Winter Update

The past couple of days have been very cold - barely getting over freezing during the day, so the open water on the lake has gotten smaller and smaller.  Swans were here last week, but are gone now.  With another couple of cold weather days predicted, probably a good idea for them to find a bigger body of water.  Dozens of Mallards still on the lake.

New tracks in the snow - raccoon I think.

The yard was full of Varied Thrushes and Oregon Juncos, picking at whatever falls off the fir trees.  So I decided to put up some feeders when snow covered most of the ground.  So far, they haven't sampled from the feeders.  Maybe they are too unstable because they are hanging on a rope?

So I've been throwing seed on the ground under the trees, and they've been enjoying that.

There wasn't a lot of snow on the driveway, but since it was supposed to get cold and icy, I raked it with the tractor yesterday.

Where I didn't rake, the tracks have turned into a solid layer of ice.  I quit where cars had driven out because I thought my efforts might make it worse, but I probably should have continued all the way to the road.