Chicks!

I piddled around and waited too long to order chicks. Sold out!

I should have realized, after hearing stories about seeds flying off the shelves in this poor economy, that the same would apply to small livestock.

But we found mystery chicks from the Cullman Tractor Supply store.



I think we have Leghorns, a Rhode Island Red, and Dominiques. Maybe.



They are cute, at any rate, although I suspect that a high percentage may be cockerels.



Fuzzy.



Wuzzy.

We put them in a pen outside one sunny day, to soak in sun and eat bugs and scratch around, but mostly they acted like it was just another ploy to try to kill them.



The female Muscovy was verrrry interested. Poor thing wants to be a mama so bad, but is too dumb to figure out how to sit on eggs correctly. Maybe we should have brought her some ducklings.

This is how much they grew in just a week:



That one on the far left and one other black chick have tails already, which says "male" to me, but I pray I'm wrong.



Look Ma, real feathers!

To buy the chicks, we had to sign a paper: name, address, phone, driver's license number! I considered yelling "No NAIS!" and running out the door, but I didn't. I hadn't felt Big Brother peering over my shoulder like that since we tried to drive up to view the local dam, and had our plates and license numbers recorded.

Lord knows what sort of watch list I'll be put on for buying chicks, visiting a dam, and buying Sudafed.



"I'll be watching you."

Spring, sprung.

It's bloodroot time!

Tempus est Sanguinaria canadensis.

Babelfish doesn't work for ancient languages, so that is possibly not correct latin.

But anyway, bloodroots are up!

Natural Graffiti

Fungi graffiti. (Spalting in tree trunk.)



Snail graffiti.



Insect scrollwork?

Cottontails

We've gone from snow to temps in the 70s in one week. Don't plant your tomatoes yet though, says our Extension guy; there's still more cold weather to come.


Divided heart-shaped rock that has nothing to do with this post.

I'll be at the Cottontails craft show this weekend at the Birmingham-Jefferson Civic center. So if you are local and have $6, come see me. If you come Friday morning, you may see a friend of mine too. Two blogging soapmakers for the price of one. And if tell me, "You said on your blog that you'd give me a 10% discount," then I will.

Snow! (Part 2)

Snow in pines.



Snow in beeches.



Now they look like Christmas Ferns!



Rabbit trail revealed.



Snow in swampy area.



Snow in other beeches.



Snow on Rudbeckia skeletons.



The Virginia Bluebells are over there - hope they're ok.



Deer tracks in snow. I have been wanting to track wild animals in the snow ever since we moved here. Unfortunately the snow was all gone by early afternoon, and not many animals had moved around in the morning.



Duck tracks in snow. (The chickens were afraid of the snow. They refused to come out of the coop! It was hilarious.)



Mystery tracks in snow! There is my gloved finger for size comparison. Now if I could only remember where I put the tracking book.

Snow!

The forecast was for two to four inches by daybreak.



The TV is full of snowmen and snowball fights and cantevenseethegrass, but here - not yet.

We had five inches of rain day before yesterday, so I'm thinking that the persistent puddles are melting all the snow.

It's still coming down though, so I've got my fingers crossed.

Sundogs

How I managed to live (mumble, mumble) years being unaware of sundogs, I'm not sure.



It's been two years since I first saw one (and wrote about it), and I've seen dozens since.



But I still haven't managed to get a good photo of one.

I see them more often in winter, especially when driving south late in the afternoon. (AL-75S gives great sundog.)

No use trying to race them home, though. They're slithery, and don't hang around for portraits.

Here's a nice, simple page with a good sundog photo, as well as other atmospheric phenomena. Here is the definitive page on the science behind the "why" of all the optics.

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The latest I and the Bird is up over at The Birder's Report. Go see!

How to mesmerize a cat

I'm not sure if it's the groovy screensaver, the Grateful Dead, or the combo.

Early bloomer

Cherry Japanese Apricot blossoms...



... at the in-laws' this past weekend.

I haven't seen cherry trees blooming around here, and the inlaws are north of here, so I guess this one's just an early bloomer.

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Updated:
My sister-in-law emailed to tell me that the reason this is blooming before other cherry trees, is that it isn't a cherry tree! It's a Japanese Apricot. (The bark looks just like that of a cherry.)

Major award

The leg lamp from the movie A Christmas Story is so well known, that when someone speaks of a major award, you think they're kidding.



My nephew really won a major award, though.



A "What do you mean, I have to pay taxes on it?!" MAJOR Major Award.



My sister-in-law told me that he's actually the third person in the family to have won something this substantial... an aunt and an uncle, on separate sides of the family, have both won cars.



Our nephew is back stateside now, having finally finished his tour in Iraq. And you may remember that he previously served in Afghanistan.

Hubby says this bike may be more dangerous than either of those.



He had to try it out too, though.



I can't help myself, I just love a man on a motorcycle!

I feel famous now

The Nature Blog Network interviewed me (here)!

That first link takes you to their list of nature blogs, which numbers almost 700 now. I'd encourage you to sign up, if your blog's a fit.

I'm hoping that in the future they'll consider listing by geographic area too. I'd love to be able to click over to, say, a "Canada" tab, then select by province. Because I frequently find myself wondering, "What's shaking in Nova Scotia right now?"

Thanks so much to Wren for interviewing me, and to Pablo for suggesting me.

Coming attractions

Many have risen...



... but few have budded.

(Virginia Bluebells, Mertensia virginica.)



Shy ones have been spotted, but their lips are sealed.

(Trailing Trillium, Trillium decumbens.)



Mouthy little things, they'll soon be chewing the scenery everywhere you look.

(Toothwort, Cardamine sp.)



Tired of worn winter clothing, some are already sprouting new duds.

(Stoneseed, Lithospermum tuberosa.)



Still sleeping, but last year's faded poster marks the spot of exciting future installments.

(Foamflower, Tiarella cordifolia.)

Chipping sparrow

Poor little stunned Chipping Sparrow (Spizella passerina).

Birds do still occasionally fly into our windows, dirty as they are.

I found a sheltered spot in the woods and left him there to recover on his own. Later I googled, and it suggested that we should have kept the bird in a towel-lined, dark shoebox for an hour or two.

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Don't forget to visit the Friday Ark.

Stumpery

Squirrels have their own ideas about what makes a good stumpery. "Feeding platforms, a must-have!"



This is what remains of our old falling tree problem.



Turkey-tailish fungi march up one side and down the next.



Flamboyant fungus.

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I only learned about stumperies earlier this week, when a friend sent me an article about the one on Vashon Island. (Pat Riehl, the owner of that one, will be speaking at the B'ham Fern Society lecture in May.)

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Trying to google images of stumperies brought me to an interesting blog, the Folly Fancier, who had featured this stumpish superstructure.

I saw that FF had also written about the Lupercale grotto, another coincidence, since of course Lupercalia starts tomorrow.

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And a dog nicknamed Stump just won the Westminster dog show.