Wishing all of you a Merry Christmas! Hope your holidays are merry and bright, and that 2015 brings all good things to you.
December 24, 2014
December 12, 2014
Big Snow
I guess winter has arrived, at least for a little bit. Parts of Buffalo received 5 FEET of snow, but we were lucky. We got only about 18 inches of snow over the last day or so, and had to break out the snowblower for the last overnight arrival because it was so heavy and wet, and hey, we aren’t getting any younger!
With all the leaves down, we discovered the hummingbird nest in the maple tree.
Hummingbird nest
Mr. Cardinal keeps watch up high in the tree to let us know he is around and hungry!
Northern Cardinal
We have been feeding the birds and had to shovel a path to the feeders to keep up with our task. The red-bellied woodpecker arrived soon enough.
Red-bellied woodpecker
Not sure why they call it a red-bellied woodpecker when his head is the reddest part of him!
Red-bellied woodpecker
Here are some more images from the snowstorm.
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August 30, 2014
Best of summer 2014
A photo essay of some wonderful plants this summer.
The first one is of my ‘fried egg’ peony – a single type of herbaceous peony. The lighting sort of makes it look like a Georgia O’Keeffe painting, doesn’t it?
An unknown variety of clematis with huge purple blue flowers. Could be a ‘Jackmanii’ with the reddish ribs, but the anthers are also red. Similar to ‘Ramona’ but darker.
This is Liatris ‘Kobold’ with mauve flowers blooming from the top down. Bees love it!
The daylilies were floriferous this year. The red one is ‘Chicago Apache’ and the dusky pink one is ‘Catherine Woodbury.’
We had lots of hummingbirds flitting around all summer long, but this one decided he wanted to stop and rest for a bit. Lucky me!
Red bee balm sparklers!
Ornamental grasses are a great addition to the garden, and this brown grass, Carex ‘Toffee Twist,’ goes with everything.
We had lots of these little guys running around – we call them all ‘Harvey!’ They love to perch on the rock wall or on top of the stair railing where they can survey everything.
Roses, of course! These are dark pink ‘Cuyahoga’ and red ‘Double Knock-out.’
More wildlife – notice the big green-eyed fly on the bright yellow-gold coneflower? It’s a type of horse/deer fly called Stonemyia isabellina, a flower feeding non-biting species.
Heading into fall now. Time to clean up the gardens a bit.
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August 17, 2014
Birdwatching: Chukar
Well, here is an oddity! This bird landed on our deck, out of nowhere and looked pretty lost. After looking it up on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds site here, we identified it as a Chukar.
This is a game bird introduced from Pakistan and usually lives in rocky regions in the western US and southern Canada. Obviously, if it was on our deck, it was waaaaaaay off the reservation! Well, I happen to know that one of my former clients about 7 miles away raises game birds and this is one of the types they raise. Nevertheless, they keep them in pens until their time is up so this guy must have decided that ‘freedom was a precious thing’ and let himself out of the pen!
He looks pretty contented there, but he took off for parts unknown not too long after.
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