4/30/08

7:00 AM. 30 degrees, wind S, calm. The channel is smooth. The barometer predicts rain, and the skies are mostly blue with some haze.
The robin keeps attacking the bedroom window, waking us up this morning. I am certain it is attacking its reflection. I have been trying to get a photo of this activity but he ( I assume it is a male, as males are generally stupider than the female of any given species) is very camera shy.
We did get an impromptu church yard cleanup accomplished yesterday ahead of the anticipated bad weather. But the daffodils are beginning to bloom, and we saw our first sailboat of the season out in the channel yesterday evening.

4/29/08 FATAL ATTRACTIONS

Tuesday, 8:00 AM. 32 degrees, wind E, calm to light, barometer down, predicting rain. Skies partly cloudy with a light haze. It is a beautiful if cool morning, good for outdoor activity.
We have a robin driving itself and us nuts. It seems to have a fatal attraction, either trying to rest on a too-narrow window ledge outside our bedroom, or it is in attack mode against its reflection . It flies against the window, and falls back, repeatedly. This has been going on for days. I would put up a board for it to nest on but it is very specific as to where it wants to do its thing. Some instinct, either aggressive or reproductive, has been triggered. I guess in either case it could be called territorial, and it is not likely to be easily turned off. I have hot been successful in scaring it away. When we lived in Nebraska we had a gazing ball in the garden that a robin took to fighting its reflection in, attacking the ball endlessly until it fell exhausted, then starting all over again. After days of watching this display I finally threw a towel over the reflecting ball and the robin left.
Anyway, I hope the bird has the good sense to be motivated to do something more productive with this nice day!

4/28/08

Monday, 8:00 AM. 25 degrees, wind ENE, light. The barometer is down, predicting partly cloudy skies, which are currently partly covered with dark snow clouds. Mike from the Seagull Bay Motel related that many and large fish were caught by some customers way out in the Islands on Saturday, but at great hazard to life, limb and boat.
I had a tamer Sunday, planting the church’s Rhododendron, and in the afternoon attending a class on grafting at Hidden Valley Organic Farm, just west of town, conducted by owner Tom Galazen. He was an excellent teacher, and there were eight or ten attentive students; some folks with old orchards, a couple of young state employees, and several young wood-be orchardists. There are a lot of people hereabouts who basically live off the land, which can be a really hardscrabble existence, but very rewarding for the patient and unassuming. Tom covered a number of standard orchard grafts. It was good review for me, and with Tom providing the rootstock, I grafted two scions of an old apple tree out on Hwy K I have been watching for several years. I will pot them up and decide what to do with them later.

4/27/08 A NORTHLAND SPRING MORNING

Sunday, 8:00 AM. 24 degrees, wind NNE, calm to blustery. The barometer predicts sunny skies, which are presently partly cloudy. It was almost a blizzard yesterday, but with only a slight accumulation of dust-fine snow. we experienced a hard freeze last night, the bird bath froze over and the daffodils are drooping, but all will recover. I am planting a PJM Rhododendron at church for Rogation Sunday. It is tough, and will like it here.

4/26/04 STORMY WEATHER

Saturday, 8:00 AM. 29 degrees, wind south, with strong gusts, the barometer predicts precipitation. It is snowing lightly, but with no accumulation as yet.
I put on the black wool Stormy Kromer cap, icon of Northland haberdashery, this morning, retrofitting myself for our walk. We were to have a church yard clean up today, but I doubt that will happen. But this too shall pass, as our priest is wont to say, and a few warm days and Bayfield will be awash in yellow daffodils.
The birds had been predicting this weather for days, as they have been ravenous. Insects must be in short supply, and lots of fuel is needed for the impending mating season.

4/25/08

Friday, 8:00 AM,38 degrees, wind NNE, calm to blustery. The barometer predicts rain. Skies are overcast, and the channel waters calm. We are awaiting the predicted stormy weather, but have learned to look out the window as the Lake creates its own weather systems.
We went to Cornucopia, twenty miles west on Hwy 13, last evening to attend a Chamber of Commerce event at Ehlers General Store. It has been a fixture of Cornucopia for a hundred years and is now under new management. It is an “everything” store, from hardware to food and clothing, who’s motto used to be, “if we don’t have it, you don’t need it.” It is well worth a visit; nostalgia abounds but also modernity.
Purple finches are at the feeder, the males looking like they have been dipped head first in strawberry jam.

4/24/08 LIFE IS A BALL

Thursday, 8:00 AM. 45 degrees, wind E, calm. The barometer predicts rain. Skies are rapidly becoming overcast, presaging the predicted major storm.
Tragedy strikes every community, small as well as large. The body of a missing local woman, well known and respected in the community, was pulled from the icy waters of the channel yesterday, and our thoughts and prayers are with the grieving family.
It was in the 70’s late yesterday afternoon and we put the top down on the old convertible and took a country ride. The spring peeper frogs were chorusing in every wetland, and birdsong was everywhere.
The woodpeckers are establishing and defending their nesting territories, and at least one and maybe more (hard to tell them apart) male downy woodpeckers are drumming on metal stop signs to amplify their calls, thereby announcing that they are the biggest, baddest downies in the woods. If one learns from another, as I suspect is the case, it leads to a sort of drumming arms race, each now ramming its little beak against unrelenting metal instead of more giving wood, with none being superior long over another and all with headaches I am sure. The species would probably be better off without such advances in technology, but who am I to criticize.