Mosaic Monday #120: February Thrills and Chills

I chose to live in Northwestern Montana, so you won't catch me complaining about winter.  I certainly won't gripe in light of the struggles recently faced by folks in Texas, including some of my family.  In fact, most of the time, I celebrate the snow and the cold -- its singular beauty can take your breath away as much as the bitter wind could.  I might even argue that I want MORE winter, preferably in the form of regular snowfall and temperatures below freezing -- all the better to maintain ideal ski conditions!  Welcome to my February highlight post, chock full of wintery scenes and the comforts that await us when we come in from the cold!

On a clear day at Whitefish Mountain Resort, you are surrounded by a 360-degree view of Northwest Montana/Southern British Columbia.  It is easy to say you are on top of the world!

  

Whitefish Mountain Resort employs several snow reporters, who have the enviable job of rising extremely early to report on mountain conditions.  I was very amused by this recent creative missive from reporter Pat!

On one of our outings, we tried a new Whitefish restaurant, Jalisco Cantina.  Upscale Mexican, and so deliciosa!!!

Sometimes, the white stuff (snow) can present its challenges, such as the powder day that caused our normal 1-hour trip to the mountain to explode to 2.5 hours.  Of course, a couple of accidents on the mountain road didn't help!  But the sun was spotlighting the mountain along the way -- so beautiful!

Fresh snow coats everything, as if a baker spent the night shaking a massive can of powdered sugar.  It's a delicious, romantic winter scene, with the warmth of the house beckoning to me across the frozen tundra.  

Who doesn't like the aroma of fresh baked goods?  To enter the house and be embraced by a swirl of lemon or ginger?  #1 Son and I have been getting our baking mojo on!

Mid-month, we had a week of deep freeze temperatures.  One day of work on the mountain was cancelled due to wind chills in the minus 30 range, but absent that, we carried on.  I took this photo of the car temperature gauge on the way to the ski resort on February 13.

For the second time in three years, the pipe leading to our washer froze up.  (The last time was in October 2020, another frigid period.)  The only solution is to super warm the laundry room, and run hot water in the kitchen until the ice is displaced.  We have some ideas on how to prevent this from happening again.  In the front of the house, we have chains that hang from our gutters; they are more attractive than a long down-spout, and, if ice does form on them, it melts faster than ice that is lodged in a down-spout.  Toward the end of the deep freeze, the ice on the chain was a sturdy column three inches in diameter.

While much of the Flathead Valley was cold and buried in snow, it wasn't the case in all regions round-about.  I gave Spousal Unit a sleigh ride/dinner date as a gift for Christmas, and scheduled it for February 14.  Unfortunately, the Cripple Creek Ranch had so little snow that it was a wagon ride instead.  But, what can be more romantic than snuggling under a blanket and riding along to the jingle-jingle of the sleigh bells?!?

With Lent underway, Head Chef has built more fish into the menu.  These fish tacos, with avocado and a creole aioli sauce, were out of this world.

And another day, a special treat - fondue!

Speaking of fish, the "Circle of Life" continues.  The golden eagle has not made an encore, but the bald eagles have been on camera every day.  I suspect that the photos represent more than one eagle, but I only have a couple of poor shots with parts of two eagles in the frame.  I just can't imagine that one eagle could eat such copious amounts - after I reached 12 fish consumed (in one case, four in less than 15 minutes), I stopped counting.   It was hard to pare down the photos, but I thought you deserved to see these!!! (you can click on them to enlarge)

I love the close-up on the beak in the next shot.

Below, check out the shadow on the ground to the right of the eagle.

In the next picture, the wind was kicking up snow all around the eagle.  The blurry effect is special to me.

And if you are tired of eagles, how about a wolf?  (Or it might be a coyote.  Hard to tell at this time of year.  Other shots in this sequence have additional shadowy figures in the background, most likely other canines - so I suspect wolves.)

Winter is far from over in these parts, but the days in its grip are waning.  The other day, as we left the house for work on the mountain, I realized we didn't need to turn on the porch light.  The mornings are lighter and even now, as I wrap up this post on Saturday night at 6 pm, the sun is still hovering, casting alpenglow on the hills.   Goodbye to February's chills and thrills!

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.

The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Tuesday (U.S. Mountain time). 

Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog. 

Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back. 

As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by. 

Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully. 

Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Mosaic Monday #69: You "Otter" See This!

Living remotely as we do, we risk complacency.  We might take for granted the forest, the lake, the majestic hills.  And then, it happens - a chance encounter reminds me we are blessed that wilderness still exists, and no further than our doorstep.

Two weeks ago, I bundled up for an extended walk in our "back yard".  I had no particular destination in mind; my goal was physical exercise and fresh air.  Given the snow, animal tracks are evident at this time of year, and often I will follow an intriguing game trail to see where it leads.  That day, I decided to skirt the edge of the lake at the bottom of our property.  It is shallow on the edges, and with ice thick enough to be safe, I can walk in areas that would normally be too marshy.

Can you see the dark brown spot in the middle of the photo?

As I wove through thickets of alder, with the frozen lake on my left, I spotted a patch of open water ahead.  Strange.  I moved closer and suddenly there was movement in the dried reeds - a solid brown body slid forward and into the water.  I automatically assumed beaver - I have written before about our dam-building buddies (here and here).  I retreated a bit and trained my binoculars on the spot where the critter had entered the water.  Within minutes, a whiskered nose emerged, followed by a glistening pelt and lengthy tail.  It was an otter!

February 19; 6.40 AM

I snapped some pictures and video with my phone, but none of it was satisfactory as you can see with the picture above.  I watched the otter for 10 - 15 minutes, and it spent the time rolling in the snow and cleaning its fur.  (I have since learned that North American river otters dry themselves and uphold the insulative quality of their fur by frequent rubbing and rolling on grass, bare ground and logs.)  When I could tear myself from the spectacle, I looked in the snow for tracks that might lead me to the den.  Sure enough, nearby was the tell-tale glide/pawprints/glide/pawprints pattern, ending at the mouth of a hole under a fallen tree.  I looked at the horizon and realized there would not be enough time to retrieve my trail cam and place it here.  Sigh.  It was a couple of days before I did so, and it was torture to wait several more days before retrieving the disk.  But so worth it!  As you can see in the photo above, the trail cam started delivering photos right away.  

The trail cam captured other pictures between February 20 and 25, but they are blurred or not the best angle.  As you can see from the time stamps, this "fellow" is an early riser!  It is interesting that the trail cam has not documented the otter returning to the den (the den is to the right in all of these photos, so it would seem that these are pictures of the otter leaving the den.)  I might shift the camera angle in the future to get shots of the hole itself.  So far, the picture below is the only one in "daylight".

You may be wondering if this is always the same otter - in other words, might there be a pair, and can we expect kits?  You will find out when I do!  (I have read that adult females move and den alone from mid-winter through the breeding season.)  The trail cam did not capture any pictures of the otter between February 25 and the afternoon of February 27, the last time I retrieved the disk.  So it was worrisome to see this as one of the final pictures on the disk:

But rest easy, my friends, I could see the otter in the grass near the open water - it is alive and well!  I am beside myself with joy to know that this marvelous creature is our neighbor.  In my reading, I learned that otters are quite particular about their habitat, and their presence indicates good water quality.  Somehow its residence comforts me, a sign of something that is still wild, pure and natural.  It reminds me of why we came to Montana, and rekindles my passion to preserve our little slice of wild for future generations.

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.
Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.
The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Monday (U.S. Mountain time).
Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.
Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.
As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.
Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.
Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

Mosaic Monday #23: Anticipation

When we moved into our new house on April 14, 2018, I began taking notes about wildlife we saw around the acreage, including information such as date and location.  And, of course, digital photography is a superb record-keeper since it embeds the date the photo is taken.  My blog is another source of historic information about the last 12 months.

So, as the anniversary of our move-in date approached, the idea of a retrospective on flora and fauna deeply excited me, and mainly as a reminder about what we can expect as spring continues to unfold.  I plan to maintain my journal, and in the years ahead I can envision a running dialogue such as "the bluebirds are late this year" or "flowers will be delayed because this winter slammed us with 5 more feet of snow than normal".  Won't that be interesting?

For now, let's focus on what we can anticipate in the next 90 days.  Maybe in a future post I can tell you if it happened or not!!!

APRIL

As the saying goes, April showers bring May flowers, so this month delivers more in the way of fauna than flora.  Last year, April meant turkeys passing through our yard, but we have yet to spot any this year.  The chipmunks, on the other hand, emerged from hibernation at the end of March and have been scampering around ever since.

Birds that have been absent for the winter have begun to appear.  Both the Mountain Bluebird and Sandhill Crane have arrived at Hodge Lake, earlier than last year.  I find it particularly interesting that I observe a mating pair of bluebirds in almost the same location as last year.  I read some material that suggests these birds bond more to a nest site than to each other.

Sandhill Crane

Last year at this time, the bluebirds and swallows were considering our bird houses.  This year, as I mentioned in my last post, we have already noticed the bluebirds examining the nesting quarters, but the swallows are still in absentia.

April also witnessed the return of the Red-Winged Blackbirds at our bird feeders.  This year, the first one showed up on March 14, and now my feeders are mobbed by males and females alike on a daily basis.  The sunflower seeds have also attracted an occasional house finch, a new visitor.  On Friday, I almost fell over myself when a Red-Naped Sapsucker perched for just a few moments on our porch railing.  (I knew it was a woodpecker, but I had never seen it before and had to look it up in my Montana field guide.  SOOOO exciting!!!)

Other new sightings have included two otters.  On April 7, in the early evening, Spousal Unit spotted something dark on the remaining ice of the lake, and he examined it through the binoculars while I deployed the spotting scope.  Over the next few minutes, we watched one and then two otters slide in and out of the water onto the ice.  At one point, they shared a fish that one of them had pulled out onto the ice.  How cool is that?

On April 10, Spousal Unit (yes, he has sharp eyes) detected movement on the far side of the lake, and we soon determined that it was four wolves.  We must have observed their activity for 20 minutes; they ran up and down along the edge of the lake, and at times acted almost like puppies in the way that they gamboled together.  Of course, I have reported wolves before, but this is the first occasion that we have seen them in real time.

That same evening, I noticed something white moving around in the tall grass near the lake.  On closer examination, it turned out to be a bald eagle eating something on the ground.  Being this close to Hodge Lake is certainly a boon for wildlife!

MAY

May 2018 was a thrilling month since we witnessed the moose down at the lake, and the beaver pair moved into the neighborhood, building a dam and lodge lickety-split.  After those initial sightings of the moose, it disappeared for parts unknown.  We continued to see beaver activity in terms of changes to the dam, tree cutting and the occasional tail slap, but over the winter they have been entrenched in the lodge.  Hopefully they will be more visible once the ice clears out.

The flowers surged last year during this month, and here are some of the beauties we can anticipate emerging first.

Lower left: Glacier Lily; Center: Blue Violet; Lower right: Aspen

Upper right: Kinnikinnick

Upper left: Serviceberry; Upper Center: Heartleaf Arnica; Upper right: Wild Strawberry

Lower left: Oregon grape; Lower Center: Not sure; Lower right: Lodgepole pine

On May 28, my trail cam documented the Columbian Ground Squirrels, but I am fairly certain they were scrambling about earlier.  Just as I was wondering when they would leave hibernation, I spotted one yesterday on the slope just below the kitchen window.  He was frantically eating the short grass; we shouldn't be surprised since he has been underground since mid-August!

May 29 brought a coyote loping through our leach field around 9.30 pm.  At the time, it was a novelty that had me jumping up and down.  Twelve months on, I have become accustomed to a sighting (at a distance) while I am running, and I have certainly captured plenty of them on my trail cam.  Don't get me wrong, I am still mesmerized, but they are not as rare as I first imagined.

At the end of the month, we planted our flower pots.  While this does not relate directly to my chronicles of native flora and fauna, I can use the reference as a safety net - generally, I don't have to worry about these plants suffering a snow storm or ravaging frost if I wait for the final days of May to set them out.

JUNE

 Middle left: Narrowleaf Collomia

Middle right: Rose

Lower left: Starry Wild Lily of the Valley

Reproduction systems kick into high gear in this month.  Fawns begin to appear, and as many as six elk with a baby in tow wandered the edges of Hodge Lake.  A painted turtle crawled up the logging road and seemed to be digging a hole for eggs.  This occurred twice that I witnessed.  Each time, I placed rocks on either side of the area to enable monitoring (incubation is 72 days).  Nothing came of it as far as I could tell.

Not to be outdone, the swallows were nesting in both bird boxes.  (But by mid-June, the gnawing squirrels had kicked them to the curb.)  I also glimpsed the occasional Western Tanager high in the pine treetops, and male and female crossbills chose our rock steps below the kitchen as a favorite hang-out.  I still have not determined what drew them to that spot - something in the soil?  Microscopic bugs that I could not see?

Of course, not all wildlife is welcome.  This month also brought the carpenter ant infestation, which we were able to fend off quickly.  That was a relief, and now I am constantly vigilant for bugs attempting to make a warm nest out of our house.

Abundant wildflowers danced in the meadows and nodded under the shrubs.

Upper left: Cinquefoil; Upper Middle: Blue Violet;

Upper Right: Butter and Eggs

Lower left: reflection in lake; Lower right: Shooting Star

Left: Yarrow; Upper middle: Pink Wintergreen; Upper right: Blue-eyed Grass

Lower middle: Self-heal; Lower right: Bog Orchid

I would be hard-pressed to choose the highlights from June, but the black bear on the logging road (captured by trail cam) and the badgers I observed would land at the top of the list.

JULY

Early July brought much of the same with an occasional surprise, such as the afternoon I glimpsed a small black bear on our driveway as I returned home from a run.  Or the weasel that caught my eye from the window of our master bathroom.

As I sit here now, looking at barren tree branches and muddy ground, my mind struggles to grasp the life that is waiting just below every surface.  I am dreaming about the wild grass and wildflowers that we sowed in the fall, immediately before the snow took over.  Will it sprout?  What kind of wildflowers will we see?  Can we defend the new growth from the deer and the bunnies?  Of course I am also keen to observe our formal landscaping.  Does it come back?  How much self-seeding occurred?  Will our apple trees bloom and cross-pollinate?  And then we have the pines and aspens we transplanted at the end of the summer.  Did they survive the process?  When can we expect the aspens to leaf out?  So much anticipation.  All I have to do is wait.

Mosaic Monday

Welcome to Mosaic Monday, a weekly meme where we get together to share our photo mosaics and collages.

Please include at least one photo mosaic/collage in your post.
The link will be open from 1 p.m. Sunday until 11 p.m. Monday (U.S. Mountain time).
Remember to add the link to your Mosaic Monday post and not the one to your blog.
Please link back to this post so that your readers will be able to visit and enjoy more wonderful mosaics; taking the MM blog button from my sidebar is an easy way to link back.
As host I will visit every participant and leave a comment so that you know I stopped by.
Please try and visit as many other blogs as you can, especially those that join in later, so that everyone's creativity can be appreciated fully.
Thank you for joining in today and sharing your mosaics with us. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter