As you probably know, I live in a little clearing in the woods. On the side of a mountain. In an area with a whole lot of wildlife large and small as you have probably gathered from the many photos I have shared over the years. Like in the above shot, there are five grizzly bears at once! This has lead to a lot of questions from folks over the years about how do I deal with living near large things that could potentially kill or eat me? So, I finally sat down for a long discussion of my thoughts
There are a lot of moose that live in my immediate area. And I see them quite frequently. I spotted 4 different moose today alone. Either from my house or while shoveling snow on a few neighboring properties. But this little girl pictured above is a little special in my heart. She is an orphan and first came by the house without her mama about two weeks ago. While she's little for a moose, she's obviously still quite a large animal. And just in case you have never been around moose, while I find them fascinating like all wild things, they can be very dangerous
As the snow continues to deepen, more and more wildlife start to use the cleared and shoveled pathways all over the area because it makes it so much easier for them to travel. So more things travel up or down my lane and past my house. So here is some more captures from the game camera yesterday. Pardon the photo quality, game cameras do not have the resolution of my cameras I normally use. But they do capture things like this which is neat! Burley and I were out shoveling snow at a different house at the time, but when we'd got up in the morning, I saw this family was napping in the edge of the woods behind the house. Anyway, here's what happened while we were out. First mama moose strolled by
Just a few quick glimpses into some spring chores over the past little bit. Though it's rapidly turning into summer around here! Before most of the spring things can really start, I'm usually itching to get going on stuff, so it's a good time
All the garden beds are finally bare of snow! Just barely. :) I had to share that little note just because it's exciting to me at this time of year.
Anyway, you've probably seen a lot of different interesting wildlife around the tiny house here if you've followed life around here for any length of time. But the other day I glanced out the window and saw something I've never seen here in our clearing before! Not actually an uncommon creature. In fact much more common than many of the other things like wolves and mountain lions that have walked by. But in six years of living here,
Greetings from Burley, the wet rat dog, and I. 😀 It's warmed enough for wading in the creeks to be fun. At least for him, I am not nearly so into wading in water that is approximately the temp of ice melt. He however adores it, and begs for more sticks to be thrown in the water pretty much endlessly. When he's all wet, you can see his neat coat color, dark shaded or wolf sable. Every hair that looks black most of the time, is actually
Just some quick glimpses into what we've been doing around the tiny house lately. The good part of the way I've chosen to live for years now is that my normal life is apparently pretty close to what people call quarantine. 🙂 So other than not being able to workout in the gym a couple times a week, my life is pretty much the same as normal. And for this I feel very
Over the past few years I have really enjoyed watching the birds that frequent the woods around our tiny house and the feeders. I have to thank my good friend and fellow tiny house dweller Moose for giving me a bird feeder he had when he moved. The little birds that started to visit it inspired me to create the current bird feeder setup I have. (It's so far been bear and squirrel proof! Check it out if you are interested - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0zylzSISwE) There were birds around before for sure, but I didn't get to see so many or watch them as up close. Watching and listening to the many little feathered friends is so much fun, plus they do a lot of work for me. Constantly patrolling the garden in the summer for any little unhelpful bugs that might be trying to take over, searching out the larva and eggs over the winter, and eating a lot of mosquitoes! They are great neighbors to have. And the time to enjoy watching, photographing, and listening to them is one of the many things I enjoy about living a slower paced life, much of which has been made possible by my tiny house. So I thought it would be fun to share with you all some
We've been very much enjoying winter around here! Many miles of snowshoeing through woods and along rivers have provided delightful glimpses of beautiful things in the natural world.
The snowpack, the amount on the ground, is always changing with new storms, well below zero weather that sucks moisture back out via sublimation (frozen water turning directly into vapor without melting into a liquid first), or a warmer day with some sunshine that helps compact all the layers from the various storms together as the snow settles. The snow fall totals are a different measurement from snowpack, generally measuring the amount of new inches that have fallen once a day before all the above mentioned effect have much time to act on that new snow. At the moment this leaves the mountain above me reporting over
A couple mornings ago, when Burley and I woke up and first went outside, I saw new tracks in the snow. One advantage of getting more snow almost every day, is the ability to easily pick out and follow fresh tracks. Burley has a pretty huge foot print for a barely 50 pound dog. Much larger than many dogs his size, and this serves him well for living in deep snow country as those big feet act a bit like snowshoes. But at first glance I knew these tracks were not Burley's. They were two to three times larger than his feet. My first thought was that our resident mountain lion had visited again. But a second glance let me know that they were not cat tracks. Just like a house cat, mountain lions can retract their claws, so their paw prints just have a pad and toes, no nail print visible. Each of these tracks I was looking at had a very clear nail print at
Sometimes on new years day, I want to tell people, "you know, a new year starts for you each day you wake up still alive." Do something with it. Don't wait for some random day on a calendar to make resolutions and do new things. If it's something you want to or know you need to do, start right now. Whatever day on a calendar that is.
That said, it is nice to look back through what happened in the last while every now and then. So here's some highlights
The most frequent night time visitor we see here is a fox. Probably more than one as there are quite a few in the area, though I don't usually see more than one at a time in our yard. I love having them come through as they are great at putting a dent in the population of small rodents. Last night Burley and I were awakened in the middle of the night by a very different sound though.
Did I tell you how much I like winter nights at my house? I mean summer nights are fine and all, but not nearly so bright as winter. And on that note, we have had a lot more snow arrive recently!
After that last snowstorm wrapped up and rolled on out, we awoke to a stunning sunny (still cold) bluebird day! And a big visitor came strolling through the woods.
Moose do come by quite regularly, though with the very low snow for much of the year, I've seen less of them here than normal recently. They have been able to travel wherever they want without feeling a need to stick to plowed and shoveled pathways as they tend to do if the snow is really deep.
Since this video though, another different moose came through as well. I either saw another moose twice or two different moose, and then the same mother and baby came back one evening when I was at a friends. When I came home, I found their fresh tracks right up to the porch! Like most creatures, they like to come by when I'm sleeping, not looking, or not home. :)
The view of my place down through the trees from the hill above my house.
One of the chatty little squirrels perched right outside my window.
Grizzly does love bounding through the deep powdery snow. At least I assume she does from the look on her face and the wagging tail!
And lastly, a few more beautiful snowy bighorn sheep.
I love night time at my house. The peace and quiet, and how bright it is when there's snow on the ground. Since a bunch of people have asked about this, I did a video on my transportation. How I get around in the wintery conditions, carry the things I need, and stay safe.
I really do like my little quirky old van.
A couple days after seeing and photographing my first ever Pine Grosbeaks, I spotted another little bird I'd never seen before!
Aren't pygmy owls just the cutest little owl ever?
I loved getting to watch this little feather ball for an afternoon and was hoping he'd stick around. But I have not seen him since, so maybe he's already moved on.
Grizzly and I have continued to enjoy spending time outside in the snow.
And the full moon through some light snow haze was still brilliant through the tree branches. It's almost daylight bright at night when there's a full moon and snow on the ground!
I am fortunate to see bald eagles most days, but getting to see one this close who cooperates long enough for me to get a photo, is much more rare.
And I've continued to see a lot of beautiful healthy looking bighorns this winter. Like this male and female pair in the beautiful soft snow filtered light.
I know it's spring for many of you, but for those who don't have warm temps yet either, I hope you are enjoying the snow as much as I do!
Hey all! I hope you area all enjoying your winter or spring. Which ever you are having. Sorry it's been a while if you are only following me via the blog. That's a long story which I'll elaborate on in a minute.
First a look back at what the snow looked like around here in the middle of last month.
Then, after a very low snow year for most of the winter so far, it finally started to add up. Now it's looking more like a normal winter around my place.
I've also spent a good bit of time out trying to capture some good wildlife photos.
And I think I managed to get some. Like this beautiful mother and baby bighorn sheep in front of Sheep Mountain.
Or this pair of pregnant elk sparing over some kind of disagreement. They stayed balance on their hind legs for a long time. I'd never seen that before!
And then some little birdies came by for two days (and I've not seen them since) that I'd never seen before. After getting some photos, I looked them up and learned this is a Pine Grosbeak.
Tracked down a few mountain goats.
Check out the amazing color detail in those feathers!
I went on some hikes and snowshoes with Grizzly.
Isn't she just a gorgeous dog?
So other than all that, I haven't blogged much because I've been spending a lot of time working on videos. I feel a bit torn about that because I don't much like watching videos. I'd rather read personally. But on the other hand, I started this blog to share useful information with others. And, when I look at the amount of people I can get information too, Youtube wins hands down. Like in all the years I've been blogging, a little under 800,000 views on the blog. Now admittedly, that is a pretty huge number. And way more than I ever dreamed would be interested when I started this.
But... when I compare that to what I see on Youtube (mostly in the last six months whereas the blog's been going for years) it's a huge difference. Videos have somehow racked up over 2,000,000 (yeah, two million) views with over 11,000,000 minutes watched. Now talk about numbers that blow me away! I thought there might be a few hundred folks interested when I started this. So that's just crazy!
If there were unlimited hours in a day, I'd just do both. But somehow, I only have 24 of them in each day. So... do I put more of my time into the thing I prefer personally? Or the thing that reaches the most people? I don't know the answer. For now, I'm trying to do both as I am able, but I've certainly put more time into video than blogging recently.
Meaning, if you've been following me on here, and don't want to miss anything, please know there is also stuff (as in info, updates, wildlife, etc) to be found on my Youtube channel! https://www.youtube.com/fynyth
That's all for now, and I promise I'll try to get blog posts back up a bit more frequently.
Well this winter continues to be odd, weather wise. While much of the country has been under a much colder than normal spell, it's been the opposite here. Several sunny and somewhat cold days, and then back to warm and grey.
Like it was 38 F. last night and rained all night long. Poured. This is the middle of January. Normally at this time of year, it's more like -30 to -40 F. So it's almost 80 degrees warmer than normal. That's pretty crazy. Now today it's snowing some, but still unusually warm.
Despite the relative warmth, with all the grey days and the short daylight hours, this is the time of year my generator gets used. So here's a look at the how I maintain and care for this little workhorse. And a comparison between the Champion generator I use, and the similar sized Honda that I do not own, but have used on occasion.
And then some of the downsides of life here. Just to clarify, this may not be a video for everyone to watch. Yes my goal here is to show real life off grid with all it's ups and downs, not provide a "reality tv" fantasy world.
Like all animals, I do think skunks are beautiful and amazing to watch! When I first posted this, some people were very horrified. I didn't realize how many people were not familiar with wild skunks as skunks have lived everywhere I have ever lived. I wrongly assumed most people knew things that were basic knowledge to even a young child when I was growing up, but I do understand that many people have different background and experiences and should probably not assume anything is known unless I thoroughly explain it.
The main issue is not that it got in the dog house, or under the house, in particular, but that it was here at all. A wild skunk that is approaching people and houses in the daylight has a high chance of being sick with rabies which is fatal and for which there is no cure one contracted for either humans or animals. Totally aside from the nauseous and eye burning smell they bring with them. And I should have clarified that.
And as much as I love wildlife and observing nature, the sad thing that most people don't realize is that most relocated animal die anyway, usually a longer and more painful way. I see this a lot around here sadly with bears and many smaller things being relocated. They put the animal down in some other animals territory and it's usually killed by the previous resident. But the people it was originally having a conflict with don't have to look at it happening, so the general public feels better about it. :( As someone who loves wildlife and spends thousands of days in the wilderness observing and photographing, it's pretty sad to watch.
But with that all resolved, Grizzly and I are back outside enjoying the snow. Though it still really stinks outside! Hopefully in a week or so, that will finally dissipate.
And taking drives to photograph the mountains and wildlife. Like bighorn sheep.
Of course, none of the big rams would turn around and look at the camera, but this little girl halfway did. Grizzly handles wildlife drives very well. She enjoys looking out the window, and is very alert when we find wild things, but sits quietly and watches.
I hope all of you who are getting really cold weather are staying safe, and I wish you could send it this way!
