Snow & wolves

It's been snowing all day, but it was fairly warm and a good day for outside work. I can't say the animals were enjoying the snow, at least not anyone except for the big dogs. Last night it poured rain and most of the snow we had melted, and then froze. So this morning there was only a light dusting of fresh snow on top of the ice, which made it pretty slippery out. Thankfully everyone was alright and before long, there was enough snow covering the ice that it wasn't so bad for walking.

Snickerdoodle thinking about how much he doesn't appreciate the cold snow on his feet

the polar bear

the ducks were swimming in their water dish, having a great time. They hate the camera though, everytime I pull it out, they huddle together. Well I should say, the male blocks the females.

Baby says, it's kinda slippery out here!

I was trying to get a picture of Flavious with his charges but he moved out of the shot and Baby got too close! The goats and Izzie were working on the very last of that round bale.

After chores, I ran out to get the SD cards out of my trail cameras to bring them home and put them on the computer. This doe and her fawn were coming out of the bushes along one of the trails.

As I hit an area we call "the maples" (for obvious reasons ;) a hawk flew out of one of the trees. He actually gave me lots of time to get a good picture of him but I wasn't quick enough.

I was glad I checked my trail cameras, I had activity on all of them. I got a couple deer pictures but the majority were coyote pictures and... wolves.

Before I went back out to put the SD cards back into the trail cameras, Kevin needed help getting the plow on the tractor. While we were getting started on putting the plow on the tractor (for the first time this winter) I said to Kevin "it's going to have to snow a lot more than this to make us have to plow." Sure enough as soon as I opened my mouth the wind picked up and in a wet snow blizzard we put the plow on. As soon as we were done, it lightened up again to just the continuous snow fall we've had going all day.

First we had to take the bucket off...

the Tom turkeys decided they didn't want to be involved in this project...

As you can see, we lost most of the visibility for a while

We got it on... once he got it lined up, I controlled the tractor loader while he put the pins in. He plowed the driveway a bit this afternoon and a place for the little dogs to go pee without being in the snow. But otherwise there is no real snow needing moved... yet.

After that job was done, we both went back out into the bush to replace my trail camera cards. By about 3 PM, there was a break and it was beautiful outside. The sun even tried to come out...

Then shortly after, closer to four, ice pellets started falling from the sky and the wind came back up, so we headed for home. We found a lot of coyote tracks, and some fox. A few deer trails, but all the tracks were covering with snow pretty quickly so the trails were more difficult to spot and follow.

On my fist camera, I got multiple shots of wolves going down one of our trails - there were at least three because of the sequence of pictures but possibly more.

Further down the trail, I caught one of them stopped at our creek, sniffing. I got a couple more shots of his tail on his way by, but the best one was off him stopped. Look at the size of him!

On another camera in a completely different spot - we got pictures of a coyote, checking out the camera. Isn't he/she beautiful? The time is off on this camera - it was not 4 in the morning when the pictures were taken, more like 2-3 in the afternoon. The other two cameras are correct.

Our last camera, we brought home to move. We had it near a pond but the beavers are all staying close to home now, it's too cold to be out working. We've had it there for a while now and just left it. So when we get a nice day, we'll put it in a new spot.

The temperature continues to drop rapidly tonight and it's still snowing, but nothing major right now. We had a buck show up tonight whom we never seen before... he had lost both of his antlers. All our bucks still have their antlers, but should start dropping them any day now. We also have another buck hanging around, who only has one antler right now... it's not unusual they shed one antler earlier than the other. He's difficult to spot - he's been hanging around by the creek that runs along the East side of the house and I've seen him some days but not others.

Buttons the orphan fawn did not show up until after my chores tonight.... and he's not alone now, ever. The two does he was hanging around with, they are with him all the time now, so they've formed a group which is very good news for Buttons, especially with the coyotes on the move and now knowing the wolves are not that far away from the house either. I'll check the cameras again in a few days to see if there is any new activity.