High Summer in my Garden

 

The Woodpeckers

It is snowing here in central Wisconsin. I suppose it beats tornadoes.

This is my Austrian black pine. It seems to be on attack from all sides. When little (about 4-foot tall), and pre-fence which makes for better neighbors, an ice scanty was dragged across it. Two years ago, it seems to have had some sort of insect infestation drawing woodpeckers. The horror!

I have since contemplated cutting it down while I could still manage the job myself.

This morning, while walking the boxer, the woodpeckers have returned. A quick pound-pound and a flurry of wings. Then a fluttering settling of wings and the peeking around the neighbor's boxelder, "Is she gone?"

I didn't capture them myself. The obvious answer was, "No, here she comes with that soul-stealing thingee! Fly!!"

Mugshot of perpetrator, dragged down from the internet. Shout-out to this birding blog by Cristina Arno.)

(Photo by Gina Mikel.)

So I saw a pair of these pileated woodpeckers. As much as I like to see these guys, I do hope they don't totally destroy the cambrium layer of my pine!

More From the Paine: Secret Gardens and Hidden Views

Wowza, baby! That hair!



On this Cristmas Day, some beautiful late summer pictures from Oshkosh's "castle", home of "The Nutcracker Suite".




From the oh, so elegant Paine...

The Paine sits on less than a half a city block. It has no parking lot and depends on on-street parking for its visitors. Most of the Paine has 8' iron gating or a stucco wall around the perimeter. This limits the intrusion of any of Oshkosh's city elements; noise, traffic, other buildings, to all but one corner where the view of a second floor Tudor style house is evident over the rose garden.

Merry Holidays to all!