Gorgeous day here at the Aerie. It started out cold, just 2.5 degrees at 8:30 AM, but warmed up as the sun moved over the ridge. The high of 33 degrees was reached under a cloudless, deep blue sky at 2:30 in the afternoon. Water dripped off the southwest facing roof all afternoon and evening even as the temperature dropped to the teens. Not much melted off the driveway, however. That's still covered by a thin layer of snow left by the thrower.
The birds were back for the free buffet now that the snow has covered the fields again. Why should they hunt the hedgerows and weed heads for seed when they can get sunflower, thistle and even suet in one convenient location. There had to be 40-50 redpolls,plus the usual crowd of chickadees, juncos, mourning doves, blue jays, hairy and downey woodpeckers, and both red-breasted and white-breasted nuthatches. A pair of cardinals also showed up early in the morning and late in the afternoon. I could have done without the two starlings, however. Yeah, they look nice in their speckled plummage, but they always seem to show up in the flue pipe to the basement stove. Every spring I've got to remove two or three of them from the firebox.
Tonight they say the temperature will drop below zero which is easy to understand as there's no cloud cover at all. There's also little or no wind. Thank goodness. If there were, we'd be seeing wind chills down around minus 12-15 degrees.
I've had the fireplace burning since this morning so it's toasty warm in the house. I'll be keeping the fire going for a few more days at least.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a beauty again. Lots of sunshine and highs into the 30s. Already the foot of snow that fell Sunday night is starting to compact. A couple more days and we'll see the fields reappear if not the lawn around the Aerie. And while the temperatures will be moderating and we'll see the high 30s and even 40s over the next 15 days, there's at least a likelihood of rain showers for a third of that time.
No comments:
Post a Comment