(Hairy) woodpecker and other animals

Another visitor by our house: a woodpecker. Based on the red head, and the not-too-short beak, it is a hairy woodpecker.

Emilie knows many animals in her animal book. For the woodpecker, she pecks at the page with her finger. For the crab, the fingers run sideways across the page. The squirrel eats seeds like this (and Emilie knows to put her hands by her mouth like a squirrel that eats). And, the favorite of everyone who's an adult and sees Emilie doing it, a gorilla that thumps its chest. I just really wish Skype had a way to record the video. That way, I could have captured my dad doing a gorilla, as well as my mother. Now we will have to try to get the grandparents from the other side of the family to do a gorilla too...

Emilie also very enthusiastically barks anytime she sees a dog, either real or drawn. A sort of 'woof', very cute. And she meows. And sometimes moos and bah bahs.

Back to real animals: both Emilie and Sonja loved the little mouse (ok, not a mouse, a vole) that we caught two days ago in the house. The mouse should not have gone into the chocolate drawer. It really should have known better than to try to touch chocolate, in this house. After I caught it (in a roll of screen material that was also in the same drawer, that I use to dry mushrooms or cranberries in the summertime), we left it in a bucket and watched it. Emilie came to check it out, then went away, then came back... and away, and back. After the kids had gone to bed, I took it outside, and left it in the snow a hundred yards from our house. Together with a little something to help it adjust to its new surroundings - a few nuts, a cracker, and some shortening (fat). Hopefully it is doing well. Hopefully it won't find the way back to our house.