A Winter Wonderland

I mentioned last night that the birds were going crazy with the snow, banging into our windows on the back patio.  I guess the snow covered up anything that they could eat.  It reminded me of something that we would always do at Christmas when I was growing up. My mom is of Norwegian descent.  A Norwegian custom that we would always do was position a sheave of grain outside for the birds to eat.  We sing an old hymn called "Bringing in the sheaves," but in this case we'd put out the sheaves.  The birds certainly appreciated the feed.  You can see a red cardinal in the cassia tree below:

The garden is blanketed under 10 inches of snow.  We're hopeful that some plants survived.  We'll know for sure in a few days.

Looking at this photo of Rosie standing in front of the hay bale with the split firewood in the background, you'd be hard-pressed to say that this photo was taken in South Louisiana.

Elsie doesn't know what to think about all this snow.  Elsie and I had a little round this evening.  She is very selfish.  When we give each of the cows some hay from the square bales, Elsie will eat hers and then try to run Rosie off by head butting her and pushing her away and then she'll try to eat BOTH her hay and that of Rosie's.  

Here's Tricia standing in front of the backside of the garden.  Hard to imagine we'll be planting onions in here next week and Irish Potatoes in there the week following.  The snow is in the branches of the live oak trees and in the very top of the palm tree, too!

Here I am coming in from collecting a few eggs from the hen house.  You can see the snow piled up on the north side of the roof of the barn.  We had heard of carports collapsing form the weight of the snow in other parts of our town.  So far, the barn roof is holding up well.

Benjamin and Tricia posed in front of the house.  Benjamin is in crutches and walked into a snow-filled ditch.  In doing so, the rubber ends of both crutches came off and stuck down in the mud.  As soon as this snow melts, I'll try to dig them up out of the mud, if I can find them.

Benjamin and I posing in front of our snow filled yard.  The road is right in front of us.  Not much traffic moving today.

A snow-filled landscape around the husband and wife pecan trees.  We have been sitting in front of the fireplace shelling a bunch of pecans from these trees.  They are small, but they are fat and oily.

Here is a shadow made by the setting sun shining against a cross I make in the back yard with the trunk of a willow tree that died.

Our honeybees are trying to do their best to stay warm.  Today the temperature got to about 42 degrees.  I did see some bees flying around each box, so I'm pretty sure they survived.  That's great news!

And finally, here's milkmaid Tricia heading out to the barn to milk LuLu at sunset  Its a beautiful time of day, especially with the glow reflecting off of the snowy landscape with the garden and pasture in the background.

"...And ma in her kerchief and I in my cap, had just settled down ot a long winter's lap."