Wildlife Weekend

 I had a couple of up-close wildlife encounters this weekend that I wasn't expecting, so I thought I'd share a few pictures.  I don't typically see deer in my yard, even though I live surrounded by woods.   I did see one last year, but just one time.  I'm pretty lucky on that score, because otherwise they'd decimate my garden.  Well, today was an exception.  Today...at first, there was a lookout.

She gave the signal....and the rest appeared.

I believe it was a mother and her young.

All three of her young!  They sampled the hostas.

A lovely family really.  But I don't want them to make a habit of visiting.

The littlest one.

They look fairly healthy so that made me happy.  Just please...stay away from my veggie garden!

A visitor that I don't really mind in my veggie garden was this little friend I found in the greenhouse today while I was picking tomatoes.  She was pretty shy.

She was playing hide-and-seek for a while.

When she finally showed herself, I realized she was a lovely two-toned little mouse.  I'd never seen one quite like this before, so I was excited to look up the species.

This is Zapus hudsonius, the meadow jumping mouse.  I can tell you that she definitely lives up to her name.  She took amazing leaps when I got too close to her, which is how I first noticed her.  Boing!!  Boing!!

For scale, here she is next to a cherry tomato.  Awww.  She was absolutely adorable.  I don't mind sharing some tomatoes with her.  I read that they eat seeds, fruits, and some insects.  She will hibernate soon.  Perhaps she thinks my greenhouse is a good place to hibernate.  She is most welcome to stay there.  I gave her a piece of pumpkin and some chicken scratch grains as well.  

The greenhouse would be a good place to stay over the winter - warmer than other locations, with lots of seeds in the soil, and protected from predators because of its door.  Stay cozy, little one!

The Weekend Roundup: F

This weekend's prompts from Tom the Backroads Traveller are: Starts with F, Flower, and Favourite.

Starts with F

Fish starts with F.  We recently joined a weekly delivery program for a sustainable seafood company called Afishionado (yes, the spelling is correct!)  Each week, we receive a pound of a sustainably-fished species of fish from Canada, most often locally fished.  We get information on the name of the fishing boat, the method of catch (mostly line caught for sustainability), and the captain of the vessel.  I like supporting local businesses and environmentally sound fishing practices, so it's a win-win for us!  This week's fish is albacore tuna, and right now it is marinating in an orange ginger soy marinade.  

It will make a lovely supper.  Other fish we've had recently from this program include smoked mackerel, cod, and steelhead trout.  

Flower

Tom sure was posing a challenge for northerners with this prompt!  There aren't any flowers to bee seen in my snowy landscape.  The best I could come up with is this little flower on my indoor rosemary plant that sits on my windowsill.  Not very big but still, it is a flower.

Until at least May, that's all the flowers I'll be seeing around here except for this lovely print on my kitchen wall, a gift some years ago from my parents.

Favourite

I recently finished knitting this cute little mouse - definitely one of my favourite knitted items so far!  It was good practice for me on the colourwork part of his sweater.  Here he is inspecting some of this week's eggs.  A number of people commented last week that they hadn't seen an egg skelter before.  I think that is probably because in North America, for the most part, people keep their eggs in the fridge, whereas in other parts of the world, they are kept at room temperature.  North American eggs are washed, which removes the protective surface coating, therefore requiring them to be refrigated.  In some countries, it is illegal to commercially sell washed eggs because the coating protects from bacteria and they are considered safer when unwashed.  In any event, it's a useful item if you keep your eggs on the counter, as I do!  Here's some more information on the history of egg washing and chilling:  https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2014/09/11/336330502/why-the-u-s-chills-its-eggs-and-most-of-the-world-doesnt

Small Furries

I know, it's a bit unusual, but I really like small furry critters. Mice, voles, moles, lemmings, rats, hamsters, shrews, and all the assorted other small furry mammals that I haven't listed. There is something very endearing about these small creatures and how industrious they are. I've always liked them, which in my opinion is a wonderful testament to my parents, who taught me to love and respect all creatures, great and small.

I have had pet guinea pigs, a dwarf hamster, chinchillas, and a pet rabbit. All of these were sweet little pets whom I loved dearly, but they are quite different from the little creatures in my own backyard. Over the winter, we had voles making tunnels under the snow in the yard. When the snow melted, you could see a wonderful pattern emerge, showing how busy they had been. They did a nice job of aerating the lawn in some areas and I think that helped it grow back more vigorously in those spots!

Once, when I lived in a rental townhouse in Guelph, Ontario, I fed the birds a seed mixture and I fed the squirrels peanuts in the shell. One day, when re-organizing the closet, I pulled out the bags of seed and peanuts. Much to my amazement, I had a very organized little house guest. Although I didn't know what it was at that point, my guest had arranged extremely neat and tidy piles of seeds. It had taken the seed mix from the bag, separated the seeds into their various categories (sunflower, safflower, cracked corn, millet) and made completely separate piles of each type along the back closet wall. Likewise, there was a pile of peanut shells, separate from the seeds. I did have to buy a trap, because I knew I didn't want to share the inside of my home with this guest, so I bought a live trap. The next day I met my house guest - a darling little deer mouse. I commended my mouse for its organizational skills and had a discussion with it about why it couldn't stay. I took it, and its piles of seed, to the woods, and set it free, but I put the seeds out for it in the same spot so it might be able to re-stash them somewhere. I hope it lived a happy life. I used the trap on a number of other occasions, notably in an apartment I lived in that was located where a corn field had been the year before. I had a few mice that fall. They were all caught and released into the woods too.

So the other day I was in the barn giving antibiotics to a poorly chicken, when I heard a little scrabbling noise coming from inside a cardboard tube that was on end. Hmmm...I thought to myself...what have we here? Upon inspection, it was a very distant relative of my previous house guest. Another darling deer mouse. This time, I took some pictures. He was very appreciative of the chicken scratch that I gave him when I deposited him in the bucket for viewing purposes. I had a discussion with him about not getting stuck in cardboard tubes, and after a few photos, I let him go. It's a barn, not a house, so I wasn't that worried about it. One can't keep all mice out of a barn, and they have a right to their space too.

Here's a picture of my little friend. I hope he finds a warm spot for the winter. He can always drop by the barn for a little chicken scratch and a friendly chat.