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Nature Calls
September 24th, 2006A porcupine recently spotted near the driveway. There a quite a few porcupines in the woods around Maplelag and during the winter time, there is a good chance you can see one eating bark on maple and basswood trees. The porcupines can be troublesome as the maple trees have a harder time recovering from a porcupine eating on it versus some other trees.After a drier than normal summer, precipitation levels have been normal mid August and September. On average, the temperature has been a few degrees below normal. We saw our first frost of the year on September 8th. With the drier summer, the leaves started to turn color a bit earlier but now it seems we are on track to our average time for peak of fall color. There has been a nice blend of oranges, reds, and yellows. Regarding trees, there has been a bumper crop of acorns from the oak trees. Chipmunks have been sited collecting acorns and hiding them near the outside of the hot tub as the ground does not freeze here and the chipmunks probably think they will be easy to retrieve in the winter. With the large crop of acorns, that can only mean one thing.......a cold and snowy winter ahead!!
The wild rice crop was good this year. Since the water levels were lower on some of the smaller lakes, folks had difficulty pushing canoes through. There was a pretty good crop on Bullhead lake. I took the boys out one day just so they could see what it was like. It was at the tail end of the harvesting season but we had a fun time and it was a beautiful day on Bullhead Lake.
The days are getting shorter and the mornings a bit cooler!! It won't be long until our favourite season! THINK SNOW!!
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News & PhotosJim RichardsMary RichardsJay RichardsJonell Richards |
As far as other wildlife sightings, we have seen deer along the driveway, woodchucks, muskrats, beavers to name a few. Flying high in the sky have been some bald eagles and the usual waterfowl. Lately the ducks have been on the move which is always fun to see.
