February has been a fairly typical March.
It's normal to have some cold weather in March mixed with some warmer days.
Since February has been like March, I can't imagine what March will be like.
I'm not in a hurry for hot weather.
This post is a hodge podge of shots from the past 5 days or so.
The rocking male cardinal in the first shot was taken on my deck.
The second, third and fourth shots were taken this weekend at Shelley Lake.
The fifth shot was taken this Tuesday in my yard. The sixth - eighth shots were taken in Grace Garden this Tuesday.
Click for the home of Nature Notes.
I'm starting with flower shots I took on Monday and am moving through the week.
I've already posted quite a few Monday shots in other posts but I took so many of my flowers in the snow and ice that I had some left.
The shots above are narcissus and the ones below with ice are camellias.
I think flowers are very pretty with snow and ice on them.
I'm not sure though that the flowers like it very much.
The narcissus below are my neighbor's and I shot them after the wintry mix melted. The red icy camellia above is also my neighbor's. The first four shots are in my garden.
I also shot a lot of narcissus at a corner store.
You can see that they got beat down pretty badly.
The next two shots are of the photinia at the same shopping area.
They have withstood the temperature fluctuations well.
From a distance the border of narcissus look pretty in spite of bowing down.
The last shot is of a clivia blossom in water at my house.
Click for the home of today's flowers.
I enjoy the challenge of trying to combine the two photohunt themes each week.
This week I tried to think of something that would qualify as old and loud.
After my parents died I found a bunch of old deeds, some were over 100 years before my father was born.
My guess is they are from my father's mother's side of the family although I'm not sure of that.
Clearly these deeds are old but you may well ask why I thought they were loud.
I find the style of handwriting to be very loud. With the exception of calligraphy, most handwriting in the U.S. has toned down a lot from the loud style of these documents full of curlycues and such. I'm not sure if the term serifs only applies to printing but if it applies to handwriting too, the serifs in the second shot scream loudly.
Click for the home of the Old photohunt and/or click here for the home of the Loud photohunt. In a way it's silly to hang on to these old deeds but thanks to photohunt, I finally found a use for them.
Thursday morning before the rain came, I went on a walk around Shelley Lake with a friend who was visiting.
The geese were still on their winter side of the lake where they hunt for food in the grasses. The gulls were still on the other side of the lake.
The gulls were particularly active and provided me with a lot of photo ops.
I like to photograph the gulls this time of the year because I know they will leave this lake in the spring. They go somewhere else to breed, and don't return until the late fall.
The cormorants are another bird that I see at the lake in the fall and winter but they leave sometime in the spring or summer.
In some ways it was easier to photograph the gulls with the sun filtered through the clouds.
The male mallards were greatly out numbering the few females.
The shot below isn't very good but it's the only time I've ever seen deer in the woods near the lake. I would have missed them but Peggy said, do you see the deer. I said no and she finally helped me spot them through the trees and I got some shots. None were very good but still fun to get them at all.
The male house finch spread its wings out on my deck to show off its markings.
I think the males are very beautiful little birds. The females are rather drab in comparison. The shot above and below are of the same male house finch.
The male rufous-sided towhee was enjoying a bath below.
The female rufous-sided towhee had staked out the larger bath.
I think the expression on the female towhee's face below is priceless.
I think the bird below is a crow. I'm basing that guess on its call as well as its size.
Although my daffodils and lenten rose had already had some ups and downs with warm then cold weather, I took the shot below on Sunday because I had a feeling the forecast for a wintry mix that night would do some more damage.
I was right although I think the daffodils look very pretty in the ice and snow, even if they are bowed down.
Although it didn't amount to much, I'm glad we got at least a little snow this winter as I've missed it.
The part of my garden where these flowers are planted used to be my corn rows. I don't have a big vegetable garden like I used to but I still think of them as my corn rows minus the corn. Then again, who knows, maybe I'll get energetic this summer and plant corn again.
I planted the bulbs when I still planted corn in the summer. The flowers are mostly early spring and the corn seeds were planted in front of them. By the time the corn was high the daffodils were done blooming.
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