Surprises as I approached the Grove Creek

Every year I have observed female deer along the Grove Creek, which is south of our home. They have  fawns in the late spring and I watch them with my telescope as they graze in the pastures near the creek. With my telescope I have been able to determine the female is nursing based on the size of her utter. This is a photograph I took of one of the females from our deck with 400mm zoom lens.

I purposely avoid getting near them as the fawns are young to avoid scaring them and perhaps getting them injured. However, I said, now is the time to take my camera and get a close up of the fawns. I head toward the creek and all of a sudden, the first surprise. Ahead of me along the fence was a small yellow and black bird. I had not seen these before, so I had to take some photographs. This was the first one I captured.

It was a goldfinch. When I got back to the house, I learned that this little bird sheds these beautiful colors in the winter time. I had seen them in their winter colors around the barn but didn't know what they were. They left the fence and were flying around in the pasture, when I captured this image of one of them perched on this old sunflower.

So on to the creek. As I get closer, I seen two fawns. It must be another deers baby. I am getting closer and no long need the zoom lens to see the fawns. Now there are three fawns and I was guessing that the female that was near, must be in charge of the babies. This is the photo I took the the group.

Mother is in the lower right of the photo and the fawns are at the top. Now for the surprise. As I got closer, mother became alarmed and must have alerted the fawns, as they all took off together. Surprise - this mother must of had triplets as the entire entourage headed over the nearby hill and were gone. If these babies belonged to someone else, they would have headed to where their mother was. As they followed this mother, I gave her the nod as being the mother of all three.

Super Saturday for Barlo

Marty and I left for our daily walk through the pastures with Kenya and Barlo today. We decided to head toward the Grove Creek and see if the "wise ole owl" was in it's home in the old tree trunk. Unfortunately it was not there, but the dogs did cross the creek with us and were soon off on a venture of their own. I had noticed a few days ago that there was a carcass in the nearby field and Kenya was off to check out the bones and Barlo found the hide close by. We called, asking them to join us as we returned to the house. It was a difficult task to get them to come, and as they arrived we noticed that Barlo had claimed the hide as his own. It was too cold to have my camera with me, but this is what we saw coming through the bushes down by the creek.
This is all that we saw for the 1/2 mile trip back to the house. Usually, Barlo is lagging behind with Kenya in the lead. Not today, Barlo was proud of his trophy and was in a hurry to get to the house. Marty and I suspected that he probably had a place near the house or barn where he wanted to hide his hide. For a dog that has been crippled for the last year, he was moving at a very rapid pace and showed no signs of his debilitation. When we all got in the yard, Barlo got to examine his prize.
As you can see, it was quite large, in fact the hide and the bone pile looked like the deer was at least as large as Barlo. This was his and it wasn't until later that we realized how special it was to him. However, dogs have a language of their own, and you can tell by this next picture that Kenya was curious but knew this was not hers to share.
Now it was time for Barlo to determine if there were any morsels still attached to the hide. Sure enough there were and he was having a very enjoyable time until Marty observed his actions. Her direction was to take the hide away from him. I mentioned that it wasn't fair, especially after all of the work it took for him to get it to the house.
Marty approached Barlo to take his prize to the barn, so that later in the day, he could re-visit his trophy and at least she would have some indication by then if the snacks he was enjoying would have created a disturbance in his stomach. As she approached him, she discovered from the loud growl that it was off limits to her as well. Ultimately, Marty prevailed and the hide was taken to the barn while Barlo entered the house for a nap.

WHAT A HAPPY DOG HE IS TODAY

FIELD REPORT: no pictures, go to yesterdays blog if you need an image

Drove the Gator down to the Grove Creek this morning to pick up the live trap, which I had left there to air out yesterday, only to find another skunk in my trap. I had set it but didn't expect to capture another critter. As you may image, by the time the skunk had been put away, Clint smelled just like a skunk. Marty is now washing my clothes and I'm headed to the shower.

We are leaving shortly with Tom Baxter and his friend Linda for a 4 day Lodging and Learning seminar at Yellowstone. Look for an update on Friday.

We got water

This will be a spring to remember, at least from the standpoint of precipitation. The Montana Bureau of Mines has been monitoring our well for the last 7 years. When the well was dug in 1993 it was 105 feet deep, from the surface of the ground to the water was 43 feet and it pumped at a rate of 25 gallon per minute. The monitoring was a reaction to the concern for the drought caused by the lack of precipitation and the potential impact it could have on agriculture.

Currently, the water is at the highest level it has been in 7 years and very close to when the well was dug 16 years ago. In addition to the Grove Creek, which has always had some water flowing through it, we now have the Davidson Creek which starts north and west of our ranch, and crosses under the road that leads to the entrance to our home. The Davidson Creek has been flowing for over a month, the Grove Creek is flowing at a rate we haven't seen in years, and our spring tank, used to water the livestock in the northern pastures has been full since last fall.

We are currently in a winter storm watch, with 100% chance of snow and rain for the next 3 days, which means more water. The snow pack in the mountains was running 6% above normal about a week ago.

We should have great hay crops this summer but in the meantime we have mud like we haven't seen either. The drought which allowed the fires to be a major threat for the last few years should be under control, and the green picture that you have seen on our website may be a reality again. For those of you who have never seen the Davidson Creek, this is what it looks like as you drive up the hill to our driveway.

Circle B Bar T looks like this

This is what Circle B Bar T looks like. This is a crystal replica of our brand that was give to us in the summer of 2008 by Chris and Hal Harnden of Fremont, Ohio. This hangs in one of the front panes in our home, overlooking our property, the Grove Creek, and the Beartooth Mountains. It was in the early fall when the picture of the brand was taken, hence the golden look of the pastures. Hal is not only Chris's husband, but also the crystal artist.

Chris and Hal made the trip to Montana to meet, Miss Ellie, a young Arabian filly that they had purchased from us. More significant that the purchase was the full circle of Chris and Marty's relationship. They are both from Fremont, Ohio and when they were teenagers, their fathers introduced them to the world of Arabian Horses. They both had Arabians and that was the start. Marty got back into the Arabian world when we moved to Fishtail in 1999. Chris found Marty via the internet looking for a horse and the rest is history.