Crittercam update , Winter of 2021 & 2022

 This time the batteries didn't die, so I had 400 images to thin out. I didn't include the bunnies, the raccoons, the grey squirrels, the red squirrels, the majority of the deer photos - yes, they are cute as a button but they walked by twice a day, every day.

The bobcat is back, and it looks like a kitten

Too many deer trudging through the snow

coyote

Red fox

turn up your speaker - this deer is talking! This is a first for me.

Turkey

bird of prey, but I cannot ID it - any ideas?

Pileated woodpecker

Pileated woodpecker

Some kind of weasel

Enjoy!

Deck Maintenance?

 Wait - I have to care for these decks?!

It's been ten years since I installed these (this may be the best reason to have this blog - I can check dates!) and they clearly are in need of TLC. It's dark and wet around the cabin so the decks are now slippery when wet. :)

Onc Cup of vinegar to a gallon of water, a scrub brush, and a bunch of scrubbing gets me from here...

to here...

I don't have pressurized water, but I do have three 55 gallon drums of the stuff, so I think I can do this.

Onward!

 

Covering the deck

 The cabin has been standing for 10 years, and the rains in the Northeast have only increased, so I thought I would add a roof over the deck. The deck originally had a 10 by 10 tent that would cover a section, but it was a bother to put up and take down.

This portion of the deck is 10 by 16.

The first step was to attach a 16' 2 by 10 to the cabin. According to span tables I saw, the 12' attached to the cabin would allow a 4' span to float over the deck. This is super convenient because it allows me to omit a center joist in the most high-traffic spot.

The next step was adding the stud wall - this shook and swayed like all get out but I trusted my friends who said it would become well anchored once all the pieces were in place.

The rafters slipped in nice and easy although 12' 2 by 6 is a bit weighty. Cutting birdsmouth for the rafters still doesn't come naturally to me, but I finally did figure it out by the fourth try. My friends were right - the stud wall is now well anchored.

Next up was running strapping for the roofing - I'm just doing translucent plastic roofing for now, but the framing is strong enough to hold an actual plywood and metal roof.

Next, I added the roofing material and am very happy with the outcome

How happy am I?  This happy 

Of course, once I looked around I knew something was missing

So I added more roofing. :)

1

2

3

All in all a big change - it does have a bit of a 1970's feel with all the plastic, but it sure was simple and it sure is nice walking out of the cabin and hearing the rain instead of feeling it.

Next up cleaning the decks and adding water catchment.

Springtime Critter Cam

 Doesn't disappoint!

I know there are far too many deer in the Catskills, but my heart melted at this series of video's captured. I know little of the maturation rate of deer, but this felt like we could watch a deer making its first steps to practicing running laps with its mom watching - all within a week.

Crittercam update from the winter of 2020 and 21.

The batteries died!

But not before 137 videos of deer and squirrel, and then these three

Stay well

 Not a lot to say...

Critter cam for the summer of 2020 showed flying squirrel, red squirrel, grey squirrel... bunny, fox, raccoon...  a weasel so fast I could only see its tail...a pair of birds pre-dawn so black and white, walking along the path... ruffed grouse maybe? no deer!

The first summer of COVID is coming to a close, sigh. Happy to have land where no one is.

Just got Picture This app; not sure that it's 100% right all the time, but fun little toy. After an hour or so it IDed about 100 different plants.

Cut down 4 or 5 dead ash trees, solid wood for the fire. Went to save 10' straight logs for milling, but they all began to split. 

Y'all stay well.

critter cam 2019

This page is a work in progress....

My old critter camera bit the dust, so I bought a new one. Here are some highlights from the Spring. Because it is a new camera, the date & time are correct, and I can only assume the temperature is correct too - the camera does that on its own. These are all 10 second clips.

fox or coyote? Hard for me to tell but I lean towards fox - seems too small for a coyote, although they have been seen here before. Fox have not, but I'm guessing it's because of the improved capture optics on the new camera.

We have seen far too many deer, and I only post this because it shows off the improved optics of the new camera.

THIS! Been trying to ID the new scat I have been seeing - I think I figured it out!

Seen here is an altercation between a pair of blue jays and a red squirrel. I have more of these, request if you want more.

Porcupine! A long, long time ago, when living in the Berkshires, a porcupine once gnawed  into a tractor tire in it's quest for salt. The humans were not pleased. 

The new camera is much better quality than my first one, which got fixed. I'll add model numbers at some point.

Raspberries, second season

Last years planting was mostly successful - we had berries to eat by the late summer and no animals felt the need to break down the fence. I think two plants didn't survive the transplant last year. This year there was so much weeding that I didn't even count the plants, although there are plenty of volunteers popping up outside of the row.
This June (2019) I weeded, and added an additional row of fabric and another yard of mulch to either side of the row.
You can see in the images below what I found, what it looked like with the most offending weeds gone, and then when it was done.

Raspberries!

A gift is a gift when the giver helps plant!
I received ten August Red and five Boyne raspberries from a friend, and they were good enough to help plant them too.
The land wasn't prepped last season, so this was a shovel and a prayer kind of planting.
Dug a hole, added peat moss and topsoil, laid in the plant, and covered lightly with more soil.
Then covered everything with 36" wide weed barrier*, stapled that down, and covered that with ten bags of cedar mulch.
After that, a fence. First time for me to build a large enclosure; I usually build rounds for individual trees.
It is about 6 to 8 feet wide and 45 feet long. Just used bamboo posts, 48" chicken wire, tent stakes, wire, and yellow ribbon.
Like a said, a shovel and a prayer.

Weather report: We received 5 feet of snow in March. It's now the middle of April and snow is still on the ground in places. Trees and shrubs are just beginning to bud.


*Premium 5oz Pro Garden Weed Barrier Landscape Fabric By ECOgardener – Durable & Heavy-Duty Weed Block Gardening Mat, Easy Setup & Superior Weed Control, Eco-Friendly & Convenient Design, 3ft x 100ft

seven year itch

The cabin is standing, and still in use.  The past few years have been focused on maintaining the land.

Changes? The environment - trees and bushes grow and die, I still attempt to save them from deer... life continues. The most marked change is in me; seven years older and perhaps a bit wiser - at least a bit more patient.

Weather is a thing - it's why I bought the property. Last year there was a drought - nothing too severe, but enough of one so that the grasses weeds and flowers didn't need trimming at all through the season. The result was that all the plantings I have been doing over the previous years finally had a chance to get taller than the weeds. Now I need to remember what it is I planted. :) Lilacs, maples, Christmas trees (some of which still look like shoo -in's for Charlie Browns Christmas), and some other things are finally beginning to look like what I was expecting. What hurt during the year of the drought was that I planted 90 poplars. Without irrigation, only 18 survived. I planted 60 more this year, and there has been a lot more rain so they all look very healthy.

I also "upped the game" and rented a brush hog.

I always thought they were enormous and unwieldy machines that would decimate the sacred land. Then I got older. The weed whacker was a step up from the scythe, a tool I still enjoy using, but shorter time upstate and sorer arms and shoulders lead me to seek more mechanization. I took three (sometimes four) days to weed whack the driveway, weeks to do it with the scythe, and 3.5 hours to do it with the brush hog. Love technology.

Wild things are growing and dying too. Many trees and bushes are filling in and looking robust, others are fading. It looks like I have lost all the ash trees along the driveway, probably to the Emerald Ash Borer. The only positive there is I get to practice using a chainsaw, and perhaps get some firewood. A surprise this year was the loss of the pine that greeted us when we got to the cabin. It seemed to die overnight, so I am guessing it was Pine Wilt disease. I made very short work of removing the branches with clippers, hand saw, and a ladder for the higher spots, then shifted to the chain saw for the trunk. It was only about 30' tall so not too difficult. I counted about 25 age rings.

That's all for now...

critter cam collection

Here are a bunch of pictures collected from my critter cam. The camera has worked fine, except for when the batteries died over the winter. Now using rechargeable batteries, and hoping for better results.

The images labeled 2012 are really April 2015.

And the last three are a mystery. Any ideas?

let there be solar

Finally got to build a solar panel and celebrated with light.

This is the one everyone has seen from Harbor Freight.
http://www.harborfreight.com/45-watt-solar-panel-kit-68751-8527.html

The cleared out shed seems to be the perfect spot.

Now I just have to remind myself why I want power.

As nice as electric light in the cabin is, it feels like the change to the space is too great. Or maybe I just need to get used to it. But charging batteries - now that I will like.
-- adding picture soon --

April 2015

It's winter, it's spring, it's, it's...

the Catskill's in April.

The morning I arrived the tree's for miles around were gilded in ice, making the drive to the site a ghost-like passage through a shimmering grey desolation  - a feeling that only the end of winter can give.

The next day was 60 degrees, followed by a deep frost overnight and wicked winds the following sunny day.

Another reason to be there was to clear out the shed - it had been years, and the build up of stuff, mice, wasps, and other intriguing creatures had built up to a crescendo of wasted space - a place where I would quickly deposit or withdrawal items.

Such a disgusting wasted space that I couldn't even take a picture of it at it's worst. this is about half emptied:

Imagine the things I found! Many items from before I even designed the cabin - assorted windows, insulation, doors...

All went to the dump, where anything worthwhile was scooped up by others who will use it or do what I just did.

The guy at the dump was great and he took the time to direct what I was bringing down to the right people / places. So not all was landfill. This however...

Sometimes a picture (or in this case three) tells a thousand words.

The only heartwarming part is that I had seen red squirrels in here last year, so at least it was a native varmint. 

And then, presto chango, a clear shed.

On Dan Barber's "The Third Plate"

This has very little to do with the cabin in the woods, except for the possibility of farming there. I just read "The Third Plate," and no, it is not about baseball.
I recommend reading the book, and this post is more a links page than a review. Barber wrote about many farmers and thinkers. Here are some links I found on my own:
https://attra.ncat.org/interviews/martens.html
http://www.lakevieworganicgrain.com/meet.html
http://www.ansonmills.com/biographies
http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/about-us/staff/jack-algiere.html
http://www.bluehillfarm.com/
http://www.stonebarnscenter.org/about-us/staff/craig-haney.html
http://www.milkwood.net/2011/12/09/eliot-colemans-fertile-dozen-recommended-reading-for-organic-growers/
http://www.laverstokepark.co.uk/info/about.aspx
http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/
http://www.polyfacefarms.com/
http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/9205251407/hands-willem-kips
http://www.highmowingseeds.com/blog/seed-grower-profile-frank-morton-an-agent-of-change/
http://sustainablefoodtrust.org/team/thomas-harttung/
http://www.natureandmore.com/growers/growganics
http://joansgarden.org/
http://library.ucsc.edu/reg-hist/cultiv/cantisano
http://www.landinstitute.org/
http://web.missouri.edu/ikerdj/papers/Albrecht%20Lecture%20-%20Healthy%20Soils%20Healthy%20People.htm
http://journeytoforever.org/farm_library/howard.html.
http://www.brownetrading.com/products/fresh-fish/veta-la-palma-seafood/
http://www.vetalapalma.es/index.asp?LG=2
http://css.wsu.edu/people/faculty/stephen-s-jones/
http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/10/radical-chefs-launch-seed-revolution
from

Irene Hamburger
Vice President
Blue Hill | Blue Hill at Stone Barns
630 Bedford Road
Pocantico Hills, NY 10591

914 366 9606 x224
917 447 4212 (cell)
irene@bluehillfarm.com
@bluehillfarm

Angel Leon and the Almadraba (in Spanish)

http://vimeo.com/18574228

The Perennial Plate on Eduardo Sousa

http://www.theperennialplate.com/episodes/2013/06/episode-121-a-time-for-foie/

The Perennial Plate on Glenn Roberts

http://www.theperennialplate.com/episodes/2012/03/episode-94-carolina-gold/

Dan Barber’s Ted Talks:

https://www.ted.com/speakers/dan_barber

critter cam

This past March I installed a motion trigger camera to see what critters come by. Do you know that wind is motion?
Do you know how many windy days there were between March and now?
After scanning 2000 images, I think I need to tweak the settings.
Here, without the wind, are a few critters - help is needed on the last one.

Dreaded House Cat

Peter Cottontail!

Hop

Hop!

If no one can help, I will make something up.
Pterodactyl?
Snowy Owl?
Bald Eagle?