Cathi's Corner

Birds

One of the unexpected features of our home is that it is situated on the migratory route of Canada Geese. The geese flock together on the nearby farm land which is part of the Montgomery County Farm Park. While they are flocked together in the Spring and Fall they take day trips over to the Schuylkill river. This puts our house, as well as our entire neighborhood, directly in their flight path. My parents' house, the place where I grew up, in fact the only other place that I have lived, is also in the same area. I can recall being admonished to "keep it down" when my parents thought that I was outside making odd noises and it was actually the geese flying over. Despite this memory, the honking of the geese has always been a welcome sound for me. In the morning, the geese leave the cornfields and fly over to the Schuylkill River to spend the day. Near sunset the geese make their way back to the farm lands. The geese fly low in the sky for these commutes. As the weather turns cold and winter approaches the geese start to leave the area to fly south to warmer climes. The familiar "V" formation appears frequently in the sky over our house in the late fall and as the weather turns colder the geese fly at much higher altitudes.

Flowers

Our Spring bulbs produced enough flowers for us to be able to cut several bouquets for our table and two bouquets that I was able to give to my mother. I always thought that it would be wonderful to cut flowers from my own garden and it is. We've added more daffodil bulbs in the front yard. The first Spring that we lived in our house we had a single yellow tulip come up and bloom in our back yard. It must have been a leftover from one of the six previous owners that our house has had. Several years earlier I had asked my parents for a yellow plastic trashcan shaped like a tulip for my bedroom. My parents went nuts looking for a "yellow tulip trashcan," but finally did find one. I didn't realize that my mom wasn't paying attention earlier when we were together and I had pointed it out at one of the local stores. We still have it. Most of the Spring flowers that we had in our yard until more recently have been pre-bloomed ones that we purchased after Mothers' day or Easter from the "Price Reduced for Quick Sale" bins at the local grocery store. The two-tone daffodils in the photograph at the left are an example. The vase is from my hope chest Tupperware collection. More recently I have purchased or been given "free samples" of bulbs and have planted those. The crocuses have also been amazing. I truly loved seeing a sea of light purple surrounding the base of our bird bath when I looked over at our yard from our neighbor's yard.

Wind

I took this photograph of our back yard from our kitchen window during a snow storm last year. It came out almost as a black and white photo. I decided to enhance the wind effect in Photoshop. I find it interesting that I was able to make the weather look much worse. Our kitchen window is a great place to watch the weather and, of course, the birds and squirrels. Some days it feels like an observation post, particularly when there is a lot of activity going on outside. A storm of falling Fall leaves or Winter snow is very nice to watch from this cozy perch with a nice cup of hot coffee or tea in hand. And let's not forget the Spring and Summer months with their bird and creature antics to be enjoyed by the hour. No matter what season it is I do spend a great deal of time in the kitchen. We have even planted our butterfly bushes, backyard flower bulbs and flower beds so that they can be seen from the windows in the back of the house, particularly the kitchen.

Earth

The squirrels that live in and around our yard decided to plant some of the sunflower seeds that we feed them. This year they planted in our black cauldrons that are by our front door. I had to transplant the young sunflower plants in order to plant our herbs. Two of the plants survived well enough to flower. I liked this image as a tribute to our agrarian squirrels. The squirrels have also planted corn kernels from the corn-on-the-cob that we feed them. We find young corn plants in various places in our yard and flower beds. A few years ago we allowed a few of the plants to grow to maturity and produce actual ears of corn. The squirrels then promptly climbed the stalks and ate the corn. I have adopted a few of the trees that the squirrels have planted as my first attempt at bonsai. I haven't delved fully into the art form and so far my attempt has merely been keeping the little trees little and alive in flower pots on the basement window sill.

Moon

The full moon has always fascinated me. I carried a photograph that I had taken of a full moon around in my wallet for many years. See the My Back Pages 1 for the actual image. Long ago one of the kids in the neighborhood, where I grew up, let us "little kids" have a look at the moon through his telescope while our parents were sitting on the front porch of his house visiting with his parents. I recall looking for "the man" (in the moon) and I also remember being amazed that the moon was so dented and pockmarked. More recently my parents had gone outside on a clear crisp Winter night to view the full moon and discovered to their dismay that there was a (natural) gas leak at their gas meter. The local gas company arrived within 10 minutes of the time that my parents called them.

Sun

This image reminds me of a sunrise on a distant planet. Right, like I've seen so many sunrises on so many distant planets.  I'll admit to being a science fiction fan and have had enough description of alien worlds given to me that I feel somewhat qualified to make my earlier observation. Anyway, it's pretty. It's purple and it's mine.

Flight

This was not a banner year for butterflies. We had record rainfall totals and I suspect the butterflies were trying to keep dry.  I hope that next year's butterfly population is not adversely affected by this. We did manage to get a few photos. We also managed to photograph a few new species of birds for our Backyard Birding Life List.

csp 12/02/04