Trailcam: coyote, fox, buck

Here it is, another storm warning. We'll see what we get.

St. John's, N.L., in the Maritimes, has had 76 cm of snow. They have had wind gusts of 130 km/hr, and  snow drifts of 12 - 15' high. They've declared a state of emergency. There are 16,000 customers without power. I won't complain!

The kittens are settling down. I let Cinn into the room where Nutmeg is secluded. She's healing nicely. He's having supervised, non-conjugal visits. They are so happy to see one another.

There is a great long list of No-Nos for her. No stairs, jumping, playing, climbing, bathing, etc. As if! Cinn was playing in his water bowl at the vet's, post-surgery!

I remember having my partial hysterectomy, and being a single mom. My daughter had to go to CGIT, and I wasn't supposed to drive for 10 days. I felt OK, and drove her. I felt fine. I figure that Nutmeg's going to do what is comfortable. She's up on the window ledge, bird watching. She's playing with Cinn, whacking at his tail when I let him in.

This coyote didn't like the camera!

coyote from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I've been reading the directions in the manual on the new camera. There are automatic settings: Q1, 2, 3, 4, and custom. With custom, you override the settings, but you still can't get rid of the timeout. Why do they design them this way? Sheesh.

This video, if you look at the time stamps, takes a 30-second timeout before starting to video again. On a 10-second video you lose a lot. I reset it for tomorrow. You'll see, with the coyote, that it's pretty much losing a lot of the action.

coyote from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

bucks from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

fisher
fisher from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

fox from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Snow falls

What a snowstorm. It began when the thermometer read 0, and then it stuck to everything. It was -2 in the a.m. and the snow fell early Thursday morning.
For comparison!

Jan. 12th

Jan 16th

Friday morning we've a bit of a cold spell, with another storm on the way.

Out the kitchen window.


The buck had snow clinging to his big antlers. There was more, but I decided to finish my coffee in my easy chair first.

First task was the driveway. No worries. When I made it down to the road, I realized someone had gone into the ditch! Whoopsie. Many drive way too fast around this corner, I have to turn my back as I'm shoveling. I walked down.



Down to the beautiful forest to fetch the memory cards. I tried some artistic photos. This was the best I could do!



The poor trailcams!



Back indoors, these two, feeling under the weather, were in the spare room. JB's cough is worse. We take turns visiting her in the recovery room, as she heals from her spaying. Her stitches look good.
Cinn continues to put the sin in Cinnamon. He's a spicy, hot to trot tomboy, and jumping his sisters' bones. It's tough isolating them, but important. Once she is healed up, we'll be OK.



My theory is, JB overdid it Tuesday, doing the end of the driveway. I did it Thursday, yesterday, in anticipation of our cold spell. We both like shovelling. It's good exercise.



I had lunch, and went out to tackle the front sidewalk. The feeders were quite covered. I did NOT get any snow down my sleeves this time.



Look at my beautiful neck warmer, Jean!



In the afternoon, there was a break in the clouds. So good to see that blue sky. Even for a short while.

Annabelle took the prime spot.

Cat tales: hormones Part the third

IT'S been a journey. Kitty Hormones... |   Hormones, cats – part II

Jan. 13

Monday morning I toodled off to Cat's Meow Inn to pick up cats. Annabelle had a spa morning, just before I picked them up. She is 'fresh and lovely!' I dropped off the kittens to be fixed at the vet's.
 I got a dirty look, as I called her name! She's not amused. It's a side eye, I think.

I think I see her drooling in this next photo! She was happy to be home, even though she was good for Cassandra. As I arrived to pick her up, Cinnamon leapt up at her, wrapped an arm around her neck, in pure joy, or to piss off his sister. Could go either way.

Anyway, I dropped Cinnamon and Nutmeg off at the vet's, so they don't fight at home. The vet technician will phone Tuesday, when they recover. 

Annabelle, or Queen B, as they called her, wants to be the boss of Nutmeg. They have to set up who is alpha. She just can't do this while Nutmeg is healing.

Jan. 14, 2020

The vet technician phoned. The two kittens had successful surgeries. We could have picked them up at noon, but I had my client. We also have to keep Nutmeg, especially, quiet for 10 days. No stairs. I'm stumped.

Jan. 15, 2020

We picked them up about 9:30. We have been anxious and on the edge of our seats for days with worry. Wish us luck! I hope Annie will accept a non-in heat kitten, now she's fixed.  

They told me that Cinnamon seems to like playing in water. They couldn't figure out why he drank so much water, but he'd been playing in his water bowl with both paws. Daisy used to like the stream on our driveway in spring! Cinnamon will like frogging, like Daisy!

I took photos of their surgical sites, in order to establish a baseline for possible infection.  (I did this for JB, too, after his robotic surgery!) I put her into the spare bedroom. We took Cinnamon out of his carrier, and also took a photo. Right away, Annabelle came over to inspect him. There was butt-sniffing involved. "Where the heck were you? What happened?"

Nutmeg's surgery is more invasive. Their throats are dry and sore, and she has a bit of a cough from the anesthetic tubing.  She's got pain meds for three days. When I returned with water and food, she skipped out of the bedroom. Immediately, Cinnamon jumped her bones. He's howling at her door.  

So much for restricting his activities! He's not in too much pain!

Cinnamon from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

He was sitting on the couch, in cat position, like this (below). His eyes closed, and his head want back as he went to sleep, like the subway nod! It was so funny. He's go, go, go, then crash. He still thinks he has hormones. Apparently he won't get rid of them for 4, or 6, to 8 weeks! He was jumping on Queen B, who wasn't having any of it.

  

We're supposed to slow him down, no stairs, etc. HAH! I gave up on that. He was affectionate, and went overboard. JB found him being a bit rough, "Cinnamon, you have to calm down. When I had MY surgery, I watched a three-hour documentary on the Civil War!" Cinn hopped down immediately and came into the living room with me! 

He is non-stop. I've brushed him three times, and he's shedding like mad.

Jan. 16

We'll see what today brings. They've had breakfast, I gave Nutmeg her pain meds. Yesterday we kept popping in to visit her, without Cinnamon! She goes back in 10 days to have her sutures removed. We'll get through this. 

We've had another big snow storm and I'll have to shovel before I visit my client this afternoon. It looks like about 8" or 20 cm. JB's cough is worse. We're hanging in.

Bucking the trend

I'm finding it hard to concentrate. I'm fighting headaches, discomfort, and irritability from the cataracts. When I see something spinning on TV, I have to turn away as I get vertigo.  The office promise to phone in early February for a date. I am dubious.

A distraction, has been a Canadian show called Mayday. With the recent air disaster, it is an interesting show, which uses re-enactments, computer-generated graphics, interviews of families, and TV news clips, to uncover what was learned, and what was done to prevent it from happening again. It really illustrates how much we've learned, and how we investigate such disasters.

Wiki lists the seasons, the shows, such as "Kid in the Cockpit," Lockerbie, etc. One of them, 2008 Mexico City Learjet crash, illustrates how the two pilots faked their training certificates. It is shocking, but they always explain how it has happened.

Nutmeg went fishing prior to her surgery. (We pick them up today!)


Nutmeg from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

I drove home from my client's house and thought I saw a beaver in Otter Creek. I didn't have a zoom lens with me.

Then, out front, our big buck.

OK, pet peeve. Look at those temperatures out west. She looks like she's on vacay somewhere!
It makes me think of doing yard duty in subzero temperatures, watching gr. 7/8s without coats, in their t-shirts and jeans, trying not to shiver. She seldom wears sleeves!

Trailcam updates

I was right. The new trailcamera takes wonderful photos, but it's too slow for the fisher, for example. It's meant for big game tracking. sigh.

I set them up to cover the forest. They are covered in ice and snow, too. The older camera is here, catching the trail. The new one is facing into the forest, on the right.

The fisher appears on the old camera, but ran left to right, past the new camera. There was no sign of the fisher on the new one. There was, however, a human who walked more slowly.



deer from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

What an exciting capture, our big buck roaring through the forest, with a coyote close behind. (This is on the old trailcam.) A coyote cannot take down a healthy deer, which is why this one has survived so long. He's fleet of foot. You can see the coyote just give up.



The turkeys spent a long time sitting around!



The ground is a mess. This is a little spot where the rain is still flowing.


Monday, I took the kittens in for today's surgery. It's high time they were fixed!

That was a storm

Saturday

I went down to the meadow. It was a pond, not a meadow.



The frog pond is quite full. That bodes well for spring.



The water is up to the dock boards!



The pumpkins are slowly being eaten.

Sunday

We're back to snow! The snow blower did little to move it.



It took two days to melts the ice in the 'rain' gauge!