Just to Catch Up....

It was a bit chilly in the north woods of Wisconsin this morning... -27.5F (-33C) Air temp, not factoring in wind chill...

On Saturday, while on our way to the dump, we got to meet one of our neighbors. It was an accidental meeting...

He was backing out of his driveway as we were passing by. Everyone is OK, and the insurance companies have been notified. The right side doors of my Chevy Silverado are in pretty good shape compared to the back corner of his Chevy HHR!

My riding buddy, John, and his wife, Wendie, have been up in Eagle River, Alaska for the last few months. They're working on settling a family member's estate. They sent us 2 really nice and unexpected Christmas presents. The bald eagle print is quite large and beautifully framed. It looks great in our dining room. Nancy and I will get the bear framed and it will go in our living room. Thanks John and Wendie!

The City of Hayward had it's usual Christmas time light show again this year. The store fronts on Main street were decorated with thousands of LED lights.

Nancy and I continued a holiday time tradition. We took a big bag of cat food, some $$, and some treats over to the Northwoods Humane Society in Hayward. We spent a few hours visiting with the cats and handing out treats. Nancy and I both found special friends. Butters, an older male orange tabby fell in love with Nancy and hugged her neck.

While Midnight, another older male, all black cat, wouldn't leave my lap. I sat down and he circled me a couple of times and climbed on.

We almost came home with two more cats that day. I'm sure we'll be stopping back with treats again soon!

Meanwhile, our yard continues to attract lots of wildlife...

We love winter in the northwoods...

A slide show of pictures from 2013...

Fellow blogger Bob put together a slide show of pictures from his epic cross country trip of earlier this year. You can find it HERE.


Well I was motivated to do the same thing. Here is my first attempt at a slide show.....


The pictures are from this years outings.

Enjoy!





Click the little outline box icon for bigger pictures.


*** now modified to fit the blog better***

Martha's Color the Season, a Blog Challenge.

On the Wisconsinland blog, Martha posted a challenge, find some color in this bleak winter season. Well that's pretty tough to do up here in the frozen wonderland of northern Wisconsin. When I look outside all I can see from the house is fluffy white snow, leaf-less gray brown trees, and lots of brown, black or gray wildlife. In the back corner of the yard was a spot of color, a bottle tree that Nancy put up this year.

There was a little color outside the front door...

I kept looking for color but all I found in the yard was a single pink plastic ribbon that marks a dead maple tree that I need to take down some day...

I did find a whole ton of color in the garage... a couple shades of blue and a bright lime green....

Earlier in the day there was a young buck in the yard. He was up raiding the squirrel's food...

Not a lot of color, but I wouldn't want to be any other place in the winter time!

Brrrrr!!!

OK, so it's nowhere near record cold for Wisconsin*, but it's still cold! -16.5 degrees F (-27 C)

* Coldest December temp in WI.... December 19, 1983 -52 Couderay, in Sawyer County... Not far from here.

The Winter of 2013-2014 Arrives!

We've had a couple of snowfalls this winter season, but most of it melted a few days later. I think that trend is over. On Monday afternoon is started snowing. I figured we got 6 or 7 inches before it stopped on Tuesday afternoon. Yesterday, It started up again as sleet. When the temps started to drop off it turned to snow again. It quit sometime over night. Last night, before it quit completely, I snow blowed the driveway. I wanted to get the heavy sleet soaked snow off before it got any colder and set up like snow concrete!

I went out this morning and cleaned up the end of the driveway and removed the slow that the county plow left behind. I brought out the 4' ruler and found a protected patch of snow. I measured a bit over 12 inches.

The forecast for our area has cooler temps for the next couple of days...

A few shots of Winter bliss in the woods....

A Little Daytime Visitor...

It's been somewhat warm the last couple of days with highs near 40. Today, it was overcast with a very light rain. Before noon, we had a cute little visitor in the back yard. A tiny, young, black bear... We didn't see Mama and we weren't about to go outside to find her! I hope he's not an orphan, Wisconsin's bear season ended last month.

He was nosing around the bird feeders. He eventually knocked down a suet feeder and stole the blocks of suet...

The cats sat and quietly watched him. If Little Boy Kitty were still alive, he'd have been growling like a dog!



It's been a couple of days since the bear was around, but today I looked outside and there he was... Eyeing up the feeders...again!

The sun was shining so the pics are better. This one gives you an idea of just how tiny he is...

A few more in the sunshine...

Moving the Rocks...

Today was a great day to finish up some late season outdoor projects. There really wasn't much landscaping done in the front of our house other than a some oddly placed and misshapen Yews that the prior owners had planted. They must have dumped a few bags of mulch between the sidewalk and the house. Over time, most of the mulch disappeared, then weeds took over. The run off from the roof was making large puddles next to the house.
That area was built up with some with some dirt from the garden. I leveled it out and sloped away from the foundation, covered it with plastic to keep out the weeds, and topped it with the rock that had been dumped in our driveway last week. It's hard to see the true colors in these pictures, but it's "river rock" so it will be all different colors, but mostly browns, grays, reds, and black.

Before...

After...

Before...

After...

I brought out the snow blower and got it ready for winter. I had changed the oil in it this spring and also ran it out of fuel. All I had to do was fill the gas tank, hit the primer a couple of times and it fired off on the second pull. I put the lawn mower away too.

The Second Snowfall...

I wish I could post something motorcycle related, like photos from a ride through the woods, but I've got nothing. The weather's been very cool lately and this morning we woke up to find this winter's second dusting of snow.... Beautiful!

The deer were on the patio looking for for some bird food and maybe a pumpkin. This is a mom and her little boy...

While I was typing this, Rick Gruel Landscaping showed up to do some work. Nancy wants a garden next year, and I needed to do something with the space between the sidewalk and the house. An hour later I have the start of a garden spot, a yard of rock, and some fill next to the house. Now the heavy work begins. I hope the weather improves!

I built another rack for wood. It's been too cold to stain it so it's still raw wood. I've been working on filling it with some ready to burn oak that had found it's way out of the woods and has been piling up on my driveway...