North Carolina: January 2017

January 29th, 2016~Sylvan Heights Bird Park

A VERMONT ROCK

There back:)

This one is actually out in the open of the boggy land that surrounds Sylvan

The bog...

Anyone know what kind of bush this is??

Hummingbird Nest:)

January, 28th 2017

This is a Northern Flicker. Every morning this past week there are three in the front yard pecking on the ground....drumming up insects. See picture below from internet.

The Northern Flicker (or Yellow-shafted Flicker) measures 12 1/2"-14" with a wingspan of 18 1/2"-21". The flickers feet are short with two toes in front and two toes behind. The bill is slightly arched that is strong and nearly as long as the head. Upper part of the head and hind neck light purplish-grey. Both sexes have a red crescent on the back of the head. The upper parts are brown, barred with black, a black crescent across the upper breast with numerous round black spots on on the sides, lower breast and belly. The rest of the breast is a reddish-white color spotted with black. The male has a black streak along each side of the throat. Under surface of the wings and tail are a rich yellow.

January 24th 2017

This little fella jumped out when I was digging in the dirt today. It's hard to see in this picture but the tail is a shiny blue. While looking up what kind of lizard he might be I learned this fun fact....

North Carolina has the most venomous snake bites of any state in the U.S., according to the North Carolina Cooperative Extension.

Good reason for me to get out while the weather is still on the cool side....I want to eliminate as many snake hiding places as possible. Perhaps place this sign in the yard...

Here is a better picture of what he looked like....not my picture.

Black Vultures as opposed to Turkey Vultures....They roost around here...sometimes in our trees and on the house....You'll see as many as forty...then they disappear. They are not as gawky as the Turkey Vulture but they do conger up the same Alfred Hitchcock feelings of "The Birds" as they seem like they are lurking...waiting for something to die.

The Before Shots....

The above shot is one of the back doors to the house. The other back door is inside the fence. I have been recovering the edges of the sidewalks and garden beds.

I have transplanted a bunch of daffodils from the side bed where they are overcrowded.

This is the walkway from that back door towards the neighbors. Through those large bushes there is a gate way to the neighbor. I am going to trim it at the bottom so that if Baki gets out he can get back. One day he went into the neighbors through a hole where some fence had fallen away....then he couldn't get back:( Too fat:( Not good if a dog is after you. When he does go outside the enclosed yard we leave the back door open so he can run back inside.

The is the piece of fencing Bruce put up with Peter's help on Thanksgiving. There is a double gate you can open if you need to drive a car into the backyard. They will need to drive a truck into the backyard when they finally take down the large dead tree you can see on the left. Hopefully it will come down this spring.

The above shot is the corner of the yard. I tried to trim an evergreen vine but accidentally chopped its head off....very sad....hopefully it will recover....it was in a terrible jumble from so many years of neglect. The fence is going to look great when I repaint it this spring. Plus there are many boards that Bruce will be fixing or replacing. Emma will foot the bill for all supplies.

overcrowded daffodils.....

Transplanted daffodils....I have added more today....see picture below for the size of this garden space.

Above is the garden I have cleared of all pine needles which were about six inches deep. As far as I know nothing is growing in here....yet:)

Part of the house....the enclosed back yard to the left.

This is a picture of the huge magnolia tree...

Above is before the one just below....still have to move all the pine needles off the grass....

It isn't easy to see....But, it took about two hours to clear from the edge of the fence and five feet to the left. I trimmed two bushes and removed many years of pine needles that had been so think in the bushes that below the needles was a mold of some kind....probably deadly.

This if facing the side of the house....The bushes along this fence are in need of some new additions to make a solid line or transplant some of them and add flowers between the others....they feel out of balance this way....

Chicken coop:)

Above are some of the rocks I have unearthed. I am going to add dirt on the outside to make them look settled a bit more then they do in the picture.

Nothing like some good boxes for a pillow....he has the space of the whole couch behind him....

A winter storm promised six to eight inches of snow for us here in Rocky Mount. Instead, we were stuck with ten degree weather and a thick layer of ice on the roads. This prompted me to bring the chickens from their coop outside as I had not set up a heat lamp for them. They quickly made themselves at home in the breezeway, redecorating the place by uprooting my herbs to make room for their dirt baths, tossing the supply of straw around and depositing fertilizer here and there~poop.

The warm weather promises to return soon, chickens will return to the coop and I will install a heater should the weather turn cold again. Adventures in North Carolina~