Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Look at what my valentine got me for the day!

Winter Birds

We finally put out some suet and soon the mysterious bird network had spread the word that food was available at our feeders. Soon we had some nuthatches, blue jays, and woodpeckers all coming around.

This is a male Downy Woodpecker.

This Red Bellied Woodpecker would never stay still long enough for me to get a clear picture.

Yesterday we had one of the Pileated Woodpeckers that is living in our woods come by.

Skiing and Snow

We've had a lot of snow and it has been great skiing snow. We have really be blessed this winter. Deborah and Aaron have gone out with me many times. But after the last big snow, we had a LOT of snow to plow through to actually be able to ski.

The deer have been active in the woods, scouting around for anything to eat. They've even eaten some of my ornamental lavender which I wouldn't think that they would like.

Our bridge - covered in snow!

So since we're now dedicated skiers, we set out despite the deep snow. That's the tip of my ski that you can barely see in the snow. The way out was tough - slogging through at least a foot of snow.

The way back was much easier but as you can see, it was like skiing in a snow canyon!

But we still enjoyed it!

Sledding Excitement

Two weeks ago, we had an exciting time of sledding. We met up with two other families and sledded for over an hour.

Nathan

Stephen

Aaron

Deborah

After all the fun, you still have to walk up the hill!

The children tried to go down as a group but...

... the ends soon wrapped around and it became a giant muddle of sleds.

Usually one or more of the sleds would break off. They never did get a good group sled the whole time.

Then they tried to race and see who could go down the hill the farthest.

The excitement came at the very end of the sledding time. Deborah crashed into Nathan who was trying to protect another girl from getting hit by Deborah. Their heads met and Deborah got a cut in her mouth, but Nathan got his head split. It wasn't too long or too deep, so we took him home, shaved his head, and put on a butterfly bandage. It is healing up nicely now.