Icy Ash Cave

This weekend Dave and I drove up to Ash Cave in the Hocking Hills. We went in hopes of seeing a monstrous ice formation.

Admittedly, this formation is pretty large. But we've seen it even bigger in past years, so we were a teeny bit disappointed.

This little guy next to the ice mound gives you some idea of perspective.

And here's Dave looking up at the falling water that is contributing to this mound.


A good number of folks were out on this fine weekend to enjoy the warmer temperatures and, for the first time in several weeks, no snowfall!

Stay tuned for more images and musings on this icy spectacle.

Snow Dog

Our dog Emmett is a Husky mix, so hanging out in the snow is second nature to him. He politely accepted my offer to snap some pictures of him while he enjoyed laying in the snow this weekend.


Isn't he so handsome?

He's an outside dog 99.9% of the time, but he got himself good and wet this weekend, and seeing how the temperature isn't going to get above freezing in the next few days, we thought he'd like to have the icicles thawed off of his fur at some point. So, he's sitting at my feet right now, curled up in front of the wood stove. After several hours inside, he's almost dry. But all this heat... it's making him sleepy. Me too, dude. Bed time!

Snow and Zick dough

This past weekend we got a little reminder that it's still winter in the form of cold temps and some light snow. When I woke up Sunday morning to see a nice coating of the white stuff, I thought to myself, "This is the perfect time to put out some Zick dough!" (Don't know what the heck I'm talkin' about? Click here to get more info and the recipe for homemade suet dough that Julie Zickefoose has so kindly shared with us all. It's crazy easy to make. If you haven't tried this yet and decide you want to, please heed her warning to not feed it in warm weather as it may cause gout.)

To my surprise, only a small number of the birds seemed interested in it. I've been offering it for a couple of weeks now, so I would have expected the birds to not be wary of it any more. But that's okay. My #1 customer was a White-breasted Nuthatch, and he was very glad to not really have to share it with anyone else.

His only other competition was a Dark-eyed Junco, who only had 1 bite that I saw...

And lady Downy, but she kept to the suet cage, while Mr. Nuthatch stuck with the railing.

He checks out the spread in front of him... notice that long trail of crumbles? It will diminish...

... piece by piece.

Snagging the last piece of "railing dough":

And now, dear readers, I have a confession to make: my heart's not been in the blogging thing for a little while now. I've decided I need to take a bit of a break. You can expect my posts to be a little more sporadic, and heavier on photos, lighter on words. I still have lots of photos I want to share, but text-heavy posts are getting to be a little more time-consuming than I can handle at present. I hope you'll hang in there with me.

And don't worry, I'll still post the answer to the latest Plume Zoom tomorrow. Sorry I created such a stumper this time around!

Glimpses of clear sky (SWF)

During the worst of our recent ice/snow storm, blue sky was a welcome sight in the midst of so much greyness. Even though there was snow and ice everywhere, it all looked kind of dull and washed out due to the cloudy sky.

The sky was actually kind of hard to see through all of the ice and snow-encrusted branches now hanging so low.

Some of the gentle giants in our wooded acres. I was sad to see all my trees so weighted down.

Ahhh, a break in the clouds. Fleeting, but lovely.

This is my first entry to Skywatch Friday. Don't know what Skywatch Friday is? Simply put, it is a place to enjoy Skies and views from all around the globe. But don't take my word for it, go see for yourself. Either click here, or click on the Skywatch Friday badge over in my sidebar at any time to go to the site.