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Back at the Cabin Again

No Jury Duty for me next week.  So it looks like we’ll be here for awhile.  This morning we got busy getting all the things out that were put away for the winter.  The rain barrels are sitting empty waiting for the first spring rain which could happen this weekend.  The shower shelter is set up.

The little fridge is plugged in and stocked.

Molly had her first swim of the year.

And my perennial garden looks just about as nice as when I planted it last spring.  These are the only kind of flowers to have around here.  They don’t need watering, the deer won’t touch them, they won’t freeze and they don’t die when a dog steps on them.

Glad to be back, especially on such an incredible spring day.  It was 57 when we got up this morning, there were lots of ducks on the pond and all kinds of birds visiting the feeders.  I am so happy there’s no jury trials next week.  Thanks to everyone for crossing your fingers and for sending positive thoughts my way.  It worked! 

Back home again

I really didn’t want to, but we had to come back home today.  Appointments to keep and favors to friends to complete.  Now if things go the way I’m hoping, when I check the Jury Duty website on Tuesday, it will say I’m not needed and then we can go back up north.  Please keep your fingers crossed for me. 

Here’s the wildlife moment story I promised. 

Most days we determine what we felt was our "wildlife moment" of the day. Tuesday was a good wildlife moment kind of day. It was around 4:00 and we decided to take a drive down to "the pit", which is an abandoned gravel pit about 9 miles away. It’s a good place to go for a walk and a nice place for Molly to take a swim, unless it’s too cold, like yesterday. Anyway, we’re driving along when all of a sudden Jim says there’s a wolf back there. Eeek! We get to a spot where we can turn around, I get my window down, camera all set and slowly go back to where he saw it. Oh ya, it was still there, but only long enough for me to take 2 pictures.

Wow! That was a wildlife moment. We see wolves every year, but rarely get a picture of one. So now we continue down the road to the pit. We park, walk down to the pond and see there are some trumpeter swans and ducks on the water. The ducks take off, but the pretty swans swim around so I can take their pictures. Nice swans, thank you very much.When I got home and downloaded the pictures, I noticed one of the swans had a yellow collar around the neck. Well, last fall I took pictures of a swan family and two of them had collars. I zoomed in on the collar and guess what? It was one of the same ones from last fall. The swan on the left is number 26C. I decided to search around and see if there was a place to report this information. Sure enough USGS has a form and I reported my trumpeter swan sighting.

See why I want to back up there?  Everyday there’s so much to see and so many pictures to take. 

Beaver Tales

For 3 nights show time started around 6:30. All of a sudden one or both beavers appear on the ice and I rushed out with my camera, missing Wheel of Fortune and started taking pictures of them. Here’s what the pond looked like Monday night. There’s open water around the edges, the beaver lodge is on the upper right side and the dam is over on the left side, out of this picture. Anyway…that dot on the ice is one of the two beavers that hang around out there.

Here’s a better picture of it.

As I was standing on the hill taking these pictures, I heard another one slap it’s tail on the water giving the warning sign to the other beaver. That surprised the hell out of me because at the time, I didn’t know there was another one out there. So I stood around taking more pictures of the one on the ice and all of a sudden the other one swims out from under it! How cool is that? The two of them hung around for awhile and finally one swims back under the ice over towards the dam. I decide to go over there to see if I could get some closer pictures. I wasn’t disappointed! That’s him swimming next to the dam.

And then I zoomed in on the little bugger.

He swam back and forth a couple times, checking me out then finally he slapped his tail on the water and disappeared again. I decided I had enough pictures and called it a night.

We’re amazed at how much wildlife we’ve seen in just one week.  Wait until I get my next wildlife moment written up.  It’s a winner and there will be pictures!

Green Horn

Well the shed hunter had success yesterday, but he didn’t find the one he was looking for.  He did find a nice one from last year.  It was still in good shape, just a little green from spending a whole year laying on the ground.  Many times when you find an old one, it will have chew marks or whole points chewed off by mice or other little ground critters.  Good source of calcium for them.

Last night we had a couple bucks come by to visit.  Got some nice pictures of them on the trail cam.  Around 12:30am a coyote got his picture taken and that was the last picture the cam recorded.  Not a deer, bunny or raccoon.  They know when danger is in the area.

Here are the bucks that came by.  You can see nubbies on top of his head.  They will grow into antlers and next spring Jim will be hunting for them.

We had two wildlife moments this morning.  First we saw that rascal Otto the otter running across the ice.  A little while later we saw two trumpeter swans fly over the cabin.  That was the first time we’ve ever seen them around here.  I’m sure they would’ve landed on the pond if there was open water.  Darn!

Like Looking…

for a needle in a haystack.  That’s what Jim’s been doing since Thursday.  Remember that nice big buck that was hanging around here last fall?  Yeah, this one, the one with the big rack.  Well, all winter long we wondered if he made it through the hunting seasons and then through the winter.  Right now, we know he survived the hunting season because he was nice enough to drop one of his antlers right on one of the trails we have out there.  This is how it was laying when he first saw it.
See it laying on the ground between the arrow and the white tree?So now he’s determined to find the other one.  He’s out there searching high and low on our property, the county forest behind ours and even stepping onto the neighbors to see if he can find the other side. He went through this last spring too and was successful in finding both sides from the other buck that was around here.  He likes doing this kind of stuff and has a pile of antlers to prove it.

For Toodie…here’s pictures of the birdhouses.  The first one is inside out birch bark.  The other one is the outer bark from a poplar tree.

  

Another Wildlife Moment

Yesterday was quite a day for wildlife moments. With the warm temperature, it really got the critters active. We saw the otter in the morning along with some geese. Then as it was getting dark, I saw something else swimming around out there. I figured it was the otter again, but nope, it was a beaver, possibly Barney. A little while later I could see it up on the ice. But it wasn’t just one, there were two of them and it appeared they were preening each other. Here’s a couple pictures, but remember it was getting dark and they were out a ways, so the picture quality isn’t the best.

And one from the trail cam.  I cropped this one so you could see the beavers out on the ice a little better. 

We’re Back!

It’s so nice to be back up here and especially nice that all the snow is gone. For the past few days the temperatures have been 20-30 degrees above normal. This will change in a few days, but it’s really nice while it lasts. There’s still some ice on our pond and the lakes too, but the creeks and rivers are really rolling.

This morning while we were eating breakfast we saw an otter walking out on the ice. Before I could get a picture, he slid into the water. I kept seeing him poke his head up so I decided to go down by the dam to see if I could get a picture of the rascal. He didn’t disappoint me.

And then he was gone!

This afternoon I put the trail cam back on the tree and now we’ll wait and see who comes around to visit us.  There’ll be good eats out there, so hope some deer survived the winter and come to get a snack.

I’ve started a new group for Bird Watchers and Nature Lovers in general.  If anyone is interested in joining, here’s the place to click.  Please feel free to join and add pictures or stories of your current experiences with Nature.  I wanted to have a place to keep all my wildlife pictures together and to share experiences and sightings with other nature lovers.

Jim’s Latest Idea

A couple weeks ago Jim got the idea to build a squirrel-proof birdfeeder.  It’s not that we dislike squirrels, he just wanted to see if his idea would work.  He cut the top off of a bucket to create the tray, drilled holes for drainage and attached it to an aluminum pole.  Then he stuck the pole into the umbrella hole on our outdoor table.  So far not a single squirrel has been able to climb the pole.  The chickadees and finches love it and it appears the sparrows don’t.  So he’s actually built a squirrel and sparrow proof feeder!  He still makes sure the squirrels get their fair share, but they have to eat it on the ground, not in the feeder.  To refill it, he just lifts the pole up, adds a handful of seed and it’s good to go!

Here’s one of the more colorful squirrels in the neighborhood.  It has a very distinctive coloring…almost strawberry blonde.  This is the only one that’s brave enough to drop out of the big spruce tree into the other feeder in front of our house.

On Wednesday we’re heading north for a week or so.  Can’t wait to get back up there and catch up with our northern friends and critters.

Spring?

I’ve seen flocks of migrating geese flying high in the sky, have seen and heard Sandhill Cranes doing the same thing. For weeks, I’ve been looking and listening and yesterday I finally saw my first robin of the year. We were driving along and there it was right near the edge of the road, looking spectacular! Sorry no pictures. Now when I see a bluebird, I’ll know spring is officially here.

Yesterday we took our envelope of coupons and went back to HyVee to pick up some of the freebies. Sheesh, it was like a scavenger hunt looking for items we don’t normally buy. There were some I knew I wouldn’t use so I just left the coupon on the shelf. I saw a young shopper in the bread aisle and asked her if she buys Wonder Bread and handed her the coupon. She smiled and said I will today!

One of the coupons was for any variety of SeaPak shrimp. I’ve never tried it so I picked the shrimp scampi package and we had it for supper last night. We were both very impressed and thought, yeah we’d buy it again. It was kind of fun filling the cart with mostly free items. Next week we’ll go back and try to use up as many as possible before they expire on March 31st.

It’s the third gloomy morning in a row here. Monday and Tuesday were very foggy mornings and today we have rain. The birds are acting very "springy" out there today. Lots of fluttering around. Crows carrying sticks for nesting, cardinals staking out territory and showing me that spring is right around the corner.