There were couple weeks nature thought it was spring. Most of the several feet of snow has slowly melted and turned to another of Wisconsin's well-known seasons...Mud. It is nearly impossible to drive across the pasture to feed the few cows we have hay, especially since all that snow moving wrecked the 4-wheel drive in my tractor. Farmers know how pricey that can be to fix, even in a small tractor like we have, so, that is on our save up to fix it list. Walking in the yard is even hard for my goofy, yet incredibly handsome cat Zorro. He keeps sinking his little paws in as he tries to hop over spots he's pretty sure he can't walk on just to land and sink.
The migrating birds are slowly reappearing though. We have trumpeter swans, ducks and geese landing on the pond across the one-lane road that serves the two houses here (it dead-ends at the other house). There is an otter or two that frequent the pond as well. I'm sure they are wondering how they are supposed to get to the water with 99.99% of it still frozen over - several inches, if not feet, deep. I saw a couple of geese trying to dive under to feed off the bottom near the shore where it is actually thawed to a liquid state. They didn't get far. It is pretty shallow there and they barely got their heads under. They looked like they were stuck in upside down by their beaks with their bodies and feet up in the air. Even though I really did feel sorry for them, it was very funny. They crossed the snow bank in the ditch and crossed the road to our snow bank ditch. Only one would come on into the yard. He made it a couple feet before the rabbits started stirring in their cages and Zorro trying to get to the back porch caught its eye. He waddled back to the road as fast as it could, because it thought the cat couldn't get them there I guess. I'm not sure since I don't speak goose. They both squatted down in the middle of the road and stared as Zorro also watched them whilst trying to get through the mud. Poor little guy ran into the green house by accident. The one brave goose stood up and started honking at him (scolding him?). It went on for several minutes as Zorro just stood there frozen in place. He was afraid to move I think. Then they turned and waddled back to the pond. I named them Edith and Archie. Archie of course being the disagreeable one.(Zorro did make it to the porch so he could eat.)
One otter has been scampering over the dike that separates a moving waterway (creek) and the pond back and forth between the two. I suspect it's having fun running the creek that surrounds two sides of us and crossing the road to the water on the other side of the road. He kept trying to find his way into the water. Once he found that open spot he had a grand old time splashing and diving. At least he did until Archie Goose ran him off.
There is a big deer that comes out to nibble of the dead grass that is finally showing as the snow melts too. He pretty much minds his own business.
The neighbors, whose pond it actually is dog-sits their son's dog quite often and she was walking it the other day. She thought for some reason it would be a good idea to turn it off its leash and let it run. Under normal circumstances it probably would have been fine, but that day it decided to head directly for that frozen over pond. Luckily, he didn't fall through, but he sure scattered all kinds of wildlife. I think he tried to chase the geese but only ended up sliding all over the place instead. She had a terrible time trying to get him off the pond. She had no intention of going out there with him. Now, she might have fallen through. She's not a big person by anyone's scale, but she is bigger than the dog or those birds. She finally just gave up and headed back to the house. The dog didn't like being abandoned like that and ran to catch up. I think she knew he would.
I tell you I would rather watch that 'program' on the pond any day that television while I eat my meals.
We did get up to discover the rabbits we were raising figured out how to open the lid on their hutch. So of course they had to escape, and of course, we could not catch them to save our lives. It turned into butchering day. I'll spare you the gory details. My shoulders are sure sore from holding them up so we could skin them though. I am going to learn to tan hides so I can make something out them. I don't see any sense in letting them go to waste after all. Dinner sure was good last night!
