Rat Caught on Video!!!

The rat had been eating sunflower seeds in the garage during the blizzard, but I had been remiss in feeding him recently. The store was totally out of birdseed today, so I put on the porch some of our dwindling supply of sunflower seeds. I caught a glimpse of the rat going onto the porch and then it disappeared, but it kept coming back getting seeds and going back under the house, where a groundhog once lived. My digital camera was too slow to even get a picture of it, but I did get a short video. Not sure what my son was trying to say, probably something like "There it is!". I'd say it's a pretty cute rat, wouldn't you?

Glacier

 
We now have a glacier across our street, which will probably be there for some time. For several days after the most recent blizzard, truck after truck came and dumped load after load of snow. They must have gathered up all the snow in the county. It's about twice as tall as I am, and that's only one of the glaciers they created. I'm wondering if it will start to move when it melts, destroy everything in its path, and leave behind a huge pond.

Desperate Deer

 
I had just put my son down to sleep, when I come out and see a deer eating birdseed off our windowsill (the same window where the squirrel had been eating bird seed in an earlier post), with one of our cats right in its face, only separated by the glass. That's something you don't see every day. The poor deer are desperate and it's snowing AGAIN. We're due for another 10-20 inches with sleet and freezing rain. Last night we threw out lettuce and a cherry tomato off the front porch, but the deer didn't eat it. I guess they prefer bird seed. Good thing we bought more at the store today. I counted 9 deer in our yard. Usually we only see them in the back yard, not on our front doorstep. This is getting ridiculous. I guess that's what I get for attracting them with my compost pile. The picture is pretty bad, but you can see the deer's ears, and the blob in front is our cat.

Signs of Life

 
 
 
The foxes left their tracks in the snow. They seem to have taken shelter under our deck, headed for the woods, and decided to turn around and come back. They checked out the pond (now just a slight impression), and went along the house towards the wood pile. There was a set of smaller prints which may have been a rodent of some kind, light enough to not sink into the snow. Lots of birds visited our feeder, including juncos, titmouses (or titmice?), cardinals and nuthatches (which we don't normally see at feeders), and finches. A couple unfortunate birds hit our window, probably blinded by the snow. I also saw a hawk chasing a smaller bird. Haven't seen any deer. There are also signs of a rodent in our garage, which has been elusive so far, but I'm trying to get a picture.

Second Blizzard of the Season

 
 
 
 
On February 6th, we got dumped on again. I measured 14.5 inches, but that was near the house. In places it drifted to over 25 inches. The weirdest thing was that in my footprints, the snow looked light blue, like blue glaciers and ice bergs I'm sure you've seen pictures of.

Birds

 
 
 
 
I'm losing track of the various snow storms. This was a minor one. Pictured here is a cardinal and a wren.

My Photos on Imagekind

I decided to upload some of my photos on a photography selling website, only to discover most of them don't have high enough resolution. Not that I'm all that great of a photographer, but occasionally I do get a good one. Plus I figure this is a better way to make money (not that I really plan on making any) than from Google Adsense. I tried it a while back and it selected ads for exterminating bats and things like that, which goes against what my blog is about. (What's up with that, Google? Sheesh.)