Snow!

Yes! It finally snowed. Two inches of snow fell here. A little more than the "dusting" they had called for! The roads around here were a mess. We had the scanner on and kept hearing about accident after accident, and lots of reports of abandoned cars! That made us laugh - people just walked away from their cars. One report we heard was an abandoned car left in the middle of the road! The weather wreaked havoc with the school buses, though. Jerry and I waited at the end of our road for Andy's bus for about an hour. We knew from hearing it on the scanner that the buses were running extremely late, so we knew we would be waiting a while, but this was getting ridiculous! Finally a man who lives on the next street came over and told those of us waiting for the bus that he had called the school and Andy's bus hadn't even arrived yet to pick children up, and that they were asking parents to pick their children up. When I got to the school it was 5:00 and they had the waiting children in the gym and the principal was keeping them entertained by having them sing and tell jokes. I feel sorry for the bus drivers who, after having such a horrendous afternoon, have to drop off the buses and make their way home. I also feel sorry for the teachers and staff who had to stay until all the children found a way home. I think the weather was a little worse than was anticipated. I was thankful to see the snow, though! It was so beautiful while it was falling.

Apparently my yard was the place to be today if you were a bird or a squirrel! I had seed in the bird feeder and had put suet out for the woodpeckers early this morning, but I didn't realize how many visitors there would be. Normally we see each of several different kinds of birds throughout the day at different times, but today they all seemed to be here at the same time. The squirrels were battling it out with the woodpeckers for the suet. A couple of years ago I found a recipe for suet which uses shortening, peanut butter, flour, sugar and cornmeal or oatmeal - whatever's handy. I decided to try it and ever since then the birds won't touch store-bought suet cakes. I have spoiled them and now I have to make a pan of suet every week or so. I don't really mind, though. For three years now I have seen two pairs of woodpeckers bring their babies to the suet in the spring and summer and it's fun seeing them. We have cardinals that nest in the bushes on the side of our house and they bring their young'uns to the feeder, too. We have LOTS of bluejays. They are a nuisance sometimes as they will shriek and chase smaller birds away from the seed. Last year right at the edge of the woods there was a bluejay nest and we would watch the mom bluejay on the nest. We tried not to get too close, but she wouldn't budge off that nest for anything. I believe we could have walked right up to the tree and she wouldn't have left - but we probably would have a gotten a painful lesson in leaving her babies alone! We have seen mockingbirds swoop down and peck at our cat when he got too close to one of their nests. That was funny to watch. The cat didn't see it that way! I probably should not have spent my afternoon watching snow and birds, but it was worth it!