Reflections from Crumbly Acres: long-tailed weasel

Sunday, 25 January 2026

Storm warnings...

🥶 There were storm warnings... but it was the cold that preceded it! Saturday, -29 ℃, I kept a fire going to supplement our propane. This morning, a balmy -23℃. It is a huge storm, with lightning. It should roll in this afternoon. We are ready.

We always say, on days like this, 'It's a good day to be retired!' Joe Brian spent years dealing with issues like this. Something like 1400 flights cancelled.

Jordan was in Ottawa for the weekend, attending the Canadian Space Conference for the weekend. He took the Flix bus. I can't believe he is 18!

Even more amazing, Aster being up early, during this exam period, on a Saturday morning. The family had breakfast together, although they won't see much of him! The schedule is packed.

"The Canadian Space Conference is the flagship conference of SEDS-ÉEDS Canada, a national space industry non-profit that serves students and early-career space professionals."

Just when I get it all cleaned up...

It is a time for throwing veggies and chicken in a hot oven! I cubed sweet potatoes, added broccoli, and what I thought was canned pineapple. (It was crushed, oh well!) The chicken was wrapped in bacon. I threw it together, threw it in the oven, and put my feet up watching a new show: Newton's Law. A fun mystery, lawyer legal series from Australia.

I found weasel tracks beside the frog pond. This is what I think. I can't find my laminated chart!

Maybe 6" stride.

Sept. 20, 2022

A cat got it, I think. Sept. 22, 2022:

It took the cardinal eggs one year, 2020. Also, the wood duck eggs in 2020. Circle of life...

I peered out the kitchen window. The deer had a hat! The red squirrel (DRS) has figured out the cat door nearby. It's been cleaning up spilled deer and bird seed in the garage. It is helpful, truly. 😁

This is the right idea, two cats sharing a bed. Wrapped in sunshine, in a warm bed, in a warm house.

Thursday, 24 March 2022

Narrows Lock Birding – Part 3

I decided to chop this trip into three posts. It didn't last all that long, but serendipity being what it is... As I was watching the common mergansers in their aerial acrobatics, I noticed a weasel run across the road from one side of the lake to the other. That got my attention. I walked over.

I found a long-tailed weasel, Mustela frenata. It ran across the road as I was standing there. It went back across the road from whence it came.

As I watched it leave, I turned back to the water, and found there was another one! I had my zoom lens on the tripod, and it was tricky, but rewarding. It wasn't as fast as other critters, and was quite curious and/or tolerant of me.

It ran up and down the rocky shoreline.

I watched it capture a frog in the water. It wasn't too worried about me. You can hear the miserably cold wind on the video. I was standing there holding my camera and tripod, and filming with the videocamera. The sun was so bright I could barely see in the viewfinder. I didn't do too badly, after all.

weasel from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

It decided that was it, and galloped across the highway.

This was the best I could do, as it ran all along the shoreline, behind the blockhouse, around the lock itself, catching the attention of the geese, who were a bit worried.

This one went back to the other shoreline, and skirting the shoreline I followed it from behind the blockhouse to where I was standing on the concrete locks. The geese were a bit worried. I tracked it along the shoreline, dragging my tripod, my zoom lens with me. I looked back but couldn't see it.

Following it, the geese were paying attention. I lost sight of it.

Again, serendipity, I leaned over looking for it, and noticed some very large fish in the water. Big fish in Big Rideau from Jennifer Jilks on Vimeo.

We toodled off home, done for the day. It was a lovely couple of hours, away from news in the sun, and we found lots of critters. I like the thin ice warning.