It was our turn today.

Yes, today we finally had the snowstorm.

I had planned to have a post about my new birdbath and how it was finally getting customers. At Christmas I went out and bought my own gift, a heated birdbath. Now, I hasten to add, it is not as though I am going to hang out a sign announcing a "spa experience". What a heated birdbath does is keep the water from freezing and allow the birds easy access to water; the water feels quite cool to the touch when you dip a finger in. For the other three seasons of the year I get a lot of visitors to the birdbaths that I have scattered throughout my garden. But once freezing temperatures arrive I have to empty those out and store them or tip them sideways.


The new bath has been in place now for almost a month and we still were not seeing any users until just a few days ago. Now we were seeing evidence left on the railing that something was using the new facility. But it wasn't until yesterday as I was out on the driveway that I looked over to see several robins, bluejays and one other bird happily splashing around. Today I left the camera waiting near the window hoping to be able to take a photo of the birds enjoying their ablutions.

But instead, we have this:

At least the water is still rippling in that bird spa! But just an hour or so later it was looking like this:

and I was getting seriously worried about the crepe myrtle tree. The dog set out from the back door but turned around and headed back inside when he found his way blocked. So I had to send out the snow clearing machine


which did a good job. The scene is not so picturesque now but all that heavy snow is not weighing down the branches of the tree and the dog took advantage of the opportunity to get off the deck and go do what he needed to do.

Meanwhile from the front window where I can see the major highway it still looks like rush hour although I can assure you no-one is rushing anywhere. At 9:15pm two lanes of traffic headed west were crawling along at maybe 5mph and on the other side, why, two lanes of traffic heading east were not moving at all. Ordinarily by this time traffic has really quieted down and there are just a few vehicles out there. On the radio they are reporting very icy roads and suggesting that people don't even leave their offices, malls or wherever they might be as conditions are so poor for driving. Schools were closed today and have already announced they will be closed again tomorrow.

My snow clearing machine measured 6" ninety minutes ago and it is beginning to taper off now.