All fixed

According to the water line expert, it's not a break. He thinks the sinkhole and road collapse is due to runoff. We've had a lot of frickin' white stuff up here and then it turns 50 degrees and we have a river running down the road. So, good news. No digging up and repairing the line, thank goodness. Our neighbors, Jim and Lauren, came early this morning and helped dump some road material on the collapsed part of the road and it seems to be fine for now. Cali supervised the job.

It took 6 scoopfuls to fix the damage. Jim took the material off the side of the hill. It helps to have neighbors with a backhoe and the knowledge to fix things. I guess that's country living for you. Mucho thanks to Jim & Lauren. Sorry about the flat tire, Jim.

Sinkhole

It seems the water line from the well to the cistern is broken and leaking somewhere under the road bed. This hole is smack in the middle of the road. The soil is caving in all along the buried water line. Bummer. We now have the well pump turned off and are relying on our 1500 gallon cistern until the water guy can assess the situation. This does not make for happy campers on Nuthatch Hill. 

On top of that, last night our driveway alarm went off at 12:30 a.m. and then all the smoke detectors screamed at 2:30 a.m. and continued doing so until 3:00 a.m. No fire or other reason they went off except maybe a spider crawled into one of them. Needless to say, it was not a good 24 hours up on the Hill.

Spring snow

More white stuff. Cali is busy crunching deer bones she found on our morning walk.

Rhubarb crisp

I think I'll have to wait at least 2 months, but this is the first year I get to harvest from the 5 plants we have in the garden. 

Gobble, gobble

One tom and 3 hens. Unfortunately, this is as close as they came to the house. They went right up the path behind the shed and into the forest. We haven't seen any from the flock of 33 for 2 years, so it's nice to know a few are still around.

Spring

Spring has finally arrived. We were treated to a pair of spotted towhees calling to each other on our morning walk. I'm so glad to see our avian friends returning to Nuthatch Hill. It has been a LONG winter. After our walk, we burned the poor tree that was sacrificed after the plow guy got stuck a day before Christmas Eve.

Here is the pile after about 2 hours of burning. Almost gone. 

This is what it looked like on Nuthatch Hill 3 days ago. Thank goodness for days in the 50's. This snow is mostly gone now.

Life bird

I didn't think I would see any more life birds on Nuthatch Hill. After 5 years, I was pretty sure I had checked off all avian life in these surrounds. However, hubby commented on the white wing bars on the crossbills sitting in the big Douglas fir tree off our deck and how he didn't remember them being so prominent. This flock of 50+ had been hanging around all day and I just thought they were Red Crossbills. Well, imagine my surprise when they turned out to be White-winged Crossbills and a new bird for me!!!

Any day now

It really does feel like spring is just around the corner. As we were leaving the symphony last night, I commented to my hubby that the air "smelled like spring". This morning we noticed a lot more of the hundreds of Narcissi we planted have popped out of the soil and an even better clue is hubby removed the snowplow from the ATV.

Back to white

We've had some more snow and now it's 11 degrees with more snow showers and cold temps on the way for the next few days. One (the only) nice thing about new snow is you can tell who's been on the Hill during the night. These tracks were running across the road and over to the suet feeder. You can't tell from the picture, but they are small tracks. We think they are squirrel, but we don't really know for sure. I've seen similar tracks running around the compost bin by the garden and I've seen nibbled produce in the bin, so I'm thinking we are right about it being a squirrel.

Hint of spring

It was a gorgeous day on the Hill yesterday. We had a high of 59.9 degrees. Cali was basking in the afternoon sunshine and from the look on her face, didn't want to be bothered with smiling for the camera.

Red crossbills and a lone robin were cavorting on the "lawn" this morning. It's so nice to see something other than white for a change even if it is just brown, dried grass. We also spotted a pair of Townsend Solitaires flitting about in the trees. This is their first day back on the Hill.