Nutwood Critter Day

We're approaching 60 degrees here at Nutwood, and it's been raining off and on all day. Much of the snow has melted, leaving the driveway and roads a slushy mess. If it freezes up again tonight, the roads will be terrible tomorrow. I'm glad we don't need to go anywhere!

I put a roast in the crock pot earlier. I've had this recipe for a while, and decided to finally try it: Coffee-Sauced Rump Roast. It sure smells good, but I'll let you know how it tastes. I got my workout in today (after being a slacker for the past couple of days) and we've been working on changing over one of the upstairs rooms into an office. Ken did most of the work, but I helped carry stuff. He's looking forward to having his desk upstairs, and I think we'll have room for the rocking chair my Mom gave me. It's a great chair for reading. It felt kind of good to start tackling that project, and I have another bookcase to hold the book overflow! Maybe we should just convert all the walls into built-in bookcases and be done with it.

This morning I saw a band of 20 or so wild turkeys crossing the back yard. It was great to see them, because they've been pretty scarce lately. We saw one lone turkey the other day, and I hope he found his turkey brethren.


The squirrels have been enjoying the seed I'm putting out. My intention is to feed the ground-feeding birds, but I can't keep the squirrels away. I can't help it, they're really cute--I love their little ears!--and I'd rather have them eating the cheaper seed I throw out on the ground than get into the suet and sunflower seed feeders!









The Tufted Titmouse is one of my favorite birds. They're cute little guys, and they always seem very cheery to me. I suppose it's because of their crest...it's almost as if they're wearing a jaunty chapeau. "Oui oui, Madame, I like zees seed vairrrry much. Eet has a certain...I don't know now to describe eet...je ne sais quoi."







A couple of days ago, I glanced out the kitchen window and one of our hawks was sitting on the deck railing! I've seen a little sharp-shinned hawk come up here, but I've never seen one of the bigger hawks get that close to the house. When I tried to take a picture of him, he flew up into a tree and sat there for a solid hour. Another one (his/her mate?) was in another tree, so it was cool to see a pair of them. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe this is a red-shouldered hawk. None of the other hawks really fit his coloring and size (about 18-20 inches, so he's fairly imposing) or the time frame of the time of year that they would be here. Sorry it's not a real sharp picture, but I had to use the max zoom to get a close enough shot. He's a handsome fellow, isn't he?

In the fine tradition of my coming up with fanciful, creative, and imaginative names for our critters (Groundy the groundhog, Batty the bat, etc.), I named him Hawky. Ken said, "Hey, you're a hawky mom!"

Hahaha! Get it?

Addendum

It really IS Critter Day, and the critters are cooperating! Right after I posted this entry, four deer showed up in the back yard.