Hocus Pocus, what's in Focus?

The weather has dipped back down into Chilly on the scale, bringing with that temperature drop some rather unpleasant rain.  Good news from that forecast is that the rain will drive the ice out of the lakes faster.  (Bad news out west, where the Red River is running amok, but not so serious here, where the lake has plenty of room to accommodate that infilling.  Besides, Trout Season opens next week, and with almost 20" of ice still on Lake Opeongo in Algonquin Park, it's going to be tough trolling for the boats...

Crocus took advantage of the sun this past week to spring up out of the lawn, their bright cheerful faces making the gloomier rainier day much brighter.  Our deer don't eat crocus. We don't know why... they eat almost everything else, including daffodils, tulips and asparagus.  And trilliums.  Our woods have taken a beating with the increase in the deer population. There seem to be fewer of them here this spring, however, so perhaps the balance is being restored.  Mind you, finding this many right outside the window of my house makes me wonder if there really are less of them about!

The deer are beautiful creatures, when they are not nose-down in the gardens.

They are sharing the property with the wild turkeys, who are in full mating display,   The big tom is traffic stopping magnificent when he has his tail spread, wing tips drooped, and is doing his display dance for the ladies.




The lawn has also been playing host to a convention of moles over the winter.  As the snow melted, their molehills became obvious. While unsightly, and not great for the lawn, we have found that if we simply rake the hills out, the grass comes back very quickly. Moles don't eat the grass roots.

Nor do they eat the crocus.

Out where the Disc Golf Course Ends

Barry and Jane have their own cottage near Dorset, but every summer they are here organizing the Lake of Bays Association Silent Boat Rally in July. On those short visits -- while they are hard at work ensuring everything goes smoothly for the boat rally and accompanying BBQ -- they have taken the opportunity to meet the horses, the chickens, look for bluebirds (unsuccessfully) along the fence line, and admire the deer on the lawn.

This week, Adrienne and her mom Dana were visiting, and Barry called to see if they could come over and say hello to the horses and chickens. Sure. Come on down!

Nancy took them walkabout -- Adrienne helped the chickens with their race training, encouraging them to run sprints at the barn while the onlookers howled with laughter. (Chickens seem to the be only ones who take this chicken racing thing seriously) Then, since Barry and Jane have heard about the Disc Golf course but never had the time to see it, we went for a walk into the back fields. While we began and ended on the 9-hole Disc Golf course, we did wander away from that, into the big back field, which is magic.

We found two old fence lines, one made entirely of boulders and big rocks, hand-picked from the fields by the orginal settler back in the mid 1850's; and this one, a split cedar rail fence, over a century old, that winds picturesquely through the forest, dappled with moss and sunshine.


Adrienne spotted several deer, but we were probably making too much noise, and it was too early in the day for the big numbers of deer to be out. Nancy's counted 14 deer in that field recently on an evening stroll.

Bluebirds came out to say hello -- we spotted several, along with all sorts of other birdlife, so Barry and Jane finally got to see their bluebird! We also spotted the 'beakwork' of the pileated woodpeckers, and found a hairy woodpecker nest.

Adrienne collected wild turkey feathers as we wandered through the blackberries and wild sage. They are considerably larger than the feathers she collects from her pet birds at home!

Achmed, our ginger terror, came with us every step of the way, in racing bursts of speeed, and flopping down to pant in the heat at our feet when we paused. He complained loud and long when we got too far ahead of him, and busily pointed out details we might otherwise have been too high up to spot -- such as some lovely 'British redcoat' lichen on one of the old logs. Back home, Achmed told Napster all about the walk, then just sort of flopped down on the step to rest up for his next adventure.