Peek-a-Boo With a Fawn

During my evening wildlife drive at our cabin property I watch a fawn bed down in some grass 200 yards away, next to a farm road. After the fawn stayed in the spot for a while I drove over to see if I could get some pictures. I got within 20 feet of the fawn before it sprang out of the grass, stopped and looked at me. The fawn would bed down in the grass for a minutes, then pop up, look at me and then move another 30-40 feet and repeat. We played this game of Peek-a-Boo for 10 to 15 minutes, until the fawn went into some thick brush.

Reed's Graduation

June is graduation month and Grandson Reed graduated from daycare on Friday.

Reed and his Dad.

Reed, forth from the right, and his classmate.

Turkey Poults

Doing my late afternoon wildlife drive at the cabin property and found this hen turkey with 5 young poults.

"Mini-Me" Toad

I was doing my morning check of the plants in our solarium when I noticed the large ceramic toad flower pot had a new "Mini-Me" version. The smaller real toad must have entered our garage while the door was open and then went to the solarium to catch some bugs.

After photos, "Mini-Me" toad was released outdoors.

The Bears are Still Here

Within hours of checking the game camera at my deer stand on Saturday the larger, "chocolate brown", bear was back at the game camera.

This same "chocolate brown" bear was also back around 10:00PM that night.

On Sunday the smaller black bear was back at the game camera. This is the same bear I saw on Sunday while brush-hogging in the same area.

Redwing Blackbird Nest

I was doing some brush-hog mowing and came close to mowing down an active Redwing Blackbird nest.

The nest was constructed near the top of some bulrush plants.

Momma bird voicing her disapproval of my mowing. I will not mow this small section of the field until the birds leave the nest.

More Bears in the Neighborhood

It had been a couple of weeks since I checked the game camera at my deer stand and since then the weeds have grown, blocking the view. After checking hundreds of photos of weeds dancing in the wind I came to photos two bears walking by the camera yesterday. It was easy to distinguish two different bears due to size and since one was black and the other was a dark brown.

I went back today with the tractor and brush hog to mow down some weeds and kicked the black bear out of a hay field near the game camera.

Meeting New Fawns

Some of this spring's new fawns are now one month old and able to travel around easily with their mothers. The mothers are starting to introduce the fawns to the neighborhood as the fawns are integrated into the local deer herd.

Hopefully this fawn won't confuse this young buck with its mother.

Foxglove

I was doing some brush hogging of fields around our house when I found this one lone Foxglove plant (Digitalis purpurea) growing along the small creek behind our house. Seeds from a local flower garden must have escaped and were carried here by birds.

Bald Eagle

I drive by this section of Wysox Creek all the time, but the dead tree in the creek looked different this time. It was a Juvenile Bald Eagle on the tree (right side of photo) waiting for a fish.

The Voodoo Lily is in Bloom

Our Voodoo Lily (Dracunculus vulgaris) is in bloom. This flower will only bloom for one day, which is good because it smells like rotting meat to attract flies as pollinators. The center spike, known as a spadix, is 15 inches long.

Eastern Milk Snake

With the current cool nights and warm days it is not uncommon to find cold-blooded animals, such as this Eastern Milk Snake (Lampropeltis triangulum), sunning itself to warm up. I found this 3 foot Milk Snake warming up on our southern facing concrete steps.

Eastern Milk Snakes are non-venomous but will bite if threatened. This one made no attempts to bite but did shake its tail like a Rattlesnake as it slithered away.

This young Eastern Milk Snake, about the size of a pencil, was able to sneak into the garage and then into the solarium. This young snake was more aggressive than the older milk snake and struck at the camera several times.

Another Bear Sighting

I was driving around the cabin property this afternoon and found this bear checking out the neighborhood. I was able to follow the bear with the truck for a while until it went further off the road.

Bullfrog

I never know what I'll find while mowing the lawn, such as this very large Bullfrog. I was only able to get a couple photos before the Bullfrog made a 10 foot leap from the bank into the pond.

Bears Everywhere

June is the start of the black bear mating season and I'm seeing more bear activity on my game cameras.

Two bear sighting at my deer stand within a week. This isn't the same bear that came through in mid-May since this bear didn't have an ear tag.

This young bear posed for selfies at the camera by the gate to our cabin.

Deer on a Warm Day

It was warm and sunny today, and the local deer were looking for cool places.

My neighbor told me that he had just seen some baby Wood Ducks on our cabin pond. I tried sneaking through the woods to get close to the ducks. No ducks found but I was able to sneak up on this bedded deer.

Late this afternoon, while driving home from our cabin, I found this doe and two fawns slowly walking along the edge of the neighbor's pond.

Eastern Rocket Pepper

About 15 years ago we were introduced to the Eastern Rocket Pepper (Capsicum annuum 'Eastern Rocket') while discussing hot peppers in the checkout line at an Agway store. We were then gifted some of these pepper plants and told to save the seeds from a very ripe pepper for the next seasons planting. For years we were able to enjoy these mildly hot peppers but a few years ago I couldn't get the pepper seeds to start growing. Maybe the pepper seeds I collected weren't fully developed. I checked the Internet and found a half dozen references and photos of Eastern Rocket Peppers but no sources of seeds or plants. After several years of failure, I tried some 12 year old seeds and was able to start two pepper plants last year.

By the end of last year's garden season I had this one (1) mature Eastern Rocket Pepper to collect seeds from. After collecting the seeds I then dug up and saved this pepper plant and a Red Knight pepper. The two saved pepper plants were stored in our solarium for the winter.

Early this spring both the Eastern Rocket and Red Knight peppers started to bloom and produce a crop of peppers. Last year's Eastern Rocket plant now has 8 peppers with 3 of the peppers starting to ripen. Soon I should be able to collect more seeds from the plant I started last year.

These are two of the Eastern Rocket Pepper plants I started this year from seed collected last fall. These peppers were transplanted to my garden this week and some of their flowers are now in bloom.

Last year's Red Knight pepper plant is producing ripe peppers and we enjoyed fresh/ripe peppers in our salad tonight.