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Monday, January 16, 2012

Hay! Wolves!


It was a busy weekend here. I got a load of hay, about 7 tons or 230 bales. The doctor still won't let me deal with that much lifting so I recruited some help. I really dislike having to ask people to help me do something I normally do myself, but it was an awesome half dozen friends that put it away. It takes me a couple of days to move it and stack it, but it took them less than an hour. 


I often look out our kitchen window at first light to see if there is anything down by the creek. Usually I see a deer, grouse, squirrel, or fox, but occasionally something different. I couldn't see what it was, but it wasn't moving. It was this; some deer hide and a deer leg. 


Stitch and I followed the tracks about 30 feet through the brush to the creek bed and saw this:
It happened early Sunday morning, but we didn't hear a thing. We back tracked and found where the deer was taken down just below the old farm house. It looked like an ambush when we widened our search area following the wolf and deer tracks. Later in the afternoon I heard a couple of howls down the road a piece. It is wolf mating season about now so people need to keep their pets under close surveillance or risk losing them. It usually happens a couple of times a winter. The wolves have never bothered the horses. Once I was standing with our big mare as she and I watched a wolf trot up the road minding his own business. The mare just glared at the wolf until it went back into the woods. One set of tracks from this incident goes by the house about 30 feet away. Of course the SD card from the critter cam was in the house and any activity at night was missed. I put it back in the camera and hope that something comes by to check out the scene of the feast. I'll post something if it gets interesting.




14 comments:

  1. I'll be checking back to see what you might get a picture of!

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  2. Wish I was there to help. Would love to see a wolf in the wild.

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  3. Oh, wow, that is awesome! I hope you are able to catch something and post it from the critter cam!

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  4. Friends are great, especially when there's a big job to do in cold, snowy weather.

    No wolves around here, just coyotes. They have similar wolf traits but are bolder as far as I'm concerned.

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  5. Wow! Very cool. Wolves get a bad rap around here. I hope the critter cam gets a photo.

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  6. Wow! I can't imagine living in such wilderness.

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  7. Donna, Everything but the ravens seem to have cleared out, but we'll keep an eye out.

    Mr.C, they don't show themselves very often, but they certainly leave evidence of their presence.

    Corrine, I will try, but they are very wary.

    Catch Her, I couldn't believe the help was so awesome. We have coyotes, too, but they don't get along with wolves. In fact they really dislike each other.

    CD, They are not nearly as reviled as they are out west, but there are always some...

    I'd Rather, wilderness is a relative term, but this is sometimes close to it.

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  8. I hate it that the UK is so barren. We can't even leave foxes alone. If you tried to reintroduce wolves the farmers would scream blue murder.

    Thanks for visiting my blog. I came and followed your blog but then I saw that you don't follow many people yourself.

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  9. Friko, thanks for stopping by. Actually I should follow more as I read quite a few. I usually just do it through my bookmarks as I just haven't gotten around to "following" per se. Just lazy and slow to change habits. I may just take the time to do it this weekend. Thanks for the nudge!

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  10. I'd love to see a wolf. We have some around here, and they apparently interbreed with the coyotes, but I've only seen the coyotes.

    That's a lot of hay! We have helped our neighbours moved haybales into their barn.. sweaty work!

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  11. You transport me from the artificially-induced political slime swamps of South Carolina to Nature in the raw in a real winter. You BET I'll be tuning in for more!

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  12. Jono: Could you answer a stupid question for a SF city girl. What do you do with all those bales of hay? That is ALOT of hay. Do horses eat them? We have lots of horses in the NorCal area here and they are out all the time eating the grasses in pasture even during winter.

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  13. I'm with Nina... what is ALLLLL that hay for????

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  14. Well ladies, I'll explain hay and winter in a post. It's too much to comment on for me. Stay tuned!

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