Is the #harsh winter over?

The deep-freeze is finally gone...for a little while anyway. Temperatures are moving up. We’ll be having single digit numbers for a week or so. Tomorrow it is supposed to reach minus 4 C. However, today it is quite windy and cloudy. They are even predicting snow. Yesterday was bitterly cold but sunny. What is better?

There is already quite a bit of snow on the ground. Maybe it is good for skiing and snowmobiling, but not good for our animal friends. For hunters like me this winter is not good news. Our Whitetail deer population is down from previous years because of the bad winters we had. Deep snow prevents the deer from moving around and the cold is not good, either. Winters like this year cause many animals to die. We may even have to close some areas to hunting. I hope our native hunters who can hunt all year without a license have the good sense to follow this practice. If we don’t practice conservation we’ll end up with no animals to hunt or for the non-hunters just to enjoy.

People who are against hunting don’t sometimes understand and realize that the hunters are the ones who make sure there is sufficient habitat for the animals. That is achieved with the money that comes in through hunting permits and even donations. Hunting and fishing creates many jobs and brings in millions of dollars into the economy. There are many spinoffs that are not obvious to most people. The number of animals that can be harvested is strictly regulated. That is why so many of us are against the unregulated hunting our native population enjoys. It is difficult to control something if one segment of society is exempt from regulations. But that is a political issue I don’t want to get into.

This year I left a narrow slit open in the lattice that keeps large animals from hiding under our sun-room. It is warm underneath because of the warm air from the dryer and the exhaust fan. The narrow slit allows birds to seek refuge there. It gives them a chance to survive the cold. And the feeder is nearby. We like to do our bit to help our feathered little friends make it through the winter.

We keep one of our feathered friends in a cage. His name is Eddie and he is a canary. We bought him last year. He is still young and has a mind of his own. Actually, he is a bit strange for a bird. He doesn’t care much for flying. We let him out of his cage every day so he can stretch his wings and exercise, but he is so reluctant to leave his cage. We practically have to evict him. Yesterday, he walked around on the counter, too close to the edge and consequently slipped off the edge and dropped to the floor. Instead of flying around, he came up again, like a helicopter, and promptly walked to his cage and jumped back into it. That was the end of his excursion.

Today he actually jumped in and out a few times, but stayed close to his cage. Perhaps he is afraid we may not let him back in if he strays too far? What a strange little guy. But he sings nice and keeps us entertained.

I managed to snap a couple of pictures. Here they are:

I like my life behind bars

Freedom is overrated