Happy New Year to you and your families! I know I’m a little late. I decided to take Christmas and New Year’s off from the blog. I have to admit that it has been hard to get back into the swing of things, but of course life carries on. 2022 was a tough year, and so far 2023 has been much better, which I am very grateful for.
The days are getting longer, our orchids have new stems and one even has buds – the silly things seem to enjoy the cooler weather more than the heat in the summer – and my amaryllis has started blooming. If you’re not familiar with the amaryllis, it is a large – and I do mean large – flower that appears in stores before Christmas. You can buy the plant, or you can buy a kit. It includes a bulb, a pot, and growing medium. I try to get one every year. It’s an easy way to get some colour in the house at a time when there isn’t much colour, but you do have to be a little bit patient. About 6 weeks after you plant the bulb it will start blooming. I usually get them a little while after they appear in stores – it just works out that way – so I’m always a little behind, but it’s nice because it means that typically it starts blooming after Christmas, which is lovely. The world outside tends to be gray in January, but inside I have these beautiful flowers.
Aside from the sheer size of the stem, something that always strikes me about the amaryllis is that it gets four huge blooms and they each point in a different direction. And they make me think of a trumpet – a medieval trumpet announcing something wonderful to all four corners of the world. I can hear it in my head: “Da Da Da Dah!”
As I look outside, it is a warmish sort of day. Not bright exactly, but not gray either. I can see blue sky and white clouds in the distance. And I see the sparrows playing in the tree outside my office window. It reminds me of the recent unexpected visits we’ve had from some birds.
It was around the middle of December the first time they came to visit. They all showed up together. It was like watching a safari. A northern flicker, a woodpecker, a chickadee, and dark eyed juncos, and the most unexpected of them all: ROBINS! In December!
Yes, robins. Robins are typically a harbinger of spring where I live. We get so excited to see the robins because if they are back it means that spring isn’t far behind. In the past few years I had heard that there were some who overwintered here, but they were in the south part of the city. We don’t live in the south. We are more inner city. And we were shocked and absolutely delighted to see robins in our backyard.
It was a warm, sunny winter day and they were out there digging in our leaves, flinging them up in the air with their beaks, presumably looking for insects underneath. We stood watching them for a long time, just enthralled with the fact that four robins had come to visit us. I follow a local biologist on social media and a few days later I asked about the fact that they were here. That beautiful day was only a few days before what I will generously call a deep freeze and I wondered both about why they were here and if they would make it through the awful cold.
He said that about a hundred robins overwinter in our city. They feed on berries and crabapples – both of which we have, but they seemed much more interested in our leaves – and usually like to hang out where there is open water. We don’t have open water in the winter, so I was even more surprised and delighted that four of only about a hundred robins in the whole city chose to come to visit us.
The next time they visited was after the terrible cold that we had. It was the kind of cold that is dangerous to be out in, with temperatures below -30⁰ Celsius and wind chill temperatures below -40⁰ Celsius so I didn’t know if they would make it. But they came back! But this time there were only three. Did the fourth make it?
This week I noticed four or five finches in the tree in our front yard. We haven’t seen them for a while, so it was a lovely treat and made us wonder if the robins would be back. Yes! They were back and this time all four came to see us. They all made it through the cold! This time there was a lot of swooping back and forth. Maybe they were playing, enjoying the nice weather.
So, they are now “our” robins, or at least in our minds. It is so nice to see them and to see some life out in the yard at this time of the year. It is such a nice treat to look out the window when I am cleaning up the lunch things and see them out there. They always come at around the same time. Maybe it’s lunchtime for them too.
It is a new year, my amaryllis is blooming, and the birds are visiting us. There is life, and there is hope for this new year. May this year be happy, healthy, safe, and peaceful for all of us.
Happy New Year!
Love your blog!
Thanks! I’m so glad!