Hazel Catkin

 

Well this is a hard one. On Monday I had to have the vet come out.

The sad result: Hazel Catkin is gone.

She had just turned 6 on March 17th.

The baby of the herd.

Only Bud is younger, by one week.

When Bud was born, big sister Hazel was so sweet to him.

Here's Hazel and mama Azalea on Day 10:

the traditional day for tackling Goat Mountain.

A teenager in Autumn 2021, showing mama her fancy dance moves.

Winter 2023.

As she grew up, Hazel looked more and more like her mama.

As Azalea's last kid, and a single birth, and a doe who was never bred, Hazel has been strongly bonded to Azalea for every moment of her life.

The whole herd is now in disarray and will continue to be for some time.

But it's a pure loss for Azalea.

This will always be one of my favorite photographs:

Hazel, three days old.

Hazel Catkin, I don't know why your time here was so short, 

but I'm glad you always made the most of it.

~~~~~

then and now

That was 10 days ago. It was the third snowfall in two weeks.

This is now:

The bloodroot is up.

And it's cashmere combing time.

'Tis the season of Everything Suddenly and All At Once, and time is getting away from me on a daily basis. But tonight I was determined to at least post a few snaps and say hello before falling asleep.

Hello!

~~~~~

with feathers

We've had two more snowstorms which have been pretty to look at and certainly more comfortable to work in than several days of rain. Now the snow is gone, the rain has stopped for a couple of days, and we've even seen the sun.

But it's been very cold again - in the low 20s when I get up - and windy. 

Biting winds.

Here's a hungry chickadee, back turned to the wind.

Brrrrrrr.

 My birdfeeders have never been busier than in recent months. I haven't totted up how many pounds of feed have been purchased, but I consider the cost to be my Entertainment Budget. And well spent.

Goldfinches are such scrappy little birds. They'd rather argue than eat.

And now the goldfinches are starting to color up. Spring is near.

This little nuthatch was perfectly still for about two minutes.

Lost in thought?

Mourning doves are so colorful.

Understated, but colorful.

Speaking of color...

Fingers crossed the bluebirds will continue to visit a while longer.

~~~~~

happy new year

I've never felt the year turn on January 1st; always in the Autumn. Possibly a remnant of my way-way-back Celtic ancestry.

But last year, April 4th was such a watershed moment it overshadowed the rest of 2024. And the disruption of ordinary life caught a second wave with the shoulder injury in October.

So when I woke up yesterday and thought "April 4th...that seems like a significant date..." it only took a split second to remember why.

Update: the barn has still not been brought back to original condition, but most of the parts that have been replaced are much better-built than the original. So it's a matter of taking the rough with the smooth. (Oh, a bit of humor there, since the barn is built of roughcut lumber.) The barn served most of it's purpose fairly well through the Winter. Now that it's Sort Of Spring, there is plenty of time for more work to be done on the barn before next Winter.

It's so much harder to get things built or rebuilt when I can do almost none of the work myself these days. I just have to accept that, I suppose.

That last sentence suggests that I have not accepted it, doesn't it? Oh well. Anyway.

Since the 4th of April 2024 was such a dramatic day, I've decided to look at yesterday, April 4th 2025, as a turning of the year. Why not? Happy New Year, blogpals!

I rarely make New Year's Resolutions, and don't need to do so now because since the shoulder injury on October 8th, there has been a great deal of rethinking what I'm doing and how I'm doing it, mostly in small, everyday things. And small changes have been made, so...functional resolutions, one might say. 

All that's left to do now is to celebrate!

~~~~~