Snow Day?

I took the following photos a couple days ago. Please forgive the mediocre quality, I took them through a window, and there is definitely glare/reflection showing up in the photos. These were our "guests" inside our fenced in backyard, dining on our burning bushes.

Yep, that's SIX deer, just hanging out together, eating whatever they can before the snow comes.

I'm always amazed at how close to the house they get. I watched two young bucks wrestling each other with their antlers the other day...they were 40 feet from me, and I was sitting outside talking on the phone. It was almost like they were putting on a show just for me!

This is one of the fawns who lives around our yard with her mother and sibling. About 1/2 a second after I took this picture, she took off running, because Colin openend the door and yelled, "Get off my lawn!" at the top of his lungs and slammed the door shut. (Thank you, Monster House!)

So, we've had lots of beauty and wonders of nature around here for the past few days, and we've been doing our best to appreciate all of it. Lucky thing, because THIS is what we woke up to this morning...

(Oh, and that dark pine tree you see beyond my car...it is now laying on the ground about 1 foot away from my car...it fell down while the kids, the dogs and I were outside playing in the snow. It was pretty scary watching it fall; we decided it was time to go back inside.)

This snowstorm was NOT forecasted by ANYONE, so I am woefully unprepared. Our power keeps threatening to go out (and most of our neighbors have no power), so I've got a big fire going in the fireplace, and I'm trying to get everything that requires electricity done, just in case. Anyway, about another 3 inches has fallen since I took these pictures this morning.

UPDATE: Our power DID go out before I could finish posting this blog. It's back, now, though...I'm loving having heat and electricity once again! We've got about a foot of snow on the ground, and it's still snowing furiously. Luckily, the wind has picked up and is blowing much of it off the trees, so hopefully we won't lose any more to the weight of this wet, sticky snow!

BEAR!

So, this guy (or gal) was playing with Aidan's red soccer ball in the woods in our front yard. By the time I got outside with my camera, he was exiting via our driveway...

No, I'm not nuts, I would NOT have gone out there to take pictures, except he was already 100 yards away! We saw him because Sadie was outside and started barking like crazy. She's a good bear alarm, but bears are apparently NOT afraid of dogs AT ALL.

I must say, it's really a breathtaking thing to see a bear that close up...Did I mention that he was IN OUR FRONT YARD?

Draining the Lake

Our community is "drawing down" our lake so that we can remove a couple sand/gravel bars and get rid of a lot of weeds that are threatening to overtake the lake. It was a big community event today...lots of exitement!

Yes, that's Fred standing on the dam in the white Chicago Bears jersey!

Get ready...

Here it comes!

Just a pretty shot...

Neighborhood kids coming to watch...

Even the local geese came to watch...

I have no idea how long it will take to drain the lake, but it's fun to watch the process. I'm hoping it will refill quickly once we're done with this project.

Whew, it's been awhile...

It's been way too long since I wrote my last blog. Life at our house has been really crazy with a puppy (do I dare say that I think she's finally housebroken?), soccer four days a week and getting back to doing "real" schoolwork.

While I want to post photos of some of what we've been up to the last couple months, today I need to post something a little bit different, because it was a very dangerous day for driving around here today. This was not due to rain or snow or ice or any of the usual hazards; it was due to the weak-in-the-knees-stunning colors that autumn was showing off today...it was impossible to keep your eyes on the road!