Spring Swans

I saw the swans a lot in the later part of winter, but I haven't seen much of them lately. I see that they are out on the mid-river island and suspect - even hope they are sitting their nests. I'm looking forward to shooting their babies next month. I just hope they will bring them close enough to shore so that I can capture them with my camera.

Help at the Desk

That's my girl, always ready to help on the desk or at the computer. I think she was actually watching the "mouse" move stuff around on the screen at this point. Right now she's outside rolling around on the dirty driveway - basking in her catness and wallowing in the warmth of spring!

Greenhouse Cat

Joy in the greenhouse, waiting for the spring rains to subside. Wishing to go outside and bask in the spring sunshine... tomorrow?

Easter Eve

Tomorrow's Easter and yesterday the forsythia started to bloom. We had a week that belonged to the crocus family and just a few days ago the crocus bowed it's head to all the other bulbs who join together in blossoming. I even saw some magnolia trees - in fact they were the first to bloom Happy Easter!

Starting

Here we see the beginning of spring, spring beginning to pop up out of the ground in it's tiny shoots of glory. It's a wonderful time of year and people were out walking around today, and I was one of them. Love this time of year!

Sprouts

Our first crocus showed up yesterday. It's all by itself out there a dash of purple against the brown. Today it was rain, wonderful rain. I love the fact of it, the smell, the sound, the knowledge that rain is absoultely not winter!

Spring Ducks

A little later in the spring a few years back these ducks took advantage of the shallow water held in the cover of my neighbors swimming pool. With all those teenagers around, they decided not to nest there, but they enjoyed the warm swim.

Bored

Poor kitty, nothing to do, no toys, wait - that looks like plenty of toys! Well, its a good thing spring's sprung and pretty soon she can spend her days and nights outside sleeping under a bush. Now, that's the (cat) life!

Not Yet

I know it won't be long now, feel it in my bones on a day like this one when only the breeze was cool. Pretty soon the naked branches that are getting fatter every day, will burst forth with green leaves and delicate flowers. Oh boy!

Naked branches

They stood tall this morning against the pale pastel sky, the naked branches, still skinny, stretching up to the spring day waiting to fill out and blossom out with leaf-ettes. It'll probably be another month before they flesh out, but one day soon, we'll wake up and discover all the naked branches are decorated with green leaves!

Impatient for Spring

I grew the wheatgrass for the girls to chew on and I explained to her royal highness that was it's purpose, but she was yearning for spring and grass and green so she sat in it!

Ducks

I saw the ducks today in this little pond enjoying a feast from the bottom. It was 60 degrees and could have been warm, but for the wind and cloud cover. Hey, that's ok, no rain, no snow, no ice, not even hot sun turning the car into a little oven. It was a lovely day!

Roll Over

Still waiting for the fully warm nights of summer, these girls only venture out a couple nights a week. Meanwhile there are all kinds of places and all sorts of sleeping positions one can take while waiting for summer.

Prints

Thank goodness I had to search the file to get this picture. I would not have been happy to see it on the sidewalk this morning, but it's a fun shot to remember taking. Looks like we covered everything but fish, huh?

Tree Down

They came and cut down the two trees in front of the house last week. I miss them already, the squirrels are wandering around lost looking for their homes. They spent the whole winter digging out old leaves from under the porch and filling the tree nests with them. They were all ready to have their babies there, but now they are gone. Actually, they seem to have adapted already. Wise ones!

Magic from Fall

It seems like a long time ago now and one can't find a picture anything like this now, but soon there will be leaves again and about 5 minutes after that, they'll be changing color again. It all happens really fast.

March Projections

Yes, it's still winterlike... well, early spring, more like it. The lows below freezing and the highs in the 40's are predicted for the upcoming week. It makes us restless and yearning for barbeque weather. Can you smell the smoke, hear the sausages sizzling? It won't be long you know...

Spring Melt

Two beautiful swans swim in frigid waters just beyond the ice-coated shoreline along the Chicopee river. They seem to be finding plenty to eat, and I am very pleased to see them enjoying this springlike day.

Pretty Again

Though our trees were stripped naked by the massive winds, the ground snow was absolutely gorgeous again today. It'll be 50 by the weekend, so it won't last long, but this morning... Beautiful!

Blizzard

The wind does such funny things to snow and we had plenty of wind today. One side of my car had a shelf of snow overhanging and the other side was stark staring naked. I didn't see anything as pretty as this, but it was pretty decorative. It was just tooooo cold to enjoy.

March's White Lion

After only a few days of springlike weather brought on by the end of February, most of us were not ready to get out the snow removal gear - again. But, you know what? Here it comes anyway. I don't think we're in the 12-15 inch area, but even 8-10 will seem like plenty of inches tomorrow afternoon.

Gungywamp

I've often wondered exactly what a gungywamp is, but nothing on that street indicated any answer. Oh, well, at least I don't live on gungywamp!

Greenhouse Life

Impatient for springtime, Joy shows little respect for the other life forms in the greenhouse and makes herself at home in the warmest brightest spot in the house. Go girl!

Beginnings

It's still under the snow/ice which is

dwindling away, but at the back of the house, before the snow was fully gone, the first sprouts were popping up out of the ground. Ok, it's not winter any more, but it isn't quite spring either.

Thawing

Though the oak has not yet shed it's golden leaves, it seems winter is departing raising the river as the snow melts into it. The trees are naked still, but you know what? Not for long....

Age of Detail

This wonderful concrete icon iw attached to an old building that now serves as elderly housing, but I love what it says about our history. There is so much detail in the "olden" days I can see why people called them the golden days. I understand how lopsided jobs were then and I know that in some ways things have improved, but I'm still impressed whenever I see how explicit the details were once upon a time.

CAMI Morning Moon

The full moon rose late that night and was still bright and beautiful in the early morning where it reflected off the wet sand and gave the seagulls a glorious scene to fly through.

Age of Aquarius

Yesterday the moon was in the Seventh House and Jupiter aligned with Mars - ohmygod, It IS the dawning of the age of Aquarius, so let's hope that peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars.

Kleenex

My "little" sister turned 60 today and my "baby" sister became a grandmother just last week. Please pass the kleenex.

Pansy Dreams

Maybe it's not winter any more, but it definitely isn't spring either. After a day of lovely 50's today's 45 was beaten into submission by the 20-30 mile an hour winds and the official Wind Chill Factor.
Anyhow, it made me think of summer's wild pansies so fondly.

Desk Helper

Full moon winter cat... eeeek! All wound up and pacing, climbing the walls, mounting the bookcases, pushing the hand holding the mouse, taking wild bats at the computer screen. Here's my Joy, hunkered down in the corner of the desk where she thinks we can't get her out of there. Ever see a better picture of a cat with her hands on her hips?

Antique & Shadow

I love the kind of work they used to put into the simplest of things. The first thing I saw was the shadow from the lamp, but lets face it, the outlet itself is a work of art!

Icecicle Season

Mostly they will have disappeared a week from now, but we are still in the midst of icecicle season. After a couple of days in thaw mode, we jumped back into the teens and it's been awfully pretty.
Starting tomorrow the daytime temperatures will be reaching up above freezing every single day (we won't talk about the nights - yet).
The groundhog may have had his say, but the season is changing!

Groundhog Day

Well, here it is again, the first of February and again the sun is shining brightly over streets full of ice and curbs piled high with snow. They said on the news that the groundhog is wrong 60 percent of the time and that's fine with me... come on spring!

Bike Parking

Funny that they would climb over this snowbank to park the bike, huh? Maybe even funnier that they're riding their bike around when there are snowbanks to park on. Maybe the California Girl in me just can't comprehend it and it's a perfectly normal thing to do, huh?

January Thaw Finally

We were out there in the freezing rain last night, pushing the snowblower and shoveling the walk, and absorbing the sleet falling on us. The snow was extremely heavy and hard to lift and the fresh snow bank was hard as stone from the rain crust upon it, but today was January Thaw Day and about time, too, since it's January 29th already!

More Snow Coming

My aged jack'o lantern is making the best icky face to represent the general feeling about tomorrow's snow to ice storm. They say it'll be a long drawn out storm from 3 am until midnight. At least there will be snow under the ice, that'll make it easier to clean up, but the icky face remains even though I'm glad to be having the day off.

Sit Stay

Makes you wonder who's boss, doesn't it? Actually, I always know who the head of household is. It's the one(s) that stay home warm and cozy on 12 degree days and send their people out to fetch them petfood. :-)

Hair?

Love the barber shop window advertising HAIR with every manequin bald as a que ball.

Moonrise

I guess this works for any season, except of course, I'm not likely to be standing around outside this time of year to take a picture of the moon rising over the ocean. Still, the moon does rise and the seagull crosses it's path and these things continue all year long even when nobody's out there with their camera to capture it.

Buried

These are pretty funny but the really strange ones are the nativities, sitting out in the open with the baby buried and Joseph & Mary kneeling, up to their shoulders in the snow, not even trying to uncover that poor baby.

No Golfing

Not that anybody would consider it under the circumstances, but it's still funny to see this statement hanging on the snow closed gateway.

NOT snowing

Late into the night my husband and I ran the snowblower and shoveled the walks, so we were not all that pleased to see 4 more inches fell overnight. I shoved the snowblower around for a couple more hours this morning and (thank God) my neighbor came out to finish it off with the shovel. We're waiting for the weather report now, so I've wandered off to California for a NO SNOW picture...

STAY

I saw this dog tied up at the senior housing complex and had to wonder just how he got himself in this predicament. Poor dog! I also wonder just how long he had been tied up like this. It seem it would be a bit of a strain on his neck, but he made me laugh anyway.

Cold Snap

Every winter we have a week of bitter cold and below zero temperatures and I'm glad to say that we are already in the middle of that. Already, because it's only the 15th of January, which makes me think that it's all uphill from here. It may be a long and winding UP-hill, but it is, most likely, up. I suppose that Mother Nature and or the weatherpeople COULD change the rules this year and we have more than one bitter cold week, but I certainly do hope not!

California Winter

Here we are at the beginning of our week of bitter cold weather when the ground is covered with snow and the nighttime temps are minus this and minus that and it makes me think of what we used to call winter in California. Oh, there would be the rain which would cause mud slides wherever last year's fires had been, but, I think fondly of it now, at least for this week. After the hard week of winter, things will start to warm up and the ups and downs will keep leading in an upward direction until it's springtime again.

My Chair

We got these girls when they were 5 weeks old and bottle fed them for a little while. It's hard to believe, now, that they each fit in the palm of a hand. I've seen their mother feeding with the homeless cats, so I've joined the group of feeders. When I told this one, Her Royal Highness, that she's spoiled rotten, laying around on her heating pad all day long, she said I was wrong, but last time I fed her momma, I told her that her babies were strong and healthy and running our lives. Being ferrel, she told me to "Go Away" I did.

Penguin Joke

I love that they're all laughing, up to their noses in snowfall, but keeping their chins up. They made fun of my can of snow and enjoyed the joke.

It wasn't so bad

Maybe it was a little hard on inflatable snowpeople, but there was only 5 inches this storm and the light and fluffy factor was greatly appreciated. The temperatures are about to plummet, though and I actually closed my bedroom window. It will be 37 and sloppy on Tuesday, but then it's going into minus this and minus that with single digits for the highs. The snow people should be delighted!

Snow Predicted

They're telling us 6-9 inches tonight. The prediction is for light fluffy stuff and after last week's "wintry mix" ice mess, light, fluffy stuff sounds absolutely lovely to me. Church is cancelled, of course, but how nice to have all of Sunday to clean up before Monday's back-to-work commute. Let is snow!

More Snow

Here comes another storm - on the weekend this time, Saturday night, possibly interferring with church on Sunday, sigh. This one is expected to be light and fluffy and after the "wintry mix" mess that left us coated 2 inches thick with ice the other day, we're all looking forward to light and fluffy. Thank You God!