The aftermath, shedding new light and averting disaster....

February 26, 2025

 Lots of blowing, ploughing and shovelling ensued after the second dump of snow on the weekend of the 16th. Then came the slogging to get our trails walkable. I might have overdone that a bit, as the old knees complained bitterly for a few days. Hubby did most of the trail breaking after that! 

Some pictures of the beautiful white stuff.

The garden picnic table after the first dump of snow...

Then after the second dump over the weekend, wind included...

The bare outline of our previously packed snowshoe trail.

Despite the lightness of the snow, it was still fairly heavy going, as one's snowshoes sank a lot. Along one of our trails, Hubby breaking trail in the lead, a sudden flurry and beating of wings, as a grouse exploded from right beneath his advancing snowshoe.

Anyone who has experienced this will know what an adrenaline rush ensues. The grouse was comfortably ensconced in its comfy little  snow cave when we came along. Must be startling for it as well! (I had to darken the picture to see the hole, and if you look closely, you might see it's wing prints on the snow.) That very same day, we actually laid eyes on a Snowshoe Hare in the same area. It took off, running easily on top of the snow, stopping beside the trunk of a big pine briefly, where we got a good look. It's white is just slightly off-white, and when it moves, easier to spot.

There are a couple of deer still up here on the hill, although the snow is a bit deep for them now. This is the furrow their belly ploughs through the snow as they move about. 

Family Day weekend, the weekend of the second snowstorm, our son made it up and gave me pictures he'd taken a few weekends previously. We have a female Pileated woodpecker visiting our bird feeders. She loves the hanging suet cake, and clings to it, pecking out chunks, then drops down to the snow beneath and eats them. This is her beneath the suet feeder, another bird visible flying on the right side. Those are all bird foot prints in the snow.

Family Day, and family pizza...No delivery available up here!

 One of the pot lights in the kitchen started misbehaving, so Hubby has installed new LED lights that are making a huge difference to the lighting out there. Yeah! Happy dance. I'm sure the previous lights were as energy efficient as any that were available at the time of their installation, but Wow..these new ones are wonderful.

As far as the disaster...my computer started making strange cracking noises when attempting to shut the lid. Leaving it sitting with the lid up was not an option. Mr. Fix Anything had a look and found the case was cracked and spreading apart, even though the screws were still there. A judicious application of crazy glue and some clamps. Much better, but I fear that we'll soon be shopping for a new beast.

 

 

Now, this is winter as it should be!!

February 16, 2025

The word of the week is ....Snow! Just short of a foot of snow fell over Wednesday evening into Thursday morning here. Our clearing looks like an expanse of smooth white meringue. The temperature is staying beautifully in minus digits.

This morning, this is the back step.

Another few inches have fallen, as the picnic table was bare yesterday, and snow is still coming down. The flakes are drifting down through the light halo, sparkling against the darkness, then dance and swirl with every little capricious gust of wind, changing directions, even retreating upwards at times. 

By late Thursday morning, the snow eased off, and the shovelling, blowing and ploughing commenced. 

We like to make a two blower pass along the road through the cedar bush, for accessibility.

 The way the blower cuts the snow reminds me of a slice of cheesecake.

The wind and the snow create curiosities. This is the picnic table beside the garden beds, not a really accurate depth gauge, but interesting architecture, more abrupt on the N side where the wind has been hitting. 

The wind has been barrelling down from the north a good bit lately.

A few threads are starting to shred out from the end of the flag. Time for replacement.

We had to get out and break some trails on Friday, an irresistible blue sky day with a brisk north wind.

Someone else had their snowshoes on...perhaps a Snowshoe Hare.

You can really see how it's feet are spread out like snowshoes, the nails making little nicks in the snow at the front of its feet. The foxes are around and do like travelling along our packed trails. We saw the bounding tracks of a marten, but no one else had ventured out onto the fresh canvas yet.

Is this a study of blue on white or white on blue? This White Birch really stood out to me, but the picture does not do it justice.

And this tree, a large, pyramidal White Spruce in a clearing...we have named The Sergeant, in honour of a cousin and best friend, a police officer who recently lost his battle with cancer.

Moose business...

February 8, 2025

It has been a week of glorious winter, such a change from that aberration we endured last year! Several days have been cold but bright, with sun and blue skies. Others days were milder with overcast skies and snow flurries, more beautiful white fluffy powder to pad up our trails and beautify the landscape. The temperature has stayed securely, well below the freezing point. 

Yesterday was a windy, blue sky day, the wind whipping the snow around, whirling it up in big white-out 'snow-nados', drifting it along edges and smoothing over the yard, clearing it into a smooth, white canvas.

A few oak leaves, released from their marcescent parent, dancing and twirling across the surface with the wind, have etched strange hieroglyphics on the wind packed surface of the snow.

Particularly, on clear sky mornings, the housework can wait. It is the best time of day to strap on the snowshoes and head out to explore. The lighting is perfect, just as the sun is up enough to be seen, sparkling through the trees to the SE, and throwing shafts of yellow light across the landscape.

One morning, our trail was punched with big holes...a moose, or several had come across the property, taking the line of least resistance through the bush.... our trail. We followed the tracks, noting where they diverged from our trail, then rediscovered them going toward the barn. Behind the stone fence at the back of the barn, were 3 moose beds, one a little larger than the other two, so we surmise, made by a cow with two calves.

They had settled down behind the stone fence, close beside pieces of old farm equipment which were left there long ago. 

From their beds, the tracks meandered across to the west edge of the clearing where it appeared the trio had been snacking on the tips of raspberry and blackberry canes.

It is always amazing to me, what seemingly small bits of food sustain those large bodies. They circled an apple tree that is behind the large solar panel,

then continued off into the bush to the west. (the straight line in the picture is our snowshoe track coming to check out the disturbances in the snow.) 

On subsequent forays around our back forty and our neighbour's property, we have found signs that they have been hanging around for a while. 

Two winters ago, we had a moose or two around. The scars on the red maples that they had stripped bark from then, are healing.

The critters also like young poplars to snack on, and will just push into the tree, using their body to bend it over, to browse off all the buds and/or leaves.

Often the trees break. 

This morning, another beautiful, still, 'blue sky' day we headed out, hopeful to find some pictures of the moose on the trail cameras. This is the only one.

We think it is one of the moose calves, and to show the size difference, the following picture is of a deer, in roughly the same spot. It is probably this spring's fawn, so a slightly smaller than adult sized deer. The size comparison is interesting.

Another treasure from the cameras, is this picture of an American Pine Martin, cropped to show how lightly he wafts across the snow's surface, leaving barely a trace,

and un-cropped, showing the snowshoe print for a size comparison.

Happy trails.

Tracks, trails and tracings in the snow....

 February 2, 2025

 What a glorious stretch of winter weather we have been having! Early in the week, on a couple of mornings, we awoke to decent amounts of new snow, so fluffy and light. I took a wander up the road before the plough made it up the hill one morning, and marvelled at the straight blue shadows of the trees delineated on the road and on the south facing snow banks.

One fox, or both had been along the road during the snow fall, the tracks all fluffed in. 

What a marvellous plume of snow the big blower on the tractor throws out!

The capricious winds blow the snow here and there, and when Hubby has finished clearing the lane, I get to sweep down the walking snowman he has become.

Our snowshoe trails are padded up nicely.

Yesterday was a sublime sunny day, and critters had been out and about, leaving their sign on the smooth new canvas, even though it never got much above -13C (8-9F). 

There are still a few deer around,

although they seem a little more leery about coming by the camera sets. We see their tracks in the snow, giving the cameras a wide berth. Perhaps there is the smell of 'human' on the apparatus, and they may be more stressed and extra careful, as there are daily signs of wolves/coyotes travelling through the area. This fellow is a little larger than his companions. Larger prints and longer stride.

Quite a few tracks cross our snowshoe trail, and it appears that a pack of several animals were travelling together. Across the north end of the property, they followed the packed base of the snowshoe trail for a way, detouring slightly to lift a leg and leave their scent on any protrusion of rock or stump sticking up out of the snow. They are travelling through, following the deer down to their winter yards.

Smaller critters have been out and about. This red squirrel had been out accessing it's food stash,

and little tracings on the snow show that a mouse had been here, it's tail mark visible in the fluff. It popped up from the subnivean layer, wandered a bit, then popped back down.

Could have been a dangerous foray, depending on who might have been travelling by at the time!