Garden Calm Before The Storm. . . . . . . .

Saturday afternoon we were able to do a little garden clean up and some pruning.

It was cool, sunny and at first not windy, but things soon changed and the 

sky became a bit threatening, so we packed up and came in to get ready for 

an evening out, supper and some Shakespeare - "Much Ado About Nothing" -

at our local community theatre.

The always sweet and gentle Mourning doves cleaning up the crumbs on this morning.

One Robin has stayed around permanently this Winter. 

He's surprised me by bathing daily as the frozen water melts, this often assisted 
by us emptying a kettle of hot water to speed things up.

 He's also loving the suet feeder and often stands guard over it for up to five 
minutes and scares other birds away.

Feeding in pairs - House Finches

"Hey you guys looking out the window, guess where I'm headed?"

This is an easy to recognize squirrel because of the little white tufts of fur behind his ears. 

He comes to the feeders constantly and it takes some chasing to keep him away for long. 

Our neighbors must think us nuts always running down the front steps clapping 

our hands and yelling "Get out of there you naughty squirrel". . . . . . . or sometimes

 worse language I won't repeat here!

Here's another visitor knowing he's misbehaving. This is when the humans run down 

the steps clapping hands and shouting rude words!

Yes, we are cute, aren't we?

"But we love it here and will clean up the seeds then come back tomorrow".

I'm sharing the wildlife now because all may be white in the next day or so. 

Arctic blast, chance of SNOW at long last - will be our first of the season!