If you feed them . . . part 2

As you can see, outdoor conditions have not changed much. Still snowy. Still 10 degrees below normal December temperatures. It has been winter now for a lot longer than the calendar would indicate.


If you feed them . . . they will stay. So the new outdoor kitten is still here. She was curled up with Henry on the old blanket in the hay shed when I went out to do chores this morning. I think the kitten thinks Henry is her mom, and so will do anything he does.

I have never seen this with cats before, but if Henry wasn't around, she would have nothing to do with us. As soon as Henry was there with her, and she saw Henry being petted and purring, she started purring and wanting to be petted. Same thing this morning. She tried to run away when I first went into the shed, but as soon as she saw Henry being petted while he was eating, she came over and pushed Henry out of the way to eat and be petted. So cute and hilarious! So I picked her up and petted her, and she was purring. Hopefully it will be easy to tame her, with such a good kitty mentor hanging around!

If you feed them . . .

They will come! Kinda of like "If you build it, they will come." from that old baseball movie. Around the farm we somewhat intentionally provide feed for our local wild critters with our trees, bushes, and bird feeding station. Of course when I want to take a photo of the lively group of critters using the bird feeder, and surrounding plants they magically vanish as if they actually noticed that the curtain was pulled back from the window. So instead I got a photo of these two lovelys in our spruce tree (look hard at the middle of the photo, 2 dark spots at end of branches near fence):

But birds are not the only thing that has showed up, and really we should have known that given enough time this would happen. If you remember from past postings, a lovely tiger tom cat adopted us in September, and we have been feeding him, and letting him eat all of our rodents. Now that it is winter, it is his habit to meet me at the front door in the morning as I go to do chores, and remind me that he needs fed.


Well this morning, he met Ryan as he was leaving for work. So Ryan bent down to pet him, which quieted his meowing. The only thing is something was still meowing. So in comes Ryan for a flashlight, and follows the plaintive little voice. He ends up finding a little black and white runt of a half grown kitten on the kitchen porch. Which he brings around to show me, its cute little face looking all disgruntled and in need of love. Ryan loosens his grip, and the little one jumps down. I'm hoping he doesn't run and get up in the warm truck engine, eek!

Later I go out to do chores, and there isn't just one cat waiting for me to bring food out to it in the hay barn. So I bring an extra bowl, because I am the biggest softie there is. Trying not to think about how outdoor, feral cats are the bane of song birds everywhere, even those at my bird feeder.

Always the constant internal conflict between animal lover, conservationist, and farmer.

Hope is the thing with feathers . . .

If I weighed just a couple of ounces . . . I'm not sure I'd be able to handle this weather as gracefully as these little guys hanging out in the bushes do. But then I remember what it's like to pluck a chicken for dinner, and realize that if I had that much warmth protection per square inch, I would probably be ok too.


And amusingly enough, the day after the I whine about no birds at the bird feeder . . . look what shows up:

A friendly neighborhood downy woodpecker. Frozen suet must not be too bad.

Just Another Day

Not much exciting going on around here. Just another day on the farm. T-Bone is participating in one of his favorite sports . . . chewing on the wood that the stock tank box and his shed are made out of:

We put out birdseed and suet at our bird feeding station over a week ago, but I have yet to see the birds flocking about it like they usually do. Maybe we need some fresh bird seed; I think ours is a couple of years old. But how do birds find out about a bird feeding station anyways? Do they smell it? Or does one just stumble upon it and then tell all of their friends? As long as the seed isn't moldy or rotten, why would it matter if it's fresh? Nutritional value?


Waiting for lovely feathered friends to brighten our window scene:

Still Frightful!

Winter is still here with a vengeance. Cold, snow, wind. We came home from church yesterday, and it looked like this outside the window:

Out our west kitchen window, you should be able to see our neighbor's farm, but instead it looked like this:

So we stayed inside, made ham & beans with corn bread for supper, and took a nap. Though Checkers looked a whole lot cuter that we did taking her nap:

Shadow Play

With the sun shining so brightly it makes for some neat shadows on the snow this afternoon. One of my favorite things about snow is seeing all the shades of blue, gray, and purple that the shadows make on it.

And while hackberry trees don't really rank super high on the list of being stately trees with graceful silhouettes, I think that they do make a pretty neat picture in the afternoon sun on the snow.

And their overabundance of wildlife attracting berries every other year(2010 being one of those years), make O'Hara's Corner Farm the place to hit up this winter if you're a berry eating bird, or squirrel, and I hate to say raccoon and opossum. 

A Certain Kind of Light

The other day, I realized that part of the variety I could add to my photos out the window is to take them at different times of day. I'm remembering to grab my camera more and more, instead of just thinking, "Oh, that would make a pretty picture."

One of my favorite lights to try to capture is that of late afternoon, when on a sunny day things seem to glow and shine a little bit:

Whether at home or some place a little farther away:

At at that certain slant of light, things seem a little bit more than ordinary. Like time could stand still for a little while, and one could get lost in it; then suddenly the light changes, and it's moved to sunset. The view isn't golden anymore.

While things at the farm aren't particularly golden this morning, it is at least a bit warmer than yesterday. I think it was more like 13 or 14 instead of 3 this morning. The calves were outside waiting for their breakfast, and Henry the tomcat was anxiously, loudly waiting at the garage door for his daily bowl of cat food.


Maybe if it stays sunny, a walk to the woods is order. Gotta enjoy the sun while I can. Happy Thursday!