I made it through my first winter in Iowa. Iowa is very much like New Hampshire so I should have known what the winter would be like but after being in Florida for 13 winters I had forgotten how long and cold they were. Hopefully I will be ready for next winter mentally.

But then thing comes to an end sooner or later and now the best part of the year is here and the weather is beautiful; My spring flowers were such a welcome sight and now things are really starting to grow. Last fall I planted two grape vines to climb up my arbor. One of them made it through the winter and is growing well, the other died from the cold so I removed that and put in the lilac tree that survived the winter in a small pot; I think that will look pretty of the other side of the arbor; I didn’t really need the grapes as I will not try to make jelly and I think the birds will eat the grapes as soon as the come anyways.

The birds were my visitors all winter. I had as many as 25 little sparrows on my porch all the time and I kept them feed all winter. There were and still are four different kinds of wood peckers that visit me every day but just one pair of each. With the spring came the flocks for red winged black birds, cow birds, and grackles and with five squirrels I can’t afford to feed them all they want so I go out each morning as soon as I get up and give them their portion for the day and they can fight over it. It is nice enough now they need to be out foraging for themselves anyways or they will not teach their young how to forage for their food and the young will not survive. I do enjoy watching them so will keep some food out there all summer; I love to sit on the porch and listen to all the birds in my tree.

I hope now I can learn all over again how to post things to this blog. the whole format has changed so much I have not been able to do it but today I stumbled onto this page and maybe I am on the right track. If so the next step is to learn again how to put pictures in my blog. I may have to ask for help with that. If I get things going right I will try to post each day and let you know what is happening here; Have a great day;