Winter Solstace

This morning I took a snap of the sun at it's most southern rise.

 

It climbed over the horizon between the mailboxes and the hydro pole. I'll watch in the coming days as it snail paces toward the mailboxes. 

And so winter begins. I've changed my car tires to winter treads and charged my snow blower's battery. The pantry and freezer are well stocked. Winter, I'm ready for ya! 

Before the freeze-up, I rescued a few viola plants from the garden. Last winter the one I brought in bloomed steadily so I'm hoping these will do the same.

A frost adds icy prickles to a mountain ash.

 

One of the winter pleasures here is watching the wildlife. I seldom see the local foxes and coyotes but their tracks in fresh snow is unmistakable. Feeder birds aplenty enliven the backyard. The Red-Bellied Woodpecker has again turned up. She has been arriving alone for the past several winters and staying until Spring.

 

An Eastern Screech Owl has again been using the roost box for a winter refuge and larder. And a Northern Shrike has been keeping the little birds on guard. 

As for inside entertainment, there is knitting, music, movies and YouTube videos. 

My hearing is still pretty good but I sometimes misinterpret what I hear. Yesterday I was watching a video of two British men chatting. They had very strong Yorkshire type accents. One guy said he was keeping fit with "...diets and of course the gym." My brain thought he said, "...diets and of course the gin." Ha!

Anyway, 2025 will soon fade into history. For the most part, my friends and family have faired well. This year's low point was my brother's trip and fall which broke his hip. The high point was a lovely visit from my Nova Scotian cousins. Life is ever textured! 

I don't go mad with decorations but a few coloured window lights do cheer up the darkness.

Ellie Mae, content and dreaming of Spring.

Fall Colours, Pollywogs And Rural Mailboxes

Many years ago, I tried my hand at growing water lilies. I bought a black plastic tub designed for water plants and a couple of rather expensive baskets of water lily bulbs. I dug a hole to fit and filled the vessel with rain water. But the venture was doomed! Boat-tailed grackles swooped in and ate all of the leaves including the stems. Buying more plants and installing netting to keep out the birds was further than I wanted to go. So the little would-be lily pond became just a water source for thirsty wildlife.

This year, I noticed quite a few pollywogs in the tub.  There must have been at least fifty of them swimming about. What a great version of a poor man's koi pond the little cuties made.  As I sat and admired them, a frog arrived and kept hopping into and out of the water. I assumed this was a parent of the tadpoles.

My cousin suggested they would probably appreciate some chopped up spinach. Boy, was he right! I tossed in a pellet of the frozen spinach I always keep on hand. They went for it like candy! Reminded me of hungry little cows around a bale of hay.

Now the season is closing in and I'm a bit worried that the tadpoles are not even close to developing into froglets. Some have sprouted tiny back legs but there is still no sign of front legs and their tails have not begun to shrink. Will they be prepared to survive the winter? I know that Wood and Tree frogs freeze solid under leaf litter and thaw out, alive and well in the Spring. But do their tadpoles have this superpower as well?  There is about six inches of mud in the bottom of their little tub. I'm guessing Mother Nature knows what she is doing but I'm a bit apprehensive for their well being.

Update: Jennifer Jilks from MyMuskoka advised that the frog below is likely a Wood frog and that Bull frogs spend their first two years as tadpoles. 

Pollywogs (tadpoles) nibbling on duck weed.

Could this Wood frog be a tadpole parent? Or a predator? Or both?

They really loved this offering of spinach.

 

I added a stick ladder, in case the pollywogs graduate to froglets.

 

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I took my camera along on a trail drive this week. The colours were so nice I just had to share them here.

This flicker paused his bath to watch the pollywogs.

 

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Had a bit of an annoyance last weekend. Someone (I'm guessing bored teenagers) stole my rural mailbox. Mounting post and all.

It was not of great value, but replacing it involves considerable inconvenience. Informing the Post Office to hold my mail, buying a new box, painting my property number on it and building and installing a support post.

Unfortunately, rural mailboxes are all too often vandalized. In fact, I've had to replace several over the years. Canada Post is in financial straits and is considering cutting down on delivery to individual rural addresses and installing community boxes instead. Yes, I'm all for it! Especially accompanied by a good street light and security cameras.

Midsummer Sweetness

Thanks to my Kabota RTV, I'm finding this summer especially enjoyable.

I've been busy clearing away unruly trees and shrubs from the lane to our bush lot as well as the bird box trails. Prickly ash and dogwood bushes are the main culprits that if unrestrained will gleefully become roadblocks. Call to duty the bush hog, chain saw and clippers!

 

If not parked in the shade, I make my own shade with a tarp over the cargo bed and a curtain stretched across the sunny side. The bench seat and backrest are lovely and comfortable for taking iced tea and snack breaks.

  
 

During these breaks I love to run my smart phone's bird sound identity app. I had observed most of these birds around me but the Warbling Vireo was a surprise. 

Each recording lists the birds it hears and highlights each bird detected in real time. (I'm becoming less sad about giving up my flip phone.) Here is a screenshot of what "Merlin Bird ID" is hearing these days: 

 

On the evening of June 26th, I had a special treat. At dusk I looked out the kitchen window and saw a mother raccoon with her passel of five youngsters. Checked a short time later to see where they went but saw something else instead.

A doe was laying down and licking her newborn, twin fawns. It was too dark for taking pictures. Also, there was a window screen and foliage in the way. But through binoculars I watched the spotted fawns as they explored their new world on unsteady young legs. Eventually the doe stood up and the dainty youngsters nursed. Midsummer sweetness!!!

Yesterday I noticed a large patch of wild blackberries. I picked enough to make a pie but decided to just enjoy them fresh from the brambles. So luscious and flavourful!!! More midsummer sweetness!!!

 

Since I no longer own a dog, the cottontail rabbits feel quite safe in the backyard. When I'm outside, they pretty much just ignore me and go about their munching business. I certainly enjoy their company.

 

Life here has been a joy. Friends dropping by, nightly firefly shows, young birds growing up and flying free, yummy root beer floats and pretty summer bouquets. All midsummer sweetness!!!!

An Unexpected Chore

This month, a new and unexpected chore presented itself.

A very industrious little landscape engineer decided to build a dam in a drainage ditch on my property. I caught sight of him shortly after dawn one morning. It was a medium sized beaver, perhaps a kit from last year. When it saw me motoring along in my Kabota, it scurried up the bank of the ditch and into the woodlot.

Visions filled my head of a sparkling new pond with water lilies, dragonflies and fish. Perhaps even a refreshing swimming hole. But alas, 'twas not to be.

In a more remote location, the ambitious little fellow might have stood a chance. But this is prime agricultural land and crop loss to flooded fields is not tolerated by the municipality. Someone upstream must have complained and the poor fellow was soon dispatched by a licensed trapper hired by the City of Ottawa.

Since the dam is on my property, the responsibility falls to me to remove the structure. It is heavy, muddy work but I rather enjoy wading around in the stream and reverse engineering the build. The Spring air beside our bush lot smells wonderful with the spicy scent of opening leaves and buds. And the peaceful sound of water trickling over the dam is music to my ears. Also, seeing how the dam was constructed was fascinating. The skill of these little animals is quite remarkable! 

The dam when first discovered.

First nip taken out of the side.

Hours of work in, more hours to go.

  

To sprinkle a little humour after the sad opening, I'll tell you about an exchange I had with a neighbour.

She is about my age and has the good discipline to take a long and brisk walk each morning. If I'm out when she goes by, she always stops for a friendly natter.

A couple of weeks ago, she was returning from her hike and dropped in to my place with a concerned and worried look.

She said it looked like someone was setting animal traps near my property just north of the house.

So we walked back to where she saw them.

"They are red coloured and I just happened to look down in the ditch and spotted them," she said.

"It looks like one may have been tripped but the other one I saw might be still active! I thought you should be aware of them!"

So she took me to the area which had alarmed her. North of the house and in the grassy ditch beside the road. After a bit of searching, she found them.

In the long grass and separated by about thirty feet, they did look like some weird and vicious leg hold traps.

With a stick, I fetched them out.

"You know," I said.

"I think they might be for putting under car tires that need traction on ice."

"Well they sure looked like traps to me," she said.

We had a good laugh at the mistaken identity. She said she didn't want them so I took them home in case I might need them some winter.

They certainly did look vicious ...

... but laid flat, not so much!

   

Spring Beauties with a wee passenger.

Wild violets in our woodlot.

A fluffed hummer on a cool morning.

A male kestrel scanning for mice.

Also scanning me and my camera.

A male Pileated Woodpecker.

Quite a handsome fellow.

Two of the many Wild Turkeys on this property.

Most days, I spot this doe going about her business.

This guy was having a big stretch just as I took his picture.

A brief look around before returning to grubbing.