01/23/2023 – Around Colehaus

We had a frosty, icy start to January. Now, we’re back to our usual rain, rain, rain, though not anywhere near the amount of rain our friends south of us are getting. Our soil is different here in the Pacific Northwest, or as we sometimes call it, Pacific NorthWET. Our ground absorbs most of the heavy rain we get but it still swells our rivers and we still get landslides. All our good thoughts go to our friends going through a wild, overly wet winter with the hope they are okay!

During our icy stretch, our fountain iced up nicely and was very pretty. We run the fountain year around to provide water to our garden visitors and to keep the pipes from freezing and breaking. We’d had some really cold spells in years past and so far, the fountain gets through its ice buildup just fine.

After the icy snap and during the warmup, our cement patio took on this odd polka dot look that we’ve heard was caused by a layer of ice covering a thin layer of snow. The ice sucks the moisture out of the snow, leaving little snow clumps behind until it all melts.

Nothing much is blooming outside at the moment except Mom’s cyclamen that seems to like the cold weather.

Before that icy weather, Mom discovered our thirty foot-plus tall Golden Arborvitae was leaning dangerously over our shared fence, threatening to take out the fence, our sprinkler line, and a buried electrical line. She called in the experts and right before a major windstorm hit (several windstorms as it turned out), they took down the tree.

Mom and our neighbors were very sad to see the tree go. Generations of raccoons and birds used that tree, along with the occasional cat and opossum. It was a beautiful golden color year around and had just begun to become messy, dropping needles and teensy seed pods. It was also a good wind and sun break during the summer months and shielded our yard from other neighbors’ view.

But it was just a matter of time before it caused major damage, as discovered by the arborists when they worked on it. One of the main trunks had cracked at some point and it was then considered a dangerous tree. Since its removal, we’ve had another strong wind storm and it is without any doubt, that poor arborvitae would have come crashing down.

Mom’s going to have “fun” using her trusty Saws-all tool this spring, trying to get these trunks and root system out! She thinks she’ll place planted pots on the flat tops and carefully work on cutting out and away the massive exposed roots and fibrous root clumps so maybe next year, she can transplant some perennials and grasses in the blank spaces.

A couple of weeks ago, Mom accidently scared away a floofy orange cat who had been nibbling food in one of our feeding stations. It also scared Mom who thought it looks remarkably like Pia. Just in case she had somehow gotten out, Mom immediately verified it was NOT Pia. Pia was inside, taking her usual late afternoon siesta.

Since then, Mom’s seen that orange floof hanging out farther up the street. Father still, a new floofy gray and black tiger stripped cat was lounging on a porch. Then, just the other day, she saw another gray floofy cat she’d never seen before meandering across the street. She raced downstairs and went outside and called to it. It didn’t run off, but it didn’t cross the street to come to her either. Less than half an hour later, Mom saw him crossing our backyard, heading toward the feeding station, and she grabbed the camera and just caught it scampering through the fence opening. Oh well. Looks like we’ve got a few newbies to watch out for.

Inside, the holiday décor’s been switched over to minimalist clean, uncluttered winter white. To be honest, we still have things tucked away in hopes our contractor will remember we have a big hole in our living room ceiling awaiting repair, so minimalist is the theme we’re running with around here until that’s fixed.

We splurged on five paperwhite bulbs in December and they’re blooming wonderfully. We understand the smell of paperwhites isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. We love them, though. While our mantle was decorated with lights and fake greenery for Christmas, we put our Thanksgiving cactus upstairs in the spare room, in a nice bright spot in front of the window, and it promptly dropped all its blooms and buds. Since then, we brought it back down to the spot on the mantle it seems to like best and BOINK! Flower buds all around again!

That’s about all going on around here. Thanks for visiting us this January!

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A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2021 – No post
2020 – No post
2019 – No post
2018 – No post
2017 – MultiCat Monday
2016 – No post
2015 – Friday Flashback
2014 – No post
2013 – Watching Wednesday
2012 – Maxx where he should not be