Jim Stahr has a Different Year

Bloodroot.  I think it's made of crepe.  Variegated Violets.  And a sunset.

...right off the sensor.

Last year I started a double dig/ hugelkultur garden. I lost interest in June. I'm planting a month earlier - lettuce seeds and I split some bunching onions. Let's see what gets in the way this summer. Oh - yeah. Grandkids. Life is good.

Busy day today, but I managed to shoot this  before the afternoon's gig.

Hank's Dairy Bar has music weekend afternoons, weather permitting. Russ Mineau coordinates talent, mixes the sound, and does a dead-on Neil Young.  Many of my weekend blogs will mention the artist, many of them friends, so I visit often.   Papa Joe DeMaio and Russ belt out classic rock as only those that lived it can. Not tomorrow though - I don't take cameras to gigs. I need to concentrate on one art at a time. See you there 1-4.

I moved my plants and my amphibian friend outside today.  He was toad ally cool with that. Then family day. Again. 

The drive home was, thankfully, uneventful. At home I was greeted by friends in the garden.  Most were excited to see me again,  Others weren't so certain but they politely greeted me.   Then I spoke to the neighbors to chit-chat and get back on the wire.

The nuthatches and chickadees were as flighty as yesterday. Red-Breasted Nuthatch  There were so many at the Quincy Bog Natural Area Black-capped Chickadee that I captured a few just by pointing my lens.  Geese were present, as were salamanders,  Mating Mallards ducks, Yellow Shafted Flicker Woodpeckers, Garter Snake snakes,  Black Eyed Junco  Juncos, Chipmunk  Rodents, A HUGE beaver dam. Beavers,  Little Brown Bird. Tell me if you know, please. and other critters.  Whatsit. Knocking like a woodpecker, perhaps a juvenile. Help me out, birders! On the way to lunch we saw the Plymouth Municipal Airport and other New Hampshire Lake Region scenery.

I started the day chasing birds from my second story porch at Cold Spring Resort . Eastern Phoebe. The nuthatches and chickadees were literally too flighty for my shutter finger. Downy Woodpecker. This woodpecker was much more cooperative.   We then drove to  Lake Winnipesaukee to visit Fall Mills for some free  Ben and Jerry's .  There is a waterfall where the old waterwheel was, draining into the lake.  Eclipse by Drew Klotz, a kinetic sculpture is across from this shopping center.

 I stopped at  Squam River Covered Bridge  today. It turned into a study of spring thaws.  At 70 degrees, I saw a shirts v skins game and bikinied sunbathers around frozen Little Squam Lake .  This covered bridge is quite different from the Amish type I knew in central Pennsylvania.   Some of the patterns were still quite familiar,  But the odd arch in the roof and the open sides are very different. Perhaps it is due to the more severe winters here or for the slight increase in clearance for the nearby marinas. Indeed it is difficult for me to believe that I am 100 miles inland. The lakes make this area feel very much like Cape Cod if it were in the Rockies.