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
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The tweets (Twitter) this week chronicled the anticipated arrival of 52 pheasant hen chicks.  I thought they were shipping Tuesday, but instead, they shipped Wednesday and arrived Friday.  Two travel days meant they might be stressed and indeed, 3 died in transit.
Just as I did with last year’s chicks, I place them in the  brooder
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Hank Shaw, at Hunter Angler Gardener Cook offers a look into the world of “honest food” as he describes it. A well versed writer, sportsman, and site editor about About.com’s  Fish and Seafood Cooking site, he bios  himself:
I am especially interested in those meats and veggies that people don’t eat much any more, like venison
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Of the 44 pheasants released last fall, about a dozen were released near the cabin and over the winter, I would often see them, sometimes in groups of 2 or 3, sometimes solo, and every so often in a cluster of 10 or more.
As warmer air has moved in, a group of 5 hens has
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After enduring (there is really no other word) a long dark and cold winter, this afternoon was the third day of unseasonably warm weather in the high 50’s and clear blue skies.  A rooster pheasant greeted me in the drive when I pulled up in the car, and a pair of rosters were scratching for
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The post-Christmas weather included an ice storm, 56 degree days, a inch or two of snow, and wind.
Today was a picture perfect day.

For the few days leading up to their release, the pheasant behavior changed.  First, they would stand at the fence around the perimeter of their pen and stare out.  Their focus, if a small animal can have focus, was external to their world, and not internal to the confines of the pen.  The second change,
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As a media producer, I’ve spent a great deal of time helping other creative people “find their voice”.  I work to refine my own as well, but finding your voice is a freeing moment in creativity.  It’s the moment when, as a scholar, as a photographer, as a designer, and an author, you find the
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If you grew up on Warner Brothers cartoons, then Pepe Le Pew introduced you to the Hollywood anthropomorphic skunk.  Who couldn’t help but like the love sick skunk who invariable falls in love with a black cat who was accidentally adorned with a stripe. (Now haven’t we all been there?)
As a defense against predators, I
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I know many people anxiously awaited the email this week.  No, not the one about Obama’s running mate, the other email  The one about the pheasants.
One of the new projects this year was to raise and release pheasants into the habitat on the ranch.  The first pheasants arrived the week of June 12, and were
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