Eastern Phoebe Birds in the Garage - 3rd Straight Year

For three years in a row, these birds have built their nest and hatched a family in our garage. Each year they add on to the nest making it bigger. I can't go fishing any more!  I had though they were barn Swallows, but after extensive research Elly found out that they are Easter Phoebes

Eastern Phoebes learning to fly. Mom shows baby how to fly and then the baby tries it for herself. Really Cool! This is in my garage and has gone on for 3 years now. I think they may be leaving us soon!

 

 Some close-up pictures.

 A few weeks after this family moved out of the nest, another family moved in after adding to the nest again.  At fist we thought that this family had "sub-let" the nest to another couple.  But our research showed that it was the same couple that came back to raise a second family.  It seems that the Eastern Phoebe has two broods each year. Cool!
 

Posting Again after a long Hiatus

Haven't posted here in a while, over a year ago.  Time to start posting again. I got wrapped up in Facebook, but would like to continue this blog.

We survived the winter and made it to the Spring

 
During the winter Our backyard seemed to become the feeding ground for lots of wild turkeys.

Now they are all gone except two lonely males. The large male and the females are probably tending to the babies now.  Maybe they will show up with the babies in tow soon.

 Our garlic garden is doing quite well with 6 different varieties of garlic (1 hard-neck and 5 soft neck).  They were planted in October and should be ready for harvesting in the next few weeks.

Valentines Day Storm

Looking down the driveway

Driveway before I cleared it

Clearing the Driveway

Clearing the front walk.  At least 4 feet of snow on the ground

Driveway after I cleared it.

House from the bend in the road

End of my driveway

Looking up the right of way. hasn't been cleared yet

Driveway all cleared

Front walks.

+

Blizzard 2015 - Round 3

The forecast for this pas weekend was 14-18" of new snow.  It was supposed to snow from Saurday through Monday afternoon.  Guess what, that's what it did.

Elly & the snow blower clearing off thr rear patio

Looking down the driveway after it was cleared

Mountain of snow at end of driveway

The back walk

The chicken coop & greenhouse

Blizzard 2015 - Round II

3 days after the "Blizzard 2015", we had another storm that dropped 81"-20" of new snow on top of what we already had on the ground.

 Took me 3 clearings to get all of the snow out of the way.

Driveway from the road

Driveway looking towards the road

Driveway looking at the house

This is what Bean Road & our right of way looks like Today Tuesday, 2/3/2015.

The curve at the top

Looking up the road from our driveway

Looking up the right of way

Looking down Bean Rd.

The right of way from Bean Rd.

Looking down Bean Rd.

Blizzard 2015

I haven't posted in a long time, but I figured this snow storm was worth it.  They forecasted 24"-30" of snow.  

 It started Monday night around 9:00pm and snowed all night.  When we woke up the was 24" of snow on the ground already in blizzard conditions.  It wouldn't stop snowing until around midnight Tuesday.  

When I opened up the door on Tuesday morning, this is what I found.

Snow in the laundry room doorway

When I went out to start the clean up, I could hardly walk through it. 

 

I have to walk through the snow to get to the tractor

25" of snow

 I started the tractor and tried to remove 24" of snow over the length of my driveway.  It was tough going,  but the tractor did its job.  I had bought a used John Deere snow blower in October because I was having trouble with mine and didn't want to have to depend on it this winter.  The snow blower did its job as well.  Good thing it was cold as the snow was nice & fluffy.

1st pass of the driveway. Three more to go

 

front walkway

back walkway

Bird feeders

View from chicken coop