Housekeeping and Nature Notes - 2/22/19

Housekeeping has been nil lately.  I do clean the kitchen, mostly, and get laundry done and give a spot clean here and there to our bathrooms.  And occasionally go through the piles of mail and throw stuff into recycling.  But that's about it!  Viviane cleaned up a bit for her guests and just today she tidied and swept the main floor.  God bless her.

I have been going through the books in our study and cleaning that up somewhat.  R dumped stuff from this father's condo in there and I've sort of pushed things to the corners so we can walk in and out.  I did set up my seedling shelves but I still haven't gotten my soil blocker so I haven't started on that.

Yes, this is pathetically an after photo.  I've already spent time trying to organize.

The weather has been wild, veering between dark, gloomy, rainy days, to bitter cold and snow, to crisp blue skies studded with clouds, to 56 degrees and lovely to this morning when I took my walk with Skipper,  which is 43 degrees, cloudy and raw.  The ground is so saturated, it's like walking on a sopping wet sponge except worse because it's all mud!

Taking the dog for walks, I've spied bluebirds and other song birds, hawks, turkey vultures.  One day there were a few dozen Canada Geese on the pond out back.  We used to have geese all the time, then they did something to the pond because the geese left.  I think these were just stopping on their way some place else. They weren't there today.  I also saw a Mallard duck couple for a few days as well. They were there first and then the Canada geese joined them.  I didn't see them this morning so I don't know if they left with the geese or if they were just hiding among the rushes.

This photo makes my seedling old baker's rack look like it tilted.

I had my 4th sighting of the fox this morning.  I got a really good look this time.  Definitely a fox and not a coyote.  I really think it is a grey fox not a red one.  It has a substantial amount of grey on it's back and haunches.   Skipper doesn't even bark or get that excited.  He just looks at it very alert.  He's interested but he's never out of control excited like he is when he sees other dogs.