A winter cyclone happened, now called a bombogenesis, and it’s a new word to me.  We didn’t get the huge amount of snow that they got along the Atlantic Coast and in New England, thankfully.  We got the edge, and the cold.  2 days of below zero wind chill factors and I’m holed up in the house for all of that!  I did just venture out to feed the birds.  I’ve been keeping plenty of seeds on the patio and on the ground under the feeder, for birds like the doves who only eat from the ground.  There are lots of other ground feeders too: snow birds, Carolina wrens, cardinals, blue jays; they all take turns eating the seeds.  Their metabolism runs so high in the cold that they need to eat a lot more than usual.

It’s too cold for squirrels to travel!  They are also hiding in their houses: leaf nest up in the trees, eating things they’ve stored. They don’t store a lot in their nests; a lot of what they store is what they bury, but the ground is frozen so solid that nobody is digging anything up for a while. Once it warms up a bit they will also be on the patio eating the seeds. It has to get really cold for squirrels not to be out running around.

I keep two suet blocks out in the winter.  They are frozen now but the birds are still able to get suet and seeds from them.

Here’s a guy I don’t see till it gets really cold, but he’s been at the suet a lot the last couple days.  His smaller cousin, downy woodpecker, eats the suet a lot too, as well as nuthatches and black capped chickadees.

My little gargoyle is guarding the garden for the winter.  He doesn’t seem to mind the cold, lol.

It’s cold.  The cold makes your face hurt and your eyes water.  I’m always ready for spring all winter! In a while the earth will turn green and I’ll go out and dig in my dirt like a little animal, and plant things.  That’s such a nice thought on a day when the wind chill makes it feel like -4.