Found it!

After a bunch of searching I finally found what it is that's blooming out by my back fence.  It's a flowering quince.  I have to give my sister credit for the find though.  Monica asked me if it had thorns.  I told her 'no' but today I was out there, unwinding and cutting out a vine from the middle of it, and it very definitely has thorns, about an inch or so long.  So when I came back in I googled "long thorns pink blossoms" and there it was!  Yay!  There's some hope that I will be able to identify the things that bloom around here this year after all.

As you can see Zoe is in a lazy mood.  That thing she's laying on is a scratching post that she uses regularly and likes to sleep on.  She's been outside today but not much, and even I came scampering back in after cutting that old vine out.  It's cold today!  I ran some errands this morning and it never got above 38 while I was out there.  And the wind is COLD.   Brrrrrrrr!   It's so bright and sunny that I expect it to be warm, but it's definitely not.    

I went ahead and did my taxes using TurboTax last weekend.  Yup, got them done and e-filed.  It took me almost 5 hours on Sunday to do it though.  I was trying to be really thorough, as well as trying to figure out what the hell this statement means each time I came up on something else.  Tax-ese is no doubt written by the same folks who wrote lawyer-ese.  But I felt as sure about the finished results as I ever feel about taxes, so I went ahead and filed.  Weirdly, I already have my refund!  I had it direct deposited and noticed it in my account this morning.  That's what I call service.    

Something, probably a squirrel, destroyed my bird feeder.  I came in one afternoon and it was hanging funny.  I went out there and when I touched it, it just fell apart.  Luckily it was mostly empty.  I jury-rigged it and refilled it.  The birds have been using it still, even jury-rigged with baling twine.  I bought a new feeder today and will replace the rigged one when they empty it.   

There was a red-wing blackbird on the feeder the other day.  I haven't seen one of those in forever.  They're so pretty.  I hope he sticks around.  The house sparrows, mourning doves and junkos are the most common visitors.

Despite the cold spell we've had this week, the Bradford pears in the area are starting to show signs of flowering.  When it warms up just a little I think everything will go into full bloom mode.  I'm waiting for the trees to leaf out.  I really am not that fond of dead-looking bare branches during the winter.  My aloe vera did indeed take some serious damage this winter, but it looks like the centers of all of them are going to survive.  And I found the tiny start of new leaves on the peach sapling I said looked so dead, so I think they'll be fine also.  


So far I'm keeping up with my exercising.  It's actually easier since I bought the Wii, because the Wii Fit Program makes it fun to exercise, rather than a chore.  That's the thing about exercise.  I don't mind exercising if it's for a purpose.  I love to hike for example.  But just to exercise for the sake of exercising is BORING!  And tedious.  And hard to maintain.  Even with switching out between my little exercise machines I was bored.  But the Wii makes it fun, plus it keeps track of your time and calories.  So, so far I'm still doing it regularly.  

I guess that's about it for today.  Here's another picture of the flowering quince.