May 16, 2014

Another camera, another set of random pictures

 Jim was busy building blue bird boxes.  He ended up making 9 of them and we placed them around the 20 acre field next to our cabin.

This house and barn look like something from an old western movie.

A bittern that thinks I can't see him.  It really blends in though, doesn't it?

These two are my favorite neighborhood critters!  I don't know their names, but we call them Fjord and Dusty. The horse is a Fjord horse and the donkey always looks so dusty.  Real original, huh?

Some actual signs of spring!  Wildflowers and ferns.

 If you feed them, they will come.  These birds can't get enough grape jelly and orange halves.

This is a new visitor, it's a Cape May Warbler.

 A Gray Catbird and female Baltimore Oriole

A Rose Breasted Grosbeak and Gray Catbird.

And last but not least, this is still a very common sign around here.  Roads are closed because they're deep in mud, the culverts are plugged or a beaver has backed up some creek and now the road is under water.  Notice how little green there is in all of these pictures.  But one of these days spring will pop and we'll be complaining about bugs, heat and humidity!  

That's all for now!

May 14, 2014

Today I decided it was time to download the pictures on the camera that usually travels in the truck with me.  There's quite an assortment.  Here's a sampling of a weeks worth of pictures from around here.

Ummm. I'm thinking the weight of the snow was just a little too much for those supports.

This isn't the only structure around here with damage from heavy snow.

We've had quite a bit of rain lately and this road is now closed.

This hole has been repaired.

There was still some snow along the edge of the road and an opportunity for Jim to make a couple snowballs.

This one got to go for a ride with us. 

It was surprising how long it stuck to the hood before sliding off.

Jim pruned out a bunch of brush in front of my blind so I won't have a lot of pictures that look like the next one.

See that branch?  It's not going to be a problem any more.

Always good seeing deer that survived the horribly cold and snowy winter up here. 

Some of our favorite spring birds. Two Gray Catbirds and a Baltimore Oriole. This year I learned besides oranges, they'll also eat grapefruit.

Yesterday we took a walk between the "scattered showers" and I was in the right place at the right time when this train came along.  

Shortly after the sky looked like this and it was raining again even with the sun out.

Down by the Pond

We’ve had a lot of rain here in the last couple months and so far Barney the head beaver has done an excellent job of keeping up the dam.  
This morning I took a walk down there to see how high the water is and how the dam was holding up.  It’s been at least 10 years since there’s been this much water out there.  After each rain, we see Barney cruising around and checking out the dam.  During the night he must call in the rest of the family and they all get together and have a big ol’ dam party!  This morning a little water was going over the top and some was coming through it but not bad, considering how much rain we’ve had.  I think they do a dam good job. 

There’s lots of birds and waterfowl around here because the beavers created this pond.  We’ve seen 3 different duck families and a goose family out there this summer.

Today I finally got a picture of the Catbird that has nest somewhere near the dam.  I could hear the little ones, but couldn’t see the nest.   Mrs.  Catbird was scolding me, so I took her picture and left her alone with her babies.  Catbirds are all gray with a patch of black on the top of their heads.  They eat lots of bugs and  have a really pretty song.   Nice birds to have around.