The suckiness of ICE

So we are beginning to dig out of Ohio's Big Winter Storm.
Yesterday, after 3 to 5 inches of snow fell onto the INCH of ice and an older, 5 inch layer of snow, the sun came out. Like a cruel joke.
The birds were rolling in, with frantic darting of their eyes. Their natural food sources were buried. Every bird who landed in the crab apple tree slide down a few inches before being able to grasp the sucky ice-covered branch.


Shall we look at some ice?


Here we have an icy white-throated sparrow:





And next is an icy white-breasted nuthatch:



And an icy mockingbird. With ICE on his FACE!



This cardinal doesn't look icy, but he was.



A day isn't complete without an icy robin butt:



Sure, the ice made the usual into pretty candy form,


and popsicles,



...and plain forms into works of art:


But in the end, it still sucks.

Randomosity

Word of the Day:

doyen \DOY-en; DWAH-yan\, noun:
1. The senior member of a body or group.
2. One who is knowledgeable or uniquely skilled as a result of long experience
in some field of endeavor.
3. A woman who is a doyen.

Nothing happened today. It snowed, that's about it.

I went out to RAPTOR to pick up some stuff, and saw my flock of pigeons, and the little white one that I love. (He's down on the lower right)

"No, Nellie, I will NOT play ball wit you in the snow."

The snow is annoying, but it's pretty.

Stream of consciousness/free association time:
I'm watching Napoleon Dynamite. I love it when the underdog wins.

Geoff and I both have had car problems the past two days. Yesterday, he got a flat tire. Today, my car wouldn't start in a parking lot. I got it going finally, but it sounds like it needs a new starter....again.

Tomorrow, we are going to Swami and Swamette's yurt for homemade spaghetti, a tradition in this family. Swamette's mother, Swametti, is Italian and she makes the best sauce and meatballs in the world. I will take pictures, and you can imagine how good it tastes.

Napoleon Dynamite is over. Now I am watching The Miracle Worker.

The cats knocked over the bird cage today. It's not like they have anything else to do down here.
Oh, I'm boring myself. I am off to see what everyone else has been up to.

Someday, I will be warm.

Word of the Day:

deliquesce \del-ih-KWES\, intransitive verb:
1. To melt away or to disappear as if by melting.
2. (Chemistry) To dissolve gradually and become liquid by attracting and absorbing moisture from the air, as certain salts, acids, and alkalies.
3. To become fluid or soft with age, as certain fungi.
4. To form many small divisions or branches -- used especially of the veins of a leaf.

Here's that word in a sentence:
I wish all this damn ice would deliquesce.

A view from our side yard...facing the west.

Ice, ice, ice.

The neighbor's ornamental grass looks cool, though.

Our red maples don't usually touch the ground with their branches. For the first time, I am thankful we don't have tall, mature trees. They would be split in half by now with all the ICE. Everyone else's trees are in pieces.

Onto the BEWDS...

Lake Isabella today: Finally saw something other than a mallard...
redheads!
Oh, I need a big, scary MAN zoom lens, know what I mean? I zoom in to the max with my camera, and while I get a good sized shot, the res is for crap.

They are so pretty...better than the mutts that hang out at the lake.

I caught up with my buddies the Hooded Mergansers again. I haven't seen them for awhile. There's a very small amount of open water at the lake, because of the aeration fountain they have been running.
Look at this guy and imagine in your head, in a deep, deep voice,
"Oh...I'm a studly muffin, I'm a studly muffin...look at my pretty crest..."

A coot scared the hell out of me as I approached the dock (the open water is very close to the shore, and you can't see the birds until you are practically on top of them).

Fellow birders:
I need validation here:
This is a female canvasback, right?

She came puttering around the dock and I didn't really notice her. When I got home and looked at the pictures, I realized that she had a sloping forehead and redheads don't have that.

It looks like a canvasback to me. Chime in, my peeps!

An end-of-the-week "Awwww" moment:
The girls model their new PJ's.
A little story about the polka dots:
One day, in a store's bathroom, Isabelle noticed that I was wearing polka-dotted underwear. So she proclaimed for all the other people in the bathroom, "Mommy! I like your POLKA-DOTTED UNDERWEAR!!!!"
So now, anything with polka dots is a cause for general hilarity.

On Lynne the OCD Queen's blog, there was a discussion about what to call our little blog journey to NJ this fall.
How about calling ourselves "The Flock"?

Okay, enough already. Bring on the warmth.

Word of the Day (And boy, does it fit!):
gelid \JEL-id\, adjective:
Extremely cold; icy.

I am getting quite attached to my little orangy house finch. But there is a direct correlation of redness and health and fitness in house finches and other brightly colored birds, so maybe he won't be around for long. Sometimes I wish I were ignorant of certain things, and could just enjoy nature blissfully unaware.

I miss my cats. I spend time with them in the evening, as I sit here and blog, but I miss them curling up with me in bed, and watching them tear through the house on their little kitty errands.

Sigh...at least ice is pretty. I tried all day to capture what I was seeing in the ice, but I failed. Each tiny knob, each icicle was throwing rainbows.
Anywhere I went today, it was like driving inside an ice castle. Or a glass house.

Makes me think of that song..
"Ow, she's a brick....HOUSE..."

Queen Anne's Lace, sleeping under an inch of frozen rain.

I didn't realize how funny this picture was until I uploaded it. I was photographing the tree sparrows at Mom's feeders, and when I saw this picture up close, I realized the song sparrow behind the tree sparrow looks like he is skating...or about to fall.
"WHOOOAAAA!"

I love to watch Nellie run. And I cringe the whole time. She just isn't young anymore, and every day, I am reminded how stiff her back and tail are. I don't ask her to "sit" anymore when I give out treats, because most of the time, she slowly lowers herself onto one of her hips, instead of sitting on her bottom.

The bluebird box had fallen down, and when I picked it up, a big slab of sod was stuck to it. Soon, Mister and Missus will be back, and by God, they will have babies this year!
All of the house sparrows and starlings will fall victim to my trap and RAPTOR's new CO2 chamber.
*evil cackle*

This fancy nest box has reared three successful broods of chickadees. These are last year's survivors.

Everywhere you look...ice.

Even the trunks of all the trees have a skin of ice.

Watching the sunset through the ice was inspiring. The ice pulled in every drop of gold light and I wish I could paint.

Boomer's time is running out. We are going to set a date, and if he hasn't been adopted by that time, he will be going to a local Boston rescue. Damn it.
I have two very big guns firing for me (Julie and Jane) but no one has stepped forward to adopt him. The longer he is here, the more painful it becomes.
In the above picture, he is stalking the cats through the basement door.
BIG sigh.

To end on a good note...
A bit of wisdom from the oh-so-intelligent and wise Susan:


"People in glass houses...

...probably go through a lot of Windex."

Lots of ice.
No power last night.
We are alive.
Will post later.