Our very own Bambi & Thumper

I took this picture of Buttons and one of the rabbits at the house the other day. It was too adorable not to share. I'm going to have to frame this one.

I was so worried about Buttons last night. It dropped to about -15 C but it felt like -25 with the windchill. It's the coldest it's been so far this winter, and it was sudden since we've had a strange winter, there was no real build up to the cold like usual. We got back from our trip to NY State about 8 PM and I went to the barn to give everyone more hay/straw and loaded them up. I took my hands out of my gloves for ease of work and one of them froze to the gate.

It was a gorgeous night, clear and the sky was full of stars. The big dogs just love that kind of weather. I was pretty worried about everyone, but the chickens and everyone did just fine, the barn was so hot this morning I had to take almost all of my winter outer clothes off to work in there.

Anyway, there was no sign of Buttons and then this morning, the dogs were barking so I went outside on the porch with my coffee to see if anything was going on. Something was going on. Deer Norman, one of our bucks was standing in the yard and looking out onto the pond in front of the house... I thought the fawn was walking on the ice but then my eyes adjusted to see clearly what it was... a coyote. At 11 AM on our pond. This isn't unusual in winter. He was heading towards the house, but heard me yell and turned around and went back across the pond. Deer Norman never even made a move, he just watched from the yard. This worried me even more seeing the coyote moving in.

At noon, the guy from our farm equipment showed up to help get the chains on our tractor tires for the winter, and just as he was finishing up with that, I was coming back from the barn and Buttons was at the house, waiting for us. The relief was great, and the two does without fawns who hang out together were right behind him. He made it through the cold too. We got some snow last night, but not enough to slow the deer movement down, but it's increased the coyote movement greatly, and it's decreased the amount of time Douglas and Norman spend peeing outside to about 1.5 seconds.

We brought 6 bottles of wine back from New York... I should have expained that it's not just organic wine, it's Frey's wine from Califronia and it has no detectable sulfties in it. Ontario sells organic wine, but not Frey's which is the only kind Kevin can drink and not have an allergic reaction. The border guards didn't care and actually took pity on the fact it's all Kevin can drink, at least I think they must have because they didn't charge him any duty on the wine, just wished him a Happy New Year!

This afternoon I have tons of groceries for New Years to put away and have to run into the village to get a pan for my cheesecake. The sun is out, but it's still about -10. The animals are enjoying the sunshine however and lying in the straw soaking up the sun.

The little dogs are right where they belong... lying by the fire.