More tree stuff, and fox in a tree.....

 January 23, 2025

Excuse me just a tick, while I wax eloquent about this wonderful weather we've had over the last week, and hopefully ongoing for a while!

Beautiful clear mornings, the stars, sharp pricks of white in the sky's inky blackness. The slowly lightening sky, until the orb of day is visible, her 'crinkle' light sparkling through the bare branches of the trees at the SE corner of our clearing, the sunlight hitting the very tips of the tall spruce spires on the west side. Gradually, the sunlight creeps down until it brushes across the solar panels. By then, the whole world is bathed in glorious sunshine.

Some mornings, I throw on a coat, hat and mitts, and just go out to inhale deeply of the beautiful crisp air, and watch the pinkish sky turn to blue. This January is so much more like normal, or should I say, more like winters we have enjoyed in the past. Of course, not being dressed optimally for the weather on these early morning forays, it is so good to come back inside to the heat emanating off of this!

Wood harvesting goes on. Hubby dropped a big, beech tree that has grown along the E side of our clearing.

It was still in relative good health, although signs of the encroaching Beech Bark Fungus are there. We decided to harvest it while the wood is still fairly sound. It is a branchy beast, having grown with full sun exposure on it's W side, so a bit west side heavy. It was relatively easy to aim it's drop zone across the clearing.

We will be beavering away at clearing up sticks and twigs after getting all the usable wood, for some time to come. Apparently the ATV is not as enamoured with this weather as I am, and refused to start when required to start hauling log rounds, so the tractor was urged into action, boosted to start, then the balky hydraulics warmed with a heat gun, then a tow job to bring the ATV back to the garage....frozen carburetor. We used the tractor bucket then, to roll and pile the log rounds into, and ferry them to the pile behind the barn. Believe me, we sure didn't notice that it was cold out!

The coldest morning over this stretch was just -24C (-11F). Most days the temperature rises to the low minus teens C (12ish F). The air has stayed mostly still and calm, so there hasn't been much of a wind chill factor.

This is what we call the 'Glove Tree'.

Along one of our trails, someone in the past has temporarily put their gloves in the crotch of this tree, who knows for what reason...and forgotten them. They are now totally encased in wood.

Another human sign is the 'Sole/Soul' Tree.

The sole of a boot has been nailed on this cedar tree. We routed the Cedar Bush trail to come by it, picking the highest and driest route, as in the spring, it can be quite wet underfoot. The cedar bush is behind my garden shed, delineated by a stone fence on its east and west sides, and seems to be a place in the past, where refuse was tossed. We have found broken crockery and rusted cans poking up in one area of it. 

 Some mornings there has been a skiff of new snow, just enough to be able to see the tracks from our foxes, who have been diligently scouting the perimeter, on the hunt for vermin.

And, finally...fox in the crab apple tree.... (taken through the window..just a short jump up for him.)

Foxy, did you really think you could reach the suet feeder from here????

The Polar Vortex, trees, deer and pie....Oh my!

 January 18, 2025

We've had a lovely run of cold weather, although today the temperature is just above the freezing mark, and icicles are dripping off the front of the verandah. The Polar Vortex is apparently heading our way later this weekend, so that will firm things up. On our snowshoe walk around the bush this morning, the snow was a bit sticky. It tends to ball up under one's feet on the snowshoe webbing, when it is really mild, and you end up tapping the shoe against trees along the trail to dislodge the lumps. My old-fashioned webbed shoes are much quieter than the modern aluminum and vinyl (?) decked ones, but the modern ones don't have as much issue with sticky snow.

The bush is absolutely riddled with tracks, predominately of deer, but because we've been getting lots of little snow flurries, the tracks are mostly blurred out. One track is distinctive though, that of 'Stumpy'. That is a name we've given to a large deer, probably a buck, whose walking track is well spaced, sinks into the snow further than other deer, and each foot makes holes in the snow the size of a small tree trunk. 

This doe and her fawns show up quite regularly on the cameras..

Here, they are gathered near a salt block we've placed with a camera.
We have had some lovely cold, clear days..

and others, milder with hazy sunshine....

both of which are great for getting exercise and fresh air.

Tree harvesting continues, preparing for the 26/27 heating season. The snow is not too deep, there is only about a foot in the bush so the plough on the ATV keeps the trail drive-able. Most of the beech trees are past their best before date for firewood now, due to the Beech Bark fungus which is decimating Ontario's beech trees, so we've turned to birch, which puts out a decent heat when burned, and they are not long-lived trees. Here and there along the trail, we pick ones that are not in optimum health, and are more accessible.

Timberrrr....

 

This big poplar was more of a handful, but a bit of poplar is better for the 'shoulder' heating seasons, when not a lot of warmth is needed.

The beginnings of the pile behind the barn...

A couple of the latest 'builds' from the sewing room...

Needle books... one for regular sewing needles, and the mauve one for darners used in sewing up knitted goods.

A better solution than rattling around in a little tin box getting their points blunted. 

A bit of mindless crocheting for these dark evenings...

A Tunisian crocheted afghan to use up yarn left over from this Corner to Corner afghan I made a few years ago for our son.

As always, one needs food to keep body and soul together, particularly in the cold weather. The makin's of potato-bacon soup...All the vegetables from my garden.....

And to use up the lemons purchased for Christmas baking, (waste not...want not!) a lemon pie, cooling in the 'back porch refrigerator',

Furred and feathered...

 January 3, 2025

Finally, we have winter! The forecast for the next couple of weeks is for lovely wintery temperatures.

Yesterday we blew and shovelled our way out from under about 6 inches of wet, sticky snow that fell on New Year's Day. Waiting a day proved to be wise, as wet sticky stuff turns fluffy as temperatures drop, which they were supposed to do, and did. The snow was much easier to blow. This morning has dawned with clear skies, beautiful sunshine and a crisp breeze...-9C (16 F). Sunshine has been sorely lacking for the past couple of weeks, and with temperatures fluctuating just above and just below freezing, not ideal December weather, although Christmas morning was sunny for a couple of hours.

Rain after Christmas turned everything into an ice rink, and packed down the snow that we did have. Thankfully it didn't all disappear, and now we have a lovely new layer of snow. The snowshoes are out!                 

 Deer have been moving through the area. There are lots of tracks around the yard, most heading to wherever anything remotely edible is poking up out of the snow. They have been pawing away at the top of my parsnip patch...must be disappointing for them to encounter a mesh of hardware cloth preventing them from reaching the edibles! There are a couple of pyramidal cedars in front of the verandah, and the deer got up enough nerve, or were hungry enough, to come and sample them. We've since wrapped the tree that was getting hit the hardest, in bird seed bags for protection.

On Christmas morning, we heard honest to goodness wolf howls, not just coyote yips, as the canines are following the deer down to the deer yard. This fellow came past a trail camera.

We believe we also have a pair of foxes, as their tracks are daily scouting the yard and around the buildings. We happened to see one of them in the yard one day, and watched as it pounced, cat-like, on something he/she heard under the snow, then proceeded to crouch down and eat the catch. I'm hoping it was one of those pesky voles!

There was a flock of American goldfinches in their winter duds, around the feeders one day recently, and we've seen the Evening Grosbeaks a couple of times, but our usual visitors are Blue Jays, White-breasted Nuthatches, Hairy Woodpeckers, and my favourite little friends...Chickadees. 

The Barred Owl has visited Bird Cam, but didn't give us his best side...

 We've made up a batch of suet cakes, with sunflowers, cracked corn and millet seeds,

but have to ration them, as homemade ones disappear so much more quickly than store bought ones. One wonders what they put in them???