Bear nests, moose beds and wolf talk....

 March 16, 2025

This week, with its crisp, frosty mornings, has been just perfect for wondering over hill and vale on snowshoes. There is enough snow to cover obstacles, and the nice firm surface makes the going easy, so we have spent several mornings exploring the properties in our vicinity. Over the last two nights, the temperature has not gone below freezing, snow is melting, the ice-bound driveway is now mostly bare, wet gravel, and the road is a muddy mess. Rain is in the forecast, so I suspect our snowshoe wandering may be at an end. Five Redwing Blackbirds made an appearance early yesterday morning, right on cue. They are usually one of the first spring migrants to arrive.

On our Monday morning foray, we found this chair off in the woods, in a small clearing on a knoll with good visibility, likely used by someone during hunting season. There is still a good blanket of snow in the bush, but the seat of the chair is probably visible now, the snow having settled a good bit, after five afternoons of warm temperatures.

In several places, there were obvious signs of moose presence, from tracks to beds to heavily browsed saplings.

In some massive oak trees, we found bear nests'. In the fall, the bruins climb up, make themselves comfortable, then pull in the surrounding branches, bending and breaking them, to eat the acorns. The branches, broken while still leafed, are now a tangle of dead branches with dead leaves clinging on.

This particular oak was very large, the picture not really showing the true size of the 'nest'.

With a good padding of snow, one can walk some of the old stone fences.

In other places, on high hills, one can see for miles. In this shot, an intermittent snow flurry was whiting out the distance.

This is a beautiful big hemlock tree we found on our rambles.

On very crispy Wednesday morning, we did some wondering on adjacent crown land, slipping and sliding our way down to this hidden beaver pond, the sun just peeking through the trees, casting a pinkish light over the snow. The hill is steeper than it looks, and my snowshoes were skidding across the crusty surface, so I tried to choose a route with lots of trees to grab onto!

 Yesterday morning early, we were able to walk around on our frozen snowshoe trails without snowshoes on. We heard a few long soaring wolf howls off to the south, to which Hubby responded, and was, thrillingly, responded to!

 I'm sure the kitchen has missed me, but I did process the last of my pumpkins, just starting to show tiny bad spots,

and this second to last butternut squash, still pristine.

Pepper seeds have germinated, and the tiny green sprouts have just been placed under lights. One can vaguely see the outline of my garden beds under the snow. Its time do do some serious garden planning.