Snow!

We have had several beautiful, substantial snowfalls this winter, only one of which could properly be called a blizzard. The rest have occurred in near calm winds, producing blankets and pillows of downy white. This storm occurred on January 30, and I took my walkabout the following day.

The coyote, rabbit, and deer are the early risers, always leaving their marks before I get out.

The shooting range, a very wet little field that I would like to plant to blueberries. Yes, we use steel shot, not lead, for trap shooting.

Hidden Meadow, one of my favorite views on the property. The juniper in the foreground is a favorite shelter from the weather for coyote and, in the absence of coyote, pheasant and rabbit.

The smaller burrowing creatures, voles and mice, mound the snow as they pass among the underlying grasses, sometimes leaving elaborate branched patterns as they move back and forth.

And down to the creek at the under-construction ford, just upstream of the road culvert and wier.

Stepping stones at the ford, looking upstream.

One of the woodland avatars. It probably has a name, but Donna has not revealed it.

  

Good old Eye Chair.

Adjacent to Squeaky Tree, near the upstream border of the property, with cattle pasture beyond.

The Grand Traverse between Joy Stone and Little Bucket, overlooking The Gorge.

Some House and Farm History

We're fortunate to have a neighbor across the road who grew up on the property that we now manage. Ron is descended from the family that established this farm in c.1868, and he and his brother were still on the place a hundred years later. He is a great storyteller and source of information about the farm and all the little quirks we identify as we get to know it better. When he and his siblings were growing up, the farm had a small dairy herd and a hog confinement shed, and they grew apples and tomatoes and strawberries among other crops.

Ron and his sister were generous enough to find us these old photos of the place, dating from when their parents took over here. As you can see, the house was pretty dilapidated, but has been beautifully restored and enlarged and updated.

Then.

Later.

Now.

Here are some additional treasures, showing the farm in the 1970s. So many changes even since then. What is now the pond was pasture. Between the shop and the corn crib was a hog confinement shed. Much of the woods had not grown up and was still used to run cattle.

Building Bridges

No matter how dry or cold it's been, Kincaide Creek continues to flow, which means we need a way to get across it and, if we want to get to the other side with a vehicle but without using the public road, we need a bridge.

We salvaged these timbers from the old boxcar house a friend tore down. We cut them to rough 20' lengths before dragging them home, and then spent a couple of hours over the weekend removing the bulk of the old nails and hardware that might get in the way of their reuse.

Now that the metal is gone, we have a much better idea as to the condition of our future bridge beams, and can start to work up a plan for construction. It would be nice to get two bridges worth of beams out of what we have, but the condition of some of the beams is questionable. I'm not about to dump thhe tractor in the creek, though, so rest assured, the resultant design will be conservative.

Animal Crossing Ahead, and Behind and Over and Under

We share this land with innumerable other creatures, large and small, most of which are seldom or never seen. This little fellow appeared on the BBQ deck one recent cold day, to snack on the cracked corn discarded by birds at the feeder hanging above. Derith says it's a pygmy possum but maybe it's just a youngster of the ordinary kind. New snow has fallen since, preserving the tracks of mammals and birds. The pheasant spoor are fairly obvious but I can't generally identify the birds this way. More evident are raccoon, coyote, deer, rabbit, mice, squirrel, and even a bobcat.

Kincaid Creek basically bisects the farm but is no impediment to the animals. Their crossings are not random but occur along a network of trails. The larger beasts step down the banks and across, but the smaller ones use fallen trees and branches as bridges. I find this so interesting: the bark and moss on these are worn away on top due to foot traffic, sometimes so much as to flatten the surface – a regular roadway. Last week, for the first time, I followed the creek within its banks from top to bottom, to document these crossings. As the water level has risen and fallen, and the weather warmed and cooled, distinct layers of ice have formed that are not cohered and which have layers of airspace between them. My alternating lumbering and sliding steps often broke the upper layers with crackles, shots, and booms, but I never got my boots wet. (As always, the photographs are better viewed when you click to enlarge, and you can follow the creek on the map linked at the top of the page.)