What's outside of your picture window today?

@athenalee. Montreal is so uniquely awesome, isn't it? And Ottawa is particularly beautiful in the Springtime when there are tulips galore!

Here, on the central Oregon coast, we have about the same temps year 'round, although they are generally warmer in summer, cooler in winter. We've just had two weeks of weather where it's comfortable to go out during the day with just a sweater, except going to my mailbox, which is close to the ocean and gets more wind. We live in a little valley that gets far less wind. It's extremely rare to have winter temps lower than 40, summer temps even in the mid '70s. Grass grows all year, although it's been too wet (morning dew if not a little rain overnight) to mow since early November. Now that days are getting longer, I should be able to mow in the late afternoon.
FLEAS can be a real problem here, a combo of the mild weather and all the deer and elk that spend time in our yard. The best solution: adding flax seeds or flax meal to your dog's kibble. Seeds only work if your dog doesn't just gobble his/her food, swallowing it without much chewing--if that's the case, a couple of generous big spoonfuls of flax meal will keep the fleas away. It takes about a month for the flax to improve the dog's skin enough to discourage fleas, so you need to continue to use some sort of godawful poison on your dog until the flax is working. Flax works for ticks as well as any of the various poisons you can use, too. Our cat, of course, is entirely indoor, so he doesn't need to have flax. A pack of coyotes lives in the woods east of us, not a good mix with a domesticated cat!
The only snakes we have, and those are very rare, are harmless garter snakes, so we have a perpetual problem with mice, rats, and pine squirrels (just rats with good PR due to their fluffy tails). With climate change and very little rain during summers, we've had more snakes recently, meaning I saw three or four last summer while working in the yard. During the fall, when the nights are cooler, mice manage to sneak into the house around pipe openings, but our cat is onto them.
We almost never have real snow...only twice that I can remember in the 60 years I've had this place, and then the grass wasn't entirely covered, just had a dusting of white. I love to hang clothes outside because the air is always so fresh off the ocean. Although there are fewer days in winter when the sun is out long enough to get things dry, I do hang sheets and blankets outside because I love that fresh smell when I bring them in. When we spent half our time in Portland, hanging things outside was disappointing because there was so much traffic they didn't smell nice!

@ess77 Cute little puppy. The snake, not so much. Eeeww!

@ess77 These are beautiful!!! Are they all in your garden ? I would just sit and enjoy them all day. Thank you for the pictures!

@becsbuddy, @artist01, and others. Yes, Becky, all my babies, grown from little plants, and I've taught them to survive outside year-round. Several years ago, maybe 10 or so, I had to stop bringing everyone inside for the winter cold spells. I do some years cover them as needed when it gets into the '30-'20s at night, but not this year. I have a touch of frost damage on my Crown of Thorns and on another tropical plant, but all the rest are in pretty good shape and sending out new blooms now.

Azaleas have begun to flower all over the city. That's one of our prettiest bushes usually in early March. late Feb. Have some just beginning to open in the front yard. Brings happiness...also have a camellia bush fairly full of blooms,. I'll take a picture tomorrow and send it via phone.

I loved your beautiful description of the Oregon Coast you call home, @joyces, what a lovely place to live. Sounds wonderful. your descriptions are so clear. I thought you had much colder winters and snow. But, with the ocean, that changes so much, doesn't it? Sounds like you're in a fairly isolated area with elk and deer walking through the yard. Love it, but what a different life from my city life.

Becky, I do enjoy having the view from my den overlooking the flowers and birds. But, it's time to get it cleaned up and paved, planted properly in a walled, raised planting area along the fenceline. I want to do that in March God willing.

On Monday, I'm taking my first fun outing in years! My neighbor/friend and I are going to Lowes to get her tub/shower grab bars and schedule installation. Then, we're having lunch to celebrate my BDay. Pitiful, isn't it? Not much fun in this life since a couple of years before the stay in hospital for heart failure. Then comes Covid of course, and all the new illnesses and diagnoses. About time for a change! So be it.....

Blessings to all. elizabeth

Elizabeth, the Oregon coast is very mild, has very little difference between seasons. You may find yourself outside in the middle of winter without even a sweater (like today), or wearing a heavy jacket in July. Even the Willamette Valley east of us rarely has snow--most often there's just enough to barely cover the grass and it melts within hours. Difference in the valley is that there are real seasons. You'd never be outside during the winter without a jacket there! I'm always shocked when I drive two hours to the Portland metro area to pick up 500 loaves of bread donated by Dave's Killer Bread: it's sooo cold in the winter, but so terribly hot in the summer! My pickup time is 9:00 a.m. Wednesdays, to avoid the Noon heat, but I'm hear to say that it really slows the job of picking bread off trays and putting the loaves into totes when you have to wear gloves! Daffodils are in bloom here, while in the valley that won't happen for about a month. The first patch that blooms here is in our lower yard, visible from my office window, in a place that gets morning sun. All the daffodils under the big trees along the driveway are still getting ready to bloom; they almost never see any sun, the downside of having so many trees! (If there is one.)

We're located a quarter-mile from the ocean, in the middle of hundreds of acres, mostly old-growth spruce. A few years ago someone extended a road to the hilltop across the valley from us, so there are three houses up there that we see at night--but that road comes in from the north, has no connection with our road. Although almost no one lives along our road, lots of people walk here, especially when it's windy on the beach. Our steep little valley is pretty protected from wind and the worst storms. We do fear fire as well as knowing that if a tsunami ever hits, it will race right up our creek and take our house.

The really special thing is that everyone here is so friendly, so willing to be helpful whenever they can. Although we have no neighbors, I knew lots of people who walk along our road long before we lived here full time. Today, I walked on the beach for a couple of hours with a fellow who just moved here from Texas and his sister from the Portland area. The beautiful weather meant that the beach was pretty crowded: our town of 8,000 has about 50,000 visitors most weekends. The fellow from Texas is looking forward to having been here long enough that he can gripe about all the tourists!

I confess that I've usually lived on acreage, and never where there's real snow in the winter. I can't imagine living where there are close neighbors. A wimp!

@joyces You paint a lovely picture of your area. We also live in Oregon, at the very tip bottom of Douglas County along I5. You're correct about weather patterns, as we are nestled in a valley that seems to have its own weather patterns! At the holidays we had 12" of snow and ice that stuck around for almost 2 weeks. We have been averaging morning lows of 30 degrees recently, dipping down to 22, with this weekend's highs close to 70!

No tourists coming to our little enclave of less than 900 people, no draw!
Ginger

Before we moved here full time, I had thought that tourism was a great way to have a good economy. Hah! The downsides are many, when the 50,000 tourists outnumber the 8,000 residents. We now have a quarter of all houses in town as VRDs (vacation rental dwellings). That means that one in every four houses has no permanent occupants, no one to care about what happens in their neighborhood or the town in general. The rental management companies encourage overfilling houses (= more $$$): a four bedroom house often has 8-10 cars outside. Even if no one has brought kids, that probably means an average of two people per car, or 16-20 adults in a 4BR home! There are always rollaway beds and cots stashed in all the closets. By the end of any weekend, trash overflows. Large groups often like to party, with no regard for people who have to work, live a normal life, in the house next door. The other huge downside is that all the low-income workers necessary to keep the rentals and restaurants running have no place to live: the little houses scattered around town have been converted into VRDs for the most part. Tourism workers are forced to live north of town in an unincorporated area where taxes are far less. Also, there are far more tourists during the nice summer months, which means lots of low-income workers laid off as winter sets in. Tourism costs our town a great deal: all the infrastructure to support all those tourists must be paid for by residents.

Yesterday it was so warm that you could be out on the beach without even a sweater, and the beaches were crowded. On Monday, when I walk the quarter-mile to collect our mail, I'll need to take a trash bag to pick up all the litter, all those cute little plastic bags of dog poop left alongside the road. My trash can runneth over!

It is sad, I used to live in Bandon, but because of these very same things. I have lived on the I-5 corridor for the last 20 years.

Bandon is one of my favorite places on the planet! Sadly, we haven’t been there in years.