Robins- Can Spring Be Coming?

Verifiable sighting of my first robin of 2014!

There have been 48 days below zero, that might be in a row.  We have over 3 feet of snow on the ground.  There is a wind chill advisory for wind chills of -30 to -35 degrees.  And there is ice.

And... I saw my first robin.  Not only did I see my first robin, but I saw ten pairs of robins all huddled up on my trumpet vine against the dark brown fence in the long border as the sun rose bright and sunny in the east at my home garden.  They sat, feathers fluffed, shivering.  They weren't singing about it, but there they were.

I have never seen a robin in February.  I know some people around Madison, WI who will say they see robins all winter long.  This isn't Madison, though, and it has been an unbelievably cold, hard, brutal winter from many perspectives.  Sometimes I will see a robin March 5th or 6th.  The really warm spring of 2012, I saw one March 2nd.

Doesn't this beat all?  Maybe, I have to believe, spring is coming...

Prime Real Estate

Baby Gardener and his mother Beautiful Sister-in-Law came for a visit Sunday.  When he and his mother came around the corner of the house to find me in the back yard, his eyes grew bright and his grin wide.  He has never been to my house since he was six weeks old and other than his parents I might be his favorite person in the world.

"This is where I live, Boo, welcome!"

He was quickly swiveling his head around trying to take it all in at once.  Almost like this was a very elaborate hide and peek game.  So this is where she is when she is not with me!  You could see the thoughts processing.  How did I get here?

Boo loves birds.  While he was here there was a very frenetic, swooping aerial flight between two male robins with the entire back yard as battle field.  SIL thought the three of us might end up collateral damage, it was that quickly wide-ranging.

"Prime real estate," she said.

She was referring to my alley way shrub and tree border hedge; lots of composted material, large enough trees for nesting, an apple, cherry, and a pear tree, open soil in the potager, and a bird bath.  For me there are eight shrubs and trees that flower, a burning bush, and two variegated shrubs, a couple evergreens.  A lot crammed into a sixty feet by eight feet wide area.  I remarked it wasn't doing a good job screening this year because nothing has budded up and leafed out yet.

"Then why not a fence?" she inquired.

Yes, the privacy would be good, but zoning dictates it be nine feet in from the alley way.  This in effect would lose me nearly a quarter the width of my back yard. And, it could only be six feet high.  Almost everything in the hedge is six to eight feet high at least and the narrow spruce in the back corner are easily 25' tall.

And I wouldn't have quite so much bird song in the spring, or bird battles.

Prime real estate, indeed!