped for the moment, so I'll head out to liberate another flowerbed. It beats cleaning house.