Trail Cam Tales

We got our trail cam back in action. For awhile it was taking no photos, but I found out that there was one bad cell in the rechargeable batteries that, even though the camera registered 60% battery power remaining, it wouldn't detect movement or fire the camera. Once I replaced the batteries, it started taking pictures again.

We have a new critter on Die Weide - it's one of the ones that make you go Ahhhh! But I'll save that for later. First I will show you a sequence of two photos and tell you the story behind what occurred in these two brief pictures.

So, what do we have here? We have the tail end of a deer. To give you more perspective, I have my trail cam set up to take a burst of five photos upon detecting movement. Then it waits 30 minutes before reactivating the sensor to take the next burst when something moving triggers it. This was the first photo and the other four frames in the burst were empty. My interpretation, at the 08:26 timestamp, this deer was hauling by so fast that from the time the sensor detected movement and this first photo snapped only its hindquarters was captured as it fled by the camera. Normally I get four or five frames with deer as they are leisurely grazing along. Hmm, so what spooked the deer past the camera?!?

Why it was my friendly neighbor wandering by exactly 30 minutes after the spooked deer. From these two photos I can deduce that my neighbor walked along the north fence approximately 30 minutes earlier (to the left in the frame) which spooked the deer to flee south past the camera. It took half an hour between the deer fleeing for our neighbor to navigate our woodland trail to cross from behind the camera (there were more frames of his passing by). We met and talked the day I retrieved the memory stick and he told me he had been on the property as he was hunting for his missing dogs and that I might find him on my trail cam. Sure enough he was there but I also found it interesting and a bit amusing that my trail cam actually caught a small story here - that of a deer spooked by a wandering human.

And now for that which I enticed you with - (drum roll please) the new critter! Technically it's not new in the sense of a new species as I have plenty of pictures of this particular species. However, as you can now see, it is a "new" critter!

Now everyone say, "Ahhh, how cute!"

But for me an even cooler aspect of this critter is the very next weekend, when I went camping with my brother on Die Weide, I got to see this delightful critter in person! I had just finished turning our bratwurst and was stirring the Ranchstyle beans over the fire pit when my brother pointed behind me and said, "there's Bambi!" So I turned around and saw no more than 10 feet behind me the cute critter bounding away through the tall grass. What a fun thing to see. Every time I get to stay out at Die Weide, I think, "Life is Good!"

Last note and last photo - this is from yesterday's visit to the land. We watered the orchard as usual, brought the neighbors a loaf of home-baked Sourdough German Mischbrot, and swapped out the trail cam memory stick. This photo was on the stick, which I blew up a bit to show an odd sight - a deer with either a pink collar or something like trash around its neck. I think its a collar, though pink seems garish. The deer appears healthy and the collar doesn't appear to hinder it. Unfortunately, the deer never turned sideways to get a better view. I hope the trail cam captures it again.

Tarp Tent Camping on Die Weide

In Die Weide we have a natural place to enjoy, which we have visited every weekend this year to water the orchard and continue blazing trails in the woods. However, I have grossly neglected writing this blog about our thorny paradise. I have writings in notebooks about the land but transposing them to the blog is work that I keep putting off. Today's blog will be about my camping trip last night.

This is my tarp tent under which I have slept on two camping trips since I last wrote in May. I pulled a one-nighter yesterday evening. Inge had to work this weekend so I chose to camp out overnight Saturday evening. Normally I would head out Friday evening but I chose to attend a memorial service Saturday for a co-worker, Rafael, who passed away recently from pancreatic cancer. He was only eight months younger than me. Time passes and attending Rafael's memorial reminded me that my date with meeting Jesus will come in His due time - a time no longer as far off.

After a delicious cornmeal encrusted fried catfish supper with Inge I packed some snacks, drinks, and breakfast supplies to be cooked on my coleman stove and headed out. The sun settled just over the treetops when I arrived at Die Weide and unlocked the gate. I pitched my tarp tent under the picnic pecan using an X-frame from two-by-fours over which I stretched and tied off a taught rope that became the ridge-line for the tarp. After pounding few tent pegs and stretching bungee cords to tarp grommets my shelter stood ready for my cot.

Our ever-friendly neighbors, Kenneth and Derrellene, stopped by with their passel of dogs and we chatted the sun down - mostly drought talk as that impacts us all this year. Darkness quickly settled over the pasture after they left and I set up my folding chair, cooler, and poured myself, "eine Krug Bier." I offered a salute and the first sip of Bier to Inge's mother Kunigunda, as she enhanced my love of good German Bier. She took us to places with fresh from the keg mugs of foam-capped, "liquid bread." "Mutti" always raised a toast and said, "Die erste Schluck ist die beste!" (the first sip is the best) then quaffed half the mug followed with a twinkle in her eyes and a huge foam mustache smile.

I love the nights here on Die Weide. The last time I camped here the moon only dimly lit the pasture with a fingernail sliver reflection. Last night though, the moon phased more brightly as "waxing gibbous" - a bit more than half full. I sat by the Picnic Pecan on Die Weide which resides in the pasture with copses of woodlands only paces away. The moon's glow paints the nearby copse of trees in patches of pale and dark grey and lights the tall grasses of the pasture in silvery tan hue. For some minutes the high pressure system that commands our drought caps the pasture with an absolute stillness. The heat of the day persists in this stillness building a sheen of sweat on my skin and twitching and itching my nose with dry dusty-drought scent. The stillness carries sound and from the southwest someone plays a mixture of country and rock music that I can hear with sing-along clarity, but so far away as to be quietly pleasing. Dogs bark in various directions punctuated by a donkey's long, loud, "braaee-huh, braaee-huh". Nearby, insects serenade me with chirps, chirrs, and whirrs and I begin to think the night's sleep will be uncomfortably warm until I hear treetops in the distance rustle and soon the picnic pecan whispers behind me passing the breeze over to tussle the hair on my arm and neck and wash the heat from my skin.

Later I gathered my walking stick, on which I have carved a face, and set out to explore Die Weide at night. The half-moon lights the way as I step-pause-step my way slowly to the path we've carved in the woods to the pond. Tonight, though the pond isn't my destination. I only seek to find a place within the woodland boundary where I can sit and listen for the rustling of critters in the woods. At first I sit upon the ground on the path, but that proved a thorny seat. And my solution to that problem lead to this haiku lesson learned which will end this blog entry.

Sturdy walking stick

placed as seat on thorny ground

prevents prickly butt.