New England's Narrow Road

Does Snow Kill Black Flies?

Today it’s snowing and I am hoping that this cold day has caught the nasty black flies off-guard and will kill them off.

Yes, it’s April (almost May) in New Hampshire and that means we can start getting a good arm work out whenever we go outdoors. It’s known as the NH wave.

Already the biting bugs are plentiful and making any outdoor chores unpleasant.

You might wonder why I have two eggs in my intro picture and it’s because I had to watch my neighbor’s chickens last week while they were away and I get paid in eggs. It has nothing to do with the rest of my post, but I like to include photos. So now I have lots of eggs, bugs everywhere and a rambling post.

At least the snow has quit falling.

I worked on this picture of a cool looking moth yesterday. I had a customer ask me for something special and this is part of the order I fulfilled. The moth was in my driveway last year.

Moth on Blue — Some work I did for a customer

April Snow in My Gardens

On Friday, April 16th, I woke up to snow falling and about an inch of the slushy stuff covering the ground and my car.

I wonder if the plants get confused when this happens.

Columbine in snow — Columbine in April Snow

hydrangea leaf in snow — Oops...Not Yet!

Waiting for the Flowers

Next door the crocus are blooming although the yard is mostly still full of snow. These are the first little signs of warmth that give us assurance that winter won’t last forever.

I am looking forward to the hydrangea shrubs blooming, since my business depends upon my floral photography, but that will be a while.
Summers are short here in the northeast so we make the best of them.

The Downside of Having Cats

There have been no cats in my life for so long that I had forgotten the one thing about them that is uncontrollable if they roam the outdoors.

They will catch anything smaller than them that moves.

Richie, in the picture, showed his hunting skills just after he was adopted by us by catching a mouse in my kitchen in the early morning hours. And even though he and Fontana came to live with us in the middle of winter, Richie sat at the slider each morning begging to be let free.

Once we felt that he had become accustomed to this area, we started letting him out and he immediately began catching mice and voles. We’d always know when he had something because he would bring it up to the door and meow (with the creature dangling in his jaws) and beg to come in.

Everyone who has outdoor cats know that they do this. They love to show off their prize.

We have numerous large gray squirrels and also many smaller red squirrels in my area and Richie would crouch on the porch watching them steal the birdseed. Occasionally he would make a try for one, but the snow was too deep for him to get close.

The red squirrels are quick and I told my son that he (the cat) would never be able to catch one of those.

This picture proves me wrong and I don’t know how he did it, but he had to show me.

The chipmonks are coming out of hibernation now and he has also caught a few of those. I always feel badly when he kills something, but it’s his instinct and I won’t keep him indoors because he loves being outside.