Bluejays and (blue) grass

With the warm weather arriving early this year, spring is well underway with trees greening and plants blooming and animals busy nest building. The wooded area outside our kitchen window has become a favourite place of bluejays to gather nest material - I've counted up to 8 birds at one time picking up twigs and fighting over the best pieces.

The higher temperatures and frequent rain have also helped the grass germinate and thicken well.  

March 1st

March 17th

March 29th

We've also had pairs of geese and pairs of ducks landing on the pond in the mornings.

Gratuitous cute cat photo.

A fox, a big(ger) bass, new table design, grass seed.

We've had a couple of visits from a fox, one at night and one in broad daylight - we think he's after the neighbour's chickens which are free roaming and not shy about crowing. I got a couple of shots of it the second time:

Both shots were taken from our bedroom window.

The fox spotted me here but didn't seem to bothered and hung around for another 5 minutes or so.

 I've also been more successful at targeting the bass in the pond with lures, managing to catch 3 in about 20 minutes today. This was the biggest one I've caught yet.

Big mouth!

 I've also been playing around with a variation on the George Nelson bench I made in November (click here for that blog post)

Smokey strikes his 'aloof model' pose.

The variation has four square slat modules arranged perpendicularly to each one next to it.

The table saw makes things a lot easier - I was able to do in a day what took me almost 5 days just using the mitre saw in November.

I haven't decided on the legs/stand for this one but will post the final product soon.

I also spent today manually-tilling, sowing grass seed, raking and covering with straw the area around the front of the house. That was hard work!