If You Feed Them, They Will Come

During this winter, in particular, the forest animals that scrape out a living on our Michigan farmland have suffered record breaking arctic blasts of wind and cold.  Last week, the mercury bottomed out at -26 degrees for days on end.  The wind chills are reported nightly at -30 and higher for extended periods.  Several astute shoppers reported a deer sighting in aisle 12 at the Walmart store, where long johns are sold.  Considering all that the squirrels, deer, and birds are enduring, it is amazing to me to see, in so many of them, a persistent cheery disposition.  It is more than I can say of myself.

The bunnies, skunks and racoons are bundled up in underground nests and haven’t stopped by to say hello in a long time.  I think my two fat nanny goats are still alive.  It is hard to tell because they have stuffed themselves into a small, straw filled dog house in their barn stall.  Their only sign of life this winter has been when I hear a bunch of scritch-scratching inside the dog goat house.  Eventually, one gets unwedged enough to stick a nose out to “see”  if I’ve got a treat in my pocket.    I found a fur-lined mouse nest in the corner of my barn that was chock full of the little devils and I didn’t have the heart to turn them out.

A little six point buck. We’ll let him grow another couple of years before he ends up in the freezer.

Our favorite pastime has been keeping the binoculars pointed at the blue corn can at the edge of our woods.  (I was going to write “forest” but I think “woods” is really more accurate.)   On Saturday mornings, we pour shell corn into the can.  Without this supplement, I think many of our pregnant does would perish or abort.  Then we keep a suet stash going for my woodpeckers and pour lots of seeds and nuts in the tube feeder.  When the first winter blizzard  hit, we noticed a clutch of hen turkeys spying the bird feeders and they couldn’t reach them.  Now I dump 25 lbs. of bird seed a week on the ground, at the base of the old shell bark hickory tree, for them.  We hit pay dirt last night with a hard count of 46 turkeys gobbling up the food. 

I’m fully expecting a kill-off at our pond this spring.  I hope not, but will not be surprised if all the fish have suffocated due to the thickness of the ice.  We had a fish kill situation about ten years ago and I had never seen anything like it.  Dead fish by the ten thousands were strewn up on the shoreline, suffocated and washed up.  Very sad.

This spring we will be watching something new and exciting in our woods.  Two eagles have claimed our land and have built a magnificent nest high in the tree tops.  Traditionally, eagles have only been spotted in northern Michigan.   We are happy to host them but they had better keep their beaks out of my hen house!  We didn’t lose any chickens to them last year so I am guessing that they are good fisherman on the big lake and even better  mousers in the fields.  Yesterday, I saw a couple of mackinaw clad ‘possums hitching a ride out of town on the noon train–obviously adopting a “better safe than sorry” strategy!

Look at Mr. Bushy-Tail