What's up during Winter in Longville?

I'm down to three more trips to the office before I hang it up.  In the meantime, life goes on...even though LSU football is done for the season.  The grandkids came for a quick weekend visit.  Jack brought out his inner business pirhana and wiped the board in Monopoly while Audrey told us she had a school project due Monday (she wanted to do a Tahiti sunset diorama)...

Since the last post, we acquired a couple of things we'll use during our retirement years...one for the garden and one for the road.

Yes, "Black Beauty" was starting to look like "black booty" and we thought we'd start retirement with fresh wheels.  I kept the toolbox and got an upgraded 5th wheel hitch, so we're ready to roll.  All I have to do is keep it safe in Houston for a few more weeks.  As far as the tiller, it's going to come in handy this spring for cultivating...whatever.  But it was time to do something with the pasture - something we surely couldn't do in many of the other places we've lived.

I burned off the thick dead grass islands inside of my trails through the pasture.  I could hardly mow in that stuff before, but after a rain or two and a little shrub clearance, I should be able to get on it with the riding mower and stake our claim to a clean pasture.  I should have plenty of room for a garden out there.  Some of those field pines will have to go...it's not like we don't have any other pine trees to look at around here anyway!

The turkeys have returned after a 2 1/2 month absence.  They show up at the feeder at least once evry day.  It looks like a pack of jakes...I can see the nub of a beard in some of the pictures.  

They are all over the game cam pictures.  I had cut back the feed cycle since the corn was stacking up and I didn't want to just keep feeding coons.  Once the big birds showed up, they picked it clean and I'm getting no squirrel/crow coon pics at that feeder.

Before the turkeys showed up, I caught a couple of other interesting items that should be included in the trailcam highlights...a wild cat and a wildcat.

I don't know how the small critters were hanging out there with that kind of predator stalking about, but they did.

Meanwhile, back at the ScottyCam, the coons were having a party.  They are also keeping the feeder mechanism spinning.  We've also had turkeys, a hawk , and some more alien encounters back there.

Those wiley wascals!  At least I think their ministrations are keeping the feeder plate free enough to spin once in a while.  I may have to try the hav-a-hart back there.  They are getting entirely too comfortable.