Four Dogs At The Farm

Our daughter Amy and her husband Doug are moving from Peoria IL to the Washington DC area.  Amy is seven months pregnant, they will be vacating their Peoria house next week and they won't get occupancy of their Virginia house for a month or so.  We're helping out by keeping their two golden doodles along with our two.  The three legged turtle is at Peggy's house and the two cats will be traveling with Amy and Doug (to their hotel room).

Ridley was missing for this photo.  That's Sydney, Chloe and Zulu.

Anyway, their dog Zulu is a special one.  She really enjoys playing with the laser dot.  She was in heaven when she could chase it in the barn. 

The next generation of outdoorswomen is being raised in Florida by my niece Kristen and her husband Leo.  Here's Kayla sporting her camo attire.

Kayla was lucky to get an assist recently from Grandma and Grandpa's new puppy Bea.

It was a quiet winter weekend at the farm.  I took a walk looking for shed antlers and didn't find any - of course it was snowing at the time.  The cameras had some interesting photos but only one buck still sporting headgear.

Red fox

Coyote

Flying squirrel?

Neighbor's lab - frequent visitor.

The only antler in two weeks.

This guy has clearly shed his.

The body looks like a buck.

Snow during my shed-hunting walk.

Yellow icicle - coyote?

lots of does.

Superbowl Sunday

I started the day at home in Mason with breakfast utilizing my "bacon of the month".

This month's selection is a dry cured country ham.

We have a Sunday morning tradition where the girls also enjoy an egg.

I got to the farm around noon.  It was about 20 degrees with a couple of inches of snow on the ground.  The birds seem to enjoy the stale bagel chips that I left on the feeder last week.

The snow really shows the deer traffic areas.

They dig around under the oak trees looking for acorns.

Some of the traffic lanes look like a highway.

I went for about a 2 hour walk and checked all of the trailcams.  The cold weather kills the batteries.

This is down by the valley stand.

I've always heard that the bucks leave a track that looks like they're dragging their feet.  There does seem to be a difference where some tracks look like this and others don't.

I'm not sure what makes a hole like this in a tree - woodpecker?

I couldn't tell if the hole was occupied.

I followed some large fresh buck tracks for quite a while. He was marking his trail.

He went on steep sidehills and thru thick brush.

The brassica is still getting some traffic and there are a few green leaves left.

Back in plenty of time for the game.



Trailcam Update

As expected, the little bit of corn that I spread last week was welcomed by the deer herd.

It's apparent that the 5 does harvested this year hardly made a dent.

Even the bucks found the corn.

In general, they look pretty healthy.

This guy should be impressive next year.

A couple inches of snow can make life very difficult.

This guy has dropped one of his antlers already.

Peekaboo.