Coldish

Chilly….freezing….frigid…..frosty….snappy…..Yep, it’s snappy! Take your breath away cold. That’s sort of the bad news…the good news is it was sunny today. The days of winter can feel especially long when there isn’t much sunlight. So even though the temps didn’t get much above 10 degrees here in Jacobsville today, the sun was shining brightly.  Bleau doesn’t seem to mind the cold much and he takes his normal sweet time going outside to take care of his business. But, retired sled dog Kashi has other ideas….she went about 15 feet from the door, did her business and came running back to the house. It’s nice to imagine she loved her mushing days but I am 100 percent certain she is enjoying this retirement gig! I imagine Bleau will one day love staying home and not going to school….for now he’s all in! We didn’t go to school on Tuesday due to an appt. and on Wednesday when he arrived at school he ran down the hall at full speed. Stopping at lockers to greet students….The kids get a bang out of him because he likes to pick up his own leash and “walk himself”. Lucky dogs, lucky humans.

One of the biggest things I’ve noticed about living in Jacobsville is the change of weather. It can be a blizzard in Calumet  and down the hill it’s blue skies and sunshine. These 2 pictures were taken 15 minutes apart. I know John loves living here but he does miss the big snows of Keweenaw county. I’d say we have had a snowy winter here in Jacobsville though and that’s been good for the old boys spirits!

When we first moved here we bought a nice, sturdy, TALL bird feeder. Unfortunately, I was one day late in pulling it this spring and the bear got to it first. We were able to save it but we lost about 4 feet off the feeder. Now the birds don’t mind, but being shorter means the deer have easy access to dinner. The tubular feeders work best as far as the deer cleaning them out of food! So I filled the feeders mid week and the deer came in that night and cleaned them out. So on Saturday I went out and as I was filling the 4 tube feeders the chickadees were landing on me, my boots, feeding from my hand even. Everything was filled and within 15 minutes we had lots of birds and even some new ones. Chickadees, pine grosbeak, HUGE white breasted nuthatch, rose breasted nuthatch, hairy woodpecker, sparrow, blue jay and 2 redpolls! The redpolls were a first for us. It’s warmer than yesterday but the feeder has been pretty quiet. They must have full bellies from yesterday’s haul! 

The deer are hanging around and still look pretty good. There is a mom who has a pretty young deer with her always. They don’t come as regularly as some of the others. They know where to look for food as that is the spot we put out things the deer will enjoy like apples etc. 

John asked me sort of short notice to write the journal. He decided to take Gracie to Tech skating today and writing the journal was the trade off. So I was looking through my latest photos to see if I had any material at all. I stumbled upon this oldie from one of the ride-in’s. Gosh time goes by so quickly! If you look close you can even see everyone’s buddy Big Vin in the background. Loads of great friends were made over the years at the ride in. 

Looks like the coming week will be typical winter weather for this area. Thursday looks to be cold per the Weather Channel…lol….I don’t have my handy weather guy handy right now 🙂  John was to ride with some friends this week and a series of events kept him home….stuck truck one day, next day dead battery….and then somehow on Thursday he broke his toe of all things! The weather was super bitter cold so as unfortunate it was he couldn’t get out, I was happy to know he wouldn’t be out in those cold temps. 

Well, that’s all I got folks……here’s to a great week! 

Good night from Jake