Building a new rain barn After digging the postholes (sorry, I didn't get a picture of John McLean digging those for us with his tractor and auger) the next step is putting poles in holes. This is when you look at the poles, imagine the rest of the building, and decide for sure if you want it there. This picture was taken November 28, and the poles aren' t yet concreted in, obviously.
The colored straps help Richard get the poles and framework "square" as he works on it by himself. At this point it's just six poles with a rectangular connection on top.	Last week, on December 13, I caught John and Richard putting up the native cedar corner braces on the framework. The part projecting above the crosspiece will be cut off.
As winter brings a more monochrome tone to the land, cardinals and goldfinches show up even more brilliantly.	As brilliant in winter as in summer, the lesser goldfinch male has a bright yellow front and belly and a blue-black top. They also have soft, sweet voices. They like thistle seed more than anything, and unlike American goldfinches, I've never seen one feed on the ground.
These does broke from the dry woods together, and are bounding across the field in synchrony toward a mowed strip. When they reach it, they race even faster for the north end of the creek, and vanish.
If you ever wondered why they're called "white-tail" deer....
Far across the west grass, the flash of sunlit wings showed against the shadowed woods. That was my clue to crank out the 300mm lens and see what it was. A northern harrier, slowly hunting along the mowed area near the woods.	Northern harriers have long, straight wings and a wonderful ability to hang in the air just above the grass. This is a female: brown and not gray. Note the white rump patch.
If I have a favorite of the winter-resident sparrows, this may be the one: Lincoln's sparrow is small, shy, dainty, and very decorative, with fine streaks just about everywhere. Although in open shade, as here, they can look gray, brown, and buff, in the sun their color is quite different...and even in the shade, the 'buff' areas look more golden.	Here, for instance, the olive tinge on the side of the head replaces the duller gray of the shadow picture, and the gold shows almost the "glitter" it seems to have in real life. This is the same individual as in the previous picture.
On the morning of December 15, we saw this out the north windows...and I grabbed the camera. It was too cold to run outside in pajamas, so this was shot from inside the kitchen, through the kitchen door windows. Shutter speed was 1/5 second, handheld, so yes--it's blurry. But the colors were so gorgeous...

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