Happy Winter Solstice

December 21, 2024

 Well, this weather is more like it! It is clear and cold at -14C (7F) this morning. The stars are twinkling in the dark velvet of the sky. Last winter was just endured with its rain and mild temperatures. This is Canada...it is supposed to be cold!! 

We have a good base of snow now, and one can see the deer migration trails, clearly grooved into it by all their hooves, in all the usual spots, as they start to migrate through to their winter yards to the south.

(Had to darken this to see the tracks cutting the snowbank and coming across the road.)
With the deer, come wolves, and we heard their long, drawn out howls one day recently.

There is a particularly verdant patch of grass by the pond here, and the deer know, and have been pawing through the snow to snack on it.

In the bush, under any large oak tree that bore fruit this year, the leaves are all scuffled up from the foraging deer eating acorns.
 The season is beginning quite a bit more normally than it did last winter. There is nothing more invigorating than donning ones woollies and heading out into the crisp air.  A new pair of mitts and a hat to celebrate!

Most of the Christmas goody baking is done, and is stored in tins in 'the other fridge'...the shelf in the unheated back porch. The Christmas pudding steamed on the wood stove for a few hours yesterday. It's a beauty, fat and sassy, full of fruit, and carrots and spuds.

The turkey will be coming out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge tomorrow. 

Earlier in the fall, a few days were warm and sunny, and hoping to avoid cooking the contents of the hot frame, I lifted the lid a smidge and propped it there, thinking to keep out the hungry deer. Well, I forgot about the hungry voles....who promptly entered through the crack, and toppled my beautiful row of carrots like little trees, all in a row...and ate the roots.... I should have lifted the lid properly and put the screen in place. Lesson learned!  I was looking forward to savouring those 'candy carrots'. Better luck next year I guess. Yesterday morning, early, when there was just enough light out to see, we watched our resident fox scouting around the garden beds and rock fences. I was cheering him on and encouraging him on the vole hunt!

Another denizen of our bush...

A fisher going by a trail camera, and how Christmassy is this? Deer in the falling snow.

Wishing everyone a safe and Happy Christmas.

Header picture was taken at Combermere one morning, with hoar frost coating the trees along the Madawaska river.