Doe a deer

 Sunday was a foggy day. We were anticipating a lot of rain. 

I'm glad I went walkies the day before. There were some deer beds at the end of the meadow under the pine tree. They scrape out a bed, to get down to the leaves and grasses. This first bed was a little apart from the other 5. 

These beds appear to show family members in a group. 

There are lots of coyote tracks. 

I just love them. (These are old photos!) 

We love watching them.

What remains...

 As promised, there was a mystery in the snow beside the frog pond. There were tracks beside a tree. Also a spot of blood or two. I like mysteries. 

At the end of the pond, the kids put the turkey carcass out for the critters. This is the 'before.'

The old camera, on the birch tree in the middle, and the second camera on the right, taking stills. 

I walked back down the next day, the box was empty.

Tell tale signs! Coyote tracks. I was excited.

I had to dump a lot of videos, it spent a long time there!

Concurrently, the new camera has very clear photos.

   

 Later, a coyote came back, but you could see a less dominant critter in the corner background.

 

I'm done with Christmas/Hanukkah movies!  I watched an Ann Rule movie based on her book, A Rose for her Grave, based on the life of Randy Roth. What a predator! 

I rounded off the day watching What Remains (2022) based on the life of Sture Bergwall.  I couldn't finish it. Gruesome. The other TV had football on it.

Instead, I played around with my videos!

The party continued...

 You'll have to remember that we've no other parties to go to, living here in the boonies. I sure had fun at this one!

Dec. 26th, while we were out walking, there were preparations! Jean-Luc had dinner in hand. 

Aster plays bass clarinet. She's been invited to perform with the Ottawa student bands in a Spring event. Much fun! She's in the Jazz band, as well. 

Jo is a crafty as Aster. Jordan took the stickers from our crackers and made what he called cootie catchers. 

Do you remember these? My students used to make them all the time, you write little things on them, but they are usually larger! You can see the Internet image for comparison!

Turkey and dinner prep on its way.

It was a fine meal! So good to see our busy kids. The photo Caitlin took of me trying to take a photo of the cake was priceless!

Jean-Luc, my SIL, looked at the cake from his side of the table and said, Gramma is 86!!! That was a funny moment.

Aster was in charge of the ice cream!

Sneaky Joseph took a drawing of mine and had it put on the cake! It's a lousy shot, as I had the wrong setting on the camera! Oh well. Cakes are meant to be eaten. It was so pretty, with sprinkles.

The kids went back home, we had a good time with walkies and a long game of Skip-bo. Mostly it was good to catch up with them all. They've another week off until school and work calls them back. I'm going out to play with trailcams today. It's going to rain on top of the snow. Foggy, and it's going to be a mess. 

Wetland walkies

Christmas Day was a quiet one. I did have a nice video chat with the kids in Vancouver, they were at the cottage, actually. The girls were so excited to have gone out in the rain to the community outdoor heated pool. They are avid skiers, so Bryony and Cluny were happy to get outside.

We had a quiet dinner and watched some Christmas concerts on TV. 

Boxing Day, Dec. 26th, began with a frozen turkey out on the back deck. I soaked it in the pot to thaw it. 

All arrived, and we had some good chats. First thing was to open our mutual presents. It was fun.

Grampa had socks for everyone! 

Grampa wanted a new Ukrainian flag!

I was determined to have some photos of us together.

The kids are crafty. Aster is embroidering moss on her toque. Just free hand. Some of it looks like lichen! She is quite crafty, as are they all. 

Jo was working on putting kids into groups for their planned leadership camp. He and a friend are co-leading it. There is a lot of work to do.

 

Aster, Caitlin and I went walkies. Aster is supposed to do 40 minutes exercise assigned by her gym teacher. First stop was the dock and the frog pond.

OK, Aster kindly shook the tree and the tree shed its snow load on Caitlin! Laughter ensued. We'd looked at the trees, as they are riddled with yellow-bellied sap sucker holes all lined up.

This used to be Annabelle's climbing tree. We had to rehome her. Aster remembered the tree. 

We've so many large, dead white pine trees. 

We called to the barred owl. No sign of it, just having fun!

Back at the house, we fed Grampa's deer!

Caitlin tracked our trek.