Geese bathing etiquette

Now that the embden's are older, they try to bathe all together in the water trough by the well. They do not take turns like the older brown geese, who are quite polite and patient with each other.

Winter blooms continue

The rest of the camellias are finally starting to bloom.
The Seafoam japonica is still blooming and the
Red "Showgirl?" japonica is also blooming by the fence.
I am waiting on the Ave Maria and the Pink perfection...
Winter blooms continue

Grumpy Geese

The geese are not very happy about the lack of green things to eat.
I planted some rye grass in the south yard- but it hasn't come up yet.

New Baby Charolais

I saw a baby bull
take its first steps
and its first drink
of milk the other day.






What a beautiful thing indeed to start the new year.
The breed is a Charolais: Originally from France. They range in color from creamy white to light buff and are very sturdy.

Busy Bees unwrapping Camellia Gifts

One of the nicest things about Christmas Day,
was that early in the morning,
The bees were all busy on the Camellias.



That is one of the most wonderful things
about planting winter blooms,
is to see the life that they bring to the garden.

Seafoam in Winter

The "Seafoam" Camellia Japonica
that we planted several years ago
finally bloomed.
It was worth the wait...

We finally built a fire this winter

LICHEN

While gathering kindling for the fireplace, we found lots of
Parmotrema stuppeum or "powder-edged ruffle lichen" or Phaeophyscia ciliata "smooth shadow lichen"
hummingbirds often use the lichen bits to camouflage their nests
To find out more about lichen click on the title above...

Feeders are active

The bird feeders are active now that the temperatures have dropped for the winter...

The Goldfinches have arrived...

Click on the title above to learn more about Goldfinches

Before and After the Storm

These are images of the house and yard before and after the storm.
You can see the bulldozer tracks if you look closely where the downed trees were scraped away.
Hurricane Katrina wiped out a very large number of trees in our area.
Our neighbor who stayed, saw tornados move through our yard and watched as trees fell all around.
The large Long leaf pines, slash pines, magnolias, dogwoods, quince, tulip poplars and old growth camellias to name a few... are gone. Now there is way too much sky! Sunlight is great for grass and gardening, but I don't need a "great lawn" .
We miss our shade and flowering trees. I have fewer of the native piney wood shade loving delicate violets and bluets sine the storm... hopefully the few long leaf pines that we have replanted will grow in time.

A Grazing Gaggle of Geese

The geese wanted to free range this morning
so we let them out into the herb garden.
They raided the bird seeds on the sundial.

ICE COLD

We had our first really hard freeze here and the ice on the bird baths were at least 1 cm thick. I know that is not much by most of the world's winter standards, but for us.. it's chilly!

Porch looking North from the South Yard

Porch Floor Progress

Hyla cinerea

Look what we got in mail yesterday!
The State Amphibian of Louisiana.
He must have crawled in to
stay warm during the freeze.
Evidently,
Kermit the Frog
was modeled after our own
little Louisiana tree frog!
click on the title link
above to learn more...

Frost on the Car

Frosty Feline Footprints

Rose and Clematis Garden

Winter gate

Autumn gate

View looking down the south drive

Our Bovine Neighbors

Felus rufus

This morning
on the way to work,
near the "quickstop",
we saw an animal
that had been hit,
probably last night
or early this morning.
It was a beautiful
female bobcat or
"Felus rufus"
I had never been
that close to a
wild cat before-
so I did not know
about the white spots
on the back of its ears.
It was a beautiful animal. Such a shame to have been killed that way.
Click on the title above to find out more about Bobcats.

Wrong Way Rudolph!

We recently put up
our weathervane that
we got on sale
for very little.
It had the East West
axis backwards!!
We fixed it.
Now Rudolph
can tell
which way
the wind is blowing...

Here's the latest Buzz..

Even with the weather changing to cool
Our sunflower is buzzing with
lots of activity...

Cold Front

The weather turned very cold this week.
Here is a picture of the lake with the low clouds moving over it.

Porch Door

We finally got the door up on our glassed in porch.
The inside still needs to be finished and caulked, and then painted, as well as the outside..
It was a lot of hard work. What color should we paint the door? it will not remian red- as the paint is coming off...

Canis lupis-Grey Wolf tracks ?

The other night, our dog went crazy barking loudly at the window in the middle of the night. The next morning- there were a few tracks outside in the pea gravel, twice the size of our dog's paws. Here is a photo of one with our dog's track barely visible next to it. It is heavier than he is and he weighs 120 lbs. It also has long claws- so it is not a cat, as the big cat tracks have paw marks without signs of the claws. It is my understanding that it could be a grey or possibly a red wolf, but it is not a coyote, as they are much smaller and lighter. To find out more about the wolf in America-click on the title above. The sound file sounds alot like the howls that we hear on occasion in winter. I'll keep you posted if I see more.

Scarecrows

We think that the
local elementary school
has put together the
best collection of
scarecrows that we
have ever seen...

Marie Pavie

Marie Pavie is in her third year in our garden and she is finally making progress.Here is a photo of her most recent blooms.

Passiflora Vitifolia

Our newest and most beautiful passion flower finally bloomed-
It is bright red. I can't wait to taste the fruit!

Guess the Gourd!

This "volunteer" gourd showed up in our garden and we let it grow.
now it's time to "Guess the Gourd!" Do you know what kind it is?
it has small paperwhite blooms, and large leaves.
We have never grown any gourds and it just showed up in our garden
among the chives and onions!?!