” Here comes February, a little girl with her first valentine, a red bow in her wind-blown hair, a kiss waiting on her lips, a tantrum just back of her laughter. She is young as a kitten, changeable as the wind, and into everything. She can sulk, she can beam, she changes from one minute to the next. February is a phase, a short phase at that, and she has to be lived with.
February can’t be taken seriously too long at a time. It starts with Groundhog Day, which is neither omen nor portent, but only superstition, and it ends, often as not, in a flurry of snow. It is sleet and snow and ice and cold, and now and then it is waxing sunshine and tantalizing thaw and promise. February is soup and mittens, and it is a shirt-sleeve day that demands an overcoat before sundown. It is forsythia buds opening in the house and skid chains clanking on the highway. February is sunrise at 6:30 for the first time since November.
February is a gardener pruning his grape vines today and shoveling a two-foot drift on the front walk tomorrow morning. It is a farmer wondering this week if his hay will last the Winter, and next week wondering if he should start plowing. It is tiny, tight catkins on the alder in the swamp and skunk cabbage thrusting a green sheath up through the ice. February is the tag end of Winter –we hope. But in our hearts we know it isn’t Spring, not by several weeks and at least a dozen degrees.
There’s no evidence to support it in the dictionaries, but some say that February’s name comes from an ancient and forgotten word meaning *a time that tries the patience.* ” —–from Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

Here the DH is dolling out craisins to the Flemmies. Normally, they’re kind of afraid of him, but not when he comes bearing treats!

I tell him that he needs to spend time on the floor with them, so they won’t be afraid, but his bad knees keep him from it. Part of their fear is the dog, who follows my husband everywhere and insists on craisins, too. Silly dog!

He tried shaking the treat can when we wanted to trim their nails a few weeks ago, but they’re too smart to fall for that trick. So we had to force them into the carrier and bring them into the petstore for a nail trim. Boomer and Cricket ride together – that’s about 40 lbs. of bunny in one carrier – thank goodness for the big, strong DH.

Ever heard of vermicomposting?

I keep a few hundred (thousand?) red worms in my basement to compost my kitchen waste.

I started out with a dixie-cup sized portion of worms and compost from a fellow Master Gardener about three years ago. I used a simple rubbermaid bin to house the worms, but then switched to a tray- type bin last year.

Once a week or so I *feed* the worms with the leftover greens and fruit from the bunnies, some coffee grounds, occasional egg shells, and shredded junk mail for bedding material.

After a few weeks or months, the worms turn what you see in the above photo into beautiful, dark and fluffy compost (the photo at right is over-exposed). My houseplants thrive on this stuff!

It just amazes me. No work on my part – other than a desire to *waste* less – no smell, no pests, no trouble at all – and free organic fertilizer for my garden!

I googled my blog name tonight and found out that SomewhereinNJ is a pretty popular screen name among singles looking for a date. I want to make clear that I am not any of these people and am not looking for any dates. Makes me wonder if this accounts for the recent jump in the number of page views.

My plan for today was to get out and bird with Sandy Hook Bird Observatory. A nice winter trip is to visit the local ponds, inlets, and beaches that make up the *North Shore* of coastal NJ looking for ducks. Unfortunately, I slept till nearly noon and missed the trip. One major thing that I have trouble with as a birder is getting up early enough. In the winter it’s easier because it gets light so late, but the spring kills me.

I get up before dawn only once a year for the NJ Audubon World Series. I *compete* with SHBO’s Century Run team to raise money for their nature center where I volunteer. Last year we did okay with a total of 127 species for the day. I actually made myself useful to the team this year by alerting them to this Eurasian-Collared Dove which had been seen throughout the previous week, but had’nt been found yet that day. The story of our day is available here. We also saw a Wilson”s Plover that day. The WSB is always fun, except for my first year participating when it poured rain the whole day! Every year brings it’s own surprises. One year there was a bagpiper practising on the seawall at dawn.

Sandy Hook is a great place to bird if you get the chance. It can even be reached easily by the ferry from NYC. Warblers in spring together with a good hawk migration, great sparrows in fall, and ducks, gulls, and seabirds in winter. The summer brings lots of traffic for the beaches and the birding is slow, but the evenings are nice with wading birds, plenty of terns, and osprey. Cape May gets all the attention in NJ, but Sandy Hook rivals it (IMHO) in many ways; least of which is that it’s only ten minutes from home.

Here’s a link to what’s being seen this week statewide and a great site for local recent sightings.