Around and about the mouse-house.

The weather here has been outstanding; warm breezes, tolerable humidity and glorious sunshine.
Then the nights cool down. :) Maybe a bit of rain.
Much of the day is spent outside gardening, adding to the landscape and burning brush. 
I haven't had to water anything because of the evening showers. It's been perfect, really.  

The cats are becoming a family; Wilson in entertaining mode much of the time and Annie tolerating his silliness. He has wiggled his way right in to our hearts. Well, the humans, for sure.
He loves his high places.
 =^..^=
=^..^=

                                 Found his favorite box. lol

And a bit of this and that...

Waiting on tea. :)

 

                                                   A mama-to-be house wren.

It's surely looking like summer already. We have four bird houses full which is the most in one season for us. And new bunnies have showed up. And Dave, our neighbour's cat, has a brother named Buddy but he stays clear of strangers.

It's a busy place at Fox Grove.

be kind, 
Deb

 

As June rolls in...

I welcome my favorite month with open arms.
I have been reading your blogs and enjoying them so much but have found little time to construct one myself. But today I felt it was about time to get back to it. I still have not had time to fix photos on the blog but it may be awhile for that. Life is just too busy. I have been cat-sitting, gardening, helping where I can with the construction project, seeing grands when at all possible and keeping Annie company. Just as I expected, Annie has been very lonely and sluggish since Audrey passed so the retired-guy and I took a trip to Bee Meadow Farm to visit our fabulous friends Natalie, Gordon and Ronna and look at a little brown tabby girl last Friday. As lovely as she is, I felt she may not be the right fit for Annie so we spent a bit of time with Grayson. Grayson was a little stray picked up at a feed mill near Bee Meadow Farm. Natalie said he had been abandoned and was starved when found. He was nervous but I could pick him up and I felt in no time flat he would be quite comfortable in a new home. He looked to be quite the character and that he'd keep us amused with his antics. So home he came.
 Meet Grayson now named Wilson.
 (that's my maiden name)

                                    Four year old Wilson

We already love this little guy and yes, he does resemble Audrey. It was for that reason that I did not want to even look at him but something kept drawing me back to him. His personality and body build are very different from Audreys and he has his own unique face. He will need a wee bit of fattening up but you know that is no problem here. :-b 
We have that down. lol
He meows like a girl and fancies himself a mighty lion as he seeks out all the high places in his new home.

 
Annie took her sweet time to welcome the little guy but already we see her much calmer and she has perked up with curiosity. Although she has still not allowed him to touch her she will share her toys and sit next to him calmly.

They will be fine. :))) 

 

The entrance to the wood-lot

 

The hot summer-like weather has made for being busy gardening and moving dirt from here to there. We have planted fruit trees, added perennials, annuals and more ground cover. Our veggie garden is in albeit it is much smaller this year. The mounds of dirt from the big dig will be moved in the next week and we have had twenty-one tons of sand delivered for landscaping. The resident critters are busy nesting and finding new dens. Our bird houses are filling up and we saw our first blue-bird this spring. We hoped she would nest here but she left. :(

                                        Little house wren

The house construction continues and keeps the retired-guy busy into the late hours.

I hope everyone is enjoying the start of summer-like weather.  
Already I see it will be a hot one for us here in Ontario.
No complaints here, though, after the worst winter ever.

Enjoy your evening. I'm off to read your posts.

Be kind,
Deb




 

Here is a link to Grayson/Wilson's rescue by Bee Meadow Farm.

Thank you and Happy Mother's Day

I want to thank everyone for your kind and thoughtful comments and emails on Audrey's passing.
Believe me, your words were very comforting.
It has been a very hard nine months; a road to hell, really. After fighting so hard to improve her health it was evident in the last few weeks that Audrey had a brain tumor. I also knew that the hard decision to let her go was out of my hands. With the help of our wonderful vet she went home very peacefully.

Audrey has been laid to rest here on my grandmother's land. I feel fortunate to be able to keep her close.

Just like myself, Annie needs some time to adjust. She is very quiet and needy right now but I believe in my heart that she knows Audrey left us. She stayed very close to her on her last day. Annie is a very sensitive cat and has been through the loss of five cats and a dog in the last six years. We will be each other's rock.

I want to wish all the wonderful MOM'S a Happy Mother's Day tomorrow.
I will be surrounded by my three children, their spouses and my five grandittles. Oh, and of course, Cooper my grand-kitty.

Enjoy your day MOMS. xo

                                                                     My girl
                                                                       2015

My beautiful Audrey

                                  Audrey - God's Masterpiece
                             "I could not have loved you more."
                                       Rest well, my little one.
                                 I will love and miss you forever.
                                       Sept.13/11 - May 9/18

Just checking in

It seems that I have a big job ahead fixing photos. From what I understand, for some reason or other the Postimage hosting service that I use for my pictures has suffered some kind of attack on their .org domain address and it is being blocked. Their backup server domain (.cc) still works but it appears that I would need to change all the .org picture urls to .cc

Not being real technical on these matters, I don't know how to make this change on a global basis in my blog, and it's too much work to go back and edit each post, so at this time, my pictures just won't show up until the folks at Postimage get around to figuring out why their .org domain is being blocked. ( If anyone really wants to see any of the old pics in my blog for some reason, just copy the url for the image and edit the .org to .cc ).

I'm so busy with other more important things right now, this annoying little glitch will just have to wait. Why do these stupid things happen at the busiest times?

However, there may be some good news!  While playing about in Blogger, I discovered that there is now an option to upload my images directly to my blog... no hosting service required it seems. So at least for now, my new blog posts should work (we'll see when I publish this one). I have no idea how long this will work but we'll give it a go.

Spring has really arrived and this time I think it will stay. We have had warmer temperatures and above freezing at night. It was warm enough to be out raking and cleaning up the property all last week. And around here that includes a bit of an audience.  Even Simon and his friends were out and about.

Our neighbours' cat David is here every day.

 I'm out no more than a few minutes when I hear  "Yeow" behind me. Then he flops to the ground and does his infamous roll in the dirt. He's getting older and today I noticed that while walking behind him I startled him when I touched his back. I don't think his hearing is what it used to be. I know the resident critters will rejoice.

I'll make this a short post just to see if it works.

Have a great night everyone!

Deb

No pics?

I am having some issues with my site where photos are not showing up, I have been through this before. :(
If you are on Instagram drop over to Life at Fox Grove for some up-to-date photos.

I'll be back.
Be kind,
Deb

Easter fun.

 Our Annual Easter Egg Hunt for the grandittles was a much darker day than last year but at least the rain stopped early that morning. 

Off to the wood-lot...

 

 It was fun, as I never doubted it would be, and all one hundred eggs were filled by the Easter Bunny with delicious surprises. 

The adults always get right into it, too. My daughter scored an old $5 bill that she found under the leaves. lol

Pizza, fruit and cupcakes were gobbled up for lunch

 and then it was a free-for-all as they ran around the property playing and eating chocolate eggs. 

                                                                  Two of my kiddos

                                                     Easter in Canada's North  

Easter is my favorite time of year but this year Spring is playing tricks on us. She's very fickle, indeed, but as I look out the window the birds fly over-head with beaks filled with twigs and grass and that's enough for me. 

We had an unfortunate incident at the mouse-house this morning involving a European Starling. One hit the window and was stunned on the ground. 

We brought it inside the garage to keep warm and then discovered the wing was damaged.

 Off to the Wild Bird Center we went. I'm always so thankful for these wonderful volunteers that greet you with a smile even on a long holiday weekend.

                                      Wild Bird Sanctuary
We left the starling there for a complete examination and hope that it is without further internal damage. I'm to call in a few days and, if I wish to, I can bring it back to our property to return it to the flock. I will do that since many more seem to be staying.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter.

                                                  Annie
                               Audrey was hiding on the kids.
It's time now to think Spring (cheeky thing that she is) and start planning.

Be kind,
Deb