Jeph's Spot: Last week's snow storm

So we got quite a bit of snow last week - just in time for mom and dad's drive down to visit us. I'd have to say we haven't had that much snow in a loooooong time! Thanks to this past Monday's warmer weather (65F!), most of the snow you see in these pictures is just about gone. Granted, now it's covered in a layer of ice and a little fresh snow...

Here's what things looked like between rounds of heavy snow, while the deck's still looking all pristine:

They THOUGHT they wanted to go out, but I think this is the "oh heeeell no!" look:

I went outside to get some pics, restock bird feeders, scope it out, take the cats out, etc and the snow started up again:

I call these next pictures "birds in motion" - for the first one here, check the upper left.

These are "birds not in motion" I guess - and you'll notice there's quite a bit of snow coming down. It was eerie quiet out there, all except for birds chirping and that quite sound of snow landing all over everything - very beautiful. ANd you really can't tell there's a pond back there in some of these pics!

Junko's sure do give the "DAMN it's cold out here!" look very well:

The cats finally got a little adventuresome...

I took Simon out to the far back of the yard - it wasn't exactly voluntary, but I thought it'd be fun to watch him walk through deep snow, so I took the roundabout way to get there so he couldn't just walk back in my path.

And here it seems I've got a peeping Tom. (Actually, being a female, a peeping...Tammy?)

Here's Petey. Poor Petey crashed into the window while I was working from home last Monday (I'd done a really good job of cleaning the windows just the day before). I thought he was going to die out there, but he huddled down and lingered, so after maybe an hour I brought him in in a box, figuring maybe he just needed to warm up. I kept him in his box in the bathroom most of the afternoon - he perked back up, but didn't fly. If I picked him up, he'd hop as high as he could go (my shoulder sometimes) and then try to fly. No luck. Hoping he'd make a full recovery and just needed time to heal, I figured I'd better put him back outside... We're still seeing Petey, hopping around, or I find his path out there. I think he's living under the deck steps, and I make sure to throw some bird seed down around the steps every few days. Here he's at the base of the birdfeeders, eating what the other birds kick down. You can see his left wing hangs a little low... I don't know if it's broken or just sprained. Sadly, I haven't seen him since the ice storm started...

Our backyard is quite the crossroads. Here you see my big footsteps from the day before, and then fresh-the-next-morning deer paths crossing them.

Was hard to get a good picture down into the hoof print. The sun was SO bright with all the snow that I could hardly see details myself. SNOW BLIND! AAAH!

More fresh paths - deers, birds, and probably a cat.

Oh, and Petey was really getting around! I found two paths from the pond and back to the deck again, and a bunch from the deck over to the arborvitae... Petey really gets around!