Too much snow.

Not sure how much we got, but some places near here got over a foot of snow in the last 24 hours. It's still snowing here too, so there may be more as the day and night progress. It's a little hard to go out and get some photos today as i'm still not feeling the hottest, and most things are closed anyway, so i'm sticking close to home. Not to mention wind chills around -12F from what they say. Kind of hard to tell in this photo how deep it is, but i liked how this one turned out. Thankfully i filled the feeders before the storm came, and the birds and squirrels seem grateful, as other food might be hard to find in that snow.

Lots of kids

Here is a photo of the candy i handed out last night, not sure if you can tell how much there is, but there was a lot. This is good because a lot of kids came, and this box was almost empty. I handed out a handful per kid, and they seemed to like that. Each year is confusing as to how to plan, one year no one came, the next only teens, and this year it was easily over 50 (closer to 100, but i lost count) and they were all about under nine years old and all dressed up.

Happy Halloween - Boo!

Happy Halloween to those who celebrate it. Since it's halloween, i thought i would post a scary picture i took in my kitchen. Giant spider eating a giant fly is pretty scary, and since i recently watched The Mist, spiders were on my mind. Okay, i admit, these aren't giants, actually very, very small, as you might be able to tell from the window screen they are on. Spiders are scary, but also pretty fascinating when seen up close like this. I wish i could have gotten footage of it stalking the fly, that was amazing. It slowly moved step by step, towards the fly, and then jumped with a string of web attached to the screen. The spider got bigger and bigger as time went on, and after a while it stashed the fly in a corner wrapped in web. I have no clue what type of spider this is, other than a jumping one, and very, very small. The creepiest thing about spiders to me? It's eyes. So many and in odd spots, yikes.

Just some fall color

Just wanted to post some fall color, tomorrow is Halloween, and not sure how many kids are going to be at the door as the flu is in full swing here from what it sounds like, and the rain and snow hasn't made for being outside weather. Also, the colors are a nice distraction from the news of the hate graffiti that that threatened violence that was found at the university library.

Stop, Fall Colors

One of the few types of trees that had color on them, and they were really bright. Not quite captured here as bright as i saw them, and i didn't want to punch it up too much in Photoshop. I have no clue what type of trees these are, but all around town they are the ones with leaves on them. Most just were green one day, then turned and got bare the next. I actually have mostly evergreen trees around my house, and bushes, so while i get some of it, i see some green all year round. That's actually nice when the snow is so white and the sky is so grey, any color is nice as winter draws on. Which i'm not looking forward to.

Corn

This is a corn field on the edge of town to the north east i believe. Not sure if that is going to be harvested or not, maybe delayed by it being so wet, or something, i'm not sure. Eloquent, i know.

Fall colors, sort of

Took this today, north side of town sort of between a highway and an industrial park. Sadly this was the best colors i could get of a group of trees. The weather has been not so great for tree colors lately. It's been snowing, raining, and pretty much that color of grey for a while, with only a couple of days of blue sky. The snow and rain seem to have just taken the colors out and made the leaves fall. There are a couple of trees here and there that have great colors, but as a mass like this, i just haven't seen it.

Bird contemplating something

Here is another bird, yeah, i know i'm posting a lot of birds lately. This one looks almost like he's contemplating something, but probably just watching the other birds like him in the yard.

More young cardinals.

I saw these two out my kitchen window today, and quickly grabbed my camera, so it's not the best photo (i also think my sensor might be needing a cleaning too), but i really like seeing and sharing ones like this. It's raining and cold, but those birds need to eat. The young one is also starting to show more color, and is quite cute if not a bit bossy seeming.

Dirty bird

Here is one of the birds (yes, again, heh) in front of my house rubbing dry dirt on itself. It was raining that day and this area was covered from the rain. There were several dozen of this type of bird, they were fighting over the area and sometimes taking turns doing this. I'm not sure if they were drying themselves or what, but sadly this is the best angle i could get of them doing it without scaring them away.

Snowman

Taking a break from the birds, i thought i'd show one of my neighbors' snowmen. This was taken just the other day, after almost all the other snow that fell had melted, although you can probably tell this guy is slowly melting too. Temps have rarely gotten out of the 30s, with rain and some flurries too.

Thirsty bird

While the cardinals were eating, so were these types of birds, and drinking at a basin i have out that catches rain (and snow). I forget this type of bird, but it's currently the most common i see out at the feeders and on the bushes with little red berries. When they are around, there are more than dozens of them, big flocks of them eating and being skittish. They are common but are hard to get good pictures of as they fly off at almost any motion i make. I'm glad i got this, as i love seeing them drink. After they dip in they lift their heads up at an angle to swallow.

The snow is all gone from what i can tell, but the next two days are predicted to have either snow or rain, or both. Not looking forward to that.

Young and Old

I was looking out my kitchen window and saw several pairs of cardinals (i'm pretty sure that's what these are) feeding younger ones at my feeders. Sadly once i grabbed the camera and took pictures all but these two flew away. The one in back was feeding into the mouth of the younger one in front. Both feeders were covered with cardinals, young and old. Kind of surprised me though as i always thought the young were earlier than now. Hopefully the snow didn't mess anything up for them. I know the cardinals love the food, as i tend to buy "cardinal food" as it seems to have the most variety of seeds in it and it seems to attract the most types of birds too.

another snow picture

Just wanting to show another view of the snow that happened yesterday and how there is still a lot of green out. There were people making snow men out of it, as it was a heavy dense packing snow too. I read that there were around 100 accidents in the morning around the area due to the snow on the roads.