We had a real arctic blast come down: leaves are still green, and it hit 19 last night, and will go lower tonight. As Jane says in her post, (with pix), we shut down the pump for the pond, for one thing to let the sunwarmed shallow water get to the depths, where the fish are.
I pulled the water hyacinth today: shame, but it’s going to rot and be a problem. That left our poor cold-stuporous fish with no shade, and right now they are sleep-swimming: threatened or disturbed, they dart on autopilot for shade, but I want them to be able to sleep and not expend energy with wild running about, so I replaced the hyacinth-ring, now empty, with the solar shade. It’s black mesh, about 6′ diameter, will draw some solar heat, though it also screens sunlight, but we have a submerged heater underneath, so it will also help keep evaporation from chilling the water. Right now Jane has the pump going, to try to take heat from the shallow water that is sunlit, and distribute it; but we will cut it off again this afternoon when the sun leaves the pond.
We’ve started winter-feeding the birds, and had a new one, a magpie, which was quite a noisy bird. I’ve hung an ear of corn for the squirrels, which never come into our back yard, but I try. Probably the fox/coyote mix is not helping. The flowering quince outside my window is full of sparrows—a lot of people curse them, but we enjoy their antics around the pond, and I enjoy their singing.
Been working quite happily on my new adapters. Making progress.
And we’re talking now about going back to the rink…soon as Jane’s sore ankle heals. I think she irritated it on the ladder. She’s been complaining of it since the first round of gutter cleaning, and I think the second round just did it. We’re going to have to be careful when we do—we’re way out of shape and practice.
Outside of that, a peaceful day: we pulled down the morning glory and moonflower, which had frozen, our kitchen is full of plants, and nothing in particular went wrong except Jane’s ceiling fan is having switch troubles. Maybe we’ll get that fixed this weekend.
I’m of mixed mind about squirrels. I put out corn and peanuts for the scrub jays, and of course, that also attracts the squirrels. I don’t mind the squirrels having some of it, but prefer the birds. But the dog seems to help… she will cheerfully chase the squirrels out of the yard, and then the birds come back before the squirrels work up their nerve. If you really want to get some squirrels, I’d try a spike feeder on the fence. I made a really simple one by taking a scrap piece of 2×4, drilling two really long screws through it, and then attaching a bracket to keep it from getting knocked off the fence into the easement. I don’t care if they knock it off into the yard, so just the one bracket. Then I just screw ears of corn onto the screws. Of course, I have a slumpstone wall, and you have wood if I recall correctly, so you may need to tweak how you attach it to the fence. Maybe a u-shape that slides over the top of the fence? And come summer, you can put pieces of orange or apple on the spikes for fruit-eaters. Putting on the fence seems to make squirrels feel better. They use them for roads out here, so they don’t have to go out of their comfort zone to get the corn.
And early this morning, I managed to spy a sort-of-armadillo-shaped outline walking down the wall, which makes me think “possum”. I’ve seen them in the neighborhood, but hadn’t seen one out my way yet. Of course, they generally are nocturnal, so they may have been running back and forth all year and I wouldn’t have seen them.
If Jane keeps irritating that ankle, is it tendinitis? Sometimes it feels like arthritis or a bruise, but usually, a practiced medical person can determine.
I haven’t seen the possums out here yet this fall. We’ve got the occasional raccoon, groundhogs, wild rabbits, and of course, the skunks. I would like to hear/see some owls, but I’ve not seen any since before we had moved out of our house in Virginia Beach (back when I was married).
I love feeding birds, and I like sparrows as much as the others. I have three types of native doves (mourning, white-wing and Inca) as well as five non-native (released pets?) ring-necked doves that come here every day. I also have cardinals, dark-eyed junkos, Gambel’s quail, cactus wrens, and many others. In fact, the cactus wrens often hang out inside the house with me, since I tend to leave my doors open all day in the nice weather. There is a roadrunner who lives on the property, but he won’t eat what the other birds eat.
There are also several birds of prey here. Two horned owls, some red-tailed hawks, a couple of Cooper’s hawks, not to mention the buzzards and the bats. GOD it would be great to be able to fly like that!
In SoCal, we’re definitely in autumn, sometimes a high of the high sixties during daylight hours, as opposed to the 80’s we were having a few weeks ago. Lows in the 50’s; yeah, I know. For us, that’s cold. 😛 Still on the lookout for desert winds and high temps that can turn the area into fire season.
Sadly, I’m urban, which means we have crows who chase off a lot of other birds from the area (witnessed them harassing a small hawk the other day). My mother, however, cultivates hummingbirds, and they’re fun because they’ll stake out the feeders and dive-bomb each other for territory.
Here in the NE Okies we took the hummingbird feeder down today. We haven’t seen any for over a week. The local Canada Goose flock is chowing down in the soccer field across the street. These aren’t migratory. They live in the different parks and golf courses and various groups put food out for them in the winter. We turned on the furnace yesterday morning to warm up the house.
As long as we’re doing a national weather report… 🙂
Here in the mid-Atlantic we hit autumn like a brick wall: I usually take my morning coffee out on my deck. This morning it was 39°F and the high for tomorrow will be below 60°. The cicadas are silent and I can actually hear traffic hum from the Pennsylvania turnpike.
Leaves are really starting to turn. That’s what I love about the Northeast: the autumn colors; this year looks to be one of the better ones for that.
its the last week for sailing here, and I have lit the woodburner tonight. we sailed today but only for a short time, it was a bit rough, and scary …
Down in the 30’s last night and tonight….low 60’s and the amazingly clear light we only seem to get in the fall. No frost yet, but it’s coming. I guess I will admit that summer is over and close the pool this week. Now to finish the new stove surround!
excuse me to hijack the thread, but I just seen destroyer on Fictionwise. i always love when Fictionwise propose works in disorder :
Book description : C.J. Cherryh, one of the most prolific and acclaimed SF writers in the world, delivers the seventh book in her Foreigner series, and the first book in the new Foreigner trilogy-the epic tale of the survivors of a lost spacecraft who crash-land on a planet inhabited by a hostile, sentient race. From its beginnings as a human-alien story of first contact, the Foreigner series has become a true SF odyssey.
An astute reder can demand where are the first six. but never Fictionwise will announce We publishing the ebooks of that series one a week/ a month.
IRRITATING!!!
I wait with patience for YOUR ebooks, good writing and excuse me for my new rant.
THanks! 😉 DAW does have the e-book rights to the Foreigner series, so you may find them legitimately on Amazon and Fictionwise, now that DAW and these two companies are resolved on several rights questions. (Ouch,that book description is nowhere near accurate.)
As soon as we can get the mechanism going for Paypal, we will be offering some others.
Aaak. I’d get Destroyer from Fictionwise except that it is in secure ereader format. Will Calibre massage this for me?
I answered my own question. Amazon has it.