Some Good Winter Things

I've finally come around. I like winter!  It's a leisure time for me, really, so I spent a good chunk of today doing winter leisure things.  One of the fun parts about winter is that this is when all the fun seed catalogs start showing up!  Here's a collection of the ones we've gotten recently:

In the long rays of the winter sun

I also went on a long walk earlier this afternoon.  The forest is always beautiful this time of year.  Everywhere I went, the underbrush teemed with birds picking berries and flitting around in the leaf cover on the ground.  The ground was covered with turkey tracks, and in some places, the piles of deer droppings nearly overlapped.  I entered the sanctuary area and the concentrated evidence of deer presence was overwhelming- just what I want to happen.   I reserve such an occasion for post-hunting season.  I wanted to check on the salt lick that I put out there in the summer.  There's still a little nub left of it, and they won't really hit it hard until the spring.  Next time I go in there, it will probably be April. 

There sure were a lot of robins out there today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the field, I found the remnants of bones that I suspect to be deer leg bones.  Neither of my trail cameras have been out for the last two weeks, so there's no telling which deer this may have been.  There was also a coyote turd not 2 steps away. 

 

 They remind me a bit of the cover to Heading For Internal Darkness, which I've been listening to a lot lately. 

Finally, the river was doing a really cool thing.  It looks like the water level had been higher, and as it dropped, it also froze along the banks.  The whole river bed was lined with these beautiful icicles.  Sometimes you just have to be in the right place at the right time.