Foxes

A couple of foxes have moved into the neighborhood. They blend into the background easily but can be spotted in some of their favorite locations, if you know were to look. This fox has likes the wetlands near our barn.



After viewing the foxes a few times, it's easy to tell them apart (darker hind quarter and tail). This fox was found at the wetlands near our cabin. I didn't notice this fox at first, but a couple of deer point him out as they moved in to investigate the fox.



The fox finally gave up on this area and headed for new hunting grounds.

Sun Dogs

While scouting for turkeys in the late afternoon I noticed an atmospheric phenomena know as a sun dog. Sun dogs appear as a colored patch of light to the left or right of the sun, at the same distance above the horizon as the sun. Sun dogs are caused by the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals in cirrus clouds.

Another Sign of Spring

The warm spring weather has gobblers strutting as they try to attract hens. The first photo shows a gobbler strutting past some grazing deer as he makes a "beeline" to the other side of the field. The second photo shows the reason for his rush to the other side of the field. On the ridge he joins another gobbler with a flock of hens.
 
The two gobblers zero in on a couple of hens as they try to impress the hens with their dance moves.

Spring Flowers

After this year's cold, dreary, cloudy, windy and long winter, some flowers on the south side of our garage only needed a couple of sunny days to bloom.

Daffodil Bug in Daffodil

Lenten Rose

Periwinkle

Sprintime Frogs

As the Winter's cold weather continued into Spring, the first warm days brought out the neighborhood frogs in our small wetland area. The sound of hundreds of frogs in this small area can be deafening. After only a couple of days the pond is starting to fill with egg masses, along with frogs.

Spring Geese

The days are getting warmer and geese are pairing up looking for places to nest. With the ice melted from our pond, a couple of geese are checking out this possible nesting location.

Another Sign of Spring? Patching Potholes

As we progress out of the gray, chilly, gloomy days of Winter looking for any sign of Spring, could this be a sign, Rome Township patching potholes???


After months of dodging potholes (and replacing the front wheel bearing on my truck), maybe these mini-speed-bumps will smooth out and stay in the potholes.

First Crocus of Spring

While our current weather may not feel like spring, our first crocus of the year has reluctantly pushed through the frozen ground and bloomed.

Red Fox

There hasn't been too much wildlife activity in the neighborhood this winter, but as the daylight gets longer and temperature gets warmer (hopefully soon), I'm starting to see more wildlife. I got some photos of this red fox looking for a meal.

Firewood

We are half way through Winter and a warm wood stove helps relieve the chill of  the cold days of February. Not only is February a good time to use a wood stove, it is also a good time stock up on fire wood for next year.

With the ground frozen solid we are able to haul logs out of our woods without doing too much damage to the ground. A photo of Mary driving our tractor to the pipeline right-of-way on our property where trees cleared for the pipeline are stacked.



We used the front-end loader on the tractor to load logs on a flatbed trailer and haul the logs to our barn, about a mile and a half drive. With the trailer parked next to the barn the logs were cut into blocks.



Another load of logs ready to be cut into blocks.



Large blocks ready to be split. Many of the logs were over 24 inches across.



Once the blocks are split into firewood it is loaded onto pallets and moved to a storage area using my old John Deere tractor.



The firewood is temporarily stored in our barn to keep the snow off it.



More firewood stored in the barn. This firewood will be moved closer to our house and allowed to season (dry out) for next year's heating season.

Signs of Early Spring

Was "Punxsutawney Phil" correct with this year's prediction of an early Spring? I found these daffodils sprouting next to our barn.


(Please Note: The National Weather Service has issued the following:
...WINTER STORM WARNING NOW IN EFFECT FROM NOON TODAY TO 7 AM EST SATURDAY... )

The Woolly Bear Report

It's not unusual to find  Woolly Bear Caterpillars (Pyrrharctia isabella) scurrying around in the fall, but within the past week I've seen at least a half dozen of these weather prognosticators wandering (slowly) around the neighborhood.

Some people believe the Woolly Bear can predict the Winter weather by the size of the black bands on its body. The more black bands, the worse the winter will be.

Most of the Woolly Bears I've found this week had more brown than black.





Occasionally there is a statistical outlier in the sample data.

Sunset at the farm

The clean white snow-cover from the Christmas snowstorm  is starting to turn light gray  as we progress into Winter and most of the leafless trees are now a drab brownish-gray. An evening sunset added some color to the otherwise black/white view of our farm property. (Click on image to enlarge)

Snow

We've had a few dustings of snow this Fall/Winter season, but this is the first "plow-able" snowfall in almost 2 years.



Our son, Matt, was home for Christmas and his dog, Colby, acted just like most kids with the first snow of the year...


Colby ran up the road ...


Down the road ...


And sometimes stopped to look for rabbits (he loves to play with rabbits).


The snow on our solarium formed lots of icicles as snow started to melt.



The snow acted like a mini-glacier as it slid off the solarium roof.


A picture of Wysox Creek.

Oh christmas tree, oh christmas tree ...

I needed to thin out some of the white pine trees on our cabin property and the Hopkins family was able to select a Christmas tree.



Brian supervises as Daylan and Brady saw the white pine tree.



Brady, Daylan and Brian.



Dragging the Christmas Tree home.