We've been Busy

The Holidays are over and Lori has taken down the decorations. I've been busy with work and have been getting home pretty late in the evenings. For the past several days I've been putting together chrome shelving to help organize in the basement storage area and garage. We also bought garage shelving, which happened to come with a trillion screws (the number might be inflated, but it seemed to be close to the number of dollars in the national budget), and putting those together has occupied the last 2 weekends, in between watching football. Breaking down the boxes for recycle hasn't been a quick task either.
Lori decorated for the Holidays. Our outside lights are still in storage and we didn't get those up.

Lori put up a couple of trees, one in the great room and one downstairs in Mom's sitting room. I think she wants to leave that one up year round.

The mantle looked good and a couple of reindeer are up in the "art nooks".


If you look close at the foyer walls you can see we replaced the "light bulb fixtures" with new sconces. I'll need to get a close up. They look very rustic and fit well with the chandelier.

Mom's liking the kitchen again. She made some pecan goodies.


We all had a great time opening gifts, and the dogs joined in on the fun.




Aunt Mary sent us some cool ceramics. The eagle was my favorite.




All the excitement wore Mom out, but here she is back to her usual active self.


Lori's birthday comes quick after the holidays. Unfortunately, our favorite restaurant closed down. We found a new place closer for us, with sushi and chinese. Who could ask for more?






There's been plenty of wildlife around. The bird feeders and heated baths have been very popular.



There are 5 seed feeders and a caged suet feeder in various spots. Even then, occasionally there aren't enough open slots.

The birds hang out waiting for their chance to get in.


The bluejays don't usually wait, and just rush in and chase off the little guys.

She's not interested in these guys


Flickers like the baths, and will go for the suet usually on the colder days. We've heard them rattling on the spark arrestor above the fireplace chimney several times, unfortunately usually early morning.

Plenty of goldfinch, although they aren't as colorful this time of year.

This little falcon comes round once in awhile. His colors are great even in winter.

A flock of starlings will drop in now and then. I had to cage the suet feeder to keep them from devouring 2 cakes in half a day. They like to make it fun with a hot tub party.




This guy just likes to hang out in the study.

A couple mornings I was surprised to find the birdfeeders completely cleaned out even though they were filled the day before. One evening the dogs alerted me to what was going on. 3 deer were coming by for a snack and tounging the seed from the feeders. Lori caught this doe sneaking up.

Lori also found this neighborhood dog eating up the fallen bits from the feeder. Needless to say, Max wasn't happy about his visit.


These guys have been hanging around for a few weeks. I shot this at sunrise while they were atop a ridge out back. They haven't been in our yard yet, and I hope the dogs are enough to keep them away. A neighbor had several new pines stripped out by these guys, and caught them red handed (hooved?) in the back yard at 4:30 one morning.