It definitely feels like spring is just around the corner when the birds and the lizards begin to visit.
I had two very lively wrens visit my porch today, and one lizard.
Windows open...
Ah, the early signs that spring is on its way.

"I will go out free"
Apparently none of us 'goes out free' in this life...
all of us have some regrets...
choices made,
opportunities missed,
words spoken,
paths taken...

Life is a rugged path... it is good to have some hiking boots.

I had the pleasure of seeing two mourning doves sitting in a tree together today.

Life isn't meant to be happy...

"My dear, all life is a series of problems which we must try and solve.
The first one and the next and the next, until at last we die."

- the Dowager Countess of Grantham, Downton Abbey

On a more cheery note...

a lovely trio of finches visited my porch to start my day. 

"No one happy ever changed the world."

- The Cafe

In honor of Valentine's day...

7,500 light years away, in the Perseus Arm of our Milky Way galaxy,
in the direction to the constellation Cassiopeia the Queen, is the Heart Nebula.

It’s an emission nebula with glowing gas and darker dust lanes.

The good news...
Daughter's power was back on when she and her husband arrived home from work. What a relief for them... puppy would have been very hard to manage at my house. lol
I'm afraid it would have proved to be an exhausting chore for my daughter.

It's amazing to me how just that one degree of difference can make it all go away...

the ice was all gone even before I went to bed at 3:00 am... so at least roads were clear today.

On the not so good side, I've just read that power restoration time for my daughter isn't 'till Saturday. :-0 !!!
Hope they're wrong. I mean it's still only in the 30's out there. :-/ I wonder how cold a house can get without heat?

and it's a wrap... time to call it a night...

My daughter and her husband came over for dinner and to warm up.  Their power was out from 11:00 am and it was her husbands day off... so brrr, for him.
Daughter was fearful of ice missiles driving home from work. She had one pretty good chunk of ice land on her windshield when it fell from a power line.

They chose not to spend the night because of the pets, but the power was still not back on when they went home and went to bed.  I told them to come back with the pets if the house gets too cold.  I'm hoping they will not be one of those without power for 3 days, as they are predicting will be the case for some.     They already brought their freezer goods and loaded them in my freezer, as per my suggestion, as a safeguard and stop-gap, just in case.

I awoke to the oddest sound...
the sound a door guard makes as it slides across the floor when the door is opened or closed...
I thought, 'that's what it sounded like', but it couldn't be.
I rested a few minutes more, then I got up.
I opened the blinds to look outside and sighed, greeted by the beauty of the ice covered trees...
Yes, I had forgotten how pretty it would look today in spite of the rain -
this is freezing rain.

Then I saw...
'Ah, that's what it was', I thought... 'Yes, that makes sense'...
I saw the bright yellow of freshly broken wood, the place where the top of one of the smaller trees had sheared off under the weight of the ice...
and there, a place where another one, an even larger one had done the same... 'I wonder when that one went down'...
then I saw other trees bowed to the ground, stooped, bent over in their silent submission to nature...  the weight they must bear...
I watched the tallest trees in an eerie dance, grandly holding their own with the weight, swaying side to side in a sort of slowed motion...
and the one little place on the pine tree that had been sheltered and was still green, while above, for at least 8 feet, was a canopy of crystal...
'all things great and beautiful'. 

Thankful we I have not lost power.

at Twilight -

I so enjoy the effects of changing light on the crystal trees.