Steve's wild Christmas!

 Mmmm the smell of Christmas baking this morning. Wait... what? I'm not baking anything! Yet this morning in the house there was a definite odor like cookies baking. I checked the stove and furnace, nothing on or burning. It didn't smell like fire, it definitely smelled like cookies or muffins baking. I was starting to wonder if mom or my grandmothers were trying to send a message. Finally... d'oh!!! I figured it out, I had moistened some cat food in a dish with water and a little canned cat food for extra flavor, then I placed it on the heating grate to warm it up. Smelled like cookies, unfortunately it certainly didn't taste like cookies... no I didn't try it, I'm just joking.

 My wild Christmas, okay relax everyone, not "that" kind of wild. Here some pics I want to share.

 Yesterday when I got up, I could see this impression in the snow, there were no tracks leading to or from it, clearly a Christmas Angel had descended from above and came to rest upon the snow.

 No actually what probably happened was an owl came down and caught a mouse under the snow, apparently their hearing is as good as their eyes and can detect movement under the snow. Mice and voles make tunnels under the snow, creating little highways, predators like foxes and owls listen for the movement and crash through to catch them.

 The great apple caper, back in October I kept finding crab apples all around the house, I couldn't figure out what was carrying the apples to the house and dropping them. A deer would eat them if they put it in their mouth but it definitely would not carry them. A raccoon would carry it but they would chew it up or at least put little teeth marks on it. Finally I saw the culprit and watched it one day.

 A young Fox out on its own, probably hungry was eating apples, not being part of its normal diet, it would pick up some in its mouth and I guess carried them to the house.

 Being young it came out during the day which is actually dangerous for a fox as they have enemies. Happily it is much smarter now, it still comes around but only after dark. Foxes are very hard on mice, so yay foxes!

 I was telling a friend about how a deer head suddenly fell from the sky one day. I didn't know if Santa had run into a helicopter or was it deernado, Armageddon or what was happening. Suddenly a large shadow drifted over the house and all was revealed.

 A Bald Eagle must have been carrying it and it became too heavy. There were actually two eagles, both with white heads, so maybe a pair, an offspring would be all brown. It's normal for them to come inland, they often scavenge off wolf kills.

 Speaking of deer, they are always around, I don't even notice them that much as a novelty, they are pretty though.

 I also had turkeys yesterday... Christmas turkeys??? They are destructive however, they came to the house so I went after them with a broom before they start to dig stuff up.