It’s trying to be Spring

While out and about last week we looked high and low for positive signs of spring.  Still no spring flowers, but lots of birds singing and the trees are starting to bud out. This has to make the porcupines very happy.  Fresh new buds gotta taste way better than just gnawing on tree bark. While sitting in my little blind, I thought I could see something sticking its head out of the wood duck house that’s on the other side of the pond.  After zooming in with binoculars, I could see it was a woodpecker.  Oh well, at least something was checking it out.The mergansers and mallards are still hanging around the pond and I’m hoping they’ll find a nice spot out there and start a family.  We haven’t seen any rabbits around yet this spring, but there have been quite a few squirrels in all shades of gray, charcoal and black.  This one has some sort of skin problem around its ear. On Monday we came back home for a few days and are glad we did.  I heard there was more snow there on Tuesday.  All I can say is it better be gone by the time we get back later this week.  Sheesh, enough is enough!

Happy Earth Day!

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I know it’s been awhile since I’ve updated and the reason is there hasn’t been much happening around here.  We’ve seen quite a few different birds this spring and the deer swing by each night, along with a raccoon or two.  But we haven’t seen any bear, bobcats or other exciting animals yet.  I should say, I haven’t seen any bear yet.  Jim was out looking for sheds (antlers from deer) the other day and saw a young bear.  They looked at each other and the bear turned and walked down a little hill and disappeared into the woods.  He also saw where it denned last winter.
 
The other day we saw this porcupine along the side of the road.  Apparently he didn’t want me to see his face, but seeing this side of him is a reminder why I was happy I was in the truck when I took his picture.
This week I set up my little blind so I can try to get some pictures without scaring everything away.  The beavers are no longer out there but there’s still quite a bit of water.  This week we’ve seen ducks, herons, geese and some other long legged waders out there.  Here’s a picture of my blind and the view from it.


I really enjoy sitting out there…as long as it’s not too cold and windy.  This morning I was watching some hooded mergansers and got a fairly good picture of two of them.  Just as I was leaving I saw an eagle fly over.  I don’t know if I scared it off or if it was just a coincidence that it was flying over at that time.  It would’ve been nice if I had known it was around.
Things are still very brown around here, but one of these days, I’m sure spring will happen.  The “s” word (and I don’t mean “s” as in spring or showers) is still being used by the weather people.  Shame on them! 

Spring in the Northland - Part II

Yesterday I saw something I'd never seen before. I just happened to look out the window and there were a couple deer coming across the ice on the pond. In my opinion, one was way too close to open water, but I figured it knew where it was going. Nope. All of a sudden, it's in the water and without missing a beat, it jumped up on the ice and kept on heading this way.  You can see the little deer on the right is all wet from it's chilly dip in the pond.

A little while later two more were coming across.  These stayed more towards the middle of the pond, but one of them went partly through.  We're hoping they've learned the short cut is not the way to go anymore.  If you look way over on the left side of this picture you can see the second pair walking across the ice.

We have to head back home today for a funeral this weekend, but we'll be back ASAP.

Spring in the Northland – Part I

Even though there’s still snow on the ground and ice on the pond there’s been lots of action around here.  On Sunday morning we saw an eagle land on the ice and watched it try to grab something that was frozen in..  I took pictures from inside the cabin.  From past experience I know if I want a picture, take it now, don’t go outside because it just scares the birds or animals away.At the time I didn’t know what the eagle was trying to get, but now that the ice has melted some, we can see this is the head of a duck decoy we left out there last fall. 

Out on a drive on Sunday we saw this proud grouse strutting across the road.  And of course the deer come by here a couple times each day to see if there’s any corn or sunflowers for them to snack on.  This was from rainy Sunday.In the past we’ve seen an occasional otter swimming around in the pond.  This is the first year we’ve seen three of them and were able to watch them play around on the ice.  Otters know how to have fun and they seem to be goofing off most of the time…except if other critters are around.  These two were keeping an eye on me while I was keeping an eye on them. This one wasn’t happy to see a pair of great blue herons land on the ice near their open water. (Also taken from inside the cabin.  Herons have eyesight as good as eagles.)
Jim got this picture of the otters (we’re calling them “The Three Amigos”) and one of the three beavers.  We have the trail cam running and so far only deer and a raccoon have gotten their pictures taken.  Stay tuned, spring has just started up here.

Day Trippin’

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for a road trip over to western Wisconsin.  We always have one specific destination and yesterday it was a stop at Straka Meats for some of their specialties.  After that, we took the first road to the right and saw some great scenery and some unusual sites as well.  First was this nice new log house.  What caught my eye was the way they left the base of the trees on the supporting logs on the porch.  Neat huh?  This place had quite a menagerie of farm critters…donkey, chickens and a llama or two.  It was called the No Profit Farm.  LOL
A little ways further down the same road we saw this beautiful animal in a pen with a couple other elk.
  Okay, don’t know what’s going on here, but they must be raising their own “wild” animals.  Along the same road we saw a bunch of turkeys.  First there was 3 hens that crossed in front of us.  Seeing how it’s spring and being a former turkey hunter, I figured there had to be some toms around too.  Sure enough on the other side of the road there were 6 or 8 of them strutting around with their feathers all fanned out.  Of course they scurried off before I could get a picture of them.

We ended up in Richland Center, stopped at a couple antique stores and had lunch.  We decided it was too nice of a day to hurry back home.  As we left town, we took the a left turn and went back into the rolling farmland.  We saw signs along the road for a shrine and decided to go check it out.  Turns out we’d been there one other time, but yesterday was a much nicer day.  The little shrine sits on top of a hill, in the middle of farm country and is called Our Lady of the Fields Shrine.  It’s one of the most beautiful and peaceful places I’ve ever been to.   Surprisingly the chapel was unlocked so anyone could enter.  Everything inside was beautiful with no signs of vandalism.  Simply amazing.                            A couple views of the old cemetery.     

Call me weird, but I really enjoy walking around old cemeteries like this one.  They’re so peaceful, so many big, beautiful trees and so much history told on the old gravestones. 

It was another nice day and another great road trip.

First Cabin Trip of the Year

We arrived around 3:00 last Friday afternoon.  The driveway was clear and the snow wasn’t too deep.  There was a serious layer of ice on the path down to the outhouse, but that was the only problem we had.When we left last November, we knew we were going to buy a new shower shelter because the zipper on the front broke beyond repair.  We left it standing, just to see if it could survive a northern Wisconsin winter.  As you can see, it came through with flying colors.  Considering how much snow, wind, rain and ice there was, this is very impressive.
On Saturday morning we loaded up our water jugs and went to the little park to fill them up.  As we pulled in, I could see two white things out on the ice.  At first I thought it was snow and then I realized there were two swans sitting on the ice. 
As I was standing on the shore taking their pictures, a couple of ice fisherman started walking out to their favorite fishing hole (literally!). 
The swans didn’t like this at all!  They started walking around, flapping their wings and making all kinds of noise.
Eventually the fishermen got to their fishing holes and the swans quieted down.
  We filled up our jugs and headed back to the cabin with a trunk load of water.
Saturday was a beautiful day, somewhat warm with lots of sun.  We filled up the birdfeeders and put a little corn down for the squirrels and deer.  It was really nice to see these two appear during the day.
Things looked good out by the beaver lodge.  We saw 2 beavers out on the ice on Saturday night.  They’re going to have some major repairs to do on the dam when the ice melts.  The water is going through in a new spot.  Just hope the dam holds.  Fingers crossed for our sake and the beavers.

Sunday was an icky, cloudy, drizzly, hang around the cabin kind of day.  On Monday morning  I turned on the TV and this is what the weather guy was showing.  Are you kidding me?  Okay, so now they’re talking blizzard warnings starting on Tuesday morning.  No way!  The snow was bad enough, but the cold weather following it was the clincher.  We decided to come back home.But it was a nice weekend and as soon as the weather straightens out, we’ll be back.  We left the trail cam up so we’ll be able to see what comes by and how much snow fell and all that good stuff.