This was my 8th year counting birds for the annual Great Backyard Bird Count. Some years I venture out to find birds at wetlands or local parks. This year, I only counted birds at home. We had a little snow, which I think kept some birds in hiding. Also, I didn’t get out as often as I sometimes do. So, although I spotted a number of birds, they were the typical ones that hang out closer to our house than off in the trees.

Dark-eyed Junco

I may be wrong, but I feel like we used to have far more Junco’s in the winter than we have had the last couple years. I did see a couple, though, during the GBBC.

Golden-crowned Sparrow

Click here to read more about theses sparrows

Song Sparrow

Spotted Towhee

To read more about them, click here

Varied Thrush

We don’t see these feathered friends very often. But I know there are a couple that visit us and I was fortunate to see one during the GBBC.

Ravens & American Crow

I saw both Ravens and Crows flying overhead a couple of the GBBC days.

Steller’s Jay

Gray Jay

To read more about one of my favorite birds, click here

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• Willow and Georgia aren’t too sure about the snow. They come out, but they don’t want to.

• Song Sparrow

• Crash & Willow checking each other out

• Trading warm water for frozen is getting a bit old and winter hasn’t even started. However, I will take the cold, snowy days anytime over the windy, rainy crap we usually get.

• I am not a fan of junipers. But, I do love them covered in snow – especially with a towhee resting on them.

• Rhode Island Red rooster in the snow

• Coyote tracks heading down to the creek.

• Snow days = sled days

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• Still enjoying all the birds. These pictured are golden-crowned sparrow and spotted towhee

• Willow.

• One of my favorite things about the snow is seeing what critters have been lurking about. I expect both the deer & coyote tracks. Raccoon, though, is a first. We have never seen a raccoon at our house. The tracks went right up to our porch, as well as to my pond and chicken tractor.

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Now that the holidays and traveling are over, I decided to take a look around outside to see what needs done for spring. What I noticed was that winter is definitely upon us. It is a foggy, muddy mess out there. Not even the heather plants, which I love, can brighten the gloominess.

Here’s a quick run down on the state of our outdoor area we call home:

• Chicken Coops – muddy

• Garden – muddy

• Flowerbeds – muddy, weedy and in need of trimming

• Front Porch – Our wreath got taken off the door. However, only moved as far as the porch. The dog and chickens have been enjoying napping on it.

• More on the Front Porch – I set a small pumpkin on a table in the fall. It was simple, yet festive and cute. It’s still there – only now old and gross. One would think instead of taking a photo, I’d actually toss it in the compost pile. Nope. It’s still there.

• Flowerbeds & Off in the Bushes – We go through an incredible amount of feed, which means we have many, many feed sacks around. Sometimes I collect them for projects. Sometimes they get thrown away. And… sometimes they get left where they were opened or even placed beside the garbage can. Guess what happens to those? They decorate my yard and surrounding areas. The wind just whisks them away until a bush catches them. The strip that was pulled off to open the sack gets whisked away, as well. Ugh.

Spring will be here before I know it and the days will be filled with cleaning winter’s mess.

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The weather forecast is getting predictable. Rain. Followed by rain. And more rain.

This December is officially the wettest month in 75 years. That’s sayin’ a lot since we live in Oregon. And, the month isn’t even over yet. We still have over a week left in December.

After such a dry summer, a little rain is nice. But, we’ve had enough now. I’d like at least a day or two of feeding the critters without coming back in looking and feeling like a drowned rat.

I took a screen shot of the forecast pinpointed at our house about a week into the rainy days. Some days the rain has been accentuated with wind. Lots of wind. Thankfully, our power has only gone out once during this crazy weather.

We’ve had numerous flood watches and warnings, as well. It’s been rough for many people due to flooding. Our friend’s driveway had water knee deep. Since we are near the top of a ridge, flooding at our home isn’t a problem. Our only issue is getting to town sometimes when there is flooding across the road in the lower areas coming off our hill.

For three weeks now this has been the view out our kitchen window.

The little birds search for food even in the downpours.
Left: Dark-eyed Junco
Right: Song Sparrow

The rain hasn’t seemed to bother the ducks much. But, I wonder if they’ve had to spend more time preening to stay dry. Ducks have a gland that produces oil. They rub the oil over their feathers for a waterproof effect.

Our ducks have spent a lot of time lately preening, bathing and drinking the water collecting on our new patio.

Tonight’s forecast includes a Winter Storm Warning. We’re in an iffy zone weather wise. We could get 1 – 2 feet of snow, or we could get nothin’. It would be awesome, though, if it actually did snow on Christmas. We don’t get many white Christmas’s around here.

I’m not really complaining about all the exciting weather we’ve been having. Thankfully, we’ve had very few problems. I’m simply getting tired of the wet gloominess day after day.

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Back in 2012 I planted a front flowerbed. It was a big deal. I had planted many other flowerbeds, but the one right at our entrance had been on hold. Finally, though, I was able to put in the flowerbed. I was thrilled! I decided that since it was a small area & it was the most visible that I would splurge & spend the money to get the cool plants I wanted.

2012: The Plants Get in the Ground

The main plants were Pride of Donnard Escallonia and Bonanza Gold Barberry. To save money, I purchased small plants, so it wasn’t the impressive when I first planted them. But I had high hopes in my mind of what it would eventually look like.

2013: Lookin’ Good!

The Escallonia had really taken off & by June of the next year looked beautiful in bloom.

June 2013
Love, love this flower

I love the bright pink flowers and dark green leaves against the chartreuse color of the barberry.

By August the Escallonia was done blooming, but looked lavish in its greenery. I couldn’t wait until the slower growing Barberry filled in a bit.

2014

I was so happy with how well the main plants in that flowerbed were doing.
And then we had a cold snap over the winter…
The Escallonia tag stated it was hardy to about 5°. I remember being a bit concerned about that when I bought it. I even questioned the lady at the nursery about it. I decided I would chance it. How often do we really get below 5°? Well, during the Snowpocalypse it did get colder than it had since we’d lived here. Princess Escallonia didn’t like that much. A snow queen she is not.
In April I thought they were looking rather bad, but I was hoping they’d recover.

By June, there was no denying that the winter weather didn’t do these plants any favors.

They aren’t completely dead. There is some growth at the bottom of each of the plants. There are even a couple pathetic blooms. The middle plant looks the best & the plant on the right has only one green branch. The other day I gave them a trim & got rid of most of the dead branches.

JUNE 2013  VS  JUNE 2014

Last year June 2013 compared to this year June 2014. Boo!

Such a bummer.

I think I’m going to let them stay & reevaluate the flowerbed next year. I want to give them a chance to come back in full force. If they don’t, then I’ll have to come up with a new plan.

2015: UPDATE

This photo is a bit deceiving since everything looks pretty good. Unfortunately, one of the Escallonia plants (not pictured) hasn’t recovered well from its freeze. It’s not dead so I’m not taking it out, but it is wonky with only one main branch that flowers.

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Around our house, stormy weather typically coincides with the power going out. And this week we’ve had plenty of stormy weather.

THE WEATHER

We had over a foot of snow. We had freezing rain. And, we had a high wind warning.

EMERGENCY PREPARATIONS

No matter what time of year it is, we have learned to be prepared for a power outage. We usually have plenty of food, flashlights, batteries, emergency supplies, hand-crank radio, etc.

We have well water, which means when the power goes out, so does our water supply. I make sure we have a couple fresh jugs of water, so we can hold off using our emergency water for as long as possible.

Farmer John makes sure there’s a fire going in the wood stove.

We cook by lantern light on our propane powered stovetop.

The kids each have their own flashlight. It makes them feel better, but mostly they just like to play with them.

THE INCUBATOR

But this particular storm, my concern really wasn’t about us humans, but about the chicks developing in the incubator. They need electricity to stay warm & continue to grow.

FARMER JOHN’S SOLUTION

We have a generator, but the amount of time we can run it usually has to do with how much gas we have on hand. When our power goes out, there’s a good chance it will be out for at least a day. There’s an equally good chance it could be out longer. The first December we lived here the power was out for 18 days. A week would go by & the power would come on for a day, maybe less, then go back out. And, we were snowed in. We didn’t have a tractor at the time to push the snow out of the driveway.

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I didn’t name this winter weather event. The media has dubbed these last few days as Snowpocalypse 2014. Geesh.

Why? Because throughout the Willamette Valley down to Salem, and even parts of the coast got 6+ inches of snow & freezing rain. That’s rare. We will get that much at our house usually a couple times a year. But, we are at a higher elevation. All the schools were closed on Friday. An alert was sent out to people’s phones this morning about not driving because of the icy conditions. And, most schools are staying closed tomorrow. I have heard the roads have been treacherous. Personally, I haven’t gone anywhere to find out for myself. All our weekend activities were canceled, so we’ve been chillin’ at home. And, I’m loving it!

Thursday morning started like this:

Saturday afternoon looked like this.
Although this is plenty of snow, it’s not as much as I would have expected for it snowing most of the last 3 days. We ended up with a little over a foot. We were getting itty-bitty snowflakes. This made for fabulously powdery snow that didn’t accumulate too fast. Our high on Thursday was 16°. I’m guessing the colder weather caused smaller snowflakes.

Left: Our chocolate lab didn’t seem to mind the snow.
Right: Looking out a downstairs window. I dumped bird seed on our front porch railing. There have been 20-30 birds hanging out here most of the weekend.

Feeding ducks & chickens needs done in snow, too.

Top Left: The coops all nestled in their blanket of snow.
Top Right: The chickens staying as far away from the white stuff as they can.
Middle Left: Friday’s eggs. I’m happy the cold hasn’t turned off their egg production.
Bottom Right: The ducks didn’t seem to mind the snow.

Chicken coops at the break of dawn this morning.

It got above freezing this afternoon & the snow started to melt. It slid off the coop roof in such a cool way. Somehow it stayed in this curved position all by itself.

Left: Of course we played in the snow.
Right: Only on good snow days do we sled down this hill. We went both yesterday & today. The sledding was great!

Left: I asked my daughter if she wanted to dress up, wear makeup & I’d take her picture. She said yes, both today & yesterday. This girl likes dressing up, looks for any excuse to wear makeup & is a ham for the camera. This group of photos was her as a fairy under the alder arches Farmer John made a couple years ago.
Right: Another group of pics was her in my wedding dress out in the snow.

Warmer weather is here to stay, so the snow should melt fairly quickly & we will have to resume our never ending duties of work, school & kid activities.

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