One usually doesn’t think of the rain as being dangerous. As a parent, one often says to kids: “What? Are you going to melt?”

Sadly, the storm this past weekend in New Jersey and in New York ended in tragedy. The winds were ferocious, and some areas were harder hit than others. Numerous people died from being hit by falling trees, including two men (who leave behind mourning families) who were walking home from synagogue late Saturday afternoon in Teaneck, New Jersey.

In Highland Park we were fortunate to suffer only property damage: below is the remains tree that fell on a house near my own. Others had car windows smashed by trees or a fence downed by the wind. Compared to losing one’s life, it is mostly a discussion of who has insurance coverage.

And here you can see where it cut into the house it fell upon:

I decided to do a little research and discovered that one can study nearby trees to detect if they are unhealthy. Last year friend had noted that a tree overhanging our backyard had leaves on one side but not on the other; this is a sign of the tree’s ill health. My husband and I are happy that we informed our neighbors who own the tree, and they took care of the situation.

Some links for more information on hazardous trees:

• Underlying Causes the Can Lead to Down or Damaged Trees
• How to Spot a Dangerous Tree
• What is a Hazard Tree?
• Homeowner’s Tree Checkup Guide

Again the cut tree trunk, photo taken in the early evening when I showed it to two of my kids:

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Yesterday I asked who had started working in their garden. One can approach gardening as a chore, a necessity if you are a farmer, or a way to relax. It’s not going to be relaxing if you don’t enjoy it. For some reason, one of my favorite parts of gardening is composting. This past year we even saved compost in the dead of winter; I tried to put it outside right before a snow storm, because at least then it would be covered in snow. In the warmer months I cover the compost with dirt, but as gardeners know, you can’t shovel frozen dirt. I use a composting method that I call Lazy Composting. I like the idea of recycling my kitchen waste back into nature. My other effort toward gardening has been to order peas, inoculant for the peas, and other vegetable and herb seeds.

Do you have a garden? What is your favorite and your least favorite part of gardening?

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Yesterday, when it was warmer and almost spring-like, I saw many birds on my block, including a hawk flying low. Today there are big, white fluffy flakes coming day outside my window. By necessity (I need to pick my kids soon, early dismissal due to the weather), this will be a short post. Note the bill and the plume of the head (thanks, Michelle and Lorri).

You can see the drawing of the cardinal on last week’s post. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to take out the paints.

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If you have a camera, why would you want to draw or paint a bird? With a camera you can capture all the details you need. Why learn how to draw?

When you are drawing, you concentrate on every detail of what you are looking at – the colors, the texture, the shapes, the depth, the values. And when I drew the bird (it’s going to be a cardinal – wait until I apply the paint), I learned about how the head, body, tail and feet are shaped. And I had to think about how to present the textures of the feathers.

Look forward to showing you the finished painting. Oh, and another reason to draw is your daughter (or son) might then take out her own piece of paper and draw her own bird. I just might show you the bird that my daughter drew as well.

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Last week for the first time in almost ten years I had the opportunity to go cross-country skiing while my daughter and her friends were sledding. The red hydrant behind the skis is what qualifies this photo for Ruby Tuesday, a photo meme where you post any photo with some red. And this was before our bigger storm that dumped over a foot of snow. Strangely, the Boston area, which I visited this past weekend and is over five hours drive north of our area of New Jersey, had very little snow.

I learned a good gardening tip on Saturday night while driving from Newton, MA to Marlboro, MA (we were invited to a laser tag party). If one of your small trees gets a lot of snow on it, brush it off with a long broom as soon as you can. Otherwise, the snow may permanently bend the tree into an unhealthy shape. If that does happen, you may have to trim the tree and wait years until it gets back a normal shape.

For more photos with a little or a lot of red:

Spring is sprung, da grass is riz.
I wonder where dem boidies is?
Some say da boids is on der wing.
But dat’s absoid!
Da little wings is on da boid…

It is a Jewish custom before the Shabbat in which one sings Shirat HaYam (the Song of the Sea, the song about the crossing of the Reed Sea) to feed the birds. Why feed the birds? I found two explanations:

1) There is a tradition that on the first Shabbat of the Manna, not only did people go out looking for Manna, but they (wicked people, says Rashi) had previously scattered Manna around the camp in order to find it and “make a liar out of Moshe”.

Birds came by early in the morning and ate up the Manna, thus protecting the honor of Moshe, and of G-d Who had said that Manna would not fall on Shabbat. In repayment “one good turn deserves another” style, we feed the birds around this Shabbat when we read of the Manna in the weekly portion.

And here is the second:

2) We joyously sing praise to G-d for His having taken us out of Egypt and saved us from the Egyptians. Singing is the special domain of the birds. That is how they express themselves in acknowledgment of the Creator (so to speak – or so to sing). We borrowed their skill; therefore we “pay royalties” on our Song by feeding birds on (before) this Shabbat.

Since last Friday was right before Shabbat Shira, I decided that this was the perfect time finally to take the new bird feeder I bought out of the box and hang it on our garage window (with the help of my seven-year-old daughter):

After some initial difficulty with the suction cup attachments (you have to first soak the suction cups in hot water, then dry them, then rub them with your thumb, then attach them), I finally got the feeder to stay up properly. However, I don’t believe any of our neighborhood birds have been eating from it. I did see one pecking away at my compost.

I believe this bird is a chickadee (thanks, Eileen).

This is what is left of the finch feeder sock I bought one month ago:

As one of the reasons for the feeding the birds custom is to become more sensitive to the needs of the animals around us, I plan to continue to feed the birds. As Michelle of Rambling Woods has taught me, once you start feeding the birds, they expect it.

I hope to post more bird photos tomorrow for SkyWatch; one day last week, my eldest son said, Eema, there’s a bird making a strange noise outside. I went out with my camera and there many, many, many birds.

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