By Holly the Assistant
Sarah is at a family reunion of sorts, and expects the regular weekend posts to happen when she needs a break. Please possess your souls in patience if they are late.
Interestingly, eagles sitting on posts, and hawks sitting on posts, and smaller hunter-scavenger birds sitting on posts, are a common feature in my life. They show up to eat what is there in the field that is eating the crop, or what was there eating the crop before the heavy machines rolled through. Trying to find a photo of this, however, on the internet . . . well, I guess eagle on fence post is just not a showy enough eagle for the internet.
Have a lovely Friday. The sun is shining, Gertrude get off the table (cats!), and the weather is suspiciously April-ish for February, as it has been suspiciously April-ish since November, and we have no snow when we should have a couple feet. I expect a very bad fire season in the Western USA, so if you need to make sure you have a rescue inhaler or in house air filters for wildfire smoke, given how the winds blow east, please so do. And the rest of us should get ourselves outside and start clearing hazards.
See you in the comments! Or with the chainsaw . . .
According To Hoyt 
Forecast high today in the Most Silly Valley is 77F. Happy End of February!
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For what it is worth, Cedar Sanderson’s latest ebook Tanager’s Fleet is up on the Kindle store.
While I’m sure Cedar sent it to Sarah for the Promos, I sent it to Sarah as well.
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We didn’t get a photo, but a young owl was sitting on top of the “yield right of way” sign the other day.
It resulted in much amused suggestions on what that foretold.
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Once had a bunch of Owls show up in our backyard one morning, think I counted 14 of them. After watching them for a few minutes, it sure did appear that it looked like mom, dad, and all the uncles/aunts were out dealing with a couple of young’un’s that had stayed out WAY past curfew. Wish I had taken a picture at the time.
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Saw a photo essay of sorts online a while back. A barn owner had set up a couple of owl boxes in his barn, and jackdaws had promptly moved in. A year or two later, a pair of owls beat the jackdaws to one of the boxes, and established a nest, with eggs.
Well, the jackdaws weren’t going to have any of that. Initially, they harassed the owls every chance they got. When that didn’t work, they built a barrier out of sticks that covered most of the entrance of the owl-occupied box, trapping mom and the since-hatched owlets inside. Dad was out hunting, and there was just enough room to feed momma and the babies through the front opening.
And then all of a sudden the jackdaws vanished. The property owner figured Dad owl had gotten tired of their nonsense, and showed them who was boss.
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That the mice will be driving much, much more prudently? ;)
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We’re vacationing in SW Florida, where rainfall has been below average for a while (no hurricanes lately). A huge portion of the Big Cypress Preserve not far from here is burning and mostly out of control. Clean up that brush, people, especially within reach of your home.
Fire Map
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My neighbor was burning the edge of his property and it “got away from him,” so I now have a built-in buffer and a series of hugel pits where I repurposed the ditches made by the fire truck getting stuck.
This week I need to get the mower started and give the whole property its spring haircut.
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This winter in NH has been a lot more like winters when I was growing up. 2 to 3 feet of snow on the ground, and lots of single digit temp days.
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There are 2 ornamental trees at the entrance to the Reader’s neighborhood. In the previous 6 years we were here they always were in bloom by February 22. This year they have just begun to bud out today. The Reader isn’t sure what that means for the year…
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No redbuds or peach blossoms yet, which is good.
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Colonel Mustard in the comments with a chainsaw. Am I right? Jolie LaChance KG7IQC
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It’s been a very strange winter in San Diego. We’ve had almost no cold weather although we’ve had more rain than norma.l Normal for us is only about 9 inches, so not much. Our winters are always mild, but this has been a year with no winter at all. It’s 78 today outside, in February! That makes no sense at all even for San Diego. The planet be crazy. Maybe it’s because the Russians are stealing the North Pole. https://frank-hood.com/2025/02/19/the-russians-are-stealing-the-north-pole/
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Yeah. I’m just north in LA County, and told my siblings (who are elsewhere) that the weather here went directly from 40s-50s straight to the 70s-80s. Completely skipped over the 60s. I don’t know what’s going on with the weather, but it’s swinging wildly.
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Misread the first word “Sarah” as “Satan” – and yes, I AM having my (sadly, decaf) coffee. Fits with ‘possess your souls’, though.
Another image – what would Satan’s family reunion look like? Would the heavenly Host attend? Who would be That One Relative who gets schnockered and has to be dumped in his/her car to sleep it off?
Very pretty day here in OR; but we’re quite a bit behind in rainfall and snowpack statewide. City water has a bit of a moldy taste which usually happens in Summer with low-water levels in the river.
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California is doing pretty well with that big snowstorm that came up. There’s a Pineapple Express on the way to very northern California, so maybe that will carry further into Oregon and hit the Cascades well.
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We’ve been warm and dry in Very Southern Oregon (just east of the Cascades), and the contractor figured it was good enough to fix the horrible leaks in the barn. (Mis-installed chimney braces, alas.)
According to the official weather guess, just in time. Tomorrow through Wednesday, it should be wet, and perhaps some white stuff. It’d be nice to see Mount Scott (the peak by Crater Lake) have something to show for it.
April weather in February is far more interesting than I want.
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Sunny. Not particularly warm. Could be colder.
Earlier this week, starting with the weekend through Tuesday, did a lot to make up for lack of rain. Willamette was way up. No river flooding. The tributary creeks, Mill Race/Amazon, were flooding the adjacent fields and bike paths. Long Tom did not flood. Passes got some snow. But still down on total rain and needed snow pack.
Yosemite Valley was closed because of “excessive” snow. A lot of trees down.
Yellowstone and Teton winter season, snowmobiles and snow coaches on the roads, has been affected by lack of snow.
If the late snow and rains do not show, while still possible, it is not looking good for fire season this summer.
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There is no fire hazard in Ba Sing Se.
The environmentalists help us to protect our cultural heritage.
(Coincidentally, I am wearing a blue shirt.
Also, daydreaming of helicopters. (Vroom. Vroom. Vroom.))
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Do not believe winter is over, Mother Nature loves to set you up.
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Over?!?! It hasn’t started yet! We think we’ve had a total of 12″ of snow all winter. Rather different from last February, when we got 48″ of wet snow in a week. And paid the price for the disasters that caused. Tree services ain’t cheap, and I still have to re-roof the dog kennel (pergola for the win). OTOH, I got a couple years worth of firewood from the downed branches. And a new chimney stack for the barn. Didn’t try claiming insurance on any of that. Whee.
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Looking at a nearby ditch full of enough water to make the frogs happy.
“Less than an inch of rain, my foot.”
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One of hubby’s golf buddies has a rain gage at his home, west Junction City. He said (hubby says “grain of salt”) 5″ last Sunday and Monday. Do not know what the official amounts were.
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Chainsaw? Not yet, but saber saw? Yes. Tomorrow I get to return to the fray of disengaging honeysuckle from a rose, and taking the big loppers to a rose. Or attacking some dandylions before the roses make it impossible.
We need rain. We got some snow, but not as much as usual, and oh, we need slow, steady rains. The storms are going north, giving us hot, dry winds.
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What is so special about Meghan Rapinhoe? She’s a retired ball player who likes Vagina. So is 99% of The retired NFL, MLB, NBA, she’s not special so why does anyone listen to her?
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We’re in Utah and Mom is calling this the year without a winter.
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Hawks consider guard rails quite high enough to perch
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I tried posting this last night, but WP delenda est.
A couple of weeks ago we had a couple of bald eagles fly in across the street. I posted a photo of them, and of a hawk that showed up the next day on the tower next to the one the eagles claimed, on my Twitter/X page. I should post them on WP and substack as well.
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