This weekend we had about 9″ of snow, then maybe half an inch of rain, and now it’s back to freezing. We’re starting to get festive and really look forward to visiting family!

There is a small group of young grouse hanging out near our solar panel along the driveway. Three of them have been around consistently for the past month, but today I got to spend some time watching and listening to one without flushing it.

This week, we ate the very last tomato, which we picked from our garden about a month and a half ago as a greenish pink thing and stored in the basement. Not bad.

I made some whisk brooms out of broom corn (a kind of sorghum we grew this year).

Charley walked back and forth in front of our trail camera, which was on the garden corner fence post. There are rabbit tracks right in front of it, and we set it up there because we found gray fox tracks in that location, but somehow the camera only caught us.

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=2058,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=16,TY=98,PY=98,DY=53,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=3141,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=19,TY=98,PY=100,DY=44,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=3629,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=20,TY=98,PY=101,DY=45,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=1354,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=12,TY=98,PY=99,DY=47,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=595,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=5,TY=98,PY=102,DY=73,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=487,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=4,TY=98,PY=148,DY=104,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=487,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=4,TY=98,PY=106,DY=80,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

P14_T_FG=1000,FT=650,NIR=1,GM=41,CT=160,EV=6,TY=98,PY=100,DY=76,GB=0x80,NY=0,AE(0,0,640,480,1),0

I have since moved the camera, as we found bobcat tracks entering a thicket behind our chicken house.

In the last 2-3 weeks, we’ve seen the following birds on our feeder: downy woodpecker, dark-eyed junco, American goldfinch, tufted titmouse, black-capped chickadee, northern cardinal, mourning dove, purple finch, white-breasted nuthatch, blue jay, and European starlings (just once, and they didn’t eat, oddly). Gray squirrels come to eat as well.