Happy New Year to you and your tracking dogs!

We are joining Tuesday (in the picture) to wish all of you a Very Happy New Year! BTW, Tuesday will be bred this week to Kunox, and hopefully we will have some puppies born in nine weeks. Unfortunately, our waiting list is full and closed, and we are not taking more reservations.

It looks like a White Christmas this year in the Helderbergs

This picture was taken on the night of December 9. Then it snowed pretty much for two days.

This is a view from our field onto a barn and dog yard. While it is a beautiful picture, it also brings back a memory of all the inconveniences of winter in the country: being snowed in and feeling isolated, a need to get a long driveway plowed, a dog yard filled with snow etc etc.

These two pictures were taken after a sunset, without a flash or tripod. The ISO setting was 20000.

Young dogs love to play in the snow. This picture shows Luna and Volt having a lot of fun for as long as it is not too cold!

Born-to-track Wirehaired Dachshunds Calendar for 2015

The calendar with pictures of our dogs is ready and can be purchased for $19.99 from this link 
http://www.cafepress.com/calendarsbyjolanta.1447679902
MAKE SURE that you choose January 15 as a starting month. Cafepress has daily discounts so you can probably order at a much lower price if you wait. Today I think it is 20% off. This is a "print on demand" technology so a calendar is printed when it is ordered. I have not seen how the calendar looks printed (only on my printer) so if there is something wrong, please let me know. Cafepress has 100% guarantee so you will be able to return it if you don't like it. The calendar includes only my pictures and they are of only our dogs. Why did I choose these particular pictures? Because they were speaking to me so I hope that they will resonate with you as well. John liked them too. 

THANK YOU for being a fan of our dogs!!!

Winter has arrived

On Wednesday, a day before Thanksgiving, first winter storm arrived. We probably got around 8-10 inches of snow, enough to affect travel plants for many. We were invited by friends who live 35 minutes from us and on Thursday afternoon roads were in a good condition. The snow is still with us and it still covers trees and bushes. The sight is magical.

This is our dogs' yard during the storm.

A view from our kitchen window on Wednesday afternoon.

Thanksgiving morning, just after sunrise.

On Friday morning we realized that we must have quite a few deer around here judging by the number of their tracks in the snow.

If the snow stays on the ground, it will be pretty much the end of tracking season for. We will continue to hunt if it does not get too cold.

The beauty of hunting season

15 minutes after sunrise on the opening day of gun season: a view from our blind

The Helederbergs in their autumn glory: the colors are peaking

I know that a tracking season is in a full swing and there are so many stories and pictures to share with readers of this blog. But this fall has also produced some exceptional colors so I am going to post a sample of my pictures. They all have been taken in this area in the last two weeks. There is no other place I'd rather live in September and October.

This picture shows a small swamp just 3 miles from our place in Berne, NY. Several years ago a hunter harvested a black bear here that was over 500 lbs. By the way, ten days ago or so one of our trail camera caught a short video of a pretty big, fat bear on our property, just ten yards from our dogs' fenced field.

A view from our property onto the Helderbergs.

A view from our driveway onto our neighbor's land across Route 443.

Woodstock Lake, Berne, NY

Few days ago we had our first frost, and this was a view from our front porch.

I was running errands in Cobleskill today, and this was a view of I-88. It looks like colors are in their peak.

The Helderbergs - summer in its glory

Even though I have not posted any nature pictures here for a while let me assure you that I still take them, almost every day. Most of the time I post them on Facebook just because it is easy to post one-two pics at a time without any special story or report to go with them.

We are overrun by rabbits. We did not expect it because the winter was pretty severe, but it seems that many of them have survived and reproduced. You can see them just about everywhere - in our enclosure, by the driveway, in the middle of our fields and even int he woods. This is good news.

It is also exceptional year for wild flowers. The picture below was taken in June. Now the fields have been mowed.

Not a great year for bees, but we saw quite a few of them when sumac was in a full bloom.

We see quite a few birds around our place, and this American Robin fledgling risked its life and tried to get to our dogs' yard. I prevented it from happening and hopefully it survived.

We see at least two different flocks of wild turkeys. These ones came out onto a mowed path to get dry after a severe thunderstorm and downpour.

A new generation of barn swallows was born in our barn, and the young birds have already left. However, just yesterday I noticed a new nest in a different part of the barn.

We see a regular guest to our pond - Great Blue Heron. This picture was taken at a swamp by Tabor Rd in Berne.

This is also where I took a picture of this family of Canada Geese. They were resting by the road and when they saw our car, they walked to the water and swam away.

As always summer sunsets are spectacular and they really make me appreciate all the beauty around us. There is no other place that I'd rather be...

A very tough winter for all of us in the Helderbergs

This is one of the toughest winters that I remember in the 15 years we have lived here. Snowfall is almost double of what we had last year. It has been cold, and today is an exception with temperature above freezing. It will dip much lower tomorrow again. Wildlife has been suffering.

The picture below shows "our" deer a month ago, and they looked in a really good shape. Actually this winter we have seen more deer on our property than ever before. They feed in large groups on the browse at the edge of the field. One morning we saw 20 deer there, and our neighbor reported seeing 30. They come to his bird feeders and try to to eat sunflower seeds.

February 12 - deer looked in a good shape.

Few days ago we had yet another winter storm, which left a glaze of ice everywhere. It stayed on for two days. This is when I took the three pictures posted below. It sure looked beautiful, especially in the sun, with trees sparkling as they were decorated with Christmas lights, but deer were not able to feed at all.

Brunches were covered with ice, and deer stayed hungry.

Deer lost a lot of weight. Some of them (not the one in the picture) look really thin.

Craig Dougherty, our friend and outdoor writer, wrote this article for the Outdoor Life blog two days ago. "As I write this, western New York is cleaning up from yet another winter storm. My whitetails may be in trouble. I’m not sure they can take another hit this late in the season. We began to sound winter deer alerts more than a month ago as the winter weather continued to intensify and spring seemed but a distant fantasy. Sadly, not much has changed since then. Most mature does entered winter with a 90-day supply of fat reserves, but those reserves are running dangerously low. It may be the middle of March, but the thermometer is still saying winter. Most Northern areas are well into what the Winter Severity Index (WSI) refers to as “severe” to “very severe” winter conditions."

We see a lot of wildlife activity on our driveway. I wonder how many different tracks you can see here.

John gets some outdoor exercise every afternoon when he goes for a walk with a dog. His walk are limited to local roads that are plowed. The picture shows Tommy.

Let's hope that the second half of March will bring some warmth and snow melting!