And so it has begun

A brand New year full of promises, and surprises of good and not so good to come. We have to take the good with the bad and make the most of it.

We have had a couple of weeks of dry very cold weather with the temperatures in the 20's and below, but the forecast this morning is for rain coming up, and temps. in the balmy 40's

Whoo hoo!!, bring it on.




First thing every morning, as the coffee brews, I switch out the humming bird feeder. I swear the hummers are hanging out close by watching for me to hang the unfrozen sugar water filled feeder .
No sooner than the feeder is in place, than I hear the whirrr of wings as they zoom in for food. Poor wee things, it must be tough for them during the coldest of days.




Then the feeders are filled and suet put out for the other birds, who also seem to know my schedule, and wait eagerly for breakfast.







Even the shy little nuthatch isn't slow in making an appearance at the suet feeder, as he seems to zoom in as soon as my back is turned as I make my way back indoors, for my first cup of nice hot coffee. Brrrrr! I will be happy when it warms up again.





Last night the Christmas trees were finally de-nuded of their finery and are ready to be dismantled and carried downstairs to be stored until November, when we will drag them back upstairs and decorate once again for the Christmas season. I have begun to wonder, how many more years I am going to be able to go through all this ritual, as I am not getting any younger. Sighhhh! it is going to be a sad day when I can no longer be able to decorate the way I do now.



I kept a couple of sturdy dinnerware boxes which have handles, to store some of my most delicate glass tree decorations, these still need to be taken downstairs. At least all the trips up and down those stairs can be counted as exercise, as I sure can do with some after all the goodies I consumed over the holidays *grin*





Here I am wondering how much longer I will be able to decorate to the extent I now do, and what have I done? I confess, I bought more decorations at 75% off at the end of year sale, that's them still in the plastic shopping bag on the shelf with some of my other boxed decorations neatly stored downstairs.






I nearly forgot to mention, part of my morning ritual is to toss bread out the door for our resident population of semi- tame rabbits. These guys/gals come running, um, I mean, hopping as soon as they hear the door open.




So, as I said, new beginnings, changes in the lives of the critters and our lives. Things to get done in preparation for the planting season, like go through seed catalogs and order what we need, plan our gardens, which I have already, well kind of. I have thought about making changes in the way I set up and plant some of the vegetables, and I am going to be making changes in the flower garden too, which isn't something new, but I want to make it less labor intensive by planting more perennials and less annuals.
Happy New year everyone.