January Blues! January 14, 2016

This is what I mean by January Blues!  We still are having so many very cloudy days that everything is a shade of blue or gray ~ depending on the day.  The colors make for subtle photography.  But, many of them, with all the ice formations, are still very pretty.  We are still having a good many days with good sized waves on Lake Superior too.
On the other hand, we finally got just enough snow to go cross country skiing.  So, I have been doing that each afternoon and Miss Betsy is trotting ~ sometimes running ~ along behind me.  If it's a level area I generally tell her to go on ahead and run off some steam.  She finally has gotten to understand if we are going downhill ~ she better run fast or get behind.......or, at least out of the way!  :)

The boys still have their antlers and spend a bit of each day half-heartedly pushing each other around.    I always enjoy watching them ~ or listening to their antlers clicking as they scrap.  When you are a deer, there is a definite pecking order.   That must be followed!  Antlers are the key.....the bigger, the better.  If you are a fork horn and the only one left with antlers ~ you rule!  I always think ~ "enjoy it while you can, little buddy!  Your days are numbered!"  Almost without fail, one of the little guys will be the last to shed.

He's showing his best side here ~ to make sure you can see just how magnificent he is.   No one goes and pokes him out of his spot when he is laying down.  Altho, a fawn might come and inspect those antlers!  :)
Out side of deer antics ~ not a lot going on these days to write about.  There are a lot of rabbits around this year.  Evidence of that is obvious each trip out in the woods.  The small popple trees are all nibbled as far as the rabbits can easily reach.  Nicely girdled!  Natural thinning of the too thick young popple trees!!

I will leave you with a glorious ice photo I took on a cold day this week when the sun actually shined.   Being it was below 0, you see lots of sea smoke in the background.  Nothing like a bit of sun to get that nice ice sculpture sparkling.  :)