A Day of Rest – and critters

Today was a day of rest from things like breaking down that wood pile in the garden.  Unfortunately, it was also another bad pain day for my husband.  With the weather getting warmer, he’s itching to get outside for a bit of a walk, but it’s not been working out lately. :-(

The outside cats were out in full force when I fed them this morning.  All the regulars were out.  Even The Hand came out, though she was still very stand-offish.

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Yes, there are actually two food bowls with food in them.  They just like to all be around one, I guess! :-D

My going back and forth to put away the bowl I use for the cat food, then getting the deer feed, was too much for her, though.  She still didn’t go far, and watched me closely.  Can you see her?

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“You can’t see me!”

I look forward to when she is comfortable enough to at least not run away from the food when we’re around.

Butterscotch, on the other hand, has no such qualms.

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“MY FACE!  TOUCH IT!  NOW!”

When she wants pets, she does get rather insistent!

Myself, I didn’t see a single deer, though they did come by.  One, I just missed.  Hungry Girl had been outside the window, while three squirrels were busily chasing each other through the branches, when Beep Beep suddenly made a flying leap into a tree after them, startling her away! :-D  My daughter did manage to get a couple of photos first, though.

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“Yo!”

I did notice a group of blue jays at the seeds and went over to get pictures, only to have them fly off into the trees.  They used to stay when I went to the window, but now they don’t.  I think something in the light has changed as spring progresses, and now they can see more movement through the reflections on the glass.

This was the best I could manage!

So uncooperative! :-D

My younger daughter and I got to take advantage of today being Community Day in Pokemon Go and went into town to play the game.  That was enjoyable few hours together. :-)

Then we got home, and found this.

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“I will haunt you in your dreams.”

Waiting for us.

Turns out my older daughter found it hidden away in the yard and left it for us to find.

It’s still there.

:-D

The Re-Farmer

Quiet – and critters

Oh, how I’ve learned to appreciate quiet, boring days.

Not that today turned out to be either quiet, or boring – but it was close enough!

The temperatures dipped a bit today, but the windchill made it feel so much colder.  I was glad not to be going out, that’s for sure!  It was still pretty mild in our area.  In other areas South-West of us, I heard they were closing down the highways in some areas.

Though I was looking forward to sleeping in today – and even stayed up much later last night as well – it seems my brain had other ideas.  I ended up waking up at about the same time as I have been for the past week!  Ah, well.  It could be worse; my husband is up even earlier, every day, because it’s just too painful to be lying down.  That’s the crazy thing about back injuries.  There is no position you can stay in for any length of time before the pain forces you to shift.  So there’s that cycle of getting up, sitting down, getting up, lying down, over and over again.

My older brother was going to drive my mother to the hospital today, had she needed to go.  Since she didn’t, he just had a visit with her, instead.  It’s quite a drive for him to come out here, so that was really nice of him.  He even texted me a photo of her eye, though it didn’t come in for almost 3 hours!  Ah, the joy of cell phone dead zones.

My mother’s eye is noticeably better today; amazing how quickly it’s recovering now that she’s off that one medication.  The new medication is considered a blood thinner, too, but it doesn’t lead to bleeding the way the other one did.  She even let my brother put the brace on her leg, too!  That is such a wonderful step for her.  Now I just hope she’ll be able to get home care to help her get it on.  Theoretically, she can do it herself, but it would be very difficult to get all those straps tightened on her own without the brace shifting out of position, and it’s really important to have that knob properly aligned.

After seeing my mother, my brother came over to our place and we had a nice visit.  Plus, we checked out the door on my van.  The door that he worked so hard to replace has started to drop again when I open it.  *sigh*  It isn’t much, but after what happened previously, I’m a little paranoid about it.  We tightened the hinges again and it’s better, but it looks like it’ll be something that will need to be continually monitored.

One of the things he and I have been talking about was setting up security cameras.  I had been thinking around the house (more to capture the visiting wildlife… :-D ), but he was looking to put one above the garage door, too.  It’s the perfect spot to cover anyone coming in and out of our driveway.  So while we were still in the garage, he closed the door from the inside to look at where the cables would be coming in from a camera mounted outside.  Over there, he points out to me.  You see where that wasps’ nest is?

!!!!!

Turns out we have a fairly large wasp nest inside the peak of the roof, against the garage wall, plus there’s a row of 3 more new nests, just a couple of inches long, and what looks like the remains of other beginning nests.  It was fairly dark (since we don’t have the electricity to turn on the lights, thanks to our movers), so I couldn’t quite make out all of them.

We’d never seen them before because any time we go in the garage, it’s through the main door, which hides them when it’s open.

My husband is allergic to stings.

Those are going to have to disappear.  Preferably before it warms up enough for them to come out of hibernation.

So I’m doubly glad my brother came over!

He didn’t stay too much longer, though, as he was concerned about road conditions, but he still took the time to check out the barn, which also needs to have power restored to it again.  When we get our power pole by the garage replaced and electricity restored there, he’s arranging for the barn to get hooked up again, too.  At some point, we’ll look at restoring the water, too.  When we got running water in the house, with a new well dug in the yard, a trench had been dug towards the barn.  The pipes for the septic field, as well as for water to the barn, were installed all at the same time.  Along with a water pump in the barn, two heated water fountains had been installed for the cows, so they would always have water, even in the coldest of weather.  When, how or where all this got shut down, we don’t know, so there’s going to be some sleuthing to do before any of that is restored.

Add that to the list of things that needs to be worked on, now that we’re living here.

It’s a long list.

In the afternoon, my lovely daughters did some more bread baking, giving me a chance to catch up on my crochet.  With the blustery weather, we weren’t seeing a lot of activity at the feeding station, and what activity we did get was very quick!  I managed to get a cute bluejay photo…

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I love how they tilt their heads like that.

Hungry Girl and Barbecue came over as well.  They dashed in quickly, and seemed very antsy – probably eager to eat and then find some shelter from the wind! – so I didn’t try to take very many photos.  Seeing me in the window seemed to make them more nervous, and I didn’t want to startle them away from the food.

I did manage to get a very pretty profile picture of Hungry Girl.

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In going through my folders of photos, I’ve got quite a lot of photos like this; the deer frequently look behind the house while feeding, so many images are of them in this pose.  I never tire of seeing, them, though.  They’re so lovely!

Ah, but of course, I got some fun pictures, too!  This time, it was Barbecue to was sticking his tongue out (though from the lack of antler buds starting to show, I’m thinking he might actually be a she!).

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This one had me laughing out loud, but I think the next one is some kind of record…

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I think that’s the most tongue ever, in any of the shots I’ve managed to get over these months! :-D

They didn’t stay for much longer after this.

Tomorrow we’re technically supposed to warm up a bit, but the wind is supposed to increase, with more snow.  How much of that will reach us, we shall see, but it’s still going to be another chilly one.

Oh, how I’ve already been spoiled by the calm, warm days we’ve had for the past week.

I think I’ll go through those seed catalogs I got in the mail and dream of warmth and green, growing things.

The Re-Farmer

A Day of Rest

Today was a very quiet day; I’ve learned to really appreciate those!

I posted some photos of the outside cats on my new Instagram account when I went out to feed them this morning.  Butterscotch came out, and I tried to see how the wound on the back of her neck was doing.  The fur was no longer matted and damp looking, but quite clean, so some grooming obviously happened.  Though I could feel where the wound was, she wouldn’t stay still enough for me to see anything.  It’s clearly not bothering her, though, which is good.

I’ve yet to see any deer today.  My older daughter thinks it might be too wet.  I’m hoping they come by later on.  The squirrels and birds will eat only so much, and as damp as things are, the seeds might start germinating – or rotting, depending on the conditions.

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Nasty Crime Boy entertained us for a while.  At first, he seemed to be watching something up the tree, though nothing that we could see from our window.  Mostly, though, he was just starting at the tree trunk.  Perhaps a bug had caught his attention?  I was able to get his attention for a photo, though. :-)

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Trüllbus the Crime Eater took over Rolando Moon’s favourite spot.  He had joined me when I was putting their food out this morning, but he would not let me touch him, or even go too near him.

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The redpolls were out in full force, but they were so active, I didn’t even try for a photo of them.  Instead, I managed to quick shot of this little feathery golf ball of a chickadee!

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Only one blue jay visited today.  Looks like it was a day of rest for the critters, too.

It’ll be an early bed time for me tonight.  I’ve got my first turn taking my mother to a doctor tomorrow morning.  One of her eyes had suddenly turned blood red.  Thankfully, my sister was visiting that day and able to take her to see a doctor.  The local clinic was closed, however, so she had to go to a clinic in the next large enough community.  That’s where I need to bring her back to tomorrow morning.  It’ll be about 40 minutes drive, plus the time it’ll take to pick up my mother.  Who knows how long we’ll be in the waiting room; they only told her to come back in the morning.  No appointment made.

I think I’ll bring along a small crochet project.  And maybe some extra yarn and hooks for my mother. :-D

My daughter has already offered me the energy drink she had been saving for another day.  I’m going to need it! :-D

The Re-Farmer

For the Birds

Alas, no deer photos today.  None dared go past the snowman to get to the feed.

The birds, on the other hand, had no such issues.

I played around with the preset settings on the camera today and found that the landscape setting seems to address a problem I’ve had with some photos I’ve attempted.

Getting images of the birds when they are sitting in the lilac bush.

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This redpoll is on a branch that broke from the weight of our recent snowfall.  It is at the far side of the bush from our window, so there are twigs and tall grass in the way.  It’s pretty rare for the birds to perch somewhere that doesn’t have twigs or branches in the way of a clear shot. The camera will keep trying to focus on the things in front, and in the time it takes me to get it to focus past them, the birds are usually gone.  But on this setting, it seemed to ignore the things in the foreground and focus on the larger objects behind them.

I’m still at a loss about the purple that is in the photo.  It’s there in the original, unadjusted image.  When I lighten the images for these posts, it brings the purple out just like any other colour in the image.

It’s not in all of them, though.

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This is actually the first photo I took today.  The bluejay is perched lower down on the broken branch.  You can see the shadows of twigs in between the camera and the blue jay.

No purple in sight!

Any camera people who can explain it to me?

I also got a nice shot of a blue jay in the sun.

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Oh, those colours!

I think I could happily paint the entire house in that blue on its head, neck and shoulders.

Hopefully, tomorrow, the deer will be brave enough to emerge from the trees and I’ll be able to get some photos of them, too.

The Re-Farmer

Blue Jay Antics

I had a blast getting pictures of the blue jays today!  They were dashing in and out of the trees and to the seeds so fast, it was a real challenge.  Many of the photos didn’t work out at all because of that.  More than a few times, by the time I took the shot, the bird was already gone, and I was left with a picture of a pile of seeds! :-D

These photos were taken before the snow completely covered the seeds, and I fiddled around with the settings on the camera part way through, to try and better capture flight images.  Unfortunately, one of the down sides of using the zoom lens is that it makes for darker photos.  Between the two, I had to do a fair bit of lightening of the images.  Hardly the best photography, but they were fun to take!

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I just love that little head tilt!

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Out of focus, but gosh, I love this one!

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It wasn’t until I cropped and lightened the photo that I could finally see what was really going on here – that blue jay in front plowed right into the soft snow at landing!

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It then immediately turned and hopped the other way, again, sinking into the snow on landing!

The other bird seems to have a “this guy is nuts” expression going. :-D

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Another poor photo, as far as image quality goes, but I think it’s my favourite of the bunch.  Just look at those wing feathers!

The Re-Farmer

Do I See What I Think I See?

I just finished going through my photos of the feeding station today.

Mama and the twins came by nice and early, and even stood together in a lovely grouping that allowed me to get photos of all three of them, at once.

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How considerate of them. :-D

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“Hey!  Hey, Mom!  Look at me!  My nose is all tickley.”

I got a couple of good ones with a blue jay.  I really liked this one.

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Something about that tilt of the head makes me smile.

Then the sun started shining on the feeding station, and Wow! did those feathers start to shine!

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The camera just does not do justice to how must those brighter blues gleamed and glittered.  It was amazing to see!

Then a squirrel posed nicely for me.

It wasn’t until I was cropping the photo that I spotted something…

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Is that green grass growing in there?!?!  There are so many little spruce tips on the ground, that’s what I thought it was at first, but no…

I think that really is new grass!

It’s only March.  We’re nowhere near done winter yet.  There’s a storm predicted for tomorrow evening, though we’re at the very northern edge of the expected path.  We should get a few centimeters of snow, at least.  While the long term forecasts are for warmer weather, there’s almost always at least one last blizzard in April that hits, before spring finally arrives.

Seeing that green right now is very interesting.  What it likely shows is how much warmer the darker areas are, even with snow under the dust and debris.  Little patches of micro-climates.

Cool!

The Re-Farmer

 

Hello, March!

Ah, what a lovely spring day we are having today!  As I write this, our temperature is at +2C.  That’s right, I’ve had to add a + to the temperature!  We are above freezing temperatures right now, and it’s already evening.

Awesome.

Of course, we’re also getting storm warnings for Sunday – when we’re also supposed to be above freezing for temperatures, so it’s a heavy snowfall that would happen, if it does happen.  From talking to my dad over the years, these snowfalls tend to miss the farm, and hit farther south.  So we’ll see.

The melting snow has left the deer feeding area looking much bigger!  All the detritus of past feedings is being revealed, so the spots where I’ve been leaving little piles of seeds are now looking much bigger.  And blacker.

This morning, Hungry Girl and Barbecue came over before I’d gone out to freshen up the feed.  I tried to take photos, but the camera wouldn’t work.  Checking the display, I saw what looked like CHR.  Or maybe CHA.  Anyhow, I figured the battery needed to be charged.  So I took the one from the camera to charge and popped on the extra.

Which was also almost dead, even though I had fully charged it not long ago.  I still thought there was enough charge to take some photos, but not; I still got the same display.

So I missed getting photos of them while the batteries charged.

It turned out not to be the batteries.

Somehow, the memory card got locked.  The photos I took yesterday are still there.  I copied them, but I can’t remove them, nor can I take more photos on the card.

I have no idea how this happened, or even where.  It could have happened on the camera itself, or on the desktop.

I will have to investigate further.

I did, however, get a nice photo of a blue jay, at least.

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I got a call from my husband’s doctor this morning about a change in his medication.  (I appreciate that they will talk directly to me about it, so I don’t have to interrupt his lie-downs.)  The new medication is covered by insurance, so he gave me information and instructions about it, then sent the prescription to the pharmacy so I could pick it up today.  Rather nice having a prescription that we don’t have to physically pick up at the clinic and take to the pharmacy within a limited time period!

So my younger daughter and I headed into town to pick it up (and get some Pokemon Go in).

While there, I checked to see if my own file was successfully transferred from our previous pharmacy (it was) and if it had been filled (it was).  So I got both at the same time.

One of the pharmacists and a trainee spent some time with me, making sure I had the needed information about the updated medication, the dose, when to take it, etc.  They even opened the package to look at the paperwork to make sure the dose measurements on the injector pen matched the previous version of the medication.  It did, but the dose my husband is supposed to be on is quite high, so the box will only last a few days.  It was decided to leave it as is, for starters, then in the future we can get multiples of boxes, so I’ll have fewer trips into town.

Meanwhile I glanced at my own prescriptions and choked at the price tag.

The insurance coverage wasn’t used.

So I let them know and gave them my insurance card.  Once done with my husband’s prescription, they started fixing my file.

It’s a good thing I brought an insulated bag and asked for ice packs.

I think I spent at least half an hour waiting, as they first tried to get my insurance set up on my file in their system, which failed, and the pharmacist then called the insurance company directly.

Long story short.

They couldn’t get it to work.

At the insurance company’s end, the person was going to talk to someone else, but that someone else was on lunch, so she would call the pharmacy back later.

The pharmacist, meanwhile, felt that the problem was at their end, not the insurance company.  I could pay the full price and get reimbursed (nope; we may have just got paid, but reimbursement wouldn’t happen until it got fixed, and who knows how long that would take), or she was willing to transfer the prescription to the competing pharmacy across the street to be filled.

Yeah!  Really!

I decided to not get them for now (it’s a good thing they’re not a vital prescription!!).  She said she would call me if she got a call back from the insurance company.  I mentioned coming back tomorrow, but she suggested I call, first.

So what should have been a quick trip into town, with some leisurely Pokemon-ing ended up being much longer.  At least there is a Pokestop right next to the pharmacy, so my daughter was able to throw on a lure and played on both our phones while she waited for me.

Meanwhile, my phone let me know I had a voice mail.  Which was weird, because I got no phone call.  Turns out I did, but it just never rang.  It was my previous doctor’s office, wanting to talk to me about my file transfer.

So, once I got home, I had lots of phone calls to make.

I called the insurance company and explained what happened.  He could see nothing wrong with my file on the system, so he put me on hold to talk to someone else.

When he came back, I could hear the perplexity in his voice.  It turns out that in one area, my account was active, but in another, I was no longer active.  They don’t know why.  So he was going to contact the carrier my husband’s work is hooked up with to figure things out and get my file fully active again.

Hopefully, it will not take as long as it did to fix up the mess with my husband’s file.

Then I talked to my old clinic.  Turns out there is a $35 fee to transfer a file, and how did I want to pay that?  I don’t have a credit card, but I do have debit Visa, which they take, so we did that.

I also updated my address and phone number, so she wouldn’t call my cell phone, though my cell phone number is still there as a back up.

Then I worked on something else when I got a notification from my phone.

Another voice mail.

Yeah.  She called my cell phone.  And since I had zero signal at the time, it went straight to voice mail.

I called back and found out my card was declined.  Which made no sense.

So I called the bank’s 866 number on my card.

Which got answered with a cheerful recording saying I could help them out by taking a short survey.  As a reward, select customers could win a Caribbean cruise.

Uh huh.

So I went through the three question survey (there was no option not to take it), and at the end, the cheerful recording congratulated me, because I just won the cruise; it would only cost a $65 processing fee.  Did I want to accept the prize?

Uh huh.

So I selected yes.  A live person answered the phone, greeting me with an “are you excited about winning this cruise?”  To which I responded, “Actually, I’m trying to figure out how I got you guys, because I was trying to phone … ”

*click*beepbeepbeep*

She hung up on me.

I called the bank’s number again and got through to where I was supposed to.  After being on hold a while, I made sure to first tell the person who answered what happened.  She took notes to pass on to the back office to see if there was a security breach on their system.

Then I talked to her about my debit Visa being declined.  She checked, but there was nothing wrong with my card.  After getting more details, she put me on hold and went to talk to someone in the back office about it.  When she got back, she informed me that no transaction on my card was attempted, according to their system.

Which means that, somewhere between the clinic and the bank, something went wrong.

So, back on the phone with the clinic I went.  I told her what the bank told me, and she was surprised, because she had tried twice.  I told her the bank confirmed there is nothing wrong with my card, so she said she would try again later, then call me back if it was still a problem.

So far, no call back, but then if she tries to call my cell phone again, it might be a while before I find out.  I forgot to mention that she’d called the wrong number.

Ah, well.

So, more move related hassles to sort out.

Later on, I went and got the memory card from the camera, as well as the one that got locked.  I uploaded the photos I took…

And found pictures of Mama and the Twins.

I didn’t remember taking those.

I uploaded them all, then started trying to figure out what happened with the locked card, and if there was something I could find to unlock it on the desktop.

While I was doing that, my older daughter came by to let me know she’d taken some pictures of deer while we were gone.

I suddenly felt sane again. LOL

Here is one of the photos she took for me.

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With the melt, it looks like there is so much more feed out there than there really is!  I’d emptied the bag this morning, and picked up 3 more on the way home, so we should be good for the Month.

Now, I am looking forward to a quiet evening.  I’m not used to talking so much.  My throat is sore.  I have a friend I’m hoping to talk to soon, and I don’t want to have to cut conversation short because I’ve spent so much time talking on the phone!

The Re-Farmer

Today’s Critters

Not a lot of photos today, as I made it in to church at the next town – the church of my childhood this time.

I don’t know that I’ll be going back.  I’m not surprised that things have changed after all these years, but some of it came off as rather creepy – and that was just with the announcements before service even started!  The weird birthday blessing with outreached hands is something I’ve never seen before, and the community greeting before service started, where everyone was expected to go around shaking hands, was another new one for me.  It was enough to make ME uncomfortable, and I’m the sort of person who will happily greet strangers I’m introduced to with a hug and a kiss on each cheek.

It didn’t help that I could understand the priest half the time.  I have an auditory processing disorder, which means that while my hearing is fine, the message gets sometimes gets scrambled.  Sometimes I, literally, hear gibberish.  Other times, I get gaps.  I know words were spoken; I know my ears heard the sound, but it just didn’t make it to my brain.  Most of the time, I hear enough that I can figure out what I missed, but if there are visual distractions, strong accents, or if a person doesn’t enunciate clearly, it can be a struggle.  This priest seems to have an aversion to moving his mouth when speaking.  Between that and how the responses have changed since I went here as a kid, it made it difficult to follow the service.

I’m really hoping we won’t have to go to the city for church!

At least I should be able to go there to get our Easter baskets blessed.

Anyhow.  Back to the critters!

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First up, we have another cheeky blue jay with a seed in its mouth.

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The red squirrels were certainly enjoying the fact that the deer are too skittish to hang around.  Doesn’t this one look like the most polite little gentleman? :-D

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The Beep Beep came by and plunked himself into a pile of seeds, and for a while, only the brave little chickadees and redpolls were willing to dive bomb the seeds around him.

Shortly after I took this, I noticed he’d moved to another pile of seeds.

Except… there was something odd about the way he was sitting there.

Something very… tense…

That’s when I realized he wasn’t sitting at all.

He was taking a dump.

In the seeds.

Which he then buried with snow.

What a jerk!

Later on, the girls called to me from upstairs, telling me to get the camera and look at the top of the dead spruce tree.

I got this next shot from the second floor.

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That’s either Nasty Crime Boy or Trüllbus the Crime Eater.  Just hanging out, enjoying the view! :-D

Unlike Butterscotch, he had no issues getting back down again!

Too funny!

The Re-Farmer

Strange New Bird

My husband called attention to a strange new bird in a spruce tree…

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Can you see it?

Look closely…

Can’t see it?  That’s okay.  She moved to a more visible spot.

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Butterscotch, looking very comfortable.

Yes, that’s Butterscotch, up in the spruce tree.  Quite settled in!

Since this photo was taken, however, she has made like she wanted to get down, but seemed to be having difficulties.  So my daughters went out with a ladder to help her down, but she just went off out of reach and just sat there, looking at them.

They’ve left the ladder on the tree for now.

Meanwhile, we have some more familiar birds to look at.

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Redpoll.

The redpolls were very co-operative today in posing for me in the bush.

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Blue Jay

We had 4 blue jays, bullying each other for the piles of seeds.  This one looks like he’s mocking the ones he just chased off. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Got a Camera

Hungry Girl and Barbecue visited again this morning.  I didn’t even try and take photos with my phone.  Instead, I just enjoyed watching them.

After they left, the birds came back in full force, including a total of 5 blue jays!  Usually, it’s just two or three.  There were also the massive numbers of redpolls (which I’d mistakenly identified as chipping sparrows, previously), lots of pine grosbeaks, chickadees and nuthatches.  Squirrels made their appearance, too.

After a while, I broke down and finally asked my daughter if I could borrow her Nikon D80.

After a bit of maintenance (lens cleaning, battery checking, etc), I set it up and tested it, using the 18-55mm lens she had on already.

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Ghost bird!

Then I took it off the manual setting. :-D

Though ghost birds are rather neat photo subjects.

I then switched from her 18-55 lens to the Nikkor 70-300mm lens we were using on the old camera.

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Blue jay

Blue jays are one of my favourite birds.  I love their incredible colour!  It’s interesting to see how they try to pack so many seeds into their beaks at once.  I didn’t realize they did that until I started taking photos of them with the zoom lens.

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Pine grosbeak, male

It’s a real challenge to get photos of the birds when they are in the bush nearby.  Usually, in the time it takes for me to notice them, then swing the camera around on the tripod, they are either gone, of have moved to another branch.  One of these days, I’m going to get a picture of a nuthatch perched upside down on a twig.

The grosbeaks tend to hang around on the branches a bit longer than the chickadees, nuthatches and redpolls – they’re too big to hop around the way the little guys do.  So I was able to get a pretty decent shot of a male grosbeak in the trees.

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Pine grosbeak with redpoll

There tend to be a LOT more females than males among they seeds, but even they are usually outnumbered by the redpolls.

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Downy woodpecker

Getting any images of this downy woodpecker was a challenge, too!  It kept moving around, then went behind the branch in the foreground.

My daughter just swung by to let me know she got pictures of the woodpecker while I was posting this.  I’m glad I made sure the camera still had a memory card in it when I took out the one with the above photos to upload!

The Re-Farmer