Finally, it froze!

Loquat in bloom December 2.

In keeping with the weird weather trend, we got our first freeze on January 9 — pretty late in the season. It was a long, mild fall. In early December our loquat tree bloomed. We’ve lived here for 12 years and only twice have we gotten fruit from that tree.  Don't like loquats, so both times I put a notice on our neighborhood list and somebody came and picked them.  Anyway, according to Aggie horticulture, if temperatures stay above 27 degrees we will probably get fruit in late winter/early spring.  The tree itself is a nice tropical looking landscape plant that survives down to 10 degrees.

Loquat blossoms attracted butterflies and bees.

Birds, Squirrels, etc.

Woodpecker visiting birdie crack house, er, feeder.

Uninvited guest

My daughter is a bird nut and an evangelist for any form of nature activity, so a while back she gave me a pair of binoculars and a field guide.  I thought, “Great, now I will have fun watching birds from my window.”  “Not so fast,” said the birds. “You are taking a very superficial attitude to our presence in your yard.  In fact, just calling it your yard is an affront to us.  We were here first.”

Birds were all over our property but I couldn’t see them very well. They flew from tree to tree, chirped and cawed, built nests, hopped around on the ground looking for bugs, and drove the cat crazy, but no way would they come close enough to my observation post to let me ID them, or even see what they were doing in any kind of satisfying detail.

Peaceful lunching.

When I complained to my daughter about the lack of birdly cooperation she said, “Put up a feeder near the window.”  Well duh.

First I put up the kind of feeder that holds packaged suet and peanut butter food.  The birds mobbed the feeder. I understood then why my daughter calls this food “birdie crack.”  Later I got another feeder that holds birdseed.  That one's been popular too.  Note to self: This activity could get expensive; time to stop relying entirely on the pricey storebought stuff.  Find out what kind of flowers and berries our birds like, then plant more of those.