Photohunters: Balanced

The photohunters theme is balanced. My first shot is of my deck swing balanced by chains on a snowy day and was taken exactly one year ago. I'm using this old shot because not only is the swing balanced, the snow is balanced on all of the deck furniture.

No snow here yet this January but the recent shot below gives a better view of the way the swing is balanced on chains.

In order to see how balanced the swing normally is, I shifted the link I hung on the hook on one side of the swing to demonstrate the opposite of balanced. Below is an unbalanced swing. I'm a little unbalanced myself some days but lets not go there.

For balanced photohunters, you can check out the home site where participants post their links beginning on Saturday.

Nature Notes: Warming up considerably

The year started off quite cold but it is warming up considerably where I live. I have mixed feelings about spring like weather in the winter because sometimes flowers get signals too soon. Considering that our average last frost date is in April, this is much too early for confused flowers.

Not that flowers are starting to bloom yet but there are already starting to be signs that a few may start emerging only to get zapped in the near future. It's been a wet winter but when it's cold enough to snow it has mostly been dry and when it's wet the temperatures warm up. Still there is alot of moss which I love and which wet weather encourages.

I also like wet leaves and old fallen branches with interesting growths on them.

I don't know if there are several hawks that hang out in my neighborhood or if it's one which gets around a lot. I seem to be spotting it in the trees everywhere I look.

My back garden has lots of areas with bulbs and perennials. In the fall I try to shift a lot of the oak leaves from my front yard to my back yard for thick mulch which I rake away in the spring when the flowers emerge.

In the shot above you may notice that the first two terraced rows are covered in brown leaves and everything is still a sleep. However if you look towards the top on the left, I didn't get to that area and I couldn't believe it when I saw some plants already getting ready for spring flowers MUCH too soon.

The shot above is the other side of my back garden and I did get most of that area covered in a protective blanket of leaves.

I also got the paths in between my green house and raised bed boxes mulched so hopefully weeds won't grown through in the summer.

However I wish I'd done a better job mulching in the part of my garden on the other side. The helioborus (lenten rose) is always green but it's budding too soon. I even spotted some narcissus emerging when it shouldn't be up until March.

On these warm days, I feel like I should begin cleaning up my back garden for spring. However, although the ornamental grasses may be brown and spent, every time I get close enough to consider cutting away the dead growth they explode with little birds and I back away.

This time last year we had over 5 inches of snow on the ground. As much as I would enjoy a pretty snow, the birds are so happy with the break in cold weather that I'm happy for them.

Please visit the home of nature notes to find other participants.

Today's Flowers: Remains of the garden with hope for the future

I wandered around my garden and deck a few days ago, photographing what was left from the growing season past and considering the promise of the season to come.

Depending on the point of view, mostly emptied husks from the hibiscus (rose of sharon) in my garden above can spell an ending or a beginning. I know in a few months that new plants will pop up in the usual as well as unexpected places, coming back up from roots as well as bird planted seeds in new spots.

The remains of the purple cone flowers (echanasia) above are also signs of old flowers with the promise of new to come.

The black eyed susan (rudbeckia) above was planted late, by a bird I assume, in a pot on my deck whose planned flowers were finished. This flower bloomed months after the rest and I watched eager to see if the flower would open before a hard frost which it did, just barely. Even zapped by the cold almost as soon as it bloomed, it was frozen in this unusual form and months later still has hint of yellow flower and green leaf. All the other rudbeckia had turned black and brown, withering away by late August.

The fairy asters above were also a late volunteer in a deck pot and although the daisy like flowers faded long ago the puffy seed are still white unlike the others in my garden which long ago dropped as brown seeds. Please visit the home of Today's Flowers to find other participants.

Photohunters: Jiggly

The photohunters theme this week is jiggly. I have jiggly wind chimes hanging outside my bedroom door that leads out on my deck.

I have wind chimes hanging under the eaves all along the wall which not only has my bedroom door but also bathroom windows.

When it's windy, the jiggly chimes ring out their dischordant symphony.

It's surprising in a way that they never awaken me. I find the jiggly chimes soothing.

Photohunters post at the home site starting Saturday mornings.

Nature Notes: Frozen creek and lake but thawing now

Last week my nature notes covered the first five days of the new year. This week I'll begin with day six and include shots from several different days moving into the second week of the year.

The first day I realized Shelley Lake had frozen, I wasn't even planning on walking around the lake.

It was freezing cold and the wind was 20 mph so I thought a short walk on the woodsey trail along the creek would be a better bet than around the lake.

When I saw that the creek and wetland part was frozen, I kept walking telling myself I'd walk until I got to where it was running water.

As it turned out the lake was frozen all the way across so I ended up walking around the lake not knowing how long it would last.

I knew that our daytime temperatures were going to get above freezing by the next week, for at least part of the week, and even when they were below freezing I had a feeling the sun would start to melt some of the ice. Normally the geese and ducks tend to hang out near the bridge on the right side a little more than midway up on the shot above.

However, with a frozen lake the geese had moved over to the top of the dam which you can see on the left hand side, midway up on the shot above.

Normally the only time I see them on that side of the lake is in the spring when they have babies and usually they are on the big fields with their babies wadling behind. It's rare for them to be walking on top of the dam. They were also down on the hills foraging in the little bit of remaining grass.

On another day when the sun had started thawing a little bit of the lake, I saw why it made sense for them to have moved to that side. The first part to thaw was the water around where the pipe fed water under the dam into the creek.

Much of the lake and parts of the creek were still frozen but I could hear cracks that almost sounded like muffled gunshots as some of the ice was breaking away.

I love winter and wouldn't mind some snow right about now but I do feel for the wildlife that has to adapt.

I know it's not easy dealing with the cold and ice when you don't have a warm house to go to.

Ever since childhood, I wanted to be a bird. The idea of flight and the freedom that brings are so appealing. Realistically though it's hard to be a bird.

Lately I've been able to photograph the hawk below a lot because he sits in my oak trees eyeing the bird baths on my deck. The birds that are normally there for the water I provide have been staying away because of the predator above. Of course he has to eat too.

For other participants, please visit the home of Nature Notes. Also, I'd like to mention that the host of Nature Notes has a beautiful blog with lots of good information about helping out the birds and wildlife as well as informative posts on a variety of topics. I've learned a lot from her blog.