Thanksgiving Wanderings

For Thanksgiving we took a trip to Minnesota to visit family.  There was some fresh snow on the ground so I walked out to the woods, but the birds were too elusive that morning, so I took some tree pictures.

Two grand trees.  Red Wing, Minnesota.  In the background you can see the snow on top of Barn Bluff.

Here you can see Barn Bluff again under another weathered tree, with a nice evergreen tree in the background.

The structure of this tree is silhouetted in snow.

Red (pine) squirrel.   These squirrels are about half the size of gray squirrels and this one was chattering quite loudly at me.

I managed to get one, not so great, nuthatch picture.  This past week I saw a nuthatch in our yard at home, too.

As we drove home I was trying to take some pictures through the car window.  The Mississippi river was mostly frozen and had a very geometric design on the snow and ice.

Across the road from the Mississippi river were the bluffs.  Highway 61 is a beautiful drive.

A few hay bales in the snow.  It was nice to be in the country for a little bit.

Wisconsin farm and corn field.

Back in our yard…  I caught the chickadee working on getting a little crabapple this week.

There seem to be at least two cats in the neighborhood this year.  Since we seem to have an over-abundance of sparrows this year, maybe it is not such a bad thing…  As long as they aren’t getting the native birds!

Winter:  Winter seemed to come early this year.  We have had many days below freezing already.  Today we got up over 50 degrees, though, so the snow is gone.  The compost pile is steaming hot.  We still eat a little kale from the yard.  But now it is time to relax, get cozy, ready some good books, and of course, shovel some snow!