Milk-White Flowers

The Garden Snowdrop is such a pretty little flower. According to The Plant Expert, the flowers look like three drops of milk hanging from a stem. This accounts for the Latin name Galanthus which means "milk-white flowers". I found this one blooming on April 4 in the natural area on the west side of our house.

Crocuses are very popular and with good reason. They come back year after year, slowly muliply and come in beautiful colors like purple, yellow, white, mauve and blue. These have been in my garden since 2008.  They started blooming about a week after the Snowdrops. Last fall I planted white crocuses that haven't bloomed yet, but I'm looking forward to the show. 

No, I didn't climb the tree to get the photo of this nest. I used my zoom...being the zoomer that I am. We were driving along the Fox River and spotted this nest up high in a very tall tree on the river bank. It's common for bald eagles and ospreys to nest along the shores of Lake Michigan and the Fox River. I can't say for sure that this nest belongs to either one of those birds. It's just my guess. Darn birds...they could at least put out a sign identifying who lives there.

The Coo-Coo Kid had a birthday last weekend. His sweet mother made this Dirt Cake for his friend party on Saturday. She served it up with a plastic shovel and the kids loved it.

The next day the family gathered to celebrate our much loved brown-eyed boy and there was another cake. It was his ninth birthday. He asked recently if anyone had left a comment on his blog. I told him that he needed to publish a new post in order to get new comments. He has something in mind. Stay tuned.







This Is No Joke

Today is April Fools' Day, but this is no joke. We still have ALL this snow in our yard. No, that's not a movie star in the photo. It's me standing out there wondering what happened to spring. Covered with snow and waiting to make an appearance are daffodils, muscari armeniacums, hyacinths, glory of the snow, anemones, allium, camassia quamash and crocus.

This picture of my mother was taken on March 17. It was a mild day with a light rain that was washing away the last of the snow. We were leaving the nursing home after visiting my dad when she spotted this plastic Frosty buried in a dirty snowbank. She's had a rough nine months, but still manages to smile. One week after this photo was taken, we had another 17.8 inches of snow.

Let the mating season begin! For wild turkeys, that is. I found this male courting a hen. The males are polygamous and will form a territory with as many as five hens. The eggs are incubated for about 28 days and hopefully for the little poults the snow will be gone by then. 

Lots of leaves.

No flower stalks.

Poor me.

What did I do wrong?

Don't Be Fooled. It's Not Over.

Winter should be over when you've

worn out the knees of your snow pants.

When your mittens fall apart,

that should mark the end of winter.



But it's NOT gone. It hangs on!

There ought to be a law against the

view from our front porch looking

like this on the 9th of March.

 

Hungry for guacamole?

Come back in four years,

when our tree sets its first fruit.

Pretty sad situation when my only gardening topic is an avocado pit. It could be said that in the month of March gardening in Zone 4 is the pits. 

This Is What The First Day Of March Looks Like

This is what it looks like in my neck of the  
woods on the first day of March.

The closest thing to spring

   was this bit of melting taking

place in the downspout.

Lovely, isn't it?

Most everything is still blanketed in snow.

The tall grasses are struggling

with the wind and snow.

 

The Coo Coo Kid escaped to a
 warmer land where he was able
to leap over sand castles.
No wonder he has no time
to update his blog.

Between Friends

Between Friends

by Sandra Bell Lundy

Nothing alarming happened today to make me post this. No need to worry, it's just another way for me to remind myself to live in the present. Wisdom is all around us, even in the comics.

What's a Zone 4 Gardener To Do?

Wait - Plan - Dream

That's all this gardener can

 do in the month of February.

"One little chickadee sitting all alone.

He flew away and then there were none."

(From a preschool nursery rhyme)

Black-Capped Chickadees are

 year-around residents in Wisconsin.

This one was basking in the heat

 being radiated from the sun-warmed 

bricks on our house.

A Red-Bellied Woodpecker is
checking out my homemade suet cakes.

Doesn't absolutely everyone have a

 cat sleeping in their bathroom sink?

Big Time Herb Gardener

Yes, it's true that I'm into herb gardening in a big way. Take a look. Okay, to be truthful it's herb gardening in a small way. Chives and parsley seeds planted in two-inch pots.

Another fun project enjoyed with P3 last weekend was making homemade suet cakes for the birds. Here's the secret recipe that's been in my  family for generations. Not really, it was in the newspaper a couple of weeks ago.

Homemade Suet

1 C. crunchy peanut butter

1-1/2 C. minute oats

1-1/2 C. cornmeal

1C. lard

1C. white flour

1/4 C. sugar
Soften the peanut butter and lard
in the microwave until soupy. 

Mix in flour and sugar.

Add cornmeal followed by oats.

Put in 8-by-8 inch container and refrigerate.

When suet hardens, cut into pieces to fit

your backyard suet holder.

 P3 doing the mixing.



After all that seed planting and cooking for the birds, we capped off the day by going to a GB Gambler hockey game. It was the 12th Annual Teddy Bear Toss. Bring a new teddy bear to the game and throw it on the ice after the Gamblers score their first goal. All bears are given to young patients in our area. It was announced that 7,066 bears were collected. How'd they count those so fast?