I See Dead Porcupines
House wise, today was much like yesterday. Mom kept sealing up the vapour barrier and Dad and I did a bunch of odd jobs around the house. We labelled all of the circuit breakers and tested that they all had power. We sealed some of the front windows and worked at removing the ends of the window shims that are still exposed. I vacuumed up the gallery area, and finally got around to cutting off the extra window gasket. Periodically we’d go to the utility room and stare in a perplexed manner at the inverter or boiler. Something’s going on between those two, and I don’t like it.
My parents left around 3:30 and I took the dogs out for a walk, or rather they walked, I snowshoed. There’s a couple of feet of snow in some spots, more in drifts. With the freezing rain we got last week there’s a hard crust and then powder underneath. This is not the best walking terrain for the dogs. They tend to punch through the crust but then because the powder is so deep they get sort of ‘hung-up’ with all four paws down and their chests against the crust. I feel bad for Gator when the snow’s this deep, as a certain part of his anatomy tends to carve its own groove through the snow. That cannot be comfortable. Gator spent most of this walk following in the path of my snowshoes, stepping on the tail of one now and again just to keep me alert. Ceara just wanders around looking for new kinds of shit to eat.
Today we walked the southern boundary of the property and up the east side into the coniferous bush. It’s neat walking around this time of year since you can cruise over the swampy areas that are impassible most of the year.
I saw a deer, or at least the ass end of a deer, it’s hard to be stealthy in snowshoes. I think I found where the turkeys live, or at least where they spend a lot of time. And I came across a dead porcupine. I think the poor fella froze to death out in the fields a couple of weeks ago. In Peterborough it was getting down below -30 at night, and doing anything let alone foraging for food is dangerous at that temperature.
Yup, pictures. WARNING!! There is a picture of the dead porcupine, if you’re squeemish cover your eyes before clicking on the link!
-
- February, 09, 2003