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Post by sailor on Feb 15, 2009 19:59:44 GMT -5
I think so. It sure is feeling like Spring today. I love to run around naked in the Spring! Feel the green grass under my feet The wind blowing across my thing The bees buzzing and cross pollinating The warm sun bringing color to my cheeks The neighbors shaking their head, Wondering to whom they should speak Yes, I love Spring  |
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Post by jspnrvr on Feb 15, 2009 21:22:52 GMT -5
Just want to let all you folks up there in the Northern latitudes know that Spring is on the way! How can I say this? I saw my first robins today! Flocks of them!
The red-breasted little stinkers stop off for a few days down here to feast on the fermented berries of the Brazilian pepper tree. It's an exotic, invasive, non-native pest, but the birds go crazy over the fruit. The berries have been on since December, nearly frost bitten a time or two, so they are ready to go. You see the robins hanging out in the trees, literally falling off their perches. They try to land, and they roll! Like a bunch of Midwestern insurance agents at a South Florida convention. Too bad the birds can't put on some little shorts and flowery shirts, they'd fit right in.
But the robins will finish the berries or the instinctual call will prove too strong, or both and eventually they'll get back on track. I'm sending them your way guys. Have the coffee ready. It's a long, hard trip; they're going to need it.
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Post by gailkate on Feb 16, 2009 11:09:09 GMT -5
What a lovely image, Jay! Tipsy robins stopping off to loll around before setting off on their long trek. I'm overjoyed to hear they're coming, because our brief thaw seems to have left us. All the snow is gone, so we are not only cold but looking at dead grass. I'm glad just to hear that spring is happening somewhere else.
The robins will have to take the leisurely scenic route, though, as no worms are going to be pull-able for some time.
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Post by ozski on Feb 16, 2009 12:38:23 GMT -5
Hey j! Robins made it to Kansas by the end of January this year----TOTALLY weird, I must say. The ground has not been frozen for about that long too. Also have had doves and finches, and flocks of geese and sandhill cranes flying north. I think they are being either very hopeful or they all know something we do not! Haven't seen any worms yet, gk--so they are probably gonna skinny-up. And the damn moles are back!!  |
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Post by ozski on Feb 16, 2009 12:41:39 GMT -5
. You see the robins hanging out in the trees, literally falling off their perches. They try to land, and they roll! Like a bunch of Midwestern insurance agents at a South Florida convention. Too bad the birds can't put on some little shorts and flowery shirts, they'd fit right in.  Hahahahahaha! That earned you #71!!!! |
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Post by BoatBabe on Feb 16, 2009 13:07:45 GMT -5
The thought of little drunk robins in endearing. MUST mean Spring is on the way.
That big bright thing in the sky is out today, warming the saloon up to near bikini temperatures. However, right outside the door the thermometer reads 44 degrees.
We still have our winter birds. The Barrows and Common Golden Eye winter here from the first week in November until the first week in March. They will scoot home to British Columbia; their chubby little stuffed-teddy-bear duck wings flapping wildly to get airborne for a short time, then crash landing in the water for a quick rest. It's no wonder that this is as far south as they can get.
Tropical Seattle.
The Cormorants have been out diving for breakfast. I call them Dracula Birds. They are not a waterproof bird, which is an asset that allows them to dive fast and deep in search of food. After they have been diving for a while, when they surface, their water laden bodies no longer float above the water line; just their cobra-like necks and heads protrude.
It is time to dry out. They gather on the rocky breakwater, standing tall with their wings held out like Dracula's cape, catching the sun and wind. If you hold your elbows straight out from your shoulders and allow your lower arms and hands to dangle, you too can look like a Dracula Bird.
My! Don't you all look silly. And they do, too.
Our numbers of Western Grebes, Earred Grebes, Mergansers, Cinnamon Teals, Black Turnstones and many others, have dropped off so drastically that if I see one, better yet a PAIR! I am astonished and mark the day on my calendar.
Mid March they all will be moving on, and Spring will officially be here, in my book.
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Post by sailor on Feb 16, 2009 22:58:02 GMT -5
Our Spring fling came to a halt yesterday afternoon. The sky turned a cold pastel gray and winter's icy finger pushed the mercury down on the thermometer... burrr we murmured under our breath as we reached for our quilted house coats. Our two cats, who earlier in the day had frolicked happily in the yard were now curled in our laps trying to suck every calorie of warmth from us as they could.
It was a good weekend but the Springish facade wasn't meant to last beyond that.
Mike
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Post by BoatBabe on Feb 17, 2009 10:21:37 GMT -5
Yesterday it was so blazingly bright that the computer screen was washed to a blue-grey. This morning the blue-grey is up in the sky, and all of the colors are back on my computer screen. Hmmmm . . .  Mike, I'm assuming that you are south of the 45th parallel, which is how I understand other people's weather. Are you? |
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Post by sailor on Feb 17, 2009 17:16:10 GMT -5
Mike, I'm assuming that you are south of the 45th parallel, which is how I understand other people's weather. Are you? Hi BB, Yokosuka is: Latitude: 35 degrees, 17 minutes, 1 seconds North Longitude: 139 degrees, 40 minutes, 2 seconds East Click on this link to see my little seaside town. www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/images/cfa_yokosuka.jpgAll the best, Mike |
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Post by booklady on Feb 17, 2009 18:40:04 GMT -5
The daffodils are up here. Way up and dancing in the breeze. I think it will be a month or two before Cape Cod sees daffodils. |
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Post by BoatBabe on Feb 18, 2009 1:48:32 GMT -5
Beautiful seaside town, Mike. How sweet.
WAY south of us. But we are all surrounded by the same sea.
I'm so glad to touch bases with you!
No Daffodils here, BL. Coming up, but none dancing in the breeze. You are WAY, way south of us.
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Post by Jane on Feb 19, 2009 23:30:53 GMT -5
Is Spring just around the corner?
No.
We are expecting ten inches of snow this weekend. Oh, goody.
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Post by joew on Feb 24, 2009 13:15:51 GMT -5
They say we'll get a tease later this week. And robins have been sighted.
But it's still winter, IMO.
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Post by gailkate on Feb 24, 2009 15:01:34 GMT -5
We're into another tease today. When Jane was fearing 10" we got 5.5, which rather nicely covered the grubby mounds and the brown grass. But now we're approaching 40 - with the promise of freezing rain tonight and then back into the 20s, with overnights of 5 and 6 degrees. So it'll be more ICE, just when I'd gotten a bit less gingerly about dogwalking. They've learned the word "ice," though, and whichever dog is with me slows to an anxious creep whenever I cry my warning. It's kind of sweet, but I know it scares them when I go down with a whomp, sometimes on top of them. No robins. Lots of very hungry birds at the feeders. Litlle piggies. Lucky for them we haven't yet decided we can't afford birdseed. |
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Post by doctork on Feb 28, 2009 0:30:03 GMT -5
We had 8" of snow Wednesday night and Thursday, but now it's fortunately all melted. Still gray though, with occasional "sun breaks" - that means that occasionally we can see that the sun is somewhere out there behind the clouds.
I am tired of cold and gray and wet.
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Post by joew on Feb 28, 2009 1:31:26 GMT -5
At this point, I'd settle for warm, even with gray and wet.
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Post by gailkate on Feb 28, 2009 10:19:15 GMT -5
I'm with you on that, Joe. After our snow on Thursday (only 5 inches but a whole lot of blowing) we've had sparkling sun. But it's 0 as in no degrees. Criminy! In fact, it's been so up and down, so challenging for birds, that we're now getting pigeons at our feeder. Four of them were pushing and shoving around one tube feeder (the other has thistle seed and they don't want to take the trouble, I guess), while the little birds had to sit around waiting their turn. I'm not sure we can afford to feed the pigeon population, but all God's critters got to eat.
I forget, K, when's your last day? And how does the weather look in NC?
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Post by doctork on Feb 28, 2009 13:30:33 GMT -5
Thursday March 5 is my last day - can't come soon enough!
We're always green, rarely frozen, so our birds don't struggle for food. Probably very similar to what Boat Babe describes, though we're maybe a mile from Bellingham Bay and Puget Sound waters instead of right on it. Not to mention that I don't know anything about birds so I can't describe so vividly. We do see quite a fwe eagles, as I can recognize them.
I haven't been regularly checking the NC weather, but I think it is very similar to WV (it's all Appalachia), just a little farther south so maybe a few more degrees of warmth and definitely an earlier spring. We'll be just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. If you have seen pictures, it's beautiful year 'round there.
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Post by booklady on Feb 28, 2009 15:23:28 GMT -5
We had temps around 77 the past two days but it's colder today, enough for the heater to have to come on. The birds are making a racket, though.
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Post by jspnrvr on Feb 28, 2009 15:38:46 GMT -5
Well doc, old buddy, old pal. It's currently a balmy 41 degrees at a personal weather station in Laurel Springs, NC. Raining heavily, an expected drop in temperature to below freezing with a winter storm warning through Monday evening. And that would be on mountain roads. The good news is that if you slide and go over the edge you'll die before you ever hit bottom!
But let's not rush it! It's only February 28th. Ramp season is still a ways off in that part of the woods, and the West Virginia ramp festivals aren't until up in April, and the dogwood and redbud blooming. Hang in there, you're getting closer every day! No need to thank me, it's all part of the service.
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Post by gailkate on Feb 28, 2009 15:44:22 GMT -5
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Post by jspnrvr on Feb 28, 2009 17:26:43 GMT -5
Ramps are a wild member of the onion/leek family. One of the first things to come up in the spring, up in the hills. If you've spent a long winter eating dried, homegrown produce like beans and sulfered apples, and cornbread and salted meat, the first green anything of spring is welcome. First ramps, then wild mustard greens. So it's an Appalachian cultural thing.
But they're stout fare. My Mom remembers their cow getting into ramps and it would taint the milk.
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Post by booklady on Mar 1, 2009 0:39:51 GMT -5
It's snowing here tonight! That's what I get for bragging about chattering birds.  |
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Post by doctork on Mar 1, 2009 18:07:33 GMT -5
We moved to West Virginia in March of 1990 and ramps were coming out in abundance. Our younger daughter went for a walk in the new neighborhood, found some ramps and knew right away she loved them. Right there for the pulling and eating, no trip to the store necessary! Who could ask for more?
To this day if she comes home for a visit you can always tell when she has been in the kitchen - onion remnants everywhere, and there is no food in her repertoire that is not improved with onions. No ramps in Washington State, at lest not around here.
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Post by booklady on Mar 2, 2009 17:21:21 GMT -5
I never heard of ramps before.
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Post by jspnrvr on Mar 2, 2009 18:56:42 GMT -5
I never heard of ramps before. Stick around, booky I'll tell you lots of stuff you never heard before, anywhere else! Didn't I help doc through her crossword puzzle Saturday night, long distance, without any visual cues? Sit at my feet, and be amazed. I know, it's hard to believe but just accept it. And I can cook, too. |
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Dopey Member
but Mommmm!
