It’s hard to believe this happened, but it did. Beautiful weather continued into early November, as the Nov 5 pics above show. But by lunch time on the 6th, whole new world.
Forecast for night of Nov 6 was 8 – 12 inches of snow over about 48 hours. We got nearly 12 inches the first day, and then close to another 8 on the second, with rain that poured on top of but didn’t melt it. Then a couple more inches of snow, which was actually kind of insulting, and from the 9th forward, lows in the teens or lower twenties at best, so it all froze in place. Inches of ice everywhere. It’s a mess. Had to cut most of that mature Nanking shrub out (right, above) to regain access to the front door and to prevent it from pulling over a massive “trellis” planted with grapes and kiwi to keep the south west side of the house shaded. Ad kids, that’s why you follow the rules. That trellis is NOT connected to the house. If it were, it’s be pulling on the front of the house, too. It’s all just a mess at the moment. Things mostly look like the photo below, which shows the backyard grape vines.
We’ve gotten just a few rewards of sun since the 9th, per pics below, but not many.
I very much miss the season on the left, below.
Finally! On Nov 17, 2022, I startled a doe and a fawn I didn’t know had walked into the paddocks behind me without my noticing. So I guess they also startled me, too. I turned around to head back to the house and there they were. Yeah! Deer life! I stayed mostly out of that part of the property for the rest of the day so they’d feel “comfortable” and hopefully stick around a bit, but I walked other areas of the property, following tracks and finding some healthy little snow poops. Woot.
Late morning Nov 18, the doe and fawn were resting under an ornamental crab apple tree whose branches had blocked some snow and where the day’s sun had “warmed” up the ground. The prior day, following their tracks around a bit, I’d noticed some orange-red spotting in the snow in places. It was the crab apples still falling off the tree, mushy though they are. Whether deer are eating them or not, they’re tracking them around. (Birds and squirrels are definitely eating them.)
I don’t think this is the Auntie and one of her fawns. (Pics above are fawn.) Maybe it’s Guinevere. It’s not the injured fawn. I gotten a good look at its leg, and there’s no sign of a prior wound. Given what things looked like 4 weeks ago, I think there’d be visible signs. But I could be wrong. Still, I don’t think the doe is the Auntie (mother of injured fawn). She’s simply smaller than the Auntie, and there are zero markings on her face. I’ve always thought her markings could change with her change of coat, but there’s nothing there at all. They’re visible 4 weeks back in photos of her and her wounded fawn.
And yes, while I’m not feeding the deer and don’t think it’s a good idea to do so, as I was feeding the chickens today, I have dropped a handful of corn in a couple spots they were likely to walk past. Actually, I now wonder if they are or have been fed some other place because… the first handful I dropped was done right in front of the doe. And she was clearly watching and hearing me do it, hearing the grain on the snow. She knew it was food, and pretty much as soon as I walked off, she went to investigate and eat it. The fawn found the little pile I’d dropped on the back porch (pic above).
There’s still seemingly quite a bit of brushy stuff here that’s not fully dormant because of how suddenly the snow hit things. The doe and fawn have been eating the Brussels sprouts and I’ve seen them chewing the piss elm and some raspberry canes. The dogwood’s not fully dormant, so it seems to be pretty attractive food, and some things that would be out of reach are still bent over and anchored into frozen snow, so that’s a temporary plus. There’s some exposed clover here, but most is well covered in frozen snow. Give us a few days of above freezing temps, and that clover will make itself known. Onward…
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