The 13th day of the second month of the year of the Camellia

JUST SOME GENERAL SHOTS OF LAST NIGHT'S SNOWFALL

These were all taken on "N" or Naples Avenue in Cayce, SC, where we live. I will leave all the commentary to all the "Snow" pundits out there, except to say that the only image with people shows the "Snow Removal Management Team"-----------------"Discussing".

Result was "God put it there, let him remove it!"

The 12th day of the second month of the year or the Camellia

FINALLY A PHOTO OP!

The south finally gets to participate in the "Snowpolopous" of 2010!

This image was made with time exposure at 9:30 at night out my front door. Columbia, SC has gotten/is getting in excess of six inches. That's about an inch an hour because it started around twenty of four this afternoon. Maybe a little less. I am no mathematician either.

And there must be a full moon. Some jerk in a pickup truck just went by-----towing his kid on a toboggan! At about 25 mph.

Now I might have been born yesterday but not last night. Given a little snow where they are not used to it, and all the crazies come out.

Just look at me taking a photograph at 9:30 at night.

There will be more to follow!

The eleventh day of the second month of the year of the Camellia

A CURIOUS TUFTED TITMOUSE

I guess it's human nature to become more aware of our backyard friends during the winter and certainly during harsh weather. The feeders get filled more often and we watch the suet containers so that they can be refilled.


I also guess that the older we get the more attention we pay and the more enjoyment we derive from our visitors. Some of us even keep logs (or write blogs) about what we see or can draw to our feeders. For instance after living some fifty years in the vicinity of Baltimore Maryland, I saw only one Oriole of the feathered kind. I saw a lot of the baseball kind, but not the natural ones.


Now that I am in South Carolina, there is an oriole visitor to our Camellia bushes every February. It is really astonishing the brilliance of those birds, but go figure.



This little guy is brilliant too, but in a more muted way. The greys, blacks, whites and yellow are organized all in a compact and orderly fashion. Nothing garish, but small, simple, and stately. The bird is friendly but alert at all times.

So how in the world do you acquire a name like "Tufted Titmouse"? A bird in the genus Baeolophus is neither a mouse nor…the other thing. The word titmouse descends from the Old English terms, tit (any small animal or object) and mase (small bird), essentially meaning one small, small bird.

So there you are and you thought it would be something salacious! This fellow is just a bit larger than a Chickadee and hangs out with the little black, white, and grey birds fairly regularly. In fact, they both can be photographed in and on the same branch and feeder. The titmouse range runs from Maine to Texas and as far west as the middle of the country, so they are prevalent and not as hard to see as the Oriole. Thank goodness or I would have pulled the trigger on the camera only a few times in the last fifty years.

The ninth day of the second month of the year of the Camellia

"A FINE MESS YOU'VE GOTTEN US INTO, OLLIE!"

Well that's the Mid Atlantic! Here we go again.

Now you folks in the Midwest and Canada think nothing of this but when they tell Congress not to come in for a week or maybe two...............well that's the other side of the coin. A great deal of snow brings a whole lot less BS!

Seriously though those folks in Maryland, Delaware, Eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey just are not used to a two foot snow storm followed quickly by another foot and a half. My heart goes out to them and my common sense tells them to just hunker down...it'll all be gone by August.

The photo today was made in Maryland after a very nice "Manageable" snow storm, when the sun came out, on the second day, early in the morning and we humans had not messed it up.

But a critter did and to this day I am not sure what made the tracks. I have a hunch it was a neighborhood cat, a rabbit, or a very short man on a pogo stick. That's the fun of tracks in new snow-----you can be so imaginative about what transpired. And that's a great part of the fun of pristine snow.

It was a wet snow which clung and that makes it all the more beautiful.

The image is almost monochromatic.....for the folks in Rio Linda....that's one color. The pine tree provides the majority of the color, other wise it would have been black and white for the most part.

Just my friends who are not used to so much snow.....

Do yourself a favor.........

And hire a kid to shovel for ya...........

Less heart attacks that way!

By the way, Ollie was Olliver Hardy of "Laurel and Hardy" fame. Way back when the wagons were going across the country. For my grand kids.........google it and find a clip. Very funny stuff!

THE 7TH DAY OF THE SECOND MONTH

FOR MY FRIENDS IN THE MID ATLANTIC

THERE IS LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

The "Epic" sixth day of the second month of the year of the Camellia

Dedicated to all my friends in the Mid Atlantic!

I made this image somewhere in North Carolina, I think! I believe it was on a trip to the lower outer banks to see the lighthouse at Cape Lookout. The exact location is in question but I think it is north and east of Morehead City, NC. At any rate it was in the boonies and I really don't believe that there is such a town, locale, municipality, or city called "Misery". It does not google. Probably just a locals idea of his own circumstances.

It may be apropos of what is going on with the Epic Snow Storm currently delighting kids from Indiana to Atlantic City. But I am sure the parents of same are about fed up.

"Fixin to go out and shovel again Ma"!............"Take the kids with ya, get em out of my hair"

I remember those days as my father said................."Here Shovel"!

Then I got older and found that snow was a financial blessing, as were all the old people on the block who could afford ten bucks to have their driveway cleared. Lord what we did for $10 back then. I moved more snow than I care to think about. No child labor laws, we just thought it was fun for someone to pay us to play in the snow.

Now I are an old people, but ten bucks doesn't get the top step cleared. The neighborhood kids for the most part are not as entrepreneurial as we were. Shame, we did have fun on such days.

For those in the Mid Atlantic, I hope you got all your super bowl supplies on Friday cause you likely won't on Saturday, and the game is on Sunday. But by then the super markets will be sold out. And the kids didn't come around to shovel. You can't even get to stuff off the windshield of the car, and the plow has built another mound at the end of the drive anyway.

There's only one answer!

Boxed Wine!

And here's to someplace, somewhere called Misery!

FIFTH DAY OF THE SECOND MONTH OF THE YEAR OF THE CAMELLIA

TRADE OFFS!

No matter how I try, I can't seem to get away from my wildlife roots. Well, not the kind I had in college where I flunked out after the second year..........but the natural kind like this mocking bird.

As an aside, I sold sewing machines door to door for a year until they would let me back into college. Bless you Penn State. All that is another story though!

By Monday, next week, I will have some announcements regarding a couple of online stores I am setting up. Maybe "Rush" is right (again) and the economy is not on a recovery, but you got to give it a shot just in case. I still think that the numbers from Washington will be manipulated as we approach the 2010 elections, but lets hope that the economy does honestly recover sooner rather than later regardless of who is right or wrong.

This bird was perched on a suet feeder just outside of our kitchen. Incidentally, that is now my new "Road Trip".....walking from the office to the kitchen.

So, I set up the camera just to take advantage of my going in there to get my morning and noon twigs and bark. That is what I am allowed to eat now that I am on a heart conscious diet. Every time I do that, I have to make the decision.....Is that roast beef sandwich worth a week or two of life? Or about 3000 points of cholesterol! Jeeeez, just don't get old and that will take care of such decisions. Settling for a bowl of oatmeal at 2:30 in the afternoon. Sushi is good, but that trade off is the cost of about twelve-teen bowls of oatmeal for one piece of raw fish.

Still nice picture of a bird that is trying to tell me something! Eat sunflower seeds you dummie, he's probably saying, as I eye a left over donut!