Odds and Ends

It has been a very rainy and cool week, and not conducive to the type of work we like to get done here on the farm, or at deer camp. We have had a few adventures...though I have yet to catch a bear on camera this spring , one did hit a bird feeder, and try to tackle the electric fence holding in the sheep. That fiasco sent fiber glass 'fiber rods' for many feet through he air, and caused an hours worth of labor to put the fence back together. But as always with these things - you are always grateful the bear did not get inside the fence, and then fear to leave...Those incidents are DISASTERS!!! Meanwhile this doe below is quite bagged up, and has her fawn parked somewhere nearby... Second adventure...Several days ago I was downstairs early in the morning when my wife yelled down from upstairs (we have a barn cam that displays on the bedroom TV) that the flock was milling and terrified at the barn. So down I ran, to find the sheep milling around outside. They refused to come in to see me which is highly unusual. Then my wife called saying there was a baby deer in the barn. I found it in a back pen, at the most 2-3 days old. No idea how it popped through the electric fence, but I scooped it up and was so anxious to get it back to the woods that abut the pasture that I failed to get any pictures. It screamed several times while I carried it (good!) and a few minutes later sprang across the brook and trotted off into the woods. I just pray Mom can reconnect. She certainly must have heard her fawn blat! Godspeed little guy...

Another doe, at a mineral lick

This big cat has been around this particular plot for several weeks, and since I have no pictures of hares this week, I begin to worry...

Things they SHOULD have learned in kindergarten...share!

Nice little buck below...still looking to see when the spike horn will lose his 2011 antlers!

These carrion eaters were circling above camp the other day...there were three and they were so persistent that I began to go out and look for myself. Eventually (after a half hour) they drifted away. Would love to know what they had scented.

While I was cutting down the huge hemlock on the Far Ridge plot, I found this feather on the ground...turkey? hawk? You tell me!

Closer to home, Mr. Blue bird guards our garden.

Below is the hemlock a mentioned above. In the fall it blocks sun from hitting the annuals in the plot, and it blocks a view to a deer path. I am dragging it a hundred feet away toward a sun opening.

jackzeller@myfairpoint.net