One Step Ahead, Two Steps Back

...toward spring I mean.

In the week since I last posted, we've had two ice storms, two snow squalls, and one day of spring-like weather (today - albeit windy and rainy).

There is the possibility of snow in the forecast for tomorrow night again.

{A little spun cotton chick in a sphagnum moss nest in a little escargot pot with an ice-coated window in the background}

I had said I would try to show some Easter photos but, obviously, that didn't happen. Well, it's happening now (if you haven't figured that out), but it didn't happen before Easter like you probably (and rightly) assumed it would. 

Each year I bring out less and less, which means I should get rid of more and more.

But that's not likely to happen either.

In any event, here are a few photos. Heavy on the rabbits, I know.

{Antique and vintage candy containers. Most are German, but a few are Japanese, or unmarked. These are the kind where the heads remove to access the candy (vs. the type with a paper-covered opening in the bottom)}

 

{Another antique candy container...with embellishments}

{Rabbit print on old paper framed on an antique book cover}

{Pressed paper/pulp/ paper machie rabbit...one of many. Another obsession}

{Antique German die-cut rabbit and vintage watch faces and flower frog}

{Probably my largest antique candy container}

And lest the fowls cry foul, Miss Fiona is here to represent the chicks, ducks, and ducklings in my collection that didn't get shown.

{Yes, she is real...and taxidermized. Sorry}   

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As a bit of a postscript, someone mentioned in my last post that they wondered where the rabbits go in our wretched winters. 

Contrary to popular belief, they do not hibernate.

Rather, they seek shelter in a variety of places: brush piles, tall grasses, under my porch decking.

During periods of heavy snows (i.e., weekly in Nod), they will use the snow itself as a shelter - building tunnels and shallow depressions in the snow called "forms."

The snow acts as an insulator reducing loss of body heat and a buffer against the wind.

All too soon, they come out and build nests. One day the ornamental grass was covered in several feet of snow and the minute the snow melted, some bunny had burrowed in and started building a nest out my back door. Again.

GAH!