Big Boys at the Birdfeeder

I was wondering why the bird feeder was being emptied in a day.

Look at the pile of seed in that Jay's beak.

Usually they just work at the suet block.

They only manage to hang on this feeder a second or two, and probably as much falls on the ground as they carry off. 

 Not much gets wasted though, the rooster and a hen or two find their way over there to do some cleanup.

The blackbirds were in on it too

And the little guys were being pushed out

Nelson gives them the hairy eyeball, but doesn't want to go out there.

He prefers to go out in the early evening, when it's dark.  While he isn't bothered about the dogs in the house, being outside with them is a whole 'nother ball game.

Winter's Last Hurrah (We hope!)

We woke up to a few inches of snow.

There was a real feeding frenzy around the feeders this morning.  The birds seemed to be sharing better, as quite often there was a bird on all four sides of the feeder.  

A whole bunch of robins stopped by

Junco on the edge of the deck

Towhee at the suet block

The chickens weren't impressed though.

She said if we came outside we could have ice cream.  This might look like ice cream, but it sure doesn't taste like ice cream!

She tricked us...puuuck, puck, puck, puck

Whether it tastes like ice cream or not, the dogs love it

And now it's mild, there's some wind and the snow is melting.

Thankfully the only water we'll have to carry now is out to Pride until his water trough thaws enough to be able to break the ice.  It's probably frozen right through to the bottom at the moment.

Time to get back to our regularly scheduled program, Spring that is!

Come For a Walk With Us

Anytime from about mid afternoon on, every time we make a move to head outside, the dogs start going nuts. It's walkies time!  You'd think they were locked in crates all day.  Some days we stick close to home and just go up or down the road, or around the block.  Other times we go down to the dyke or wherever else we can think of that is a bit of a change of pace.  It's always preferable for it to be at least partially off leash.  Abbotsford has three official off leash areas.  I don't want to go somewhere that has a lot of dogs, as Luna isn't particularly great with dogs she doesn't know.  She is kind of snarky, and then if they want to play and start running, she gets into barking/herding mode.

I suggested we head to the east to the off leash area along the Sumas drainage canal, where we hadn't been before.  You take the north parallel road from the Whatcom Rd/Hwy 1 interchange and park just east of Atkinson Rd on the north side of the canal in the parking area.  This part is called the McKay Creek trail.

There are spots were there is fairly easy access to the water, so it would be nicer in warmer weather for the dogs to swim.

That white bridge in the distance was where we had to cross over to the dyke on the south side.

The end of the trail comes out almost in some one's yard, and you walk right past a small paddock with these two guys in it:)  

I told Larry that Pride needed a goat buddy too.

The we crossed over that white bridge and headed down the dyke on the south side, heading east towards Chilliwack.  

Calli kept going down to the steep bank to the water, and then because she doesn't have any push with her back legs, she couldn't always get all the way back up. Sometimes one of us would have to scramble down part way and grab her collar and haul her up, and every time Luna would charge over and it was kind of like she was giving Calli heck!

In one of the corn fields there was quite a large flock of Trumpeter Swans  spread out.  They are huge birds.  

I don't think I've seen them before.

And on the far bank there was a Great Blue Heron

We've definitely seen those before.

You can just barely see the heron along the bank to the right of center.

Before you get to this area there is a rifle range right up against the mountain.  It was a little noisy.   I thought it might bother Jake, but he was okay with it.

Also, the freeway is about half a mile or so away, so there is the constant roar of that.

And here we came across the rare Sumas Monster, kind of like a cross between a crocodile and a rhinoceros 

We didn't actually get any sun, but we could see blue sky in the distance, shining on the mountain peaks, and the view was beautiful

That's Mt. Cheam on the left

We didn't walk all the way to the end of the dyke, but turned around just past this tree with a large nest in it.  An eagle's maybe?

On the way back we spotted this, a cormorant.  Not what I expected to see here, I would think of them being more along the ocean.

And last but not least, a group of mallards snoozing on a log.

We were walking for at least an hour and a half.  We only met two other dogs, but as we were coming back on the south side, we did spot a few other people heading out from the parking lot on the north side.  It was well worth the drive:)

Feeeeed the birds.....tuppence a bag....

Loved that movie.....

I got a bird feeder hung up when we had our little taste of winter last week.  Usually I hang it on a pole in one of the chicken fields, then any seed that gets wasted and dumped on the ground, gets eaten by the chickens, so then of course it's not wasted.  Waste not, want not, you know:)

This time I decided to hang it closer to the house, so that we could see it from the window.  It took the birds a day or two to find it, but since then it's been pretty busy.  It did remind me of the bag or two of lamb fat that has been languishing in the bottom of one of the freezers for a year or two, or three, or four....

I dragged it out the other day and stuck it in a pot on the wood stove.  I was being rather optimistic that that it would all fit in the pot, but eventually it started to melt down and I was able to get a lid on it.

When it was done it looked like this.  See, look at all the room in the pot now.

In the meantime I smeared a bunch a bunch of peanut butter in the bottom of a pan, until it was soft and melted

And Jake was standing by to clean off the spoon for me

Then I poured a bunch of birdseed in the pan and stirred it around to mix in with the peanut butter

 I poured the melted fat out of the pot, into the pan, and stirred it all around.  The sunflowers seem to rise to the top.  I put it somewhere cool to set, and when it was mostly set, ran some knife lines through it to divide it into six pieces.

It was Calli's turn to lick that spoon.

And here's what it looks like when it's done.  I think next time I would stir it all well again and then pack it back down when it's at about the half set stage.  That way everything would be better mixed.  Looks like the peanut butter sank to the bottom and the sunflowers are all on the top.

As I was typing all this, I was thinking that I could have made my life much simpler by just hanging the fat out in a bag as it was.  Oh well, I feel much more creative this way.  I will hang out the fat pieces that are left from melting it down.  I'm saving these suet blocks until we get our next blast of winter, that they keep promising us will come.  

Yesterday was grey but quite mild, getting up towards 10 degrees, and we raked leaves and I planted some of the daffodil and tulip bulbs that were still waiting to have something done with them.

This morning is sunny and frosty, beautiful!