A Few "Earlybirds" Today

There were two grouse out feeding early this morning under two feeders, before I even got out. They do a lot of scratching, and I know there is always some food left on the ground from the day before.

Hmmmmm, we don't exactly look hungry now, do we???!!!

I love these little red breasted nuthatches. They are so cute, and so quick, I hardly ever get pics. of them. I love their chattering also, you always know when one is nearby.

And the fact that they can run upside-down, down the tree trunks. How the heck do they do it?!

There are now five gorgeous male pine grosbeaks, and three female ones - one is the dull coloured one at the back. These are under a feeder on the outside of our fenced-in area, and allow me to get very close. Trust is my partner in feeding the birds and they only fly off when they feel she has come too close...like the woodpeckers, they are very "tame".

More Amazing hoarfrost pics.

This pictures is from our front west field looking over the road and behind the neighbours' property across the road into the hills. Again, the pictures does not do justice, it was lovely.

For miles this morning, the land here was covered in this thick hoarfrost. And I've never seen it last for so long. I was coming home from town, and stopped on the main road to the west of us to look over to our property. Our place is all the treed area, behind this front field. I've rarely seen it so very pretty.

I zoomed in a bit to try and show the beauty more, and to show the hill way back out behind - look on the right side of the picture. That hill is approx. 3 miles back from where I'm standing, taking this photo. The hill is out behind our original homestead from years ago. This was just after 11 a.m., and as I said, I've never, ever seen it last so long. Just so beautiful.

Another Beautiful Day!!!

Thick Hoarfrost coated everything early this morning...it was just so beautiful. I just wish the pictures would do it justice, they just don't show the diamond glint like you see in real life. It is really spectacular and not seen very often...although this is the second time this winter now.
I took these pictures around 8 a.m. while out walking with the dogs.

These pictures were to the north and the west while we walked down the driveway.

Hoarfrost is like a thick crumbly, sparkly coating on all tree branches, weeds, everything...just lovely.

And the sunrise! Gorgeous! At this time the temp. here was about -14C, no wind, hoarfrost has just formed earlier.

I'm hoping this will be one of those 'special' winters where we have some amazing sunrises. The last two winters have not been very spectacular, just need the right conditions.

Blog Content Change?????

Just thinking that recently the Tracking Content has changed to "Our Daily Walks"! But thank goodness we can do this, and we are soooo enjoying them.
This is a view from our front field into the neighbouring property on the east side. There is an old abandoned log barn that I absolutely love, and wish it was on "our side". It is just so picturesque, and reminds me so much of our original place up here which was an old log house and barn.

I zoomed in to show the logs. The old house remains on the property also, and is in pretty good condition. The wolf is watching.....(Trust!).

Tank is just daring Trust to come up on top; although I'm not sure why, he'd just want to play. They seem to be giving each other the "evil eye"..

Trust sits atop a rock looking like the princess she is, while Tank just worships her.

What a pair these two are. It was love at first sight when Tank came home at 8 weeks. Other than appearance, they are two peas in a pod.

And when Blast gets involved, the devil in Tank comes out. Trust has become pretty frisky in the past few months for an 'older' girl. She would never play before, now she tries to take over the situation

Blast doesn't care, as long as he has someone to play with him and not quit, he will go to any lengths to keep Tank interested. When Tank sometimes does have enough and heads towards the house, Blast cuts him off and won't let him pass without further wrestling. A pair of another sort!!!

Counting the months to Tracking!!

It will be a good three months (or more!) longer before we can really get tracking again....seems like such a long time to wait. Last winter, I did a lot of "free tracking" with Blast and it was amazing to watch him race full speed through the snow and trees and find the articles. However, I won't be doing this again, as the "down side" was not liking his style when we got back to "regular" tracking. For CKC tracking, the dog is required to follow the track, and not cut corners to find the article (s). It was extra work and time to get him back to a more "nose down" and steady, not running, on the track, and not curbing any enthusiasm while doing this. Although with him, I think tenacity runs through his veins!
A couple of weeks back, we walked down the driveway and he suddenly took off into the field. Part way out, he began to circle, increasingly smaller circles, zoomed in and began to dig through the snow like crazy. Shortly after, he came up with something solid in his mouth, I couldn't make it out. He came racing back and it turned out to be a frozen solid old glove that I remembered we had played with - a MINIMUM of five weeks previously on a walk. I truly don't know how he does it.
So this post isn't really about tracking....but scent in general...
He has found old things, usually a toy, previously in much the same way, but not after this length of time, and not under a foot and a half of snow. The nose is amazing!
This picture is from a walk yesterday, Blast and Tank were playing and running with a rope toy and I managed to get it a couple of times, tossing into the field. This toss ended up with it hanging in a tree branch. Interesting to watch them. They both first went to the area where they would have seen it "coming down".....but no toy to be found. They both began to circle, a large circle, and continued to zero in on the scent from above, obviously getting stronger as they circle smaller and closer to being under it. All of a sudden, Blast lifts his head and begins to jump up towards the tree branch. It was not obvious at this time, and he ended up moving to the other side, working up into the branch, using his legs, until he located and could grab it.
Last year, Trust was tracking through an asphalt parking lot, and we were near the end of the track. A leather glove had been left just past the change into some dead grass and near a small port-a-room building. No article was seen. It was not windy, so it wasn't blown off, a mystery. I'm looking around and she starts to circle, around and around into smaller circles, me trailing and using my eyes to no avail. Voila! Trust begins to look "upwards" and move straight towards a trailer hitch. There it was, propped up on top! Someone had obviously seen it, thought it had been lost, and kindly stuck it up where it could be seen and found. Not by me, certainly, but by the dog with the nose!!! (I was standing 2' from it and still had not seen it!!!)
I love watching the dogs work like this, proving once again, they are much smarter than me!

Life as we know it...

We are very fortunate in being able to say that we love where we live. Many people are not in a place that they love or enjoy, usually not choosing to be there. Having acreage and privacy has always been a priority for us, even if it means giving up 'some' things, and also 'creating' some different problems. Since I was a weird young kid, I enjoyed solitude and animals above anything else. I wanted a horse since I can first remember, and from the time I was sixteen I had horses until my last one died three years ago. With my first horse, I rode through the Don Valley in Toronto from Pottery Road to Warden Avenue, sometimes with the mounted police riding in the Valley. All that area is now manicured parklands and I doubt I could do it these days. I was lucky for those opportunities. Northern Ontario called when the south became too congested. First we moved to Stouffville, and a weekend trip to Sundridge in winter convinced us that this was the area we really belonged. Two years later we bought property south of North Bay, not sure when we could ever move up there.
Eventually, the proposed Pickering Airport (still never built) forced us into a quick decision to move north - to a self sufficiency life style. This whole experience is a story itself. But we were there for 12 years, Davids' work move took us to Quebec for one year (expected 5), another long story, and then to Orillia area for 10 years before being able to come "home" to the north again.
We found a 100 acre parcel only 3 miles from our former homestead and fell in love with it. Very quiet, dead end road, not many people around at that time, and to the east was 400 empty acres which then joined gov't. land. Wildlife abounds, and to this day, we still find some critters standing their ground not far away and looking at us like they have no idea what we are.

These pictures are from a walk through the "backyard" of our place, with the forest starting directly behind our house. The front is mainly open to the road, our driveway being 1500' in.

Because of the complete mix of open/forest and fringe and mix of trees, we have a huge number of bird species all year round, and many 4-legged critters (besides the dogs!)

This is a little 'open' area where this particular trail curves back into the trees over to the right.

Pretty yesterday with a dusting of snow on the trees.

We lost our large snow coverage over the weekend to rain and high temps, also lost our snowshoe trails, but the walking was pretty easy in most areas. Trust is on a trail heading back into the s.e. part of the forest.

This deer was beside the house in the morning before we went out, there were just two there. We aren't sure how many are regularly hanging around, we've seen more deer tracks all over, than normal, but usually see a group of four together, two adult, two yearling does. They are very pretty but often curtail walk plans with the dogs to give the deer a chance to graze and leave.

The only thing missng from our property would be water. There is a spring creek through the corner by the road, but a pond would be lovely. However, we are in an area of lakes and two are only minutes away when I want to take the dogs out for a swim or water retrieves.

I just can't imagine not living here, it is so perfect. Nothing is more enjoyable than going for walks in the forest with the dogs...and they think so too!