SNOW DAYS

The snow on 1/7 gave our wild neighbors a strong warning: snows a comin' and you better fuel up. The next day, The Diner did a brisk business with most every species of daytime feather and fur stopped in. 

Morning snow on 1/9

Morning of 1/10-I noticed a group of blackbirds in the Back 40

There seemed to be more birds to the West so I looked out the garage-side door:

Yikes! a visitation by hundreds of European starlings. More were curled around out front and in the crab apple tree. They were quite loud. They hung out for about 10 minutes until for some reason they rose together, murmurated in the sky above the parking lot just over the berm. Many lit in the pines before moving on.

The storm arrived late in the afternoon of the 12th. The Diner was deserted.

 

Buddy was like a kitten, tossing bits of snow into the air and chasing it.

C and I were quite concerned about Buddy and his insistence to go outside for long periods at night. We knew extremely cold weather was coming so we decided to set aside our anxiety about wild critter invasion and re-installed the portal. We had noticed in the past couple of weeks that he was going up to the portal window, seemingly looking for it. Once installed, Bud and I revived our old game of me urging him "go, Buddy, go" as he galloped in from 15 ft away, up the boxes and out the portal with Dad assisting by holding the flap open. One night, C had assisted him, went back to bed only to be awakened by mewing outsider her door. The big scamp had come in by himself! This pretty much answered our suspicion that our Lordship has the upper-class attitude: why have servants if you don't use them? (Prince Chuck reportedly summoned a servant to his office to put a piece of paper into to waste basket-one that Chuck had managed to miss).

This eased out minds considerably. Bud, like most cats, prefers routine. He likes to go out and make sure things are good in the realm. Now, he can do his thing and Mom sleeps better.

Butterfly bush out bathroom window

Crab Apple tree from my office window

By 7 pm the storm was in full force with wind-driven snow

We received 3-4" of snow, thankfully far less than the 6-8" that was predicted the day before. The Diner was busy the next morning.

The arctic air began to swing in by late afternoon. The next morning it was +2° with -17° wc. As Bin would say-colder than mouse titties. I was up early to shovel my neighbor Benny's drive and ramp-his ailing wife has medical folk stopping by every morning. We received little snow-it was mainly wind drifts. I didn't bother with our drive but I cleared paths on the deck for Buddy and put out seed at The Diner.

By 10am, it was bright, cold and sunny-so typical of a Michigan January.

Bud went out a couple of times, the first for 5 minutes. Just hung out on the deck and kept his eyes on the sparrow raucous caucus in the burning bush. Came in for a snack and wanted back out. This time for 10 minutes-I called and he came galloping back in. Sigh. It was +5° outside. But he does seem to sense that this is no weather to be out for hours. We are keeping our fingers crossed.