Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Some Christmas Memories

I hope you all had a good Christmas with family and friends. We drove down to Mom & Dad's for our family Christmas celebration yesterday. Here are some memories from my Christmas day.

It was a beautiful, partly sunny day and not too cold. Since we didn't have to leave till later in the morning, I had some time to spend out in the backyard playing with the dogs and filling birdfeeders. I remembered one of the robins had built a nest in one of my evergreen trees and I checked to see if it was still there. Sure enough.....it was there and now serving as a hiding place for a bluejay's peanut.
My neighbor with the junk-filled backyard has an old blue tarp that is blowing to shreds up against my fence. I have seen several nests in my backyard trees where the birds incorporated shreds of this blue tarp into their nest construction.

Since I wasn't able to participate in Rochester's "official" Christmas bird count on Dec. 15th, I held my own "Backyard Christmas bird count" on Christmas Day. Here are the birds I saw & counted in my backyard yesterday morning:

Ring-Necked Pheasant - 1
American Goldfinch - 9
Red-Breasted Nuthatch - 1
Crow - 3
Blue Jay - 6
Black-Capped Chickadee - 2
American Tree Sparrow - 3
Mourning Dove - 4
House Sparrow - >100
Junco - 19
Downy Woodpecker - 2
Cardinal - 5
European Starling - 7
House Finch - 12

Down at Mom and Dad's, we had a visit from the Christmas possum. Actually this was one of three we saw at their place yesterday. I think this may have been a younger one....it had the most luxurious and darkest fur of the three I saw.

Don't you just love their cute little feet?

My niece Kathy loved the hat I knitted for her! She "hinted" that a matching pair of gloves would be a good gift when her birthday rolls around in February. (I'll have to check my "stash" to see if I have any more of this yarn left!)

Ethan's apple hat was way too small! I actually started the 6-month size but it seemed so huge that I reduced the pattern. Too bad....I had to take this one back home and will get a larger one knitted for him.

13 comments:

Ruth said...

Cute opossum pictures. I have only seen one in our area. But the baby is cutest of all!! Merry Christmas.

Anonymous said...

Glad our possums made your blog, we usually don't see them during the day, they're one of our nite time visitors along with a stinky skunk. We had 4 possums but one got killed out on the hiway, they move so slow.
You had a nice bird count for your yard to bad I didn't think of counting ours, but you got to see what we had.
Thank you for shoveling off our back stairs, I'm surprised you got thru the ice with the snow on it.
Mom

Anonymous said...

How wonderful the Christmas Opossum decided to visit you! I still think he is one of Santa's helpers! How wonderful you did your own CBC!! Great list of birds that you found!

Larry said...

Healthy looking possums! It's nice that you can make your own gifts.
Hope you had a great holiday as well!

Mary said...

Hi Ruthie,

Three of those birds on your list would be lifers for me!

I love those little possum feet - they are so funny and cute!

You have great models for your hats. Ethan didn't seem to care if his hat was too small :o)

Lisa at Greenbow said...

Hi Ruthie, Sounds like you had a good Christmas. Love the hats you knitted. The little apple hat is sweet.

I can't believe the possum was out during the day. It must have been really hungry.

You had a nice list for your personal CBC. Do you do this every year?

Jayne said...

LOL... love the hidey nest. :c) Looks like everyone loved their gifts so knitted with love.

RuthieJ said...

Hi Ruth,
I know lots of people don't like possums, but I think they're pretty neat....and good at cleaning up all the leftover birdseed on the ground.

Hi Mom,
Thanks for a good Christmas celebration. It was good to see your possums AND tufted titmice!

Hi Mon@rch,
I thought it was a pretty good list for only about an hour--missing a couple woodpeckers though.

Hi Larry,
It's nice to see a possum that doesn't have frozen-off ears!
(I'm not much of a shopper so homemade gifts are usually what I try and come up with).

Hi Mare,
OK, let me try and guess the 3.... pheasant, tree sparrow and junco??

I love making hats....most of them I can knit in a couple evenings!

Hi Lisa,
I was surprised to see the daytime possums too! It was fairly moderate on Tuesday, so I think they must have woken up hungry!
P.S. This is the first time I've done a CBC in my backyard.

Hi Jayne,
I chuckled too when I saw that peanut in the nest. Those bluejays can find the darndest places to hide peanuts!

Anonymous said...

Love the pictures! You get the best pics of Ethan. First the pickle at Thanksgiving, now an apple at Christmas. The hat looks adorable on him. It was a fun day but over way too soon.

Meggie said...

Hey Ruthie: Great pics of your lovely Christmas. Your knitted hats look great! Little Ethan is growing so fast! I'm sure you can come up with some mittens for Kathy ....

Susan Gets Native said...

Are you sure that the hat isn't making his eyes bulge a little?
:)
Glad your holiday was happy!

Marsha said...

I like the peanut's nest too! Sounds like you have a great Christmas...hope you new year is wonderful too!

RuthieJ said...

Hi Meggie,
I found more yarn!! Buried way back in the cupboard, but enough to make a pair of mittens, I think.

Hi Susan,
Now that you mention it....maybe it wasn't just due to that toy he was looking at! ;-)

Thank you Marsha, it was a good Christmas. A good New Year to you also!