Reindeer tracks?

On my way out yesterday i noticed these tracks on the now on the roof, but it was pretty dark and overcast, so i got a picture of them today. Are they reindeer tracks? I'm guessing no, as i've seen squirrels up there, but it made me have a bit of a smile. It's also nice that it's clear out, after being so grey and cold, it's actually pretty warm too, over 30F (-1C or so) and the snow is kind of melting. You can kind of tell there was a lot of snow up there, from getting close to two feet in the area, and i'm enjoying watching seeing New York get a lot too. Not in a mean way, but to know it's not just us and to see how other cities deal with it. The Twin Cities are still having snow emergencies, even though the snow hasn't come for a little while, but with freezing drizzle predicted for thursday through saturday, i'm thinking snow would be better.

Christmas 2010, with a bunny

It's Christmas today here, and right after i got done talking to my parents on the phone, i saw this wild rabbit eating bird seed that had fallen and gotten covered in snow. I was pretty surprised as it was broad daylight and he was surrounded by squirrels and birds. Pretty brave, but then he did dart off when he saw me with the camera. I'm sure food is a bit hard to find for the wild animals around here lately, as the snow is pretty deep. Anyway, after a pretty depressing stretch, it was nice to have this little surprise of cuteness on Christmas.

Hawk vs Crows

The other day i was sitting in my kitchen, and i saw this hawk on my deck, i'm guessing looking for the squirrels that frequent the feeders. That's when things got surprising. I saw the two crows that also hang out in my yard go after the hawk. The hawk was bigger than the crows, and it was just two crows, but the crows were so aggressive and focused that the hawk ended up hiding in this tree until they moved away and then it fled pretty quickly. I didn't see the hawk get any hits on the crows, they kept it off balance and went from all sides. I'm constantly impressed with how smart crows are, but i am also now more impressed with how brave they are, if you've ever seen the beak and claws on hawks close up, you know what i'm talking about. Sadly i couldn't get any good shots of the chase, they were just all too fast and kept going in directions i couldn't get through the windows.

Peace in the East

Taking a break from the cold (-20 without windchills this morning) to show the Peace in the East event that happened a little while ago at the university. The Islamic and Jewish student groups put on several displays and fashion shows, and here the belly dancer that is in the other local events was teaching people to do it. There weren't many people sadly, but like the other events, i only found out about it randomly. Some of the students were walking around the student center before telling people to come and have fun, but turn out was still pretty light. I'm still impressed that such a small university town (12,000 people or so) has events like this and Unity in the Community, where a city i lived in that was larger previously didn't. Still, i wish there was a better way to get the word out about these things.

Plowed out

Here is a shot out of my front door of the snow after being plowed out yesterday. You can see the pile of snow by the car that was put there after the city plowed the street the first time, that's just my short cul de sac too. You can also kind of tell how deep it was by the snow near the bottom, it was almost knee deep there (not counting where the piles added to it), but also less in some spots. The photo is a little blurry as it was taken out the storm door, it was very cold, and it was starting to fog up quickly. Sadly we are expected to get another two to four inches in a day or two.

Big Blizzard

Yesterday started with a winter storm warning, but looked very light, that it may pass and be fine. That was  wrong. Areas around here got over 20 inches of snow in basically half a day or so. It just came down so hard and fast, i could almost watch it pile up on the deck. I could also barely see the apartment buildings and grocery store that are about a block away. While the storm came down, i saw this squirrel and several birds trying to get at the food that was buried with the broken feeder. Most of the time he wouldn't pop his head up, so it was probably nicer under the snow, the wind was blowing pretty hard.

Snow and sick

We had a decent sized snow saturday morning or late friday night, not as bad as they were expecting, but several inches. Some areas around the twin cities got eight inches. No snow emergency was declared though, so it wasn't so bad.

One of the reasons i haven't posted the past few days is i got that not so fun stomach bug that is going around up here. Nothing makes me want to do nothing like vomiting a lot, hopefully that wasn't too much information. So this picture of the snow is out my front door, as the sun was coming up

9th Annual Culture Fest - Dance Group

This was a very fun dance group that i forget the name of, but there were more than these two.

Sorry if these aren't the most interesting, or described that well, i really need to get better at that.

9th Annual Culture Fest - Love Song

Here is the romantic song being sung, and one of the singers being handed a flower, but not accepting it right away. I'm thinking it was part of the performance, even though i have no idea what the words were.