Hey ya, Charlie Brown

Check this out before it's closed down. A mashup of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and Outkast's "Hey ya" (Quicktime movie).

After the rain

We had our first big rain of the season overnight, and now, with the sun trying to peek through the clouds, everything is looking green. We'll probably have to start mowing the lawn before too long!

There's lots more popping up in the garden, too:
More daffodils!


And the hillside is starting to turn green (with a few yellow daffodills):


And even the willow trees that fell into the creek during the end-of-the-year ice storm are starting to leaf out! Maybe the beavers will come by and clean that up for me.

There's more pictures here.

Today is probably going to be a gardening day. I need to clean up my wildflower garden, plus I want to try moving a couple things around there. The rain should have made the ground softer, so that will be easier. And I have some seeds to start, so that might be the first thing I do. There's a walk on Nipper's "to do" list, we still have to get the Christmas boxes put away, and I have a ton of laundry to do. So that's my weekend. Paris and Lindsay are probably envious of me.

Springing!

I walked out to fill my birdfeeders this morning and saw my first daffodil bloom!

And there's also crocus blooming:

Looks like it's going to be a beautiful day today, so I hope to get at least a few things done. Gotta walk the dog, of course, and maybe today's the day the Christmas lights can come off the house. I was a little embarrassed about still having my Christmas lights up this late until one day driving into work last week, I noticed a house that still had a garland and wreath on the front porch railing!

Yesterday was a work day (got there at 12:30 p.m., left at 1:30 a.m.) and I'm kinda still tired from that, so I don't know just how much I'll get done. The lights and the walk are a must, but actually putting the lights and other Christmas stuff in the garage rafters might have to wait. I don't get my Monday off because someone is going to a conference all next week. So maybe I'll try and get in a three-day weekend next week (if the weather is supposed to be nice, of course!)

Gamey weekend

The weather has been pretty nice lately; spring is definately on its way! The ducks and geese are visiting our part of the creek nearly every day and once in a while come up to the feeder just outside the backyard fence. It's an interesting site to see waterfoul dining next to squirrels.

Things are turning green as well. We have, so far, one blooming crocus, but many others are sprouting, along with daffodils, hyacinths, and I think even tulips! My mini-irises were the first to bloom, actually. I got a garden catalog a week or so ago that has a $25 coupon, so I think I might get a couple things to start a foundation garden between the porch and the garage. I was thinking a hydrangea bush, maybe white, and something tall and spikey like lupines or foxglove to get it started. Then we can get some landscape timber and gravel to make it match the bed where the yews are on the other side of the porch, and fill in with other plants we find at local stores. I'd love to be cleaning out my flower beds, but I don't want to get to it too early in case we get a late cold snap or snow.

This weekend has pretty much been a lazy one. We were going to take the Christmas lights down, but neither one of us felt up to it, and today it's gray and rainey, so I guess that will have to wait awhile longer. I've gotten most of my laundry done, started reading the latest Tony HIllerman mystery, and also playing some point-and-click puzzle games. The latest ones I've played and liked are Sprout where you're a little seed that has to get across the landscape to its own kind; Sphere, a room-escape game with great graphics; and Tork, where you have to figure out the local language and customs of a planet you crash-landed on. And then there's this site, with logic puzzles -- you know, where you have to figure out which person has which pet and lives in which house on which street or some such thing? Only this site has interactive grids to help you sort it out. I'll admit to using cheats and walkthroughs on the other games, but the logic puzzles I can always work out on my own.

Well, gotta get another load of laundry in. Later

Spring! (almost)

I saw a pretty cheery sight earlier this week. It was on Thursday morning, as I was getting ready for work I looked out my bedroom window, I could see swimming up the creek two Canada geese! My geese!

This pair of geese was one of the first things I saw when I first looked at the house, and they have come back every spring since then. I was worred I wouldn't see them this spring since the creek dried up pretty much completely last summer. But the big snowstorms we had at the end of the year and last month have the creek bank-full now. The geese even joined the squirrels at my birdfeeder briefly this afternoon. I don't think the squirrels were pleased, though. I also saw a pair of mallard ducks at the feeder earlier this week.

I can't quite call it spring, yet, though. Not until the turkey vultures show up.