Snow is Back, March 23, 24, 2013

During our Friday night drive we hit snow flurries just south of Mount Forest, and they continued all the way.  We arrived about 9:00pm  and noticed that everything seemed to be snow-covered again! It sure made everything look neater - no sign of mud.

Saturday we woke up to quite a nice day.  We were expecting my mom & dad coming from Gravenhurst to celebrate my mom's 74th birthday.  They were to arrive just after lunch.  Mid morning, Paul decided to take the dogs for a walk while I decided to take a shower, after I had prepared the marinade for the pork tenderloins we were to have for the Birthday dinner later that day.

Just as I was about to get out of the shower, I heard Sadie and Rudy barking up a storm. It seemed to go on for a long time so I quickly wrapped my robe around me and hurried out to see what was going on.  I let them in from the side door then I hung around the dining room window in order to let Paul know they were inside.  Suddenly I heard lots of barking and saw 5 or 6 large brown and white hound dogs bounding through the snow and running up the back steps and onto the pond.  They were beautiful, big, lanky dogs and all were wearing large collars with 3 or 4 aerials protruding from around the collars.

Sadie and Rudy were, of course, barking like maniacs and trying to get out and assert their territorial authority.  
I had a hard time trying to calm them and keep them at bay. I noticed Paul walking around the front of the cottage and realized that there was a a guy in full camouflage suit walking right into the driveway.  That also drove our dogs to full barking mode again!  I had to back away from the living room door (me in my robe and wet hair standing on end, still straight from the shower).  As I moved over to the kitchen window and looked out, I saw a rather large pick up truck parked on the road - just up from the compost pile.  There was another guy standing there in full camo gear.

At this point I was eagerly waiting for Paul to come inside and give me the full report of what was happening - I kept thinking - if these guys are hunting (and what could they be hunting in the spring?) why are their dogs running/tracking something on a property where there is "NO HUNTING" signs posted?

Finally Paul came in with the story...these guys were hunting a coyote.  The man that walked in the driveway told Paul that he owed a farm a couple of miles to the east.  The dogs were his and the other guys (I think there were more than the 2 I saw).  They are specially bred "wolf/coyote" hunting dogs.
Apparently, the dogs on our property were the younger dogs, while the older more experienced dogs had the coyote cornered in the fields across from the curve down the road from us.  Sure enough, as we sat digesting this info - and some late breakfast - we heard a gun shot.  So we thought that was the end.  We heard a few more shots a little later so I am not sure whether it escaped the first shot or not.
Later on that day Paul and my dad drove down the road and Paul said there was definitely remains still on the road where they had laid the carcass (I think) before loading it into the trunk of their pick up.

This whole incident has spurred lots of discussions that weekend and in the following days.  We love to hear the coyotes howl and abhor the shooting of wild life but, as a farmer, I guess you would definitely have a different take on things.  Of course the other questions are about hunters on lands marked "NO HUNTING".  Can they let their dogs track on someones else's land?  Let me know your opinions on this subject!!
After all the morning excitement died down, my mom and dad arrived - we had to explain the morning to them right away because we were just starting to eat our lunch when they showed up.  We had told them to come 'after' lunch!

My plan was to take my mom into Durham to the lovely florist/gift shop on the main street to buy her a crackelled "gazing ball" for her garden as a birthday gift.  After a little bit of a visit, off we went.  Of course the guys used this opportunity to go and look at cars at Saugeen motors.
Mother and I were quite successful, and we spent a good amount of time looking at many beautiful possibilities. We also visited some other shops on main street, then headed back.

I should mention, (since I have touched on these subjects before) we had a return appearance by the woodpeckers to the suet feeder. Obviously they had forgiven us for switching brands from the high quality "Nutty Safari" to the lesser quality - ha!ha!

Also - trumpet roll - after almost 3 months we had success with the game camera!!!  We have captured a rabbit/hare and a deer!  Now I hate to be choosy (hee, hee) but... the pictures are in 'night-vision' so you will have to look really close. But here they are:

Yes that white blob is a rabbit!

Into the woods

Hopping down the Bunny trail...

Look Hard! Still there.

Almost gone....

2 days later - I've never heard of a lone deer

Behold the poor, lonely deer!

Well at least it is a start!  Now that spring is coming, I am sure we will have lots more sightings.

Later Saturday night, after all the excitement of the day, we had a Birthday dinner and rounded off the night with an exciting (for me and my mom) 5 games of euchre - mother and I won them all!!!!!!!!!  I will rest on that memory for a long, long time!
Sunday was a short, uneventful day as we wanted to be home for Gordon s hockey game at 4:00pm.  We left at about 1:30pm and had quite a nice drive home.  More to come next visit!

March Break Mess - March 10, 11, 12, 2013

This March break we arrived to find a very different situation to last March Break - cold, damp, freezing rain, wet snow.  The river was quite high and running quite fast with lots of small ice chunks racing by.

As soon as we pulled into the driveway, we discovered that other animals had been interested in our large tray bird feeder.  The area about 10 feet in diameter around the bird feeder had been trampled into bare mud.  The worst part though (an how can I put this delicately?) was the "droppings" left everywhere, lots and lots, even up on the deck, right outside the front door!  Definitely NOT a good situation with two small dogs that wanted to get out of the car and run free.

We woke up the next morning to sun with clouds in the distance.  Unfortunately, as the weather warmed up, more snow melted and it was quite a muddy mess in the front yard.  I took the shovel and actually shoveled snow from drifts in layers on top of the muddy areas.  At least it provided some barrier between the mud and dog paws!

Late in the morning on Saturday, I was sitting with the dogs in front of the fire, when 2 wild turkeys came strutting in the driveway - of course Sadie and Rudy went wild with barking, so the turkeys 'turned tail' and went back the way they came.

We spent the afternoon in Hanover looking for assorted items - I was looking for bird houses.     We found some bargains at the Canadian Tire - a steer head belt buckle for Paul and another hummingbird feeder for me among several items.
I found some beautiful bird houses in Home Hardware, really fancy, but $45 and up!!! I also found some inexpensive bird house kits that I thought I would give a try.

The evening was spent watching "Argo" the new movie directed by Ben Affleck - very good - and playing highly competitive "Aggravation" games with Gordon.  After the game, Gordon happened to look out and saw 3 very large raccoon's at about the same time as the dogs saw them.  Well of course wild barking followed, which unlike the turkeys, didn't phase those coons at all!  They just sat there one on either side of the bird feeder and one right inside it - looking at us like we had no right to disturb them.
Gordon banged on the glass door with no result, and finally had to open the door a bit and yell before they waddled away (but not far).  It took a long time to get the dogs settled down for the night!


The next day brought light rain.  After more disappointing results from the game camera, I finally got Paul to set it up inside the bird feeder.  We did end up with some cardinal pictures and black squirrel picture - and hundreds of chickadee pictures.  Unfortunately, none of the pictures turned out as good as the originals that were taken in December, but those were all totally erased in error!!!  I will  post the best ones on my Birds, Birds, birds page. 

Took a walk late in the morning, sooo messy for the dogs!  Decided to try and build the bird house but realized that we did not have proper glue and paint for the finishing stages.  

We did see an otter running along side the deck outside of Gordon's room and Paul saw a few deer when he was returning from a trip into town.  So overall, the wild life sightings were OK this time.

We were getting ready to leave on Tuesday evening, fairly late.  Gordon had packed the car both before and after a late dinner. When he went out to start it at about 9:45 he discovered - it wouldn't start!  Battery was dead.  After some tense minutes - Paul realized that he had the riding lawn mower battery charged and we could try to hook that up and try to boost the truck battery. 
I spent the next 20 minutes inside texting Tammy and Cindy trying to get a spare for curling the next morning at 9:00am.  Paul suggested we let it sit charging for another 15 minutes,  and that ended up doing the job.  We finally got away at 10:35pm and got home about 12:45.  

All in all, not a very successful weekend, although it was nice to have Gordon there with us.