Our winter friends

Beauty is everywhere, if you look for it

There was a heavy frost on the trees this morning as I headed out toward the sheep barn.  The sun was rising and the frost glistened; as though fairies had come through over night and laboriously painted each branch with the lightest of sugars.

Frosted Sumac

 Beauty is everywhere, if you look for it.

Sometimes we need a reminder of why we have animals in our lives

I'd say this shot about covers it for me.

Happy holidays!

What are they doing out there?

The "Arbor to Nowhere" is no more

And that is because it is now the "Arbor to Somewhere". A while ago I posted about Lynn's penchant for arbors Arborlover. And I pointed out that she had Jim construct an arbor that appeared to serve no purpose whatsoever. After three years, this now leads to somewhere. Thanks to the great efforts of Lynn's brother Jim. He and the beloved Kubota worked hard to clear a path straight out into our woods that connects to an existing logging road. He trucked piles of rocks to serve as filler to plug up some big gaps. He also had to manually clear one portion that was pretty thick with brush.
Why is this so exciting you ask? Well, we now do not have to walk 600 feet through three gates to walk in the woods. Awesome!

This path is about 300 feet in total I would guess and connects directly to the logging road

This shows how thick the brush was that Jim had to cut through to clear it.

And I thought I had no sense of direction

Last week I noticed a bird who looked different than any I had seen around the property. He would hang out by the feeders and hop along the ground. Always alone, and usually hanging around the same group of trees. So I took some pics and googled him. He is a Bronzed Cowbird. The thing is, they are from Central America and go as far north as Louisiana. Well, we are pretty far north from that so it is a mystery how he got here. Perhaps he hitched a ride with a moving van. I saw him yesterday, and our temps are dropping so I hope this little guy can make it through one of our winters. And just so ya know I did report the sighting on ebird which I believe is run by Cornell.