Henry, You Two, our deer friends

Here we are. A new day dawns. The sun was lovely, yesterday. 

I had a special delivery yesterday. Plus a really cute card!

As I was writing this, I heard a loud plane overhead. Still dark, Flight Radar was my best option. At first, there was no call sign. I rewound the radar timeline, and found out where it came from. I was really loud, even at 25,000'!

🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌🦌

I didn't mean to post these videos today, but you know how things go. I uploaded them last night, and it defaults to 'public' unless I change it to private until I am ready to post about them.  I konked out and went to bed early, forgetting what I had done. Ain't old age grand?! 

Someone commented on a couple of them, it doesn't happen often with Vimeo, with a lower profile than uTube. I don't get the awful spam and vulgar comments either. That is a bonus.

First up: dear aleaping. They are so quick, and leap so high.

There was partial success at the new location for the trailcams. There are two there. The other one missed any action, including bunnies. I could see tracks. 

No porcupines, despite the evidence of activity, but I did find You Two! I've left them there for two days, and must go check them today. deer in the forest :

 

You Two are happy in the front yard. Bird seed, when it is -20, is acceptable! Our feed supplier told us that a lot of people are feeding deer. They went through an actual ton of feed in one day on Saturday. front yard deer  

 

King Henry still has his antlers.  Henry the buck:  

 

Just as I was putting this together, JB called me to the window. Henry has lost one antler. I guess it's snowshoe time. I first look for small spots of blood, which gives me a trail to follow. They tend to follow heavily trodden paths, the snow is too difficult to walk on otherwise. It takes a lot of energy. I have a plan for today!

Trail camera trials!

Things are horrid in Canada with these anti-everythingers. Skip this, if you like. It is truly discouraging, but writing about it helps me come to terms with it.

Misinformation, lies, conspiracy theories touted as news. Don't believe a lot of what you are hearing, check your sources. We know the lies are being perpetuated by news agencies who aren't checking sources. No, Mr. Trudeau did not leave the country, he was taken to a safe place. He was whisked away by his security detail when threats began. Anarchists from the US are sending money to support local whack jobs. 

We've court injunctions on GoFundMe, as well as the new site, purportedly Christian, where US anarchists are sending money ($10 million). Truckers anarchists, some in trucks, some in SUVS, some funded by international whack jobs, trolled the airport for two hours, slowing traffic, while talking about hazing the schools next. (Pat King is a whack job, calling for action.) One guy did just that to Alta Vista school, where the cops were called. The school board sent a tweet out, warning parents. They crafted a letter and sent it to OCDSB schools (where our grandies go) warning them about more protests.

There were calls traced to the US Thursday morning, flooding Ottawa 911 (emergency) phone lines. Paramedics are having to escort fearful seniors to doctor's appointments. The borders are still closed in those US/Canada border crossings. The automotive plants have cancelled shifts. People are out of work. It is truly discouraging. 

The police are in on it. This is a Twitter video showing cops gabbing and sharing phone images with protestors. This is horrid. I turned off the computer and the TV, and headed outside. They are ramping up for the weekend. Handing out envelopes of money to people showing up at the ARC hotel.

Hubby went out and fetched us dinner from a local restaurant.  We watched Olympics. 

We did have good news this morning. Logging into his online test results, Joseph Brian's PSA tests were that same as last time. They've held the same number, 0.008, since March 2020. This was comforting.

I'm still playing around with my new trail camera. It's a mental challenge, as well as a physical one. You know, you set it, realize you did it wrong, and have to rush out in jammies to: a) turn it on, b) insert the memory card, c) change the time, d) set it to videos not photos, or goodness knows what, once I view the old footage! It keeps me off the street.

This time I forgot to reset the new camera, and realized all I had were photographs. They were funny! The screen captures were quick and fun. I cropped them to capture the action. The red squirrel is quite fun. I'm quite happy with the action photos.

I saw Henry out back, still two antlers. Grabbing the zoom lens, I tried for photos. I switched it to automatic, after realised it was on manual, and that didn't work well. I just didn't have time! Well, you get the picture.

Sauntering down to the back yard, I checked out the aspen grove. The deer have been helping themselves, trimming the tops. (Another pair of lively mittens, both are missing the forefinger tip!)  The little aspengrove is growing. The previous owners mowed all this down in the past. I'm letting it grow. 

The LDD caterpillars ate them bare, they grew back, but we aren't going to think on that right now.

The aspens are ready to pop! Little teeny buds are ready and waiting.

I went for a lovely walk out back. Walking is tricky. I followed the deer paths, I had to keep ducking branches they can walk under. It's all good exercise.

The birds have been busy on the trees. It gets the bugs out.

 

We were watching, near dusk, and the robin landed right on the railing. The camera settings befuddle me, but it was fun to watch. It sat and sat, looking out and around, back and forth, eventually, it landed back on the birdbath.

robin on rail from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

robin on birdbath from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

King Henry the buck, You Two and cats

It's warmed up a tad (-10 C.)! That has been nice. That said, I went for a snowshoe Friday to fetch trailcam videos. By this time, in the afternoon, it had warmed up to -17 C., which was better than -33 C.!  It was exhausting in the knee-deep snow, even with snowshoes. I had to rest after a dozen or so paces. The snow is so deep! 

It is lovely, the snow. It wraps the land in a blanket that moderates the ground temperature. I am somewhat sore, after my short trek. I may do a longer trip today. 

You Two were down there in the forest. Particularly the doe. She was watching something carefully. It was delightful. I wondered what she was staring at, and then she bolted.

This is the trailcam beside the house. It yielded little of excitement! Here I am wearing my old yard duty coat. I am sure I bought it when I first was teaching in Ottawa in the 80s. It's a lovely warm coat and great in double-digit negative temperatures. 

This is the new trailcamera. I am getting used to it. 

King Henry dominates the feeder. He is majestic. 

I've moved this trailcam to a path I'd found the deer using that led from the forest to a path through the wetland. It's a different perspective and gave up a lot of action. Just skip through if it bores you, but I love watching them without interfering.

You Two in snow:

Running for some reason. I spliced together several videos. I couldn't figure out why they were running. Running deer : 

King Henry frequents this path! Buck : 

 

The front deck has been busy. We've about a dozen American tree sparrows. The cats are more interested in the squirrels, though. King Henry came for bird seed then helped himself to some water.

It's a popular place to sit when it is cold! 

The bird bath

It's a ⛄SNOW DAY! Today, Monday, we are snowed in with a blizzard. I'm not even going to put out the garbage. Schools are closed, although they are just continuing online. 

Cinnamon spent a good 20 minutes outside in the early morning Saturday in the extreme cold. Eventually he came back in and hunkered down. They keep going door to door, hoping it is nicer out there. 

The day before, in the afternoon, I'd cleaned and topped up the water in the bird bath. Overnight, you can see how much evaporates in the cold. 

I had evidence to the contrary, though. King Henry the buck has a drink:

You Two deer munched on chestnuts and junior had a drink:

We are keeping busy indoors. JB had football on the go. I built him a fire to keep him cosy in the basement. There was tennis on TV, which we watched together, but in between we played curling! This was a birthday present 3 years ago, I think! With the train put away for the season, we have a place for it. curling

 

Henry the buck

 We've had many bucks visit, but not many stick around. The sons of the tribe hang out with mom the first year, and then hang out with the boys in subsequent years. Tigger and his twin brother were lots of fun. There was Jake, too. Carl was the last one we named. We lost him to the highway. A neighbour stopped after he was hit, and had his son come and put him out of his misery. 

Our latest big buck has been a frequent visitor. I'm looking forward to sharing them. Grandie Josephine suggested 'Henry' and I like that. It's fun texting the grandkids and checking in.

My new trailcam has been a learning curve. Took me days to remember to change the F. to Celsius! The trailcams don't like our cold weather, either!

The old trailcam's piece has busted. I can't use my forest tripod anymore with it. The tripod works in the snow. It screws onto it. I switched this one camera (#1) out with another camera and put a strap back on it. I put #1 on a tree.

Here is Henry on the path up to the house from the meadow. This is trailcam #2, which I moved the next day. big buck 2.0 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 

Henry in the forest, on the edge of the wetland. This is trailcam #1. Big buck 2.1 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 

I captured the young buck, as well. He's had one antler for maybe a week. It is unusual. Usually they drop closer to one another. He might have lost it in an incident. Young buck 1 antler from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

Henry is the boss! Big buck 2.2 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

 

This was an experiment. The first clip is from trailcam #2, then Henry moves past that camera into camera #3's range. This is camera #3, which you can see on the left of the following video.

Big buck 2.3 from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

For more critters: Saturday's Critters # 422.