Found in the Garden

Mary was doing some weeding in her flower garden this morning when she realized there were a pair of beady little eyes watching her.

Cooling Off

The whitetail deer haven't shed their warm winter coats yet. So when the afternoon temperature hit 77F this local deer was looking for a cool spot next to our pond.

Pink Supermoon

According to the almanac, the April full moon is known as the "Pink" moon. The April full moon isn't pink, but it coincides with the early springtime blooms of pink phlox. It is also known as a supermoon because it appears bigger and brighter due to being slightly closer to Earth. I got this photo of the Pink Supermoon tonight just after sunset.

Bald Eagle

I knew a Bald Eagle was in the neighborhood. I saw a Bald Eagle at our pond scoping out a duck dinner earlier this week and had an eagle fly over today while I was mowing. It took a while, but I was finally able to get a Bald Eagle to come in to the game camera.

The eagle and some ravens.

Garden Time is Near

The snow was coming down today and it's at least another 5 to 6 weeks before I can plant my garden but I'm starting some plants now.

My sweet potato farm. I'm propagating these sweet potatoes from cuttings at the rate of 1 or 2 plants per day. A couple dozen of these plants will be headed to Iowa.

I've started at least 70 tomato plants and will give away about half of these.

Nap Time?

Yesterday's cold/damp weather gave way to a sunny afternoon today and these deer look like they are ready for nap time.

Spring Turkey Season

Spring turkey season starts in two weeks. Here's some turkeys behind our barn.

Don't Mess With a Nesting Goose

Woke up to snow this morning! I drove up to our pond to check on the nesting goose and found some curious young deer already checking out the goose. The goose wasn't too happy with the visitors and when one of the deer got too close, it got a peck on the nose.

Wildflower - Spring Beauty

Checking out our West Hill property today and found the wooded hillside covered with Spring Beauty wildflowers. These small, 3/8 inch, wildflowers are one of the first to bloom.

Goose Nest

I drove to our pond this morning to put out some corn for the geese. I found Mama goose standing over her nest. I think she was stretching her legs after a long night of sitting on the nest and preparing to look for some corn for breakfast.

As Mama goose was looking for breakfast I was able to count six eggs in the nest.

Apricot Tree

The apricot tree at our barn is in full bloom adding more color to spring. As with many fruit trees, these blossoms won't last very long.

Fruit Tree Grafting

This year's tree grafting project is to save a crab apple tree from our family farm. Our family farm dates back to the early settlers of Bradford County and still has some of the apple trees they planted. One tree that stood out was a 40 foot tall crab apple tree. This crab apple tree is over 150 years old and starting to show its age.

Yesterday I collected a branch from the family crab apple tree and made about a dozen grafts on wild apple trees I found growing on our property. I used a simple cleft graft where I made a cutting from the crab apple into a wedge and inserted it into a cleft cut into the wild apple tree.

After aligning the inner bark layers of the two branches I tightly seal the graft with electrical tape. If the graft is successful I will cut/remove the tape next year.

A couple of years ago I was very successful grafting pears. This pear tree graft produced fruit last year. The center branch of this graft is over 4 feet tall.

Goose Nest

There has been a pair of Canada Geese on our cabin pond all spring and this week I found the female starting to nest.

Only two eggs so far.

Sring Turkeys

Our neighborhood turkeys are getting Spring fever.

Snow... Snow... Go Away!

Mother Nature's April Fools joke of snow today is starting to wear thin. I went out on my afternoon wildlife drive and ran into a near whiteout snow squall (and found a goose).

Nature's April Fools Joke

The temperatures have hit the 60's and 70's for the last couple of weeks but Mother Nature's idea of an April Fools joke was to dump some snow on us. Mother Nature got her laugh and the snow was gone by the afternoon.