Life in the woods

Life is always interesting when you live in the woods.  Critters of all kinds and incidents of all kinds are always a possibility.  For instance, this little toad was on our freezer one morning.  How it got there, I  have no idea.  The freezer is in our porch, which is fully enclosed.  I put it back outside in the front flower garden where it could hide quite well.   

This bobcat was caught on the game camera the other day.  That would explain all the barking the dogs have been doing lately.  Glad we have the dogs to keep critters like this away from the goats and chickens. 

We are being taken over by Yellow Jackets and hornets this year.  They haven't been this bad in a good 10 years.  There are literally thousands of them in the garden.  They aren't stinging me at all, just going after the moisture in the grass and veggies.  They aren't eating any of the raspberries, or any vegetable, but going out there is a bit nerve-wracking.  I still harvest things, I just don't look too closely at my surroundings, I concentrate on what I'm harvesting. :-)

On Saturday I witnessed an interesting happening.  I heard a ground squirrel squeaking quite loudly and harshly up on the hill behind the house.  I went up to investigate, and here was a weasel killing it!  A raven was watching the whole thing, till I came along, then it flew off.  The weasel ignored me for the most part, I was about 50 feet away and inside the fence.  The squirrel was bigger than the weasel, but the weasel won, eventually.  I left, so I don't know what happened, if the raven came back and got it, or the weasel got to keep his prize.  I hope it sticks around and gets rid of all the ground squirrels!  That would be nice.  It would eat well, and we would be rid of the pests.  They have started getting in the garden a little.  Ate the lettuce, and some of the carrot and radish tops.  The lettuce was past it's prime anyway, we only lost a couple of meals of that.  The roots are still there on the carrots and radishes, so we'll still get those.

We got some excellent heads of cauliflower this year!  The first time in history that we got actual heads that were big enough to do something with.  The variety of broccoli John planted didn't grow well, so that was pretty much a wash.  Got a couple of quarts frozen, but that was it.  Ate a few meals fresh, but didn't get enough to go through winter with. 

We haven't had a decent rain in over a month.  It is quite dry and hot outside.  Everything except the garden is turning brown.  I think we are in stage 1 fire restrictions now.  Parts of the country are getting way more than enough rain, and other parts aren't getting any.  It sure will be nice when the planet balances out and we have moderate weather everywhere again.  That might not happen for many years, but one day it will.

  We also had a little bat get in the house.  Not sure how that happened, either.  John took his little aquarium fish net and put it over it and gently carried it outside and let it crawl out and fly away.  Life is always interesting around here!