Another stroll through the woods

The east side of our property is a slope down to a valley, mostly covered in trees, about an acre in size. Earlier this week, as the snow was melting, I hiked down the hill, and took a bunch of pictures of the trees. I typically only go down there around this time of year, as it gets a bit overgrown in the summer, plus there are a lot of blackberry brambles, which aren’t much fun when wearing shorts in the warm weather.

But first, I surveyed the fir tree seedlings that have self-seeded on the grassy slope:

Tree seedlings

Including a random lone pine tree:

Tree seedlings

I will soon transplant some of those to more useful locations, e.g. next to the pond. Over time, the ones I leave will grow too big to transplant, like the smaller trees in the middle of this picture (may be a little hard to make out against the taller ones behind them):

Trees

Looking up at the tallest tree on our property:

Tallest tree

Heading down the hill, there are nice groves of ferns:

Ferns

And lots of impressive trees:

Trees

Trees

A mossy clearing:

Mossy clearing

More big trees:

Trees

Trees

Fallen branches crushing the fence at the bottom of the property:

Fallen branches on the fence

More trees:

Trees

Trees

Trees

There are a fair amount of blackberry brambles, too:

Trees

More ferns:

Trees

Looking up the hill towards the tallest tree again, with a couple of shorter ones in front of it:

Trees

Those tall trees keep the underbrush fairly clear; could be a nice spot for a picnic, perhaps, if we were into that sort of thing:

Trees

Trees

The forked base of the tallest tree:

Trees

A vertical panorama of looking up at that tree:

Panorama

But wait, there’s more:

Trees

Trees

Trees

Trees

Emerging from the trees behind the future bee shed:

Emerging from the trees

Speaking of, I will be starting that project soon. Stay tuned for that!

Cat update for week ending February 27

It’s Caturday.

Let’s start with a GIF of a cat climbing a tree:

GIF

Pommie and Bella:

Two cats

Porcini and Poppy watching me from a safe distance:

Two cats

They were a little concerned when I walked past, on the way back inside:

Two cats

(This little patio area is quite nice, though we don’t use it. It used to have a fire pit, before we bought the place, but we’ve never used it for that, as there is too much foliage around it now.)

Two possums in the feeder; unlike with raccoons, it’s unusual to see more than one at a time:

Two possums

Poppy, Porcini, and Spud at the cabins:

Three cats

(I really need to clean the cabin cam, but there’s pretty much always someone there, so I don’t want to disturb them.)

Three cats outside their house:

Three cats

Cat prints in the snow:

Cat prints in snow

Poppy watching me walking past from the comfort of a cabin; you can also see the cabin cam in its little shelter (the cam is waterproof; the cover is to stop cats rubbing on the cam and making it askew):

Poppy

Two cats with some snow:

Two cats with snow

Spud by the cabins:

Spud

Porcini and Poppy:

Two cats

A couple of cats in the feeder:

Two cats

Porcini looking concerned as I approach the cat house to attend to the food dispenser, with Poppy below:

Two cats

Porcini stayed inside, but Poppy left; she can be seen near the center of this picture, with Bella nearby in the grass:

Two cats

That picture also gives some context around the cat house — a peek of the cat cabins in the upper-left, the aforementioned old fire pit patio, the bird feeders, the small pond, and the cat house.

Bella in the grass on the edge of the field:

Cat in grass

Poppy watching me from the path by the bird feeders:

Cat on path

Finally, a random shot of the high shop ceiling, from the cam there; it is an old pan-tilt model, that rotates when it resets, but is getting stuck at weird angles:

Shop ceiling

Flock Friday for February 26

This week was an exciting milestone: the ducks started laying eggs.

Firstly, a random picture of the chicken and duck feed:

Chicken and duck feed

Some ducks relaxing on the floating pond island:

Ducks on pond island

And near the edge of the pond:

Ducks

Several ducks coming to under the pond deck to get their mealworm treats, while a couple hang out on the island:

Ducks

Bert and Rémy on the island:

Ducks

A couple of latecomers zooming over from the far side of the pond:

Ducks

Ducks on the back lawn:

Ducks on the lawn

Ducks on the lawn

They continued over the lawn to the old chicken coop, so I got some pictures with both chickens and ducks:

Chickens and ducks

Chickens and ducks

Heading back over the lawn to the pond:

Ducks on the lawn

A cam shot with Bert spreading his wings on the island, and my first glimpse of eggs; more on that later:

Ducks

A bunch of pictures of the chickens:

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chickens

Chicken

Chicken

Chicken

Chickens

The ducks on the pond:

Ducks

Four eggs on the island:

Ducks and eggs

I was hoping they would lay eggs on the island, as a safer place from predators like raccoons.

These probably aren’t fertilized, but now that at least one of the them is laying, we may get baby ducklings before long:

Duck eggs

A bit of snow on the island:

Ducks

The chickens are continuing to ramp up production, increasing the number of eggs laid each day:

Chicken eggs

February snow and aerial photos

This morning we woke up to some surprise snow. It wasn’t in the forecast (other than for a much higher elevation), but we got about an inch of snow overnight. Which is melting quickly on a sunny day.

So, of course I felt an urge to fly my drone to capture the winter wonderland in the early morning.

Here are the pond, snowy trees, back lawn, chicken runs, and veggie garden:

Snowy pond, trees, veggie garden

Looking down a bit to see the whole veggie garden:

Snowy pond, trees, veggie garden

From above the veggie garden, looking towards the pond:

Snowy pond, trees, chicken coop

Looking straight down to the chicken runs, veggie garden, and berry cage:

Snowy veggie garden

A bit lower down:

Snowy veggie garden

Snowy covered chicken run:

Snowy chicken run

Above the back lawn, looking back to the grove, and chicken coop:

Snowy grove, chicken coop

Some pics of the pond:

Pond

Pond

Pond

Part of the field, flowerbeds, back lawn, and pond:

Flowerbeds and pond

Higher up to include veggie garden etc:

Veggie garden, pond, etc

From the opposite direction:

Pond, flowerbeds, etc

Looking up a bit at the trees:

Trees, pond, etc

Lots of snowy trees:

Snowy trees

This one might make a nice background:

Snowy trees

Mount Hood and snowy trees:

Mount Hood and snowy trees

Mount Hood, snowy trees, etc

Lower down, with the fountain garden in the foreground:

Snowy trees, fountain garden

Back on the ground (via my iPhone), the path to the chicken coop:

Path to chicken coop

Inside the chicken run; the new(ish) roof netting is holding up well:

Chicken run roof netting

The back lawn:

Back lawn

The pond and ducks:

Pond

Pond

Pond island and ducks:

Pond island and ducks

Sunrise through the grove, with the brown gazebo and the chicken coop:

Sunrise through grove

Sunrise through grove

Sunrise through grove

Finally, the cat house:

Cat house

TikTok: Our ducks

As an experiment, earlier this month I started posting 15 second videos of our homestead on TikTok. Very simple videos, just looking at the ducks, chickens, etc; occasionally with some titles or music, but mostly just plain “original sound”.

Since I like to own all of my own content, I also save the videos to my photo library, and I thought I’d cross-post them onto this blog.

(This is also my first time embedding video on my site, without going through YouTube; please let me know if you have difficulty viewing it.)

If you use TikTok, you can follow the homestead @YellowCottageHomestead.

Here is the first video I posted; I will post the subsequent ones over the next several days:

Cat update for week ending February 20

For Caturday this week: cat food, cabin cats, a raccoon, a possum, a GIF, a Paladout, and more.

As mentioned on my personal blog, the feral cat food dispenser was running on batteries during our big power outage, and reacted badly to low battery capacity by continuously dumping all of the food from its hopper:

Food dispenser

In that picture you can see the empty hopper and the top of the feeder tube, full of food (the dispenser is on a drawer I can pull out to make it easier to refill). Below, you can see the rest of that tube, and the big pile of food it has dumped:

Cat food

I scooped the excess back into the hopper after I replaced the batteries. It’s nice that it has a battery backup when not receiving power, but running continuously might not have been the best way to preserve battery capacity.

Here are Porcini and Poppy watching me approach on a rainy morning:

Porcini and Poppy

Poppy didn’t bother retreating; she knows I’m not a threat, so long as I keep my distance:

Poppy

A raccoon briefly visited Porcini in the cat house. She informed the raccoon that it wasn’t welcome there:

Cat and raccoon

The raccoon was just waiting for a possum to get out of the way:

Raccoon and possum

Bella in front of the feeder. I do wonder where she sleeps; she doesn’t avail herself of any of the heated shelters, unlike the rest of her family:

Bella

A cat in each doorway:

Two cats

Poppy arriving, with Porcini and Spud in cabins:

Poppy, Porcini, Spud

A GIF of Poppy going into a cabin with Porcini, Spud in the other cabin, and Bella walking behind the cabins:

GIF of Poppy, Porcini, Spud, Bella

Do you see three cats?

Three cats

Hint:

Cat jumping down from tree

Poppy and Porcini inside the cat house:

Poppy and Porcini

Doing my morning rounds, having visited the ducks, I noticed Paladout on the hidden path by the pond:

Paladout by the pond

Closer:

Paladout by the pond

Paladout by the pond

Three cats inside the house this morning:

Three cats

Finally, Poppy watching me from under our main deck:

Poppy