Snow and Dreams of Warmer Days

It's not even Thanksgiving, and in northern Illinois, we have snow.  Lots of snow.  I'm guessing there are about five inches on the ground.  The ground was fairly warm, so the earliest snow melted.  It's a heavy, clingy, beautiful snow. The birds have been caught a little by surprise, I think, and have been crowding the bird feeder all day.  Here are a couple of beauties waiting their turn.

And to think, only a month ago, I was enjoying warm, sunny weather in Florida and Savannah.  I've meant to share my Savannah pictures with you, but haven't had a chance.  Here are just a couple of snaps from that trip.

Lovely Round Island Park just south of Vero Beach, Florida

While I do love snow, I wouldn't mind being down south again for a day or two.  We visited family in Florida, then took a little detour to Savannah for one night.  I was really impressed by the view of the salt marshes.  The photo below was taken from the car as we went over a very tall bridge into Brunswick, Georgia.  

Salt marsh as seen from bridge heading into Brunswick, Georgia

For one last glimpse of warm weather, I'll leave you with a shot of Bay Street in the historic district of Savannah. Whether it's warm or cold, I hope things are lovely where you are.

Bay Street, Savannah, Georgia

Outside My Office Window

I've been semi-chained to my desk lately, and while I am working hard, I keep getting distracted by feathered visitors outside my window -- cardinals, chickadees, finches, nuthatches, and sparrows (lots of sparrows).  And then there's this one cheeky guy that runs off everyone else:

He catches my eye every time. (And yes, my bird feeder is really dirty!)

What I've Learned in May

Honeysuckles blooming in May

On this last day of May, I've been thinking about all the things I've learned this month.

Early in the month, I learned that I am not a hang-tough-and-fight girl, at least when it comes to illness.  The husband and I both came down with some kind of virus. The only symptoms were a cough and extreme fatigue. It was the fatigue that got me.  I hadn't been sick in several years, not even a cold, and I was NOT a trouper.  I just wanted to lie down and die.  I realized that if I had a serious terminal illness, after I died no one would say I had fought a courageous battle.  They would have to say, "She just lay down on her couch and gave up."

Second try?  Taken from our upstairs porch.

I learned anew that nature is red in tooth and claw.  You may remember last year when I rhapsodized about our little robin fledglings.  The robins returned this year and built a nest in the same spot on top of the bat house.  I kept anxious watch and soon spied three tiny heads.  Then one day, I was standing in the yard and I heard a tremendous squawking.  I looked up and saw two adult robins chasing a hawk away from the nest.  The hawk had come in like a silent assassin.  I never heard a thing until it was too late.  Sadly, all three baby robins were gone.

There is a robin sitting on a new nest nearby, however, so maybe the same robins rebuilt and are trying again.  This nest is on the house; I hope it is more protected from hungry hawks.


I also learned that time, like birds, really can fly.  Our youngest starts his first grown-up job tomorrow.  He has essentially forbidden me to mention him in my blog, so I can't reveal much, but we are pleased and excited for him. Our other child, our daughter, closed on a house this month on her 26th birthday.

It's a little cottage not far from the library where she heads up youth services.  It's a darling house and, with a little work, will be quite charming.  But here's the thing: I'm pretty sure this new homeowner was in kindergarten only a couple of years ago.  When I think about my kids, it's like a movie with flashbacks and flashforwards.  They are toddlers, then -- whoosh -- they are adults with paychecks and mortgages.

Related to the passage of time and the daughter's house, I learned that I am not as young as I once was.  Of course, everyone knows that's true, but a little physical home rehab work makes it all the more obvious.  The husband and I have done a lot of rehab work over the years -- tearing out plaster and carpet, building walls, stripping woodwork and wallpaper, endless painting, etc., etc.  Much of that, however, was done when we were in our salad days.  I spent about ten days at our daughter's house this month, painting, ripping out a bathroom, and let's just say: my salad days have wilted.

We made good progress.  We got the bathroom down to the studs and subfloor. The bathroom looks like tile in the pictures, but it was fake tile hardboard.  Around the tub, the hardboard was covered with another surface!  We repaired and filled woodwork and repainted the larger bedroom (pink with white trim!).  In the bedroom, I re-learned another lesson.  Knotty pine must be primed with shellac-based primer.  Kilz does NOT cover knots.  I knew that, but was stupid and didn't think it through.  So now her sloping pine ceiling has four coats of paint -- Kilz, paint, Zinsser BIN, paint.  Whew!

Finally in May, I learned that a climbing hydrangea is worth waiting years for.  I planted a hydrangea vine quite some years ago, more than five for sure.  Last year I had one bloom and was very pleased.  This year, it exploded. Absolutely worth the wait!

Nesting Instinct

Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother's Day, I want to share this photo of someone with real parenting instinct.

A pair of robins have been busy building a nest atop our bat house for the last few days.  It's been fun to watch all the carrying and arranging going on.  I was especially tickled to see one of last year's hydrangea blooms, which I cut off the bushes just last weekend, has been selected as building material.  The bat house is on the front of our two-story garage, just under the eaves.  I was able to get this photo with a telephoto lens from the upstairs porch of the house.

Mother's Day hat update:  My mother seems pleased with the hat I made her.  She said it fit perfectly!

Scenes from My Ordinary Life

I haven't had a lot to write about lately, but I thought today I'd share a couple of images.

My office is a little cubby under the stairs, not quite as small as where Harry Potter had to sleep because there is a bay that bumps out and makes room for my desk.  I bought the desk around 1984 at a little hole-in-the-wall antiques store in Chicago called Clyde's.  It was painted red and black.  The top had been stripped, but the wood was badly stained, so Clyde had given up on stripping it and sold it to me for $50.  It's kind of small (only 42 inches wide) and one drawer is falling apart, but it's been with me a long time.  I feel kindly toward my old desk, and it fits perfectly in this space.  Plus the stained top doesn't bother me since I very rarely see the top anyway.  The little green table came from Ikea unfinished.  I painted it to match the fabric shades I made.  I'm glad you can't see how wonky and crooked the bias tape edging is on the shades.

Anyway, the point of this seemingly pointless story is not what my office looks like, it's the two windows on the sides of the bay.  Late this summer, gnats got wedged in the screens. Whether they got stuck there and died or simply came there to die, kind of like a gnat hospice, I don't know, but last week I was sitting at my desk, and two goldfinches* decided to snack on the dead gnats.  The birds clung to the screens and walked up and down, picking out the gnats as I sat a mere three feet away.  I had never seen anything quite like that.

*Update Oct. 24:  I've just learned from my very knowledgeable bird-watching brother-in-law that these are not goldfinches at all!  They are migrating yellow rumped warblers in fall plumage.  I'm glad to be able to correct my error.  The things you can learn by blogging!

The final image I thought I'd share is a sunset over the prairie.  Yesterday evening we were walking Alfie in the prairie as the sun went down.  The few clouds and jet trails made for an interesting sky.