The snow remains

The snow remains on the ground and we have suffered some bitter cold temperatures.  One morning our thermometer was down to -18 F, with that day remaining below zero and down below -10 F the following night.  Not much chance with these temperatures for any snow melt.

I decided to visit my apiary to look at my beehives, though it was much too cold to expect to see any activity.  I had cleared a roadway last year so that I could drive a truck back to the hives.

The only two hives that have surviving bees at the end of last Fall are the first two hives wrapped in black.  I am anxious for a day where the temperature gets to 50 F or close to it, so that I can see if they have survived the recent bitter cold.

There are a few rabbit tracks in front of the hives and a nice topping of snow. 






Below the two surviving hives show that there is a small opening at the bottom entrance of each hive when the bees are warm enough to make  a trip outside.

My birdfeeders remain very busy with the heavy snow cover, as seen here through our family room windows. 

The finch feeders in particular are covered with eager patrons.  These are all goldfinches in their drabber winter plumage.

Frosty morning

We did get the lane plowed out the day after the large snowfall.  This is about midway on the land looking back to the house.

There was a frost that stuck to everything this morning.  You can see the garden fence with a frosty white coating as well as the trees behind.

The bushes along this section of the lane were all coated.

Looking along the plowed lane toward its entrance around the bend.  Everything coated.

A week later -- heavy snow!

A week later and we have a foot of snow falling.  This was a heavy wet snow that my tractor couldn't budge, so to hire someone to plow out our long lane.  It was rather pretty falling, though.

The snow cover brought a lot of birds to the feeders outside our family room window.  My baffles seem to be holding off the squirrels and raccoons successfully this year.  The black baffle in the middle of the pole is a retail "torpedo" baffle advertised to keep both animals away, but I found that larger raccoons could shimmy up the baffle and still get to the suet on the feeders.  Last year I had put a large bucket about that baffle but they somehow got around that obstacle.  This year I used a wash tub, cutting a hole in the middle to fit the pole through and securing it just above the torpedo baffle.  (This is a pole that comes out of the ground each Spring and re-installed each Fall so this maneuvering is possible.)  The larger wash tub seems to have the raccoon's "baffled" and is keeping my seed and suet safe .... so far.

I did manage to get several pictures of birds on the feeders and the dogwood tree next to it, where they like to perch waiting for a turn at the feeders.  Here is a female cardinal.

Two goldfinches in winter plumage waiting their turn.

A female downy woodpecker.

A male cardinal.

A junco on the ground where the like to feed among the seeds knocked off the feeder by other birds.

A male purple finch, which have been pretty abundant at the feeder this year.

A carolina wren.  This one had me stumped so I had to post a picture on a birdwatcher's site to identify it.

Resolving to re-start regular blog posts

 I have resolved to start regular blog posts again.  We started the year with pretty mild weather and temperatures in the 50s and up to 60.  That turned our lane into a sloppy mess.

I am down to two active hives.  The one on the far left is vacant.  The other two though seem pretty active on this date.  The temperature was close to 60 I think.  I did get them fully winterized with straw bales on the west and north sides to block the worst winter winds, a sugar block on top of the frames with a quilt box on top of that, and wrapped in tar paper.   So far so good.

Here is a closer view of the bees flying.  There was quite a bit of activity and coming and going.