Wildlife Camera Clips

It's been a very snowy March. The fourth Nor'easter of the month should hit in the next couple of hours. We've been very fortunate here. We've had the snow and high winds but we've never lost power and, not being near the coast, we avoided all of the heavy flooding.

We've had our wildlife cameras out almost as long as we've lived here. We received our first camera for Christmas 2015 and our second this past Christmas. We've repositioned the cameras many times but have only captured animals a few times. Imagine our surprise this morning when I checked the cameras and found four animal clips (three taken one ofter another).

I'm attaching the animal clips but first, a photo of some very unusual icicles that we found over at the local school:

Oakham Center School has a metal roof and the heavy snow had started to slide off before it refroze. The icicles slid with it and ended up at this impossible angle. Notice that some of them continued to grow after the shift so they now appear to be curved.

Now here are those clips:

This deer clip was obviously taken on a different day.

Then we have this bobcat.

I almost missed the fox in this picture. It's in the

lower left corner at the beginning of the clip.

Finally, we have a coyote (or possibly, a coyote-wolf hybrid).We've heard them but we've never seen one.

-JC-

Bobcat Sightings

We've seen quite a few bobcats lately. They must live up in the woods behind the house. We keep running into them out in the driveway.

Bobcats have a reputation for having a rather nasty disposition so we give them a wide berth when we see them. They react strangely when they know that they're being watched. Even if they appeared to be in a hurry when first spotted, they'll suddenly start biding their time. Often, they'll just sit down and lick their paws while they stare back.

Kristen caught a couple of pictures of this one from one of the upstairs windows.

-JC-

Strange tracks in the snow

Don't know what this animal was but it was certainly different  At first, we were thinking that it might be an otter (which is certainly possible in this area) but online pictures weren't quite right. Porcupine was close (and we've certainly seen some of those). The closest match was a groundhog / woodchuck / marmot. Guess we'll never know for sure. Our wildlife camera was pointed in the right direction but turned up nothing.

-JC-

Fun with Pyromania

I've mentioned before that the burning season in Oakham is from January 15 until May 1. Permits are free and can be obtained online. Any time that you want to burn, you call the number on the permit to see if the Fire Department feels that the weather conditions are right and to get their authorization (they probably limit the number of fires each day).

Obviously you don't want to burn when it's too dry, too windy or when it's raining. A light covering of snow on the ground doesn't hurt. Light snow flurries are optimal.

I started this burn season with five burn piles. Three were right next to each other so it made sense to burn them at the same time. Neighbor Jim offered to help and, once he sized up the situation, we got the middle pile burning good and then used his Kubota backhoe to pull the other two piles over into the flames. Those piles were off to the left of where our wildlife camera was pointed so we only got pictures of the tractor moving in and out of frame.

This week, I decided to try the next pile by myself and, as it happened, the burn was mid frame. The following is one of the 48 movie clips that were taken.

A little diesel helps things along!

I still have one pile to burn. It's out on the other side of our leach field close to Barre Road. This last pile will be a bit different. The others were primarily multiflora rose vines which were horribly tangled up with each other. This one is mostly tree branches.

It's still a long time until May so I might still cut some more brush and get it burned. We'll have to see.

-JC-

Beautiful Snowy Morning

We were supposed to have some rain last night with maybe some light snow toward dawn. I don't know if we ever got the rain but we did get 4-5" of very wet snow (the heavy kind that sticks to everything). It was kind of windy as well so it's pretty spectacular this morning.

These first pictures (bluish tone) were taken out the windows early in the morning:

Off the farmers porch. That thing that looks like a giant potted cauliflower is a rhododendron.

Also off the farmers porch.

The birds go nuts when it snows. They may never find another bite to eat!

Out the upstairs front windows. Look at the snow on the utility lines!

We went for our daily walk after breakfast and then plowed the driveway. First, I took some pictures outside the house:

The windmill was turning madly but was unable to dislodge the snow that was caked to the blades.

Across the road.

Looking toward our house from up on Maple St.. On a normal winters day, you might see the house through there.

Walking down Barre St.  Our property is along the right side to the bottom of the hill.

There's a peek at the house from Barre St.

The temperature is dropping. It was about 32° F when we got up this morning. At 10am, it's 19° with a windchill of -1°. Surprisingly, it's very clear and sunny.

-JC-

Busy Week

Since I started with that title, I'll address things in the order that they've come up this week.

Monday:

I had five piles of brush cuttings that needed to be burned this winter (burning season in January 15 through May 15). Three of the piles were close together and were obvious candidates for burning at the same time. Neighbor Jim considers himself a pyromaniac and was eager to participate. Monday was the day. I got the necessary permit and gave Jim a call.

The three piles consisted of 20+ foot strands of wild roses. With the thorns, there was no untangling them. We got a good hot fire burning in the middle pile and Jim decided that it was time to bring in his Kubota backhoe. He pulled the one pile in on itself to get it all over the flame and then lifted the other 2 piles over onto the first. We were through burning by noon. Gotta get me a tractor but I'll need a barn first and that's not likely to happen (good thing that we have a couple of helpful friends with tractors).

I'll probably take on the other two piles myself (one at a time). The tractors wouldn't be able to get to the sites (streams/ditches would be collapsed).

Tuesday:

We put a pellet stove in when we moved in. Everything was fine the first year. The second year, the combustion motor jammed early in the year and then failed later in the year. This year, it overheated and burned out the igniter and then we started having problems with it refusing to start. All of these visits (plus the annual maintenance visits) were at least a couple of hundred dollars apiece. I called the company last week and told them that we were ready to have them yank the stove and that we would go back to burning firewood.

They sent their chief tech out today at no charge (so far - holding our breath). He was here for 3 hours and said that he hadn't felt this tested in 2 years. The combustion motor needed to be replaced again. That done, the igniter didn't work so he removed it, tested it and reinstalled it. The computer ended up being the problem. Repair techs don't usually have computers on board but he had suspected that from the start and put one in the truck. The stove is running better than when it was brand new.

Wednesday (tomorrow):

I mentioned in an earlier post that the heavy snow had melted very quickly and flooded the basement (warm days followed by heavy rain). A few but days after that, our well water turned murky. It's an artesian well and is several hundred feet deep but an occasional event can roil the aquifer. Apparently, this happened before and the previous owner had a water softener installed. We called the guy who had installed the softener and got him out. This murky water thing apparently last happened after the heavy snows of 2015. At the time, he repacked the softener (which took care of the problem) but also recommended an additional filtration system. The owner was about to sell the house so it's understandable that she didn't do it. In any case, tomorrow's the day. We're going to have him install a multilayer filtration system that will remove iron, hydrogen sulphide, manganese, etc.

-JC-

Crazy Weather

After several weeks where the temperature only approached freezing a couple of times, we finally had a break this week. We had 2 or 3 days that started out in the 50's and approached the 60's before end of day. The snow had drifted so the depth varied from 1' to 3' (it was deepest right up against the West side of the house).

The snow wasn't melting quite fast enough so we topped it off with a 2-4" downpour yesterday evening. Early in the evening, Kristen heard a crash downstairs and discovered that we had Niagara Falls coming in through one of the basement windows. The window was intact but it was completely submerged and the water was getting in around the sliding panels.

We immediately got outside and cleared the snow blockages that were keeping the water from draining way from the house. By this morning, the sump pumps had done their job and the basement was practically dry. Also by this morning, the snow was almost completely gone (we had no idea that snow could melt that fast!).

Naturally, there was a lot on the news this morning (just in time) about the steps that you need to take to prevent this from happening and the neighbors were more than willing to tell us of the steps that they took yesterday. Live and learn. Once the ground thaws, we'll probably be making some improvements to the structures that surround the window wells.

Now, we're experiencing a sudden temperature drop off. When we woke up this morning, it was 59°. By the time that we ate breakfast and set out for our walk, had dropped to 41° (it was 43° when I was putting on my coat but had dropped to 41° by the time that we headed out the door). By the time that we got back home, it had dropped to 37°. It's now 6pm and we're down in the high teens. That's a 40° drop since this morning.

-JC-