where am I????

Really, it's April 19 and it's SNOWING out? Are you kidding me?
Granted it's more a mix of slushy snowy rain but white stuff has still accumulated outside.

It was a HIGH of 80 degrees only a couple weeks ago! What's going on?

sighting...

I saw an alpaca today, on the way to Boone (another town in the next county) to go bike riding.

Spring time suddenly...

Well all of the sudden Spring/Summer is upon us...70-80 degree weather & sun; and humidity too.
A flock of juncos descended upon our backyard yesterday. Seriously, more than a dozen.

Ames excitement on Friday night-- the library booksale-- happened to be there getting out a book
at ~ 5:30 and saw people LINED up, waiting for the beginning of the book sale!

bunny sighting...

The giant bunny returns... seen in our neighbor's backyard...

more wildlife...

Two robins in the front yard, now that there is actual (semi) yard again, including one big fluffy robin, pulling at a worm.
Woodpecker guy in the back yard. And cardinals.
No sign of the giant bunny...

Hooray...hoorah...

Time for Spring! Yippee! Lovely warm weather, time to rake leaves ~ yes, normally a fall activity but since no one bothered to do yard work for the last umpteen years here, we actually raked & gathered 10 bags of leaves...Seriously people, if you ever wondered what would happen if you didn't rake, well I don't think it all magically composts without any intervention. No, what happens is NO grass grows underneath- so now the yard is pretty bare of leaves & you can see there is no grass, just dirt underneath. Whoops.

Warm weather & the start of April are terrific though. I saw a beautiful cardinal in the yard AND
a GIANT bunny. I think this bunny ate all the other bunnies and that's why I haven't seen any.

weather, roller derby girls, liberty tax, cooter-rama

Still pretty cold here, despite it officially being spring. It snowed this week. Not much rain though, the car is still dirty.
It doesn't really look like spring yet. I saw a cardinal in the backyard, on the far fence. He didn't come close though and didn't want to go near the bird feeder.
We are still snubbed by most of the birds.
We saw the Des Moines Derby Dames; they lost against the Old Capitol City Roller Girls.
Roller derby is weird. First we wound up sitting on the floor of a crowded "events center" but it really looked more like a school gym or something. That gets uncomfortable after about half an hour. The periods or whatever they're called are like 30 min long but they stop a lot sometimes- thus my boredom. But also maybe because I couldn't keep straight who was supposed to be doing what, the "jammers" or the "scorers" or whatever they were called. Mostly it was just some pretty aggressive gals skating around, knocking into each other. I guess they are used to getting knocked down but it didn't look all that fun to me.
I had previously thought that being a character advertisement or whatever it's really called, someone who stands outside in costume advertising for this or that business must be one of the crappiest jobs ever- boring and you have to stand out there in any weather conditions. Seriously, I've seen the guy advertising for Pizza Hut when it's really hot outside & the people outside when it's plenty cold, and assumed they must be pretty miserable. But the other day I saw a girl dressed in the Liberty Tax costume, ie. like Statue of Liberty, and she was smiling and seemed to be having a great old time.
So who knows...