After neglecting this blog for a few weeks, I always return with the statement "time flies". This blog is no exception! Where have the days--the weeks---gone? Surely they've been busy ones and I've spent an inordinate amount of time concerned with snow; specifically: cellallir 'to snow heavily" and muruaneq "soft deep snow", both words from an Eskimo dialect. Being in the great northwoods, it seems fitting to have many words to describe the changing snowscape here.In about 10 days time we've gone from bare ground to muruaneq and almost overnight there were no more exploratory walks in the woods for the dogs and I. The snow is knee-deep and and tough going for me without snowshoes. The dogs hop rather than walk since the snow is chest-deep for them.
The Rasch family is here for the week and they no more than got unpacked before hitting the trails this evening. The Phillips group was here last week and those gentlemen rode more than a thousand miles in five days!
I'm baking banana muffins with a brown sugar topping this evening and we're looking forward to a steak dinner compliments of North American Mechanical. How often do you find steaks on your doorstep?? I have huge baking potatoes and a spinach salad in mind to accompany the steaks and a pan of home made garlic breadsticks.
A Northern Shrike hit the window this week; he was scouting out his dinner and made a miscalculation I suspect. He sat under the window--stunned--for a few seconds before gathering his wits and flying away. What a beautiful bird! If you've never seen one they're mostly pale gray with black wing-tip and tail. They're a predatory songbird about the size of a Blue Jay. The following photo is a Hairy Woodpecker at the suet feeder last week; he's a big boy!
