Out Looking For Trouble

 And hopefully not finding it.  After several weeks of wind and snow and single digit temperatures, we are experiencing a warmup.  Its a good time to go outside, get some fresh air and check on things to make sure there is no damage that needs to be taken care of and no reinforcements that need to be made.  Because now would be the time to do that too.

There is a vole or field mouse that has been tunneling under the snow.  Thankfully the wire cloches turned him and he did not feast on fresh Primrose.

The wire pinned over my newly planted bulbs is popping up.  I stomped them all down tight.

I checked on the Heuchera.

The landscape pins are not the only thing heaving in the freeze and thaw, but these will eventually level out.  There are usually a few pavers that need to be releveled come spring.  In the meantime it can be a little hazardous to walk on.

We still have a few White Ash trees along our west edge.  They are dead and shedding branches all over this one area.  I remember years when we would spend hours each spring raking the lawn.  This looks like a mess but won't be much work to clean up.

This one lost its top during the several days when we had high winds.  I took a photo when there was snow on it so you an see that sizeable top lying diagonally in there,  Some people in our area were without power for two days.  This doesn't look like a very big tree in the photo, but it is big enough to be a serious job and capable of doing quite a bit of damage.  I am happy that its top is down and I am also happy that it fell in the wooded area where we can clean it up at our leisure and not on the neighbor's driveway where we would have had to clean it up during that foul weather.

So fortunately no serious issues to report or remedy.  It is nearly 50F today and still but foggy.  We would like to see some sun but that isn't likely for awhile. Tomorrow is supposed to be quite pleasant and brighter and I'll go out and play pick up sticks.