While it may have been a day of the cats for the most part, it was also a day of silly faces from Hungry Girl!
And one pretty one for the mix… :-)
I missed out on seeing what other deer came by today, besides Hungry Girl and Barbecue. My younger daughter and I went into town today, and when we got home I drove into the yard, scaring away at least two deer that were at the window.
Ah, well.
The Re-Farmer
I missed any deer activity we had this morning, just from being busy elsewhere in the house, but I did catch some lovely kitties!
When I fed the cats this morning, The Hand didn’t show up until after I’d gone to feed the deer, then ran off when tried to skirt around them to get to the sun room door and return the feed bucket.
I saw her later on, though, and got a few good photos.
Then she saw me in the window, jumped down and hid behind the cross!
It wasn’t until then that I noticed there was another cat, just sitting like a loaf.
Beep Beep is remarkably camouflaged for this time of year! All those browns and grey match her fur very well.
For a while, I thought I’d missed seeing the deer entirely, but then a loan deer showed up. It turned out to be Barbecue, with Hungry Girl coming soon after. Then, shortly after they left, Detail and her boy came by.
Those nubbins are getting big!
That’s some tasty treats! :-D
After a while, the two of them sauntered off down the well worn path through our garden area towards the road. Nubbins did turn around and come back on his own. He kept looking back for his mom, but I could see her continuing on towards the road, and he finally turned back and followed her.
He’s not quite ready to stay here on his own!
The Re-Farmer
Today was another day where I didn’t get a lot of deer photos, but I did get a few good ones. Hungry Girl was obliging in letting me get my favourite kind – silly ones!
I have noticed that when Hungry Girl and Barbecue come over, I get very few good pictures of Barbecue, but I always seem to get lots of good ones of Hungry Girl! :-)
Here’s another…
*childish giggle*
With things warming up today, I decided to take the camera and go for a walk after supper. There’s still too much snow around the yard, so I went on the road.
On my way out, I discovered that the cats just LOVE those tire marks in the driveway, left behind by the movers. Rolando Moon was enjoying one of them as I came out.
She was rolling around in there in absolute ecstasy! My daughters did a burn while I was walking and told me that they saw other cats rolling around in them, and rubbing their faces in the little wall of ground between the divots. Too funny!
One of the areas I passed on the road brought many happy memories.
It certainly doesn’t look like much now. It’s just three sections of the ditch that are somewhat wider and deeper, so we called it the Three Ponds. I spent so many happy hours of my childhood, slogging around barefoot in the water, often accompanied by our dog. He fetched rocks, not sticks, and if you threw a rock into the water, he would actually dive in and get it.
We had to be careful doing that, when he’d go after rocks even in the deep water that weren’t intended for him to fetch!
He also would fetch logs. Which is a story for another time!
In the Three Ponds, I remember looking out for frogs’ eggs, and when they finally showed up, it felt like I’d found an absolute treasure. I would go back day after day to look at them, watching for the tadpoles to hatch. And then I would watch the tadpoles. I remember seeing all kinds of interesting things in the water, including bright red mites that looked like the tiniest of spiders, and walking bits of plants that I later learned were caddisfly larva. I’d pull up bullrushes (aka cattails) and pretend I knew how to weave baskets out of the leaves (I never figured it out!), and in the fall, when their seeds were starting to come loose, I’d make big piles of the fluff on the road and wait for a car to come by and puff right through it.
It was such fun! I look forward to seeing how pond-ish the area still is, once all the snow is gone.
Farther down the road is a sort of driveway into our field. I don’t know that there’s a gate there or not, but there is a gap in the fence. This is part of the farm my parents rented out when they retired from farming.
This falls into the “why this here?” category.
Just a big ol’ tractor tire, leaning on a tree, with what looks like an inner tube draped over it. My guess is the guy renting it had to change the tire on his tractor in the field, leaned it there and never came back for it.
I wonder how long it’s been there?
I just thought this picture was pretty and wanted to share it with you. :-)
Walking past the wooded section of the farm, I’m seeing a lot of dead trees fallen down. The old cattle shelter has long since collapsed, and looks like it’s been partly cleared away. There are also a lot of parked vehicles in what used to be the hay yard.
Once the snow clears, I’m going to have to take a good look at what all is there. It would be nice if all this stuff could be cleared away, including what’s stored in the barn, so that we could maybe have animals in there again.
But that is years down the road.
The Re-Farmer
I got very few pictures of the deer today. Detail and her boy came first thing, before I’d gotten more feed out. I didn’t even try to take photos. The glare in the window that time of day results in basically the whole thing being one big reflection of our living room. Mama and the twins came by later, and of the few photos I got, only one was glare free.
That one photo sure was a winner, though! :-)
The Re-Farmer
I was settling in at my computer in the office, when my daughter happened to glance out the window. She spotted a new cat!
I just barely got a picture with my phone through the window before it went out of sight.
This makes number nine! Our seven regulars, the Mothman, and now this guy.
It may be one of the cats from my brother’s place, up the road, but I don’t recall ever seeing it there. Not that I’ve seen all of the cats he’s got in his yard, to begin with. :-D
On the down side, the reason my daughter was near enough to see it was because she was plugging in an extension cord for our handheld vacuum. She was a sweetheart and sucked up the many Asian lady beetles on the window in the bathroom. I had just done my own window, after counting 22 of the buggers crawling around. Then there were the ones on the floor. Almost immediately, another one showed up on the window, and when I picked up my USB cable to upload the above photo, I found another one on the cable.
Argh! I just saw yet another, crawling along near my modem!
I like lady bugs/lady beetles. Honest, I do. They eat aphids and stuff. I just prefer them outside, not crawling around all over the place, or bouncing off my head. These things don’t seem to have landing gear. They just drop, with a loud *tick*, then spend the next while trying to right themselves and tuck in their winds before crawling along.
I made the mistake of glancing down at the floor. Two more crawling along there…
Ugh.
Enough! Back to cute things!
Like cats. And deer.
It was busy outside our living room window, and a lot more orderly! The deer came in their little groups, rather than all at once, coming back several times each, throughout the day.
The first two were Hungry Girl and Barbecue.
It was earlier in the morning, so the windows had a lot of glare on them. The deer were also very distracted.
By cats.
They were all over the place! Running across the feeding station, sparring in the bushes, making their way through the spruce grove… We even saw the Mothman climb up on top of the stack of pallets or whatever is under the tarps, with Rolando Moon very carefully climbing up to check her out.
Only Butterscotch paused long enough in a spot we could get a decent photo, though. :-)
I even had a co-operative redpoll.
Detail and her boy came by, and I tried to get photos of her boy’s antler nubs, but the glare was just too much.
Mama and the twins paid a visit, too.
It was quite a party out there!
The Re-Farmer
Well, let’s see if this worked!
I’ve made a playlist of several short videos.
It was quite the show to watch them going at each other. Mama even drove away her own twins!
Some of the deer ended up all the way to the parking area in front of our gate, then came back through the yard to try for the feed again. Others got driven behind the house.
Deer can be pretty violent buggers! LOL
The Re-Farmer
I am in the process of uploading video of the deer drama this morning, so that will be for another post. They were really going at each other, today!
Until they are ready, I have some still shots for you to enjoy.
Check out those itty bitty antler nubs, peaking through the fur! This is Detail’s boy. One of the twins is showing signs of antler nubs, but they are quite a bit smaller than this guy’s.
A couple of the deer that got chased off ended up at our front gate!
With all the leaping and chasing and slashing of hooves, we had deer running around all over the yard!
After the deer left, Butterscotch came out to her favourite spot to enjoy the sun. My older daughter took this photo for me. :-)
In the early evening, Detail and her boy came back.
When they came in, a bit of snow just started to fall. I got a few photos, then took the memory card to upload them. A few minutes later, I brought the card back – and saw the snow was coming down much harder!
Detail and her boy were already getting quite the layer of snow on their backs!
The snow went away as quickly as it came.
I’m really looking forward to when we get – and stay! – above freezing, some time next week.
The Re-Farmer
We had some wild activity outside our window this morning! All 7 deer showed up, and they kept chasing each other around. Even Mama was chasing her own twins away!
I got some video that I will actually put together into one larger file to upload later. For now, here is some of what we got to see.
Meanwhile, we have also managed to get a Facebook account going for this blog. I’d tried last night, using the blog’s email address, and it wouldn’t accept my phone number to confirm the account. It wouldn’t work for my husband, either. We finally had to abandon it and start over.
If you look at the side bar, you’ll see where you can now follow us here on WordPress, on Instagram and on Facebook.
And if all goes well, this post will automatically upload on Facebook, like it does on Google +. You can find us on Pinterest, too.
Little by little, we’ll figure this out!
The Re-Farmer
I’ve been getting daily photos of deer for quite some time, now, and you’d think I would be tired of it by now. After all, they are often quite similar in pose and expression – and really, there isn’t a lot to differentiate one deer from another.
Then I upload the photos and see them on the monitor. The photos themselves often pick up details I simply cannot see from the window; the zoom lens makes all the difference. It’s so amazing to be able to stand in my window and have a deer looking at me from less than 20 feet away. Then, I upload the photo of that same deer, looking directly into the camera, with such detail and clarity that I can see our home reflected in its eyes, and count the eyelashes. It’s amazing!
Best of all are the split-second shots. Those fleeting moments, captured in a still shot, that often have me laughing out loud. Especially the tongue shots. Those just crack me up!
Today was filled with such photos. Here are some of my favourites.
First, we start with Barbecue, being all rude and stuff. ;-)
She looks like she’s giving someone behind the house the raspberry!
Taking photos from the living room has its other challenges, though.
Like cats.
Cats who like to walk on the window ledge, right in front of the camera.
That’s the mama cat’s tail, blocking what would have been a great shot of Hungry Girl. :-D
She looks like she had opinions about that.
“Hey, cat! You messed up my picture! You know what I say to that?
pptthhhhppptthh!!!”
“So there!”
This next one is something extra special, though.
That’s some 3D, jumping right out atcha, dynamic action tongue going on there!
And look at those teeth!
There were more funny shots today. Too many to post!
Later on, Detail and her boy came by.
I really tried to get some closer shots of her boy and his growing antler nubs, but the light was starting to fail. With a zoom lens, it doesn’t take much. You can’t really tell in this photo, but it looks like the antler tips are just, just starting to show through the fur.
Looking forward to taking more pictures tomorrow! :-D
The Re-Farmer
Before I go on to post about today’s adventures *sigh* here are some critter pictures for you to enjoy!
While I was home in the evening, we got visited by a lone deer (I wasn’t around to see any of our other deer visits).
There wasn’t a lot of feed left, so it didn’t stay long.
It was very interested in the cat loaf in the grass…
Look at that Nasty Crime Boy! What a face! :-D
Just a few minutes ago, my younger daughter was telling me about a face suddenly showing up in their window on the second floor. It was this handsome fella. So she opened the window, which still doesn’t have the screen in it, in case they need to go onto the new part roof again. This opening of the window thoroughly confused him, but he did eventually come back to look at her – going around the open window to look at her through the glass, then going under the window to check out her hand and take some pets. Then he heard my other daughter make a noise, so he went to the other window, which doesn’t open. She traced her finger on the glass, which he followed with his nose, with his tongue sticking partway out.
Like this…
What a cutie!
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 