Yippee!  Snow!!  Here in the Pacific Northwest, we have been hearing for a couple of weeks that snow was in the forecast.  They kept pushing the date back, however, which is pretty normal around here.  Last night, around midnight, it did start to snow, and we awoke this morning to see the white stuff falling pretty fast.  Once I got in gear, I grabbed my camera and my phone and ran downstairs, to see who had shown up in our backyard.  First, some pictures of the yard itself.

Not only is that birdbath frozen solid, it now has a nice white cap on it.  I can get a pretty good idea of how much snow has fallen by looking at the birdbath.  This is about five inches so far, and it is still snowing as I write this.

That’s the yard facing east.  I apologize for the reflections-all these pictures were taken through the sliding glass door to the yard.  One of the defects (for photographers) of our kind of house is the narrow eaves that are very high up, so we have no sheltered place on the steps to take pictures from.

Here’s the view to the west side.  That barbecue has a nice white cap, too.

Of course, my favorite subjects in our back yard are all the birds.  All of our “usual suspects” are showing up today, and they are having a great time, bouncing around the yard and jostling with all the other birds to get at the seed feeder and the two suet feeders.  I got some great video, thanks to my iPhone’s excellent camera.  You need to watch not only the trees and the snowy ground, but the fence along the top and sides.  You will see Common Bushtits, Juncos, and the Varied Thrush in this video.  The juncos have the white feathers in their tails, which is a great way to identify them from behind!

 

Here are some of the usual suspects.  I got a bunch of pictures with more than one species!

Can you find the Junco in the tree?  That’s the Varied Thrush on the ground.

On the suet feeder, you see our Townsend’s Warbler and Bewick’s Wren.  The Junco is on the tree, just waiting for his chance to get to the suet.  I call both the leafless Japanese Maples the birds’ “staging area” for the feeders.

Isn’t that Bewick’s Wren cute?  Keeping his eye on the suet.  And this is what happened when he tried the other suet feeder, which hasn’t gotten as much action.

Here’s another duet.

The Warbler and Junco seem to be able to eat together without fighting.  See how the contours of the suet itself are getting their own little white caps!

Finally, I got a “top view” of one of our Chestnut-backed Chickadees in the tree waiting for the suet feeder.

For me, personally, since my retirement I have been spending a lot more time on this blog, as well as on Ricochet.com.  I have done a number of posts on the subject of the Wuhan Coronavirus and its effects on society.  When Canada stopped all US cruise ships from stopping there for another full year (our ships, which are foreign-flagged and built, must stop in a foreign land when cruising between US ports, due to Jones Act restrictions), I did posts both here and on Ricochet.  And this week, I received an excellent reward for the Ricochet post!  Here is a screen-shot:

I received the “Post of theWeek” award from James Lileks, who is one of the founders of Ricochet.  The picture is me and my husband on the dock in Nanaimo, BC, on the return trip from our Alaska cruise in 2016.  We had planned on taking another cruise this summer, possibly in the US, but Canada has effectively scotched those plans, and we are not happy about that at all.

Another part of my life that has given us great joy in the past, and promises more, is our relationship with Hillsdale College.  That Alaska cruise, and the 2018 cruise to Hawaii, were sponsored by Hillsdale.  Periodically, we go to National Leadership Seminars in places all over the country, sponsored by the College.  In 2019, we went to campus for their 175th Anniversary celebration.

That’s the College Orchestra, playing in the new Christ Chapel on campus.  We are endowing a scholarship for a music student, so maybe one of those players will be able to take advantage of it.

This is Central Hall on campus.  All the campus buildings are in the Classical style.  No Brutalism is to be found at Hillsdale.

Thanks, everyone, for joining me on a little trip through My World.

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