'tis the Season

Mostly a wet and cold early December weekend on the farm.  Big Daddy came for the week when I was working in the Big City, but there was not much that Denise would allow him to do, so he kept guard on my birdfeeder.  He did halt the seed predation by a big Chucklehead with my .22 from the porch.  Denise took a picture as proof, and at first I thought he had dispatched a cat.  Not so.  The fox squirrels are enormous here.

We brought him back to Baton Rouge on Friday and had Joe and the kids follow us back that night.  They were a big help on moving us forward inside the house.  We got a few pictures and a big mirror hung, Jack reversed the dryer door to make it more convenient for Denise, we got some Christmas decorations up, and Joe took the sander to all of the interior doors so that they shut easily and completely.

We even got some lights up around the front porch.  All that remains is to get a tree (and maybe a present or two to put under it).

Other seasonal happenings around the house include the annual blooming of the camellias...

...and Christmas-ready cardinals frolicking with their feathered friends on the feeder...

And grandchildren decorating gingerbread houses.

As far as the crittercams...not much whacking there.  I still don't have full confidence that the cameras are doing what I want them to do (like conjuring up deer out of thin air...is that too much to ask?).

Scotty's feeder out back was the one I had real hopes for.  This series of pictures shows Jack and I checking it last week.  Unkbeknownst to me, there was a visitor out there on two separate occasions afterwards.

The modern day Artemis with her slingshot passed by the next morning.

...and again yesterday when it wasn't raining.  Allegedly Alice was along for the adventure both times, but let Audrey, er, Artemis venture out first.  I don't think they knew they were triggering the game cam.

I'm not all that sure this feeder is doing it's job.  Last week and again today, it would not feed on the test cycle until I had manually spun the mechanism a few times.  The camera seems to work when deer sized animals pass in front.  I did change the snap setting to 60 seconds from 5 minutes.  I'll check the camera again next week.

I did take a couple of picture with my phone when I went to check today...I saw a small cow oak, some small hickorys, lots of transplanting size huckleberries, holly trees of various sizes, and some small beech trees - it was easy to identify beech trees (I know there must be a big one somewhere...I may want to transplant some of these small ones)

And I can see just why the privet shrubs are so invasive (I will NOT be transplanting any of these).

Only 8 more days to work this year, then the final push!  It's almost time to stop thinking about plans for the place and actually start doing something.  In the mean time, we are looking forward to our first Christmas in the woods.