Voles, Chipmunks, and Rufous Sided Towhees

We were finishing up the tree in the piano room there, and this year's new additions were the ornaments that came from Ye-Ye and Nana's Botanical Gardens tree from last year.  

That tree now has a lot of ornaments on it, all with somewhat of a rustic feel to them.  It's still a quicker tree to decorate than the monster in the living room, but it's quite a project. 

We got this tree some time ago at a thrift store, and it looks really great in that room year after year.  I believe it was a trip that Ba-Ba and Nana were on with Mom, and they saw this tree for $20.  I can't imagine that ever happening again, at least not now with the economy as it is.  We were very blessed.  I love the smell of live trees, but the expense and convenience of these sorts of trees outweigh all that, but only if the end product looks enough like a real tree.

I think this one looks really good.  The room has a magical quality to it already, and we're not even done decorating it yet.  The fireplace there is not real either, not like the one in the living room.  But it does give out warmth, which was actually needed today as the temperatures are getting cooler outside.  

I took a few pictures from the yard today, including these lovely flowers that Mom has recently transplanted.  They grow rather well - she had them in the back yard, and they've reproduced at such a rate that some are now in the front yard. 

Here are a few more with our scarecrow in the back yard.  He's been watching all our visitors come by, the ones coming to our plate of seeds that Mom put out there by the front door.  It's been a small variety of creatures there for the buffet!

First, a chipmunk.  We're so glad to have these guys around.  You can see those cheeks are stuffed with seeds that he'll take about ten feet away from this location, where his hole is.  But here's the new visitor that we haven't seen before on our property:

It's a vole.  I've not seen one of these in the wild before, mainly because they're pretty fast moving and small.  We sat there watching him quickly scurry out from beneath the leaves, grab a snack, and then race back to his hiding place.

Of course there were birds too.  We have feeders out and there are a lot of birds on the feeders, but our plate had a visit from this rufous sided towhee, which is a mouthful to say.  There was some debate as to what kind of bird this in fact was, as I initially mistook it for an oriole.  But we had a book with us to help out, and thus another bird was successfully identified!  We've had some unique visitors this year, our highest bird count of the year.  

It was a decent day today.  Maddie was at rehearsals for her upcoming musical on Friday, so she missed out on taekwondo.  We took advantage of the time by getting a good bit of Christmas work done, including work towards this production at the church next month.  There is so much to do there.  We watched a Christmas movie tonight and still had time to read our story, and of course had time for prayers.  It was a good day today.