15 posts tagged “lowell”
Yesterday we walked to the downtown area three times! The first time we took Haven. We had to go to the post office. And there were ice sculptures being made along the riverwalk.
Here are some of the finished products.
My favorite part was the cow!! The local fruit/produce stand had him/her. The cow had a big green blanket on it with red garland on it. Cool! There was also a hot air balloon company that had a burner as part of their float. From time to time the big flame would go off and everyone would oooh and aaah. I also liked the old pipe organ that used to be on the riverboat. Someone was playing Christmas tunes on it as it rolled along (on a float).
There were a lot of people watching the parade. It was a good thing that we walked because it was crazy with all of the cars trying to leave. It was fun participating in some of our small town activities. You can see more photos of the ice sculptures in this Flickr album. I didn't have the camera with me during the parade so no photos there.
This morning as I was catching up on my Google Reader stuff I saw movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked out the window and saw a herd of about eight deer. Some of them were really close. As in standing in the garden right in front of the house.
There were two young bucks in the group. We see does all of the time, usually every day. It's rare that we see a buck let alone two at the same time. One of the bucks was playing with a younger deer. Either a doe or a buck without antlers. They would play bow and then head butt each other. The buck was clearly the alpha but it didn't appear that he was trying to chase the younger deer away. The two would move along looking for things to eat in the grass and take breaks to play. This continued as they moved across the front yard.
The does in the group seemed to care more about eating than playing. Four of them were in the garden eating. They were eating weeds so I didn't chase them off.
When I went to take a picture of the does (the bucks moved along too quickly so I didn't have time to get the camera out) Beacon wondered what I was doing. Usually if the dogs see deer in the yard but they're not too close to the house of the fence in the back they don't care about them. But if they get too close their turf must be defended, mostly by Beacon. Haven's curious about the deer and I think she'd like to play with them more than chase them away.
The above photo was taken about a second before Beacon started popping up and down on his front legs barking so that the deer would see him as a "big threat". The deer did run off so Beacon did his "job". He showed them.
It's now hunting season. If we take the dogs hiking they'll wear their orange vests. During firearm time we won't take the dogs in a hunting area.
The deer in our area (as well as many others around us and the US) are plentiful. There aren't cougars around here so there aren't any natural predators for the deer. In the past couple of years the deer population seems to have grown. A couple of years ago I wasn't able to harvest anything from my vegetable garden because of the deer. Last winter one of the evergreen bushes right outside our front door was eaten by the deer. There are more of them fighting for what food there is in the area. And depending on weather conditions food can be more scarce. While we've had some dry summers and cold winters the cold times haven't been harsh enough to weed out enough sick and weak deer.
A few months ago our City Council approved hunting deer within city limits. It's only in season and only for bow and arrow hunting. And it's limited to properties of 10 acres or more. You must adhere to state laws requiring a license and includes individually the number of deer you can take in a season. I agree that there is a deer population issue. I'm not sure that allowing hunting within city limits is the answer.
There are about 10 properties where this hunting would be allowed and only three of these properties are residential. So in essence allowing hunting only changes things for three properties as it's highly unlikely that a business would allow hunting in their land with all of the liabilities. I'm not sure that the land belonging to three people (and who knows if all three would actually hunt on their land), which are all on one side of the city, will help the overall population problem.
The ordinance allowing hunting within city limits will be reviewed in three years. There hasn't been anything mentioned about how the city will determine whether or not hunting has helped. There was mention of comparing deer-car accidents within the city as well as working with the DNR to get a feel on the population but I don't think anything has been cited as real follow up goals.
I wish the city would have brought up more education in how to help control the deer population in addition to allowing hunting. People go after the bucks. They're the *prize*. But it's really the does that should be targeted so that there are fewer to reproduce. There wasn't mention of encouraging more hunting in the areas surrounding the city where hunting is allowed by anyone.
From watching the deer on a daily basis I can tell that they're not "just an animal". They play. They have personalities. I wish that there were another way to control their population without hunting. But I also know that they have become an issue.
It's fair week in Lowell. We rode our bikes to the fairgrounds yesterday to watch some of the dog agility.
There were lots of cool dogs there. And it was fun watching the kids and dogs do their stuff.
I stopped on my way home from work at the river to see if I could spot any babies. And I did! I took some pictures of the cygents and ducklings before going home to let the dogs out and get some bread. I headed back to the river and fed the babies, their parents, and a bunch of adult mallards.
This is about the smallest I've seen swan babies. I was able to get just a couple feet away from them too! There were six of them and four mallard babies. I'll have to go back from time to time to see how they're all growing and if any more show up.
This past Sunday I went for a walk to the river. It was a crisp early morning (I left the house a little after 7) with fog lurking.
There wasn't much activity at the river. I'm waiting for when I'm able to see babies swimming around. I did see a few things left behind though.
It has been a while since I've posted here! Andrew and I have been pretty busy. We'll continue to not have much free time. Next weekend is the Pet Expo. I will be working at the store on Saturday and will head to the expo to meet Andrew for the last few hours. Sunday we'll both be there all day.
I've also been working on the business blog. We decided to discontinue posting in Why Dogs? and move that content to the business blog. I spent some time recreating all of the old posts so that there was something for people to read. Since then I've been posting from time to time there. We hope to have at least one blog post a week. Andrew has some ideas for articles to write about. We'll be posting things about cats, dogs, wild birds, items we sell in the store, and even what's going on with Beacon and Haven. Hopefully it will become a place that people check out on a regular basis.
My voice is finally just about back to normal. There's still a hint of rasp in my voice but for the most part it's back. It's about time - a month!! I can tell that it gets a little worse if I'm talking more throughout the day. At least the worst is over.
We got more snow last night. We've already made the record books for having the second snowiest winter in history this season. They were calling for 2-5 inches but we ended up with an inch or less here. I think further south there was more snow. I'm ready for spring!! Temps should be in the 40s next week. It'll feel like a heat wave.
I stopped by the river today on my way to work and took some photos. I saw some mergansers and buffleheads but didn't get any good photos of them because they were too far away. There was lots of bird noises and movement on the river. All of the geese and mallards are fighting for mates and the best territory to lay eggs. This means lots of commotion.
A swan swam by and stopped at the boat launch for some early morning preening. After feathers were zipped back into place it was off for a swim.
There were also quite a few gulls circling in the sky and floating in the river. These two reminded me of Finding Nemo.
Yesterday on my way to work I stopped at the river to take some pictures. I was hoping to spot a Merganser but didn't see any.
Most of the activity could be heard up river so I didn't get many photos. But here are three that I took.
There is a dog park about two miles away from our house. It opened last fall and will have a grand opening sometime this spring even though people have been going there with their dogs for months.
The dog park is about an acre in size. There's a large area for bigger and more active dogs. There are three big piles of sand for the dogs to play on and dig in. There are benches and places for people to get (and donate) poop bags. We've driven by this part quite a few times but haven't ever taken our dogs there. This changed yesterday.
While Andrew took Beacon to the river to fetch sticks I took Haven to the dog park. We know that Beacon would likely be stressed going there. But Haven's not a typical dog park dog either. She tends to like people more than other dogs. And she usually seeks out the omega position.
When we first arrived there were about half a dozen dogs running around. Of course when we entered they all had to come and check out Haven, the newbie. She stood there and looked sad and confused. She put her hackles up but didn't make any noises. Within a short amount of time the dogs were satisfied with their sniffs and went back to playing.
Haven greeted all of the people. She didn't care about running around with the dogs. When she wasn't off sniffing people she was standing by me. She's so used to playing with Beacon who dominates play that she doesn't know what to do, although in recent months she has become more "aggressive" with Beacon not letting him win all of the time.
We were at the park for about 45 minutes. By the end of the time we were the only ones left. I walked around with Haven so she could sniff things and be more familiar with the place. We then went to pick up some Subway for lunch and headed home. We took a detour and went to meet Andrew and Beacon at the Boyscout camp.
Haven didn't get tired at all while at the dog park. I knew that Beacon would be pretty tired so I let Haven run around for a few minutes. Beacon tried to run with her but he was too tired and slow. After Haven burned off a little energy we went home.
Later in the afternoon we took Haven back to the dog park!! I wanted Andrew to go and see what it was like. This time when we arrived there was only one dog there. Haven ran around but only because Andrew and I were at different ends of the park calling her back and forth between us.
Haven ended up getting hot and plopped down in the big, gross mud puddle. She was wet and smelly. But she was running around and having fun even if she was ignoring the other dog that was there for the most part. Eventually a couple small dogs arrived who went into the small dog area. Haven sniffed them through the fence. Then a Jack Russel Terrier arrived. Haven seemed to like this dog. I think if she were more comfortable she would have run around with this dog.
Hopefully we'll have the time to take Haven to the dog park on a somewhat regular basis. It'll be a good way for us to meet dog owners close to where we live.
Well in this case color photos are included. :P It's Wednesday which means our local small town paper comes in the mail.
It was really foggy this morning. I went to the river to take some photos and spotted this spider web with morning dew and fog on it. You can also see a few more photos that I took in my Flickr photo stream here.
