Fox Den

 The Momma Fox as again made her den in our pasture this year. There are 6 pups and they are pretty cute to watch when the play in the evenings. It seems Dottie has not chased the Momma off but she does bark and try to distract Dottie from the den when she sees her getting near. Dean has some live traps around the place and yesterday when he check the one nearest the den he found one of the babies. So we took a few picks before we let him loose. He ran right back to the den.

Wild Ones

Big Claws for Digging

It seems that spring and fall bring out the critters. Once again we are setting traps and finding interesting animals around us. We had a badger digging along our driveway, so the latest excitement was getting him trapped. As Zach said "Naughty Badger, Daddy bootzed him and throw him in the weeds!" They have also been able to trap some gophers.
An interesting find was the Western Painted Turtle, the patterns and colors in nature are unbelievable.

With the past rains the salamanders have come out in full force and are finding their way into our window wells - so D  & Z have also been collecting them and getting them out of my sight! I think they got 75 one evening after a big rain! Yuck!

Pretty Western Painted Turtle

Finally our latest fun has been watching the deer. This morning we watch 2 does and 2 fawns prance and play in our back yard. So fun! We also have a couple of small Oak trees that are now producing acorns which really draws them in. We have set up our game cam and have again caught the tailless doe this year. Kind of fun to know she made it through the hunting season last year. Makes me wonder if she had a close call one year to loose her tail or if she was born that way?

These ones - not so pretty!

The Doe without a Tail Returns.

Baby Critters

About a week ago, Dean was out spraying in the pasture and by chance drove up right along this little guy. Then last night he went back to that same spot and the fawn was still there so we all went to take a quick look. He stayed put but started sniffing a bit at us, if you look close his nose is wrinkled up in the picture. He is so tiny and cute!
We also found a chipping sparrow nest in our evergreen by the house.
For an update on the other critters, the duck abandoned her nest - so no baby ducks and the fox pups have moved on - was hoping for some more pics but no luck.
Now we watch the doe come and go from the pasture daily to eat and come back to baby.


Aren't I CUTE!



Baby Chipping Sparrows

Deer Watching

Last Fall we had lots of deer in our yard and they are starting to show up again. We got ourselves a game camera to see what we could capture. They seem to come around all throughout the night and sometimes we see them in the early morning daylight crossing through. They have checked out the strawberries (but haven't eaten any) and out apple trees (got a not very clear picture of one standing on hind legs to get an apple).
All have been does so far, but we did notice that one doe is missing her tail. You'll see her in the pics below.

May Daze

Well it seems May has passed and it has already been about a month since I posted anything.
We've been busy! I took lots of pics of our fun. So here it is...
Early May we helped cut down trees at Grandma B's house and Zach got his first tractor ride with Daddy. We also had some fun playing with cousins there and Auntie Nae had some baby Canada Geese to play with.
Zach really loves Grandma's chickens. Even though the mean black rooster started a fight with him once, he seems to have forgotten already.
We spent lots of time preparing our garden spot and finally got the majority of it planted on the 16th. Things are starting to grow pretty good now and have been working on weeds.
We discovered that a fox had her den in our pasture near the garden. Dean thought he counted 6 babies which seems to be a lot. We were able to watch them play, pretty cute.
We also had a nice grill-out with the A. family - Zach and Tressa had a blast with the trikes and Luke was content to have Zach give him a few wagon rides. :)
Other projects around here... Keeping up with the lawn is a project in itself!
In the past week Dean has been setting traps for the moles in our tree rows - he has had quite a bit of success and Zach knows where each trap is and watches closely that we don't miss checking one. He has also learn all about shooting a gun - as he tells Daddy to "Bootz 'em".

Feathered Friends

Many birds are back and some new ones we haven't had at our feeders before. It seems that the goldfinches are back in larger numbers this year and they pack as many of themselves as can fit in our feeder. We are also getting hummingbirds again this spring (haven't snapped any pictures yet). My newest surprise was to have a Rose-breasted Grosbeak at our feeder - he seems to be staying as we see him around the yard off and on. Until now I have only seen this type of bird once maybe twice in all my birding days. So it is exciting. We also have had Brown Thrashers at our feeder which I would have never expected although they are not that uncommon to see around, I just didn't think they were the type to come to feeders commonly. They have the neatest bird call as they are related to mockingbirds and make all sorts of sounds.

Fox cubs

Just recently along the Hwy into town - we have spotted a fox den with Mama and 3 baby cubs. I tried to get a picture, all but one dived into there hole before I could take a snap. And of course I wish I had my super telephoto lens. But this gives you an idea of how cute they are anyway.

Catchin' Coons

Finally! We've been waiting for this one. Ever since we went to Medora in July we knew there were coons in the territory as one was in our barn and was working on getting into the cat food.
So Dean set a live trap in the nearby trees. We caught a one shortly after setting up the trap but it thrashed around so much that it cleverly escaped! After that the trap got staked down so they couldn't rattle it around, and now finally success! We have also caught a skunk, and some cats (thus the live trap, so they can be released).