It's almost fall on the Grove Creek

At the end of the summer and before the fall, the wildlife are getting ready for the change in weather. The young bluebirds that were born this spring are maturing but they will not get the vibrant color that we are used to until later as you can see by this one in a nearby tree,

One its buddies returned to the nest. You can ask how I know it returned to the nest where it was born and I say look at the color of it's feathers. If it's a male it will become vibrant. If it's a female the color around the head and eyes would be gray.

The sand hill cranes usually arrive in late March or early April. They mate for life and typically they will produce one or two off spring. This is a proud mama and papa strutting their stuff.

However, it's getting close to time to head south. This is a whole group with the one in the middle giving exercise lessons getting them ready for the long trip. The two of the left are trying hard, the one on the right is watching while the little one is probably one of this years offspring and is in the learning process.

and of course we have deer, who don't migrate but are careful at this time of the year that we don't interfere with their fawns. You can see this lady was trying to hide from me when I got near her with my camera.

As fall gets nearer and it starts to cool, there will be more.

Cold Turkey

How times change. The first weekend of October, 2008 we experienced 42 inches of snow at the Circle B Bar T. The same weekend in October, 2009 we had 24 inches of snow. This year, 2010, the same weekend in October the temperature was 83 degrees. This fall has been especially mild, the leaves on the trees was not hampered by the weather, and they were beautiful. It changed on November 18th. It got cold, the snow started arriving, and the expression of "cold turkey" took a new meaning the morning of November 20th. This is a picture of the trees along the Grove Creek. The dark images at the top of the trees is the flock of turkeys you saw in our last post on this blog. This time, it was too cold to be on the ground, so they flew to the top of these 40 and 50' tall trees. This is "cold turkey".
After taking this photograph, I decided to drive around the Fishtail - Absarokee area and observe was else was happening. As I said already, it had been a great fall, the livestock had not been feed hay as the pastures were still very attractive to both the ranch livestock as well as the deer. On this day, with over 8 inches of snow on the ground, and still falling, I fed our horses hay for the first time this fall.

They weren't the only animals that needed to find something to eat. As I drove the 20 mile circumference, I expected to see lots of deer in the fields. I must have been too cold for them as well. I would normally expect to see at least 200 deer on this trip, but this day there were only a few, and the ones I saw had found something to eat, as this one had.

Most of the ranchers had been out feeding their livestock, prior to me venturing around south Stillwater County. However, this herd had not been blessed with hay and as you can see they were roaming through the pasture looking for something to eat.

But these sheep, covered with snow, if you look carefully, were fillng their stomachs with hay that had been harvested this past summer.

and finally, there were adventuresome animals like these who didn't wait for the rancher to bring them hay, they sought it out on their own. Whether it was the smell of the nearby bales or this bale just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and they went no further. They might say they were luckier that cattle you observed looking for hay, certainly they got their bellies full.

If you made this same trip today, there was hay in every field and every animal in our area was feasting on some good hay as the temperature had tumbled to minus 10 degrees last night. The weather forecast indicates it will not get warmed until Thanksgiving. In the meantime, there is more than enough excellent hay for our livestock to make the transition to winter.

It was minus 3 degrees last nite

Thought some of you would want an update on the weather. It did get cold,I didn't capture all of the images, but here are a couple plus some other items of interest. As you will see we did get some snow, not as much as the weatherman predicted, but at least 5 inches. The horses came to breakfast this morning with snow on their backs, the winter coats are so thick, the heat from their body never got to the snow to melt it.

I went to the Grove Creek to see if the owl was still in it's nest. Look hard, but it isn't there.

By the time I had walked to the Grove Creek and taken this picture, my camera was so cold, it would not function any more. I missed pictures of 2 golden eagles in the nearby trees, but I also found a pile of feathers at the base of one of the trees. They were turkey feathers, therefore, we are missing a turkey and some animal had their Thanksgiving - Christmas dinner in January.

I warmed up my camera and drove to Fishtail. On the way, I captured this picture to give you a feel of a post snow, cold sun shiny day in Montana. In the center of the picture is our place, approximately 2.5 miles from where I took the picture. The mountain range in the background is the Crazy Mountains, at least 60 miles north and west of here. They are just past Big Timber.
This mother deer and her 2 fawns were roaming in a wooded pasture as I approached Fishtail. Even thought the ground was covered with snow, they looked quite healthy and most likely had been snacking on the neighbors cattle hay.

Hunting season with a camera

We left our ranch and traveled 40 miles to capture with a camera what others might being trying to capture with a gun or bow and arrow. Somehow the deer know when it's hunting season and they also know where it's off limits for the hunters. During our trip I counted at least 184 deer and never left the road. This picture was taken soon after we started the trip, 6 miles from our place.
We had not traveled too much further when we spotted this fellow. Based on the size of his rack, it is obvious that he has avoided the hunters with guns over the years. He was in a field not far from the road and I said, he should be hiding as we had been passed by a number of hunters as we made the loop. Then I noticed in was on a ranch that did not allow hunters. Don't go across the fence buddy or you could be in trouble.
We were near Beehive when we saw this guy. As I was finished taking his picture, I noticed across the road, a father and son had arrived on a four wheeler, and the son had taken his gun and was aiming at something. I looked around and saw these turkeys, perhaps he was in charge of getting the Thanksgiving dinner. He did shoot a couple times, his aim was not good as the entire flock of turkeys survived and the hunter and his son moved on.








and if you were a bird hunter, not far down the road was this flock of birds that decided not to stay around once I got out of the car to photograph them.

In addition to the wildlife and the hunters, we observed several hunters at a rifle range honing in their aim. What was surprising was there were at least 50 deer within a mile of where the rifle range was located. I didn't stay around to see if they would be aiming at larger targets. The drive was beautiful, a clear day, sunshine and the view of the mountains was great.
The final picture was this young deer who was resting in the sun in a neighbors yard. The only shots that could be fired at it was with a camera.
If you want to see a larger image of these pictures, just double click on them.

The first snow has been a doozy

Last year, 2008, in October it started to snow and when it stopped we had 42 inches of snow.
and just a year later, it started to snow again. This time we only got 24 inches to start with, but the snow was wet and the trees sagged and broke the electrical power lines throughout our area. We were without power for 24 hours but survived as the fire in the fireplace kept the house around 68 degrees.
The animals were not ready for snow and the cold as it had been 80 degrees just 6 days before. You can see from this Western Meadowlark who was perched on the fence that this sudden change in the weather was not appreciated.
and 4 days later, the snow started again. The snow has returned to a depth of 2 feet, Clint has not still not been able to spread the manure because the snow is wet and the fields are soggy and a cold front is approaching from the north, tonites low is predicted to be around 2 degrees. The horses will get to come in out of the bitter cold and Clint and Marty will be in front of the fireplace with the dogs.

Next week the temperature will return to the 40's and 50's and we plan to visit Yellowstone.

Update from the Circle B Bar T

Yesterday was our 10th anniversary of living full time in Montana. There's a lot of change in 10 years besides the obvious. 2 new dogs, 2 cats, 14 horses, a barn, an indoor and outdoor arena, several miles of new fence, a lot of snow, a lot of wind, and a lot of friends and relatives have enjoyed these 10 years with us. We are looking forward to the next ten years as much as we were looking forward to crossing the Montana border 10 years ago.

Several years ago, Bob Houser, our son-in-law, signed Clint up as an ambassador with Maker's Mark, the fine Kentucky bourbon. Soon thereafter we both had our names associated with new barrels of Maker's Mark. They aged to maturity and today, Bob journeyed to Kentucky to get our 2 bottles (each) and offically sealed the bottles by dipping them in the red wax.

10 weeks ago you saw this "red tailed hawk" on our blog.
the only difference between then and now is it's 75 degrees warmer, the wind is still 35 miles per hour, and his picture that was taken inflight is now being enjoyed by a number of people who have purchased it. Today is the second day of summer. We're not sure if we experienced any spring at all. Yesterday it was 95 degrees on the deck and today it has been in the mid 80's.

It's been a great 10 years and we are looking forward to the next 10. For those of you who have been here, welcome back, if you haven't made the trip, we'd love to have you.