My little helpers assisted with getting the 'livestock' fed this morning.  They brought out pails of feed for the deer, a couple cups of cat food and sunflower seeds to refill a hanging bird feeder.  It's not the birds emptying it.  The deer have an appreciation for the extra roughage provided by the seed shells.

After spending a couple hours at a nearby playground, we decided on a sheltered spot for a picnic.  The wind was becoming quite blustery.  There is a great picnic shelter at the Waskehegan Staging area.  We thought we would be the only ones there but 3 other people joined us.  The girls got to see the wood stove in action.  Both commented on how nice the fire smelled.  They also commented on how good the lunch smelled that was cooking on the stove.

When we were done, we toured the trails for a couple of hours.  We walked to a sandy hill and looked at the holes that the garter snakes had dug into it.  We continued along the trail to the beaver pond where the water was almost all dried up.  Wren asked where the beavers go when there is no water.

As we walked back toward the parking lot, some sandhill cranes flew overhead.  Both girls were curious about them.  They knew that the cranes did not sound like the Canada Geese.  The cranes landed on Neon Lake and we could still here them calling.  

We investigated some tree stumps left by the beavers.  The girls felt the bumps left in the wood by the beaver's teeth.  They said that the point on the stump looked like the roof of a house.  We talked about what the beavers do with the branches from the big trees that they take down.

A gopher hole was the next point of interest.  We wondered where the gopher was after close inspection of the hole.

We could hear a tractor beyond the trees.  When we looked through the pasture gate, a tractor was working with a mower; trying to cut down the long grasses in a dried up slough.  

When we got home, the birds were busy in the deck feeder.  The girls named all the birds that visited.  This evening, I noticed the deer at the feed dish.  I shined a flashlight through the window.  It lit up the backyard enough for the girls to see three deer at the dish.  They were quite excited that the deer where eating the food that they put out in the morning.

It was a great day filled with fresh air, lots of laughs and Gramma answering hundreds of 'why' questions.