Snow and deer



Yesterday morning I decided to trim Noel's nails since it was her turn (we work on a rotation here for nails to keep up with everyone.) She is so easy. I wish we had taken a picture of her while I was doing her nails, I'll have to get one next time because she goes completely limp in my arm while I cut her nails. Head hangs down, eyes closed, it's like she is playing dead, she is so silly. I could carry her around all day and she'd just hang there and never say a word about it.

The buck we call Deer Norman showed up in the yard yesterday, he's been coming and going lately. He's still holding his antlers. He's a younger buck so he's got lots of hormones helping him.

And much to our complete surprise last night, a strange buck showed up around the house. Kevin and Jim were out taking pictures and when they came home, Kevin spotted this little guy. He thought he was a spike but when he got a better look, one antler does have a little fork in it. However he showed up again tonight, just before dark and he's already dropped one of his antlers.

Kevin got some nice pictures yesterday afternoon while he was out plowing. He also took Jim down to the lake so Jim (our farmhelper) could try out his new camera he just got.

at the lake, there was one fishing shack out there...

Earlier in the day I ventured out in the mule with Kevin, this time he drove and I just rode. I didn't get too far before it got uncomfortable (still healing from surgery) but it was the most I've been out in the bush in almost 2 months, so I can't complain, I was so happy to be out.

We went across our beaver dam road, which no one has been across since early December. This is how that went:

we broke through

It took a couple times to get through and I got out while he went across. I was surprised at the amount of snow in the bush, there is a good foot out there now.

We went down to the porcupine creek and it's open and running, and the water is super high. All the predictions we are reading right now are saying an early spring, the large maple syrup producers are looking at mid Feb- early March for the start of the sap run this year. We realize we really need to get ready in case it does come earlier than expected, by some small miracle because early spring sounds good to me! We'll have lambs anytime after the first of March. My kids are all not due until April.

On the way home, Kevin pointed to a tree and said to me "a porcupine has been eating that tree, see the hole." I looked up and the porcupine, a young one, was outside, it was a fairly warm day about - 5 C. He wasn't thrilled we spotted him though!

Before we went back to the house,

Kevin showed me a log he hauled in recently. A couple months ago I mentioned a beaver swamp we have put a new road into, there are dozens of ringed trees there that will die if just left, some of them are huge. Most of them are hickory trees, like this one,

It's just gorgeous wood isn't it? We'll be saving this and milling it, Kevin will probably save this for chairs or another project.

Yesterday I made these tasty scallion and cheese scones, and they are really good, very savory, so you have to like that kind of thing. They have scallions, cream cheese, and feta in them.

Because Jim asked for it I threw together a pot of chili for dinner last night. Tonight is our pizza night, so the dough is rising, and we'll have two pizzas tonight, one with a stuffed crust and sausage, and the other with lots of veggies, ham, and, artichokes.

Tomorrow is our big Birthday celebration, so I'll be making lots of cookies. Sammy is one, Izzie is one, and Max turns three!

Stay warm everyone :)

P.S. Norma and Alla, I answered your questions from the last post in the comment section, thanks so much for posting!