New Year's Oz

WHOOOT-WHOOOT-WHOOOT-WHOOOORRRRRLLLL

It was a beautifully clear and frosty night last night. Here are my toes in the creeping thyme to show you the crunchy fun this morning. Harriet thinks frozen catmint is just as good as any other kind:

And here is Harriet showing you who-who-who woke us up at 3am:

Her impression doesn't do the voice justice. It was so deep and resonant, I thought it had to be a four-footed creature of some sort - coyote maybe?  Especially the WHOOOOORRRRRRRLLLLLLL part. I leapt out of bed, threw on a fleecy, and rushed downstairs to go out and see what it was. And was intercepted by the geek, still awake in his study playing with his new vinyl-cutting machine, who said, "what is that animal? sounds like an owl." OK, so the geek can't tell the difference between dead mice, rats, or sparrows (he calls them all "that mouse your cat left you"), but he got the live raptor ID in one! It was in our big oak tree, and it was HUGE. It flapped from one branch to another and hooted a few more times (now that I could see it, my ear decided to believe it was an owl hooting), and then got tired of me marching around under the tree in my jammies, and took off.

Winter solstice magic!

And this morning seems sort of magical too.  Mainly because the sun is shining and I have no meetings today. The cotoneaster is doing its Christmas show:

 And the "David" viburnum is not too shabby either:

And SUCH a handsome kitty!

What you missed in September

While some of us were snoozing in the sun, the boys from Bartlett came to take back the hedges and trees.

 It was quite a day!  They arrived at 8:30am, three strong and cheerful boys, and they did not leave until 4:30 in the afternoon. Taking the laurel hedge down to the height of Faye's cedar hedge next door was one of the most impressive things. Check out the height difference before they started (above).  And here is the finished product:

Who knew Faye had a chimney?

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After:

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They also cleaned up the cedar hedge between us and the hospital, which had sort of been butchered (from the hospital side) and then ignored.

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After:

Lovely caterpillar shape!

They also cleared a path for the service wires in the plane tree on the boulevard.

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After:

And they cleaned up the cedar hedge at the back, hacked back the portugese laurel, and trimmed the thujas.  !

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Ain't it grand!

"Oh la!"

Enquiring minds...

"What's up with the blog?"

Not to worry, mon petit, there's more on the way.

Harriet "slypaw" Rosenberg

The picture of innocence, you say.

Yet this fuzzy tum has wreaked havoc in the kitchen, using her clever route from the cat stand by the window to one bookcase to the wood stove (not lit!) to second bookcase and Onto the Counter! Several beautiful vases and potted plants have mysteriously ended up in pieces on the kitchen floor, after having been moved into deterrence positions on said bookshelves. Methinks slypaw doesn't always realize the extent of her girth. But by the jeez, does she love people food!

*Aside: returned to computer desk the other morning to find herself ever so delicately dipping her paw into my mug of milky coffee.  Augh! Removed cat from desk and mug to sink. Walked into kitchen minutes later to find east end of west-bound cat sticking up out of the sink, where she continued to drink my goddam coffee.*

And then the geek bought this:

It cost about five hundred bucks, it weighs around five hundred pounds ("what the hell is this?" says the UPS man), and it fills up the top of that bookshelf like no potted plant could ever dream of doing.

We're not sure yet if this is absolute deterrence (she is a very clever kitty), but the first morning after installation, we came downstairs to find my beautiful train signal lamp from Scott and Katie lying on its side (upright again in the following photo):

A strong indication, we think, of at least one foiled attempt to wrap her tummy brain around modernist cuisine!

"I disapprove."

Got daisies?

Oh, just a few.  Each year as I am cutting down the dried-up, finished marguerites I think, "do I really need all of these?" But they do make such nice swathes, an excellent backdrop for the lupins and foxgloves. And then when I do cut down the daisies, I discover a whole other garden underneath them. These ones are just getting to that droopy stage that says I've got about another week before that transformation needs to happen.

Daisies plus cranesbill

Daisies plus ceanothus and snapdragon and lady's mantle

Daisies plus catmint plus foxglove plus hose

Hmmm, no daisies, but quite a tummy!

Oh yes, life is gooooood.

Oz does sunset walkabout

Gorgeous day!  Finally pulled out the camera just as the sun was getting low, and since the chow dish hadn't yet been filled, Ozzie accompanied me.  Here he is catching a few rays while I try to get arty with the macro autofocus.

The spring garden is working its usual magic, enhanced this year by some serious attention from Mum in March, and Andrew's Polish edging and trimming. As you can see above, though, I've got a serious horsetail problem I need to get working on.

Meanwhile, acer, scilla, and candytuft!

Blue stuff and yellow stuff! (Yellow stuff is "basket of gold" but I am blanking on the blue stuff.)

Oz sees me heading back across the garden toward the deck, and gets up to follow me.

He is disappointed, though, as I head under the (big) apple tree for some blossom shots.

Ok. Now...chow?

Oh OK.

It's May!

And the cats do play!

Snow!

Everything cool (as it were) seems to happen on a Wednesday. Woke up to that heavy quiet that says there's a good blanket out there, and that unmistakable glow through the bedroom window.  Snow, snow, and more snow! And cold, too, so it was lovely powder.

Of course, not everyone at our house was pleased by this.

"Harumph"

Oz kinda wanted to come in, but I think he also really needed to pee.  Just after this, he took off through the snow drift, like Snoopy in the tall grass, to get to clearer ground under the oak tree.

I headed out to try out my turquoise shovel and admire the scenery. Here's the back deck, looking toward Ted and Mary Anne's place. 

 Here's the view up through the cherry tree branches in the front yard.

And looking back at the house from the driveway as I was shoveling.

Or not. Such a pretty shovel!

And when I finished up and went back inside, here's who I found. I guess that was enough leaping through snowbanks for one, um, year?