Posts Tagged ‘wildlife’
Healthy Horses
While I have been distracted by the significant growth occurring all over our property, I didn’t notice that the surrounding corn fields have suddenly gone from little sprouts to full stalks. They must have doubled in height a couple of days in a row. They’ll be over our heads soon.
The horses seem to be loving the high grass in the back pasture. I’ve caught them romping around back there several times lately. Too bad it’s going to get cut again soon before the weeds can go to seed. I tried recording a video of them running back there, but only captured a few seconds of a sprint back into the paddocks.
Last night, while I was retrieving feed buckets, Light suddenly squealed and spazzed out as I was standing among them in the tight quarters of one side of the overhang. I was able to back away and give her room to kick and flail as the other horses did the same. It looked like she was hurting severely. I couldn’t find any obvious physical evidence, but my suspicion is that Mix bit her.
Her reaction looked a lot like mine did that time Mix nipped me on my back when I didn’t see it coming. I wanted to be mad at Mix for hurting Light, but since I didn’t see what happened, it wasn’t fair of me to judge. There hasn’t been much in the way of infighting among the horses lately, so I’m passing the incident off as inconsequential.
A Veterinarian is scheduled to be here today to administer shots to the horses and hopefully file down their teeth. We think Swings, in particular, is not chewing well, most likely due to sharp high spots that can develop on their teeth. She has also been “quidding” a lot, which is dropping partially chewed wads of hay from her mouth.
I tell ya, sometimes it can get complicated keeping horses healthy and happy. The rest of the time, caring for them is a breeze, and we get to sit back and enjoy watching them in all their glory.
In the woods lately, I’ve been seeing evidence of another herd that spends time with us, just mostly out of sight.
It’s fun to watch the variety of sizes of hoof prints that show up in the mud from deer using our trails. We’ve found several occasions of itty bitty prints that look like recently born fawns. When we come across some that look huge, I always hope it might be a buck that will shed its antlers on our property in the winter.
The horses are so observant, I’m curious about whether they get to know the deer that regularly frequent our land. I wonder if wildlife has opinions about domestic livestock, maybe feeling sorry for their confinement. At the same time, wildlife might wish to have food delivered twice a day, like the horses do.
I hope our rescued Thoroughbreds recognize they are living the high life here.
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Curious Heron
There was a heron standing atop the canopy over the boats that appeared to be very curious about something up by the lodge.
Maybe it was noticing the totem pole that had been a gift from the second generation to honor their parents. The totem used to have antlers with a depiction of a mouse carved into one and a bat on the other, but they are now both leaning against the base due to decay. After intently staring for a long time, the heron must have noticed the totem didn’t move a bit when approached. The tall, gangly bird hopped down onto the dock, walked toward shore, and then stepped down into the water.
I was watching it the whole way, curious about what might be motivating its behavior as it came our way. There was no indication it was seeking a snack in the water, as the head stayed high, probably with one eye observing me. I attempted to remain perfectly still. However, Cyndie was raking the beach, so there was no reason to believe it didn’t realize we were there.
Assuming it would take flight any moment, I prepared to record video of the spectacle, possibly in slow-motion mode. It just kept walking in our direction, with long pauses that outlasted my interest in capturing a cinematic masterpiece. Of course, soon after I gave up, it took flight.
It flew a simple arc around us and landed along the shoreline just to our west. Making its way around the lake, I guessed.
I would have liked to observe it feasting on its favorite morsels beneath the surface of the water, but that wasn’t the mode it was in.
More than a decade ago, one of the member families whose property was at the end of the peninsula of our Wildwood Lodge Club association sold their place, and the buyers did not become members themselves. It’s always been a little awkward, but they are wonderful people, and Cyndie’s mom has reached out to them over the years to keep in touch.
Last night, she invited them to our place for a drink, and then we all went for dinner at a nearby supper club. The broiled walleye I had was a throwback to how my mom prepared the fish Dad would bring home from his trips to Mille Lacs Lake when I was a kid. The couple, Kevin and Michelle, were great company, and we had a fine time sharing tales of life’s adventures.
They would have been a fine addition to our association if it had played out that way. Given a choice of getting along well with others versus clashing and then excluding… I much prefer getting along. It truly is better for all of us in the end.
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Solitary Refinement
In the middle of my solo escape to the lake, I find myself thinking about how I can most fully absorb the pleasures of these agenda-less days. When I am tasked daily at home with duties, the dream of having nothing pressing me into an activity grows and grows. I long to have no reason to get out of bed and to pick and choose what comes next by whim instead of by the hour on the clock. An hour, by the way, that has once again shifted disorientingly forward to DST overnight. Ugh, I say, and I don’t even have any schedule that needs to be upheld today.
Looking back on the already vanished last two days of luxurious solo pursuits, I fear the benefits of getting what I so dearly wanted are disappearing without my fully appreciating the greatness of the moments. Today, I plan to see if I can improve on that perception.
There is a herd of deer wandering the grounds that I have enjoyed seeing each day. I counted seven yesterday in the middle of a sunny afternoon. From the obvious pattern of their heavily traveled hoof prints in the snow, it appears they have a much more set agenda than I do.
I made my way to our mini labyrinth in the woods and reclaimed the pathway with my own footprints. There was no sign of wildlife traffic in that area.
No, the deer have been walking right past the house along the ridge above the lake. One or two of them had approached the house to nibble on the branches of one of the landscape shrubs.
I took a few pictures on my walk yesterday morning when the temperature was still below freezing. There was a striking difference in the texture of the snow where shade had kept it all wonderfully powdery, as opposed to the hard crust more prominent everywhere else.
Later in the day, the clouds broke up, and the sun kicked up the amount of melting significantly.
My slow, aimless wandering was one of the divine pleasures I want to deeply appreciate in its contrast to strolling along with Asher, which is more my norm.
Oh, my. Look at the hour. How can it be this late already? Oh, yeah. That.
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Trail Shots
That visible trail of wildlife traffic coming onto our property from the north that I thought might be a fox might have been used by a fox at one time, but that is not what is making the path so well established. I staged our trail camera to face the direction and look down to where the traffic was passing beneath our fence.
This is what the camera captured Thursday afternoon through Friday morning, the last image happening about a half-hour ahead of the morning walk with Asher when I retrieved the memory card and turned off the camera:
The time stamps add a lot to the story of this overnight activity. The raccoon photos started at 6:35 p.m. and then at 12:38 a.m., 4:32 a.m., and 6:03 a.m. These are just a partial selection of the raccoon traffic that was happening all night long. Interestingly, there was only a tiny percentage of pictures showing raccoons going in the other direction, leaving our property.
I have noticed raccoons living in a few of our trees, but I had no idea how many are roaming around in the woods all night. Since they likely evade coyotes by climbing trees, their main predator is probably automobile traffic. There’s not a lot of traffic on the roads in the countryside during the hours raccoons are wandering around, and there are more acres of woods than roads, so I can understand how the number of raccoons could get high.
Maybe we should offer hunters an invitation to spend time in our woods controlling the population. A quick search turned up coonskin caps on sale for almost a hundred dollars each. I could post an ad that I’ve got a lot of raccoon fur that I’m willing to give away for free. Interested parties just have to catch the wild raccoons themselves.
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Appreciating Here
Day two of my intentional news avoidance exercise was a smashing success yesterday. The resulting calm was doubly rewarding when compared with the week before when junk mail and phone spam were at an all-time high. The morning began with a thick fog, which gave the early routine a wonderfully mysterious feel.
Sometimes, the fog puts the horses on edge because they rely on visibility to survey for potential threats. Yesterday, they weren’t showing heightened nerves and promptly buried their noses in their feed buckets, which puts them in an almost vegetative state after one mouthful.
Asher was incredibly patient with me as I traipsed around the paddocks, scooping manure into the wheelbarrow. I rewarded him with an extended walk in the north loop field before heading back to the house for his breakfast.
We revisited that field later in the afternoon, and he went wild following the scent of some creature. There were several circles where deer had laid down that interested him but it is known that bunnies live in that field, too.
Other visitors we’ve seen in that field include skunks, raccoons, foxes, pheasants, turkeys, and grouse. However, the culprit that probably most interests Asher is the neighbor’s cat that makes regular incursions into our territory.
Standing in the field while Asher rooted around, I felt a wave of renewed appreciation for this place we call home. We’ve had some rain to take the edge off the drought, and the sun was out all afternoon, warming things considerably.
We stopped for a pause in the rocking chair at the lookout knoll on the top of the first hill on the driveway. From that vantage point, we couldn’t see anything wrong with the world. We all know that isn’t true, but it makes the tranquility here all the more precious.
It practically obligates me to banish harsh news media from disturbing our peace.
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Wildlife Sightings
The day started pretty normal yesterday up at the lake, despite the fact it was a national holiday. Our community game day is scheduled for tomorrow since the 4th landed on a Thursday and not everyone was able to arrive during the work week.
First things first. Time to pump up the inflatables.
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While I was standing on the dock, I spotted a fish watching our every move.
Later, while we were sitting on the deck we heard the call of an eagle. It was perched in a tree at the side of the house.
We’ve heard multiple reports of bear sightings on the property. As Cyndie and her niece, Althea were about to leave on a trip to town, the young bear crossed the driveway a short distance ahead of them.
The visibility of wildlife helps to make it feel more like we are on vacation at the lake place. It’s like the frosting on our cake of hanging out with family and friends, laughing over stories, playing games, and sharing scrumptious meals.
I’ve almost forgotten what it is like to be home and tending to the property and animals each day.
Almost.
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More Miles
Not only did I get back on my bike for a second day in a row, yesterday I logged a new high for total miles in one outing. Sneaking out of the house a few minutes before 6 a.m., I drove down to Red Wing to ride the Cannon Valley Trail down to Cannon Falls and back.
The distance between the two cities is 20 miles so I knew I was biting off at least a 40-mile day, but I figured since it was all on a relatively flat paved trail, it wouldn’t be an extreme 40. Two other factors played in my favor: the return leg of the loop would be traveling with the flow of the Cannon River, so “downhill,” and the wind would be at my back.
The wildlife creatures were out in force and showed up almost everywhere I looked. There were so many bunny rabbits darting around the trail that I feared they would end up causing a crash. Who wants to run over a little bunny?
I saw a pheasant, a turkey, deer of all ages, a couple of eagles sharing carrion of some creature in tall grass with a flock of turkey vultures, snapping turtles digging holes for eggs right at the edge of the pavement, a red squirrel that crossed inches from my front wheel, and more rabbits than I have ever seen in my entire life.
When I got to Cannon Falls, I rolled up to the Veteran’s Memorial where I was able to pause and reflect on the significance of D-Day.
I found a bench in a park beside the river to eat a little breakfast I’d brought for the occasion. The Cannon River has risen well beyond its banks and was flowing with big energy.
After my short break at the halfway point, I was feeling pretty good and kicked it up a notch to celebrate the tailwind and the downslope. That lasted almost 10 miles before my body started tiring of the routine.
When your whole body gets tired of being on a bike, it becomes really hard to find a position that feels comfortable for more than a few minutes. At first, a new adjustment seems like just what I needed, but when it only lasts for a short time, the result is an endless rotation of standing up, sitting back farther on the saddle, moving hands to new hold on the bars, coasting, stretching, and looking for any distraction for my mind.
I got a kick out of the deer that was munching greenery at head height with its butt sticking out on the trail. I had a full broadside view of this big doe. I saw her turn toward me but then she just went back to eating as if I wasn’t there. I wondered if she might not have seen me or just didn’t recognize I was approaching.
She chomped a large bite of leaves and turned toward me again. This time her eyes grew wide and she froze like maybe I wouldn’t see her if she didn’t move. I had been coasting toward her at the same speed the whole time wondering how close she’d let me get, standing stiff with a garden salad of leaves sticking out of her snout.
At maybe ten yards and closing, she bolted up into the trees with her mouth still full. I hope I didn’t give her indigestion.
I made it back home by 11:00 and spent the afternoon leaving muddy tire tracks all over the place as I mowed with the riding mower. My legs were way too tired to walk behind the push-mower.
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Impermanent Art
The many random balanced rock sculptures I create around our property are impermanent by design. I expect them to tumble back to earth, sometimes within mere minutes. Other times, they can last more than a year. I have an affection for placing balanced stones atop the stumps of trees.
Somewhere in the archive of past posts (Previous Somethings) there are photos of me using the loader to raise rocks too heavy for me to lift so I could balance them on a tall stump. The upper rocks fell rather quickly but the last one sat on that stump looking rather phallic for far longer than it should.
Eventually, the lopped tree trunks rot to the point of not adequately supporting large stones. I think that is my favorite end to these installations. Once the trunk is no longer standing, the piece cannot be recreated. Sometimes the rocks get repurposed into the labyrinth.
Earlier this fall, Cyndie and I dug up a rock along one of our trails that was too big to lift so I just leaned it up against a stump where two rocks balanced above.
The stump for this artistic masterpiece didn’t get a chance to rot to tumble the stones. I can’t be sure whether the rocks fell before some woodland critter in search of insects attacked the stump or not.
I admit to cruelly imagining the stones tumbled while the animal was within range of being superbly startled. It would be really sad if one got hurt by them, but I suspect wildlife is quick enough to dodge more than a bump from the collapse of one of my creations.
Hopefully, the scavenger got a good snack from the stump shredding. Think of the poor insect victims!
Nature can be harsh. But it’s beautiful to observe!
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Overnight Excavation
Cyndie discovered it first and told me I needed to check out the odd hole in the backyard. Even though she described it as unique compared to any holes Asher digs, I was not expecting the depth and large circumference. More surprising, there was almost no dirt visible outside the hole.
Where did it go?
From the angle of my approach, I instantly spotted the hole in the bottom of the hole. There were bees moving around and entering and exiting the small opening.
Some critter was after the bees. Cyndie looked up what animals dig up bee nests in the ground and learned bears, skunks, and raccoons were possibilities. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a bear –we’ve seen no recent evidence of bear activity– and we hope it wasn’t a skunk. It could very easily have been a raccoon.
Still, I don’t understand where the dirt from the hole ended up.
We intend to fill the hole with lime screenings after spraying to discourage the continuation of bee activity in this spot. Cyndie read that the animals that dig up bee nests are seeking larvae. If the critter that dug up this nest was successful, maybe there wouldn’t be any future for this nest anyway.
The question remains, where did the dirt go? It’s a mystery to me.
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Lake Adventures
Despite a brief rain shower in the morning, Friday at the lake was filled with adventure along our shoreline. With my mind mulling over the landscaping work awaiting attention along our driveway at home, I took up the beach rake and resumed the fine art of reclaiming sand that has washed off the beach into the water.
There is a mind-boggling amount of raking and soil preparation I’ll be doing at home soon, so playing with the rake on the beach is just a warmup for the next event.
We got a glimpse of a real-life nature show when baby snapping turtles started emerging from a hole on the beach.
It’s an annual occurrence but still a thrill to witness each time we see it. Cyndie searched for facts about the process after I wondered how many survive because so many tiny turtles wandering into the water –cute at this stage of their lives, for a snapping turtle– gives the impression the lake could be teeming with the creatures.
Some surprising details I learned: the female can carry viable sperm for three years. Clutches of eggs laid can range from roughly 20 to 40 or more. At dinner last night, Marie asked how many were showing up on our shore. Before Cyndie had looked it up, I answered with a wild guess that tracks and turtle sightings were numbering in the twenties or thirty.
Wasn’t far off, although information suggested a larger percentage will never even reach the point of hatching. Our batch must have been hearty survivors out of the shell. Unfortunately, only a small percentage of those who made it to the water will avoid fatal encounters.
The list of potential predators is long, including other snapping turtles. I prefer to think our trophy-sized muskies are feasting on them. One resident adult snapping turtle in our bay is more than enough in my mind.
After a refreshing swim and a period of floating on the big waves rolling in from the south, we noticed neighbor Eric’s sailboat had come unmoored and was teetering along our rocky shore. Cyndie’s brother, Steve, hustled up to report it and found Eric wasn’t around.
I joined Steve in a rescue operation using the ski boat to pull the anchored buoy farther out and then corralling the sailboat to tow just as Eric showed up. He had been in town for lunch and to buy material for improving the buoy anchor when he got the message his boat was loose.
Meanwhile, word from Wintervale is that care for Asher and the horses is a joy (don’t we know it) and all is well. That’s such a blessing for us and allows for worry-free absorption in the adventures our lake place offers.
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Relative Something 