Wildlife Days

The past couple of days we have had lots of wildlife around our property. 3 does decided to walk through the field across from us and then down the road.

A couple of days ago my dog, Ziva, decided to see how a toad tasted. She had her mouth on it when I saw them and gave the command, "Drop it" which I use to tell her to not eat whatever she has in her mouth. She had barely touched the toad. Maybe it didn't taste every good, so she backed off and after taking its photo I encouraged it to go hide in some flowers where it could eat bugs. 

One morning our resident chipmunks raided the pan of sunflower seeds, mostly for the birds.

The blue jays like the sunflower seeds but don't seem to be able to hang on the tuve feeders we put up for the finches, titmouse, gold finches, and woodpeckers. Of course all the birds use the plastic tub feeder as well.

Doves prefer to just eat off the ground.

Another day Ziva dug up a mole. She dropped it as soon as I told her too. It didn't seem hurt just confused at what had happened. After taking it's photo I pushed it back in the hole and later noticed it had disappeared leaving the hole filled in as they do. We have way to many of them but I didn't want Ziva to kill it. Funny creature and I don't think they are very smart or move very fast like other rodents. Chipmunds are really fast and seem smarter than any other rodent I have been around. 
 

Some birds and Things

The cardinals have been where ever cardinals go in the winter. Last year there was 3 pair that hung around here. So far I have only seen 1 pair this year. I put out some sunflower seeds for them and got some decent photos of the both the male and female. It is easy to tell the difference in the cardinals but my book says the male and female red-headed woodpecker look the same so I haven't figured out if I have one woodpecker coming in or more than one. Anyway the woodpecker seems to be fond of something he or she is digging out of the ground in my front yard.

 Red-headed woodpecker

The squirrel has come in for a share of the sunflower seeds.

The daffodils are looking good at the abandoned house down the road from us.

It was very late and I had to zoom all the way to see this pair of does out back of our place.

One Year

It's been a year since we bought and moved into our house just outside of Carrollton, Kentucky. I still don't know it if was a good move or not.

We still don't have a fence around the whole yard for our dog, Ziva. She does have a small pen for when we can't walk her. But she has trained us well to take her for walks. The cats are adjusting to being house cats instead of being able to go outside.

We have had lots of wildflowers and lots of flowers that I planted.

 We fought wasps and ladybugs in the shed and sometimes even in the house.

We mowed grass frequently since it has rained so much this past year. The TV weatherman said we had 68 inches of rain this past year which made it the most rain in one year in recorded weather history for here. Way to much.

We explored the town of Carrollton.

 And watched the Ohio and Kentucky rivers try to flood out the town. It came close to the road we live on but we didn't have to leave for higher ground as so many people in northern Kentucky had too.

We learned that Carrollton is a very foggy place many mornings

And we learned to really appreciate the sunny days.

There has been some snow but not as much as I expected, or had heard there had been in some years.

 We enjoyed the few sunsets we had. And watched the leaves turn colors in the fall.

And every once in a while we would see on of the whitetail deer that live in our neighborhood. Actually all over Kentucky. We had a few birds in our yard and a few squirrels but not as many as I had hoped for considering we live at the edge of a woodland.

But I still find myself homesick and missing my home state of New Mexico.