Early this morning, I spotted some movement at the edge of our spruce grove.  It turned out to be a bird, enthusiastically digging and pecking at the ground.  A surprisingly large bird; not as big as a grouse, but certainly bigger than a blue jay or crow.  Not something I recall seeing before.  Unfortunately, it was too far to identify by eye, so I got some pictures zoomed in as far as our lens can go.  They’re not good pictures, but enough to identify it.

From what I can find, it appears to be a Northern Flicker, though there are different kinds that can look quite different.

The most distinctive thing about it was the splash of red at the back of the neck.  The other distinguishing feature is the black bib.

A number of the photos of Northern Flickers I saw also had a splash of red on the cheek, but this one did not have that.

As it later flew away, I was able to see the underside of its wings, which appeared to be a bright yellow.

The Norther Flicker is a member of the woodpecker family, so it’s interesting that this one was pecking, not at wood, but at the ground.

Later on, my younger daughter and I got some progress done on the sorted wood piles in the garden.  We’ve now removed all the wood we’d already sorted, except for the pile I set aside to keep for potential projects.  More will be added to it as we finish going through the original pile.  When we got to the larger pieces, we had to saw most of them in half so they would fit in the wheel barrows.  We could really tell when we were cutting apple wood!  The wood is so much harder, and the patterns in the rings are so distinctive and lovely.  Even the ones I didn’t choose to keep, I set them to one side in the piles we’re making near the fire pit, for use when we’re cooking or, if all goes well, able to do some smoking.

My poor daughter.  By the time we were done for the day, she was just wasted.  She was really too sick to be doing this sort of work, but she did it anyways, and I really appreciate it!

After that, I went to the post office and, along the way, I found our shaggy neighbours were closer to the road, so I pulled over to get some photos.

Zooming in with a cell phone doesn’t get very good pictures, unfortunately, but still.  Bison!

We got some unexpected people visitors today.  First, my brother and his Lady Fair, who live nearby, came over to pick up the last of some stuff he’s got in our root cellar.  I was all excited because his beautiful dog finally allows me to pet him!  Then my older brother came by, just as they we leaving.  My mother’s car has been stored here for the winter, and she wants to register it again soon, so he came to put the battery back in.  It turned out to need charging, so he started doing some stuff at the barn.  When I went out to join him, I stopped to take a look at a pile of wood that is sitting in the barn yard.

Only to discover, it’s not a pile of wood.  It’s a pile of something else, covered in wood.

What on earth was I seeing under there?

Whatever the wood is covering has moss growing on it, and there’s a layer of plastic.  Something is showing through holes that I at first thought was ashes?

So I asked my brother.

It’s insulation.  My youngest brother had put it there.

My youngest brother died in 2010.

Why is it there?  My brother didn’t know.

The wood on top showed up more recently.

What on earth are we going to do with a plastic covered, moss covered, wood covered, pile of insulation, sitting in the barn yard?

The Re-Farmer