Small Farm Life

Snow angel, the pheasant's wings made these as he took flight

Fresh snow is perfect for making snow angels.  And by tradition, Christmas is the best time to be visited by ghosts from the past.

Last year about this time, King Louie, Scout and Ace were still hanging around Two Mile Ranch.  It was March, after a long and loud crowing season, when the three pheasants moved on from Two Mile.    In a few months, new pheasants were in the fly pen and have since been released.

This season’s pheasants have  scattered into the habitat.    From time to time, I can see one on a short flight in the tall grass habitat.

With the snow that fell over the last few days here, all the old footprints and paw tracks made by Zinger and I were wiped clean, leaving a new winter playground for the mice, voles, rabbits, and song birds to decorate. The new snow has also made  food  scarce for pheasants.   They find grain spills, still standing corn, and planted food plots.

In this recent storm, Winter winds whipped a few new drifts, snowed in the ducks, and covered the daily paths we used since the last big snow.  So today, after a cup of coffee and a visit to the post office, Zinger and I went about our winter daily chores.

We fed the chickens, who smartly stay on their roosts in the coop to stay warm.  Next we dug out the duck pen to give them passage to their pool.  On the way back across the snow, I noticed a set of pheasant tracks coming from the fly pen to the cabin.    They were moving forward,  past the chicken coop, and up along the cabin. From the cabin, the tracks snaked under the deck, and then they stopped in the middle of the hill leading down to the pond.

Zinger and I walked over and I found a snow angel:  the wings of the pheasant made two prints in the snow where he took flight for a short glide to the lighted Christmas tree on the dock in the small pond.   The landing print where he landed was at the base of the tree, then, his walking prints continue out to the middle of the pond, and then the pheasant took off again, heading for the tall grass over on the west side.

The tracks in the snow, retracing the familiar route of Louie and Ace, are almost like a visit from a ghost of pheasant’s past.  I suppose I should drag out the Dickens, and read about the visit from three ghosts.  If Dickens’ spirit lives in southern Iowa, I can expect to be visited by two more ghosts.

Related posts:

1. Freedom: 44 Pheasants return to the wild
2. Before the storm
3. Spring moments
4. With pheasants like these, who needs a dog?
5. Post Christmas beauty