I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
A Wintry Day
We woke up to a beautiful wintry world. I don’t know what the official totals are, but I think we got at least 7 inches of new snow.
I believe I must be the only person in the whole Midwest who welcomed the snow rather than grumbled and growled about it. I used to prefer summer and dislike winter, but I have grown to love winter. I still like summer, but as I’ve gotten older, the humid heat (yes it gets hot in Michigan) melts me like a snowman and the hordes of mosquitoes imprison me in the house. I could never live in the South.
Winter has wonderful things about it, even for someone like me who doesn’t ski or sled or ice fish. I like the cozy comfort of sitting next the wood stove on a cold day, wrapped in a quilt, with cats on me, sipping a steaming hot cup of coffee.
And I love watching the birds. It fills me with deep delight. Slowly, bit by bit, I am adding to my bird feeders. Our feeder pole is in front of the large living room window and holds four feeders. We also have two window feeders at the large window. I placed the feeders so EJ could clearly see them from his recliner. I recently bought another, identical feeder pole. I placed it in front of the other window so I can clearly see it when I sit in my usual place on the love seat. It doesn’t yet have many birdfeeders on it, but I hope to add more as soon as I can, bit by bit. In the summer I want to hang a feeder or two for hummingbirds. It is my goal to have several birdfeeders located so we all will be able to watch birds no matter where we sit in the living room. I also want to plant flowers that attract birds.
When it snows hard, we get many, many birds flocking to the feeders. The nearby trees and bushes and fence come alive with scores of birds waiting their turn at the feeders. This snowy day, I saw cardinals, sparrows, chickadees, wrens, tufted titmouses (titmice?), house finches, gold finches, juncos, mourning doves, starlings, red-winged blackbirds, blue jays, woodpeckers, and even robins (who go South for the Winter and return to Michigan in the Spring) at the feeders. It’s totally awesome. EJ says he doesn’t like the starlings, but I like all the birds, even the hawk. It’s rather traumatic to watch her carry off a dove, but even hawks have to eat.
I also like watching the cats watch the birds. They are fascinated by the birds. Little Bear and Timmy, who are younger cats, can’t resist rushing at the window and watching all the birds fly away. Luke will stand so his nose is inches from the birds in the window feeders and hold very still for several minutes as he watches them. KeeKee just likes to sit on the window sill and watch them.
After EJ left for work, I took Danny for a walk. I love walking in the winter. I love how beautiful a snow-covered landscape is. I like the cold burning my cheeks and the cold wind whipping around me. I fell four times today at slippery places, but I didn’t mind. After an initial “OUCH!!” I laughed. There are mountains of snow where snowplows have pushed snow all winter long. I always get an itch to climb them, or play King of the Mountain, or dig tunnels into them like I did when I was a child. For a minute, I imagined inviting a bunch of adults to play King of the Mountain and then I imagined old brittle bones breaking. It’s probably good that adults don’t play King of the Mountain.
On today’s walk, a man shoveling out his driveway said to me, “Whew. All this snow. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to do this before Spring.” I paused to talk to him for a bit. He said shoveling snow is hard on his back because he has back problems; I mentioned EJ’s back problems. We talked about testicular cancer. He had had testicular cancer years and years ago when he was 14 years ago. This man lives next to his nephew, who a few years ago was elected mayor of a nearby city. What is remarkable about that is that the young man was 18 years old at the time he was elected, and had just graduated from high school. He is the youngest person ever elected mayor in the USA.
After our walk, I dropped Danny at home and then walked to the post office. I was almost to the post office when someone called out from their car, “Do you work at the library?” The library is next to the post office, but I was closer to the post office than the library so I don’t know why he assumed I worked at the library. “Book lover” must ooze from my pores or something. Our town is so small that our library is only opened on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, and until noon on Saturdays. This is Wednesday so the library was supposed to be opened. I called to the man that I had read on FB that the library was closed today because of the weather. “Ok, thanks!” he said and then he drove away.
Here are pictures of my day:
Oh, I should mention something about JJ. With the surgery scheduled, we can now start making plans. I realized that I had forgotten to ask where the surgeon’s office is located (for the consultation) or which hospital JJ’s surgery will be at (Duh!) so today I called to get their addresses. JJ was curious about long the surgery will take so I asked about that as well. I found out the surgery will take three hours.
Now that I have addresses of the surgeon’s office and hospital, we can arrange nearby lodging for EJ and me. The nurse told me yesterday that there is an organization that arranges hotel rooms at greatly discounted prices for families of patients. EJ will call them tomorrow to make reservations. Meanwhile I am working on providing care for all our pets. EJ will look into renting a van or SUV so JJ won’t have to spend 5-6 hours in a small vehicle on the way home from Indianapolis.
I Love To Go A Gardening 
I love your beautiful story about the winter and the birds ( and feeders) I simply love cardinals we don’t have them in Holland but they are so beautiful. And it is also my kind of thing to enjoy the cold and them sit down with a hot drink and enjoy the cozy house. We have spring temp here this week and I love my bog balcony and the sun.But it is very quickly to hot for me. When I get home from the gym at the physic 3 times a week I look like a fresh tomato:-) Time is getting close for JJ and I’l keep on praying Love you Teri ❤
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