Excuse me, I think hell just froze over

Yes indeed, there is snow in Southtown. And for once, the "Chicken Little" approach to school schedule management appears to have been justified - the chance of anything frozen falling from the sky triggers a knee-jerk reaction here. The school board not only cancels school on inclement weather, but apparently at the thought of inclement weather. I made a quick run to the grocery this morning and was blocked by a cavalcade of mothers in SUVs picking up their children at the local elementary school. School had been let out at 11:30.

Then, at 1 o'clock, the snow started. And there's actually measurable accumulation - don't expect me to wade out in the cold with a ruler, Dear Reader, but there is enough of the white stuff to measure. So someone in the Administration Building is breathing a sigh of relief because he made the right call. Ok, that's one for you. But don't forget that the last time, you cancelled school for rain.

I put out the last of my sunflower seeds in the feeders scattered around the backyard, which have been mobbed by an unending stream of feathered moochers topping off their tanks with easy to procure sunflower seeds instead of working for their dinner on the bushes around the house, which are laden with berries and other birdie edibles. Little do they know that when these seeds are gone, it will be Monday before I can buy more and refill the feeders. I wish it wasn't so, but there you are.

There is a red winged blackbird working away at the suet feeder, so picturesque in the snow. A single scarlet cardinal sits on the weathered gray fence, and the crape myrtle is filled with mourning doves, their feathers puffed out as big as softballs against the cold. My footprints out to the feeders are obliterated by new snow, which stopped for a bit after I took that picture but has started falling again.

I think I'll make a cup of tea and watch the snow for a while.

It's tough out there

Here in the upper southeast, we don't suffer from the cold like the Midwest, for example, but it's still hard on the wildlife. Our temperatures get into the low 30's / upper 20's at night, and only up to the high 40's during the day. (I know, to some of you that sounds like Hawaii!)

The birds are finding shelter wherever they can. When I walk out to the mailbox in the afternoon I provoke a flurry of brown thrushes bursting from the holly bushes in front of my house. They flit out into the trees and wait for me to go back in so that they can snuggle down on the bottom branches of the bushes out of the wind. The birds find any sheltered spot that is accessible, but most of the bushes are bare and offer scant protection. Two sparrows had even settled into the silk flower arrangement in the basket hanging on the wall outside my back door. Proximity to humans was the lesser of the two evils.

I haven't seen a chipmunk for weeks. Probably, they're all snug in a burrow somewhere (I haven't checked under the house for a while - that becomes Chipmunktown every winter, no matter how hard I try to seal up access). Only a few squirrels are out foraging; one was industriously sorting through the mulch under my oak tree yesterday, to see if he or anyone else had buried more acorns there.

All this gets me thinking about the bird feeding. I had stopped for a while during migrations season, and then the presence of two local hawks worried me. I was afraid that I would lure the poor birds into a trap. But now I feel that we must start feeding again. Berries and seeds are mostly depleted on the bushes in my yard; probably it's the same everywhere.

And, the cat and I miss them. It was always so cheerful to sit in my den every morning reading the news online and watching the activity in the dogwood trees, while my cat peered from behind the curtains and did the "fearsome-stalking-kitty" routine. I'll keep an eye out for the hawks. I wish they'd go back to Lookout Mountain or somewhere - what are they doing in a subdivision, anyway?