I just returned from a couple of days out at Nordegg. I haven't been out for three weeks, and was really missing the place. More importantly I needed to check that our furnace was functioning properly and that nothing was freezing up during this recent cold snap. We have a forced air electric furnace which I wired in myself... with the remote assistance of my friend Rob. It has been functioning just fine for the past few months, but my understanding of electrical leaves something to be desired. I consider myself to be pretty handy and will tackle almost anything. Plumbing, gasfitting, framing, finishing carpentry... you name it. But electricity baffles me for some reason and I've never been able to fully grasp it.
About ten days ago we plunged into deep freeze conditions throughout the province and it has not yet warmed up. This weekend at Nordegg was no exception. The daytime highs got up to about -20C, but at night it dropped down to -32C. At times there was a bitter wind out of the east that nearly cut a person in half... There have been a few warmer days in the past little while, but mostly it has remained really cold. My recording thermometers in the cottage confirmed that on the main floor the temperature never dropped below +8C, and downstairs, by the water cistern and pump, it stayed slightly warmer. I shudder to think what our power bill might be this month...!! Mostly it has been running around $200 per month. But even when it is warm, and we aren't using much, it still runs around a minimum of $45 a month. And to shut things down and dump the water tank, and pump the partially full septic tank would cost us about three hundred bucks. And... we really like using the place in the winter...!!!
I have been putting out some grain and a salt block over the cold winter months. We don't want to attract bears so once they come out of hibernation, I'll stop. But, while they are all taking their big nap, I'll feed the other wildlife to keep them healthy and coming around our property. I pulled the memory card from my game camera while I was out there, and checked what had been going on the past few weeks. Despite the fact that I have not been able to put out any feed for nearly a month, the deer come around religiously almost every day to check....
There is a rather skittish herd of elk in the area.... mostly cows. I have only seen them once or twice this winter. We saw a cow and a calf a couple of times of the summer as well. With the fresh snow out there is obvious that they have been grazing around our end of the subdivision. This time the camera got a bunch of shots of them.
Not sure what tripped the camera for this shot, as whatever it was was quickly out of the frame. Sometimes falling snow sets it off, but that was obviously not the case this time. The camera recorded a temperature of -36C. It could have been colder than that at other times as the camera does not record anything if motion does not set it off.
Got these two shots of some coyotes in late January. The first time that I have recorded any predators coming around. I doubt these guys would be able to take down any of the healthy deer. They were probably just wandering through as this is the one and only time that I have got a shot like this.
Not a particularly cold day. Certainly compared to now, it is a veritable heat wave. But is was snowing rather heavily and this doe had a dusting of it covering her back. The girls have name this one Trudy... short for Gertrude. She has an obvious scar on her flank... partly obscured by the snow in this shot. I suspect she may have been attacked by a cougar in the past.
A cool day in late January, but not nearly as cold as now. Yet these two ravens are hunkered down in some of the hay that we left out for the deer. The deer won't seem to touch this hay and have mostly just scattered it around. I guess I've spoiled them with all the grain I've been feeding.
Here's the other extreme...!! A couple of days later the temperature spiked up to +15C... That was short-lived, as by early February we were in the deep freeze.
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