Exploring

Howdy! Today I thought I’d share a couple more images that I took the other day of the area surrounding my cottage. I’m located on what’s left of a farm (the surrounding acres were sold for development). In the center of the development there are me and two other cottages along with remnants of old barns, homes, silos and whatnot, along with woods and thickets as you see in these two images.

Obviously, we have a lot of fun ahead of us just exploring the yard and connecting pastures! For the most part, I have no idea what kinds of trees I’m looking at, but I’m eager to learn! The tree in the foreground of the first image has dropped some kind of fruit during the last season. The thickets, which we will also explore, seem laced with what I can only guess to be wild roses (given their amazingly painful thorns and tiny red rosehips).

The other wonderful benefit is the wildlife, of which there is much! We have deer living in here, and a multitude of beautiful, brilliant birds, some of which are a bright red! We heard a screech owl announce our arrival the first few nights (at least, I sure hope it was a screech owl), and there are more than enough fat grey squirrels to go around! We also have coyotes, which like to howl when the reactor alarm test sounds, and I’m waiting to see the raccoons. Don’t they have raccoons out here?

Finally, is anyone out there adept in the art of scat-identification? I need to get myself a book I think… I know what deer poop looks like (and evidently, my husky loves the stuff), but there are these much larger poops that I just haven’t seen before! Might we have bears in our midst?

There were always bears rumored around Seabeck, but sadly I never saw any live ones passing through. I’d always hoped that they’d found a nice, lush hold-up somewhere, but now that we’ve moved out, I hope they’ll feel welcome at our place. :)