Welcome to Sawyers Landing.  I'm Alan Andrew and my goal is to share things I see from our backyard and neighboring woods and trails. I will mix in family gatherings and of course pictures of Ky, our Standard Poodle.  You'll see plenty of pics and posts of Russell - our dearly departed Standard and really a key component of even getting me outside.  This post is purposely pinned to the top so look below for the most recent posts.

"Posts" will appear in chronological order but that's just how a blog is set up to work.  I can "label" (categorize) posts by a name or topic and that is how I see the blog being used.  To find categories, look at the menu (File Cabinet) on the right.  So for example if you want to see posts related to "Buck", then click on that and see them.  At any time, you can click at the top of the page and go back "home".  If you are in a label/category and get to the bottom of the page, look for "Older Posts" and you can continue until there are no more posts for that category.

 

This is not my backyard but I like this photo taken by my grandson Jacob.

Playing around with Jacob's camera

Jacob let me borrow his nice camera for a car event and I still have it.  Not much going on in the yard or woods to capture.  

Yesterday I captured this Northern Flicker and today got this fox squirrel.  Not terribly interesting but I like the quality of the photos so posting them here...

March - In like a coyote?

 A strong start to the month.  Coyotes over 2 different mornings (same one?)...

If you check the time, the one below turns around in 2 minutes to go the other way.

The Coyote Trio / "White-Tailed" Deer and Turkey Crossing

  Excited to capture my first image of 3 coyotes in the same frame.  

And here's why they are called "white-tailed" deer...

From the back window...coming through...

Snow

 January 2024 will be a memorable month for the Des Moines area.  We had roughly 27 inches of snow in the month...about 18 inches more than normal.  And most of it fell with about a 3-day span (Jan 8-11).

January 8 was nearly a foot of snow and then we got an actual blizzard starting on January 11.  Below are some images of those events and you know I had to make trails for Kyanne.  Yes, part of it is fun to do but with actual temps below zero, it was necessary.  If it wasn't enough to have the snow, the gut punch were the temps and wind chills.

ROUND ONE

I always think of this Frank Miller print Mom framed for me...

ROUND TWO

And here's how it looked for a coyote and deer...

Check the temp on the image below.  Looks pretty peaceful...

Outfoxed?