Weeks End

Last Thursday morning we got to our train watching spot just in time to see the Amtrak passenger train traveling from Chicago to Buffalo, and New York City race by at 60 miles per hour. These 4 turkeys have been making visits twice a day this winter to eat beneath my feeders.

Finding some open water on Findley Lake, I found a few Mallards that spent the winter.

I'm participating in the Great Backyard Bird Count, and added this male Red bellied woodpecker to my list.

Of course there are always the Downey woodpeckers, and Cardinals.

Yesterday after 2 days of warmer temps, and lots of melting going on the creek behind our house became jammed. The water got very high, and as of today it's still high, and the jam hasn't broken.In this picture the water you see in the foreground is the creek overflow. The main channel is the grey area you see in front of the white hay field in the background. The temps have fallen into the 20's and now this jam won't break till we get warmer weather again.

More birds to add to the GBBC are these Mourning doves.

Have a wonderful and warm Sunday.

On Wednesday morning I had a dentist appointment, and after we stopped at Wal-Mart for a few minutes. Behind the store I spotted this small flock of turkeys. I'm not sure what they were up to. It looks like they were all preening. They were too far away to see clear. Then I thought this church steeple looked cool through the trees.

When we got home we were greeted with an ice jam on the creek behind the house. It had broken loose above us, but now was directly behind our house and the water was rising.The temperature was in the 50's and so much snow melted. Thank goodness it didn't rain very much. As it is our sump pump is running again carrying out water from the sump hole in the basement that seeps in through the ground when the creek gets high.

It's now after 10:00 Wednesday night and the ice jam has moved down stream, but it has been raining and the winds are getting pretty strong. We'll NOT have a fire in the wood stove tonight just in case we lose the electricity over night.

Have a great Thursday.

UP-DATE ON HIGH WATER

An up-date on the high water situation. I was up 3 times in the night 1:30, 3:30, to check on the status of our sump pump, and then I got up at 5:30. I did "sleep" in my recliner chair where I could hear the sump pump running. If it had quit our basement would have begun to flood before we could have gotten the generator hooked up.
I went down to the creek edge about 11:30 PM and put this pine branch where the water edge was. By 3:30AM you can see the water has already started to recede. The entrance to two of the trails. No walking here today.

Also this was the sky around 7:00AM. Hmm, more rain?

Sure enough about an hour later, a downpour! Only lasted 20 minutes though. The wind is very high!

It's hard to tell where the creek really is at this point. I took a walk on the llama trail which is high and out of the water.

As I walked along I suddenly saw this huge Beaver. He spied me and quickly swam away. My pictures of him weren't very good. This is the first beaver I've seen in a couple years. They had a dam down on the creek, but that's gone now.

Around 9:30 AM we headed for Wal-Mart and the sky suddenly had big patches of blue. The sun was out for about an hour. These clouds are really different. Still the winds are so high.

Now it's after lunch and the clouds have returned. The sump pump is still perking along, but has slowed which is a good thing. The outside temp. has gone from 59º this morning to 36º With the howling wind we have decided not to fire up the wood stove.

These are some of the fun times we have living here. The good part is the snow has almost left us, but with winter just beginning, there will be more to come before you know it.

Have a great day, I hear a nap calling me!

Good Morning all. It's 22º here and of course the skies are cloudy. From all the rain we had on Tuesday, the creek and streams are quite full. When French Creek gets over it's banks we get seepage through our back yard into our basement, and our sump pump ran off and on all day yesterday and all night. Guess that's better than having water all over the floor.
This cute little Chickadee stopped by for a snack. About the same time this male Downey woodpecker showed up with his red headband.

The footprints of a bird walker, most likely Mourning Dove.

This one of a hopper, most likely Blue Jay.

Our lower back yard with the high water. It's up about 2' in this spot.

Later yesterday morning we took our newspapers to the recycling center, and on the way back found a road less traveled. This stream was really rushing, and there had been 1/2" of fresh snow on everything.

Then we saw a couple deer. The 2nd one was not in the picture. She was behind some bushes. We also watched 2 really cute red Squirrels while we were stopped. They were running back and forth across the road, and all over the snow chasing each other. I tried to get some pictures, but they were SO fast!

About a mile up the road we spotted these turkeys. Apparently they have missed Thanksgiving's wrath. LOL.

OK, you all have a super day. We'll be working on some wood projects that Gary is making for a friend of ours, so it will be a busy day..