Winter Continues . . .

This past weekend while Jeff went back to work on the garden fence, I decided I should probabaly move around some myself.  While I have a cough that encouraged me to curl up in a big chair to watch television, I couldn't claim to actually feel bad. Besides, I had no fever so I knew what my mom would say.  Jeff has the same cough and he was outside loading the tractor scoop with hand-hewn fence pickets.  What can I say?

This seemed like a good time to check out the half-fenced flower garden to see what tracks were inside. Most of the garden was void of deer sign though the rabbit has complete freedom to go where it chooses. At the far end, away from the house, there were a few deer tracks.  Deer had entered through the opening in the stone wall, wandered around a bit and exited between the railings of the unfinished fence.  This fence just might work.

The above-ground garden is still firmly engulfed in winter.  While there are signs of approaching spring, the blanket of frozen snow makes it hard to get in to the mood. The water is frozen as is the ground. I did find these two praying mantis cocoons. 

Their paper mache-like egg cases were side by side on a rhododendron bush. They both seem to still be intact. The baby mantis will be welcome in my garden.

I checked the bluebird house again to be sure it was clean and ready for residents, then followed some little tracks from the garden out into the field.  By this time, the sun was out full force, blindingly reflecting off the snow.  The clean slate proved to be too hard to resist as I dropped onto the snow to make angle wings I stayed there, flat on my back with the sun warming my face until the melting snow beneath me began to soak through my pants. As I walked back to the house for the drying warmth of the wood stove, I left an almost perfect angle in my place.