Fall Color Fading Fast

Red Maple with Yellow Poplars Oct. 28, 2010

The weather has turned chilly enough that we fired up our woodstove. Most of the leaves have fallen from the trees although a few red maples still retain their color.


Red Maple with Christmas Ferns

The Red Maple and Christmas Ferns remind me that the holiday season isn't far away.
The ferns will stay green until next spring when fiddleheads form with the old growth finally turning brown during the summer.



My dog, Kookie, loves it when I go on these walks. She's usually hunting for chipmunks or anything else she can dig up.


Back at the house, she is content to go through her toy box. Unfortunately, she never puts the toys back!

Well, I better put another log on the fire.

Warm Up--Long Walk on Land and Bees Survived!

View of Walker Mountain January 14, 2010

Yesterday, the temperature climbed to 52 degrees so I went on a long walk to the back pasture of our land. The above photo was taken from the pasture. Most of the ponds were still frozen--to my dog Kookie's dismay. The only one that was partially melted was surrounded by cows so Kookie didn't get a chance to do her winter dip.




Yellow Poplar Dried Flower

The Yellow Poplar tree has these dried sepals on them. They're large--2 to 3 inches and look beautiful against the clear blue sky yesterday.


Bee Hive January 14, 2010

Yesterday was the first time I saw my bees out since Christmas day. They cleaned out the hive--putting out a pile of dead bees.

I bought a "pollen patty" from my local bee club. I put it on on the inner cover and about a hour later, I checked to see several bees on it, eating away as well as several bees coming up through the cover hole to check me out and then went up on the patty. I think the patty is good since I didn't really see a whole lot of pollen stored on my last inspection in November.

I lifted up the top box to check its weight--still heavy with honey so they have plenty of food. I think the bee cluster is in the middle box but I won't inspect until weather warms to 60 degrees--always a possibility.


Close-up of Bee Hive January 14, 2010

Glad to see they survived that long cold spell along with me. I already sent off a seed order to Gurney's--noticed about half of it was flower seed for the bees!