About that new camera I mentioned…

Well, I got a new one, but I have to tell you the rest of the story.  We were about 3 hours from home when I remembered I never put my camera in the truck.  I did a frantic look-see in the glove box, hoping it was still in there, but it wasn’t.  I said “Oh sh*t, I forgot my camera!”  As it turned out, this was a perfect time for me to be forgetful, because in just 3 days was my birthday and guess who didn’t buy me anything?  So he says, “If you’d like, for your birthday present you can get yourself a new one”.  Hmmm, that sounds pretty good to me.  I knew I wanted to keep things simple and I didn’t want an expensive camera that requires expensive lenses.  So after some online research and shopping around, I decided this was the one I wanted.  A Nikon Coolpix P500.I’ve only had it since Wednesday, but so far, I really like it.  And I really like the color of it too!  I’m still learning the settings and other features.  I sure was glad I had it when we were driving along and saw this little cub along the edge of the road.  Such a cutie.  Mom and the rest of the kids crossed the road before we came along.  While we were watching it, Jim caught some motion in the review mirror and most likely, Mrs. Bear pushed this deer out of the woods.  The next day Little Doe brought her two fawns around.  Jim was stacking wood over on that side, so Little Doe had the kids hang around while she decided whether it was safe of not.  She decided to take them back from the direction they came from. I grabbed my camera and took some picture through the front window.   We’re finally seeing some pretty butterflies.  I just wish more of them would be on flowers and not on piles of poo.  I don’t know what kind of butterflies these are, but the small ones really blend with the sand, don’t they?This little bird was sitting in front of my blind, singing it’s heart out.  I got all excited and took a video of it.  After the fact I learned that unless you record your video in HD, there won’t be any audio.  Okay!  Won’t do that again. 

Another thing I’m learning is that HD videos take FOREVER to upload to YouTube.  I’ll have one for you in my next chapter.

So that’s my story and I’m very happy with my new camera. 

Here we go again

When the forecast showed high humidity and temps in the 90’s for the next 4 days, we decided to go back home a week early, knowing it was going to be hot in Madison too.  We stayed until Thursday morning and returned back to the northland and much nicer weather.  BUT, while we were gone another big storm ripped through here, taking down many trees that survived the July 1st storm.  This really sucks.  There were branches down all around the cabin.

 

More trees snapped in half that will be used for firewood.  Some were uprooted and laying on top of other trees.

Miraculously, the gazebo survived, but has some serious structural damage.  The ancient swing set I use for my flags even got knocked over.  My little blind was in a heap again, but after shaking it a few times, it popped right back up, good as new.  And then I noticed this tree.  Okay, that’s got to come down before it falls on the power line.  It’s the one in the center, leaning to the right.The wind even blew Jenny’s head off.  The other deer were quite confused by this headless deer.  But I’m the kind of person that always looks for the positive and again, we were very lucky there was no damage to the cabin, outhouse, shower tent or sheds.  And tomatoes are fine and they loved all the heat and rain.

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There may be a new camera in Cindy’s future.  She forgot hers at home and hubby (being the sweetheart he is) said I could go “uptown” and get a new one.  Now to decide what kind…but it’s got to be better than the one I forgot, with a nice zoom and a point and shoot. 

The Culprit

Under the cover of darkness, Jenny's assailant returned to the scene of the crime! Just as we suspected, although a little smaller than I would've guessed.  It's probably a yearling separated from Mama Bear.

 

FYI...the reason it's called Jenny/Kenny is that it can be either a doe or a buck.  Later in the year, well transform Jenny into Kenny by adding some antlers to it's head.

Around the Trail Cams

We haven’t been seeing many critters around here except for deer and raccoons.  So a couple weeks ago we decided to put Jenny/Kenny out by the field trail cam.  She stood there when other deer came by. She never budged when the squirrel was running around by her.She even stood like a statue when the hay cutter went past her… in both directions!And then two horrible events happened. 

1.  The trail cam’s batteries died.

2.  Jenny/Kenny was assaulted!Probably a bear out on the prowl.  Jim was able to put Jenny/Kenny back together again and…  I reloaded the cam with batteries and reset the time and date.  We’ve probably missed all the action, but you never know what will be lurking out there. 

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Here’s a great trail cam picture from yesterday.  I wished they didn’t pass so close to the camera, but it was exciting to see two fawns at once.  Look at those dots!

More Storm Pictures

We’ve been driving around like others, to gawk at all the damage from last week’s storm.  It’s amazing to me that there wasn’t more property damage or deaths.  Much of the land around us is County Forest.  They do selective logging and it’s sad to see the trees they left are now up rooted or snapped off.  There are lots of trees twisted or bent over like this.  Some are snapped off like this, or this.  Lots of pines that were destined to be power poles are leaning to the east. And then the smaller oaks that were left to grow into big mighty oaks were up rooted.  Sad to see, but trees will regrow.  The wood will be used for pulp and for firewood to heat homes this winter and probably next winter too.  

We heard the park along the St. Croix River was hit really bad.  Well, it was.  This was a beautiful spot with lots of big old red and white pine all around it.  Now it looks like a… well, like a tornado went through it.  I made a video as Jim was driving through the park.  He drove a little fast towards the end, so it’s not too clear, but if you’d like a 360° view, here it is. 

360° view of park

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But the damage wasn’t everywhere.  We drove by this pretty little lake today and stopped so Molly could take a dip and get a drink.  There were fish by the shore and loons on the water, probably looking for fish!

The Big Storm

It was one of those hot, humid summer days and we knew a storm would be rolling in.  Little did we know how big it was going to be.  We had gone out for a Friday night fish fry and saw the warning on TV saying a dangerous storm was coming and it had big winds and possible hail.  Well, there wasn’t any hail, but there sure was a lot of wind and rain.  There were sheets of rain and the wind blew so hard it snapped off over a dozen trees around our cabin.  Miraculously, none of our buildings or vehicles were damaged.  Even my little blind survived, even though it was folded up a bit.  I shook it a few times and it snapped back into shape.  

The path to the outhouse was covered with broken limbs, but no damage was done to our two hole privy.  This tree barely missed our shower tent.  This is what our front lawn looked like.These trees snapped, but missed the little shed and propane tank.These are some of the trees that broke looking toward the road.Our little gazebo took another beating.  After it got flipped over in the last storm, so Jim tied it down with 4 ropes.  This time some of the supports got bent and you can see it’s not quite level.Our truck was parked right under this tree.  Good thing it got hung up on some other trees or it would’ve been smashed.The wind even blew all the petals off my peony.

The power went out around 8pm Friday and it’s not expected to be back on until Tuesday at the earliest.  SO, we put all the frozen foods in one cooler and the other cold stuff in another one and headed back home.  We may invest in a generator.  We found out that’s what our neighbors have to keep their 3 freezers working.  We know we were very lucky.  Others a few miles away from lost everything, but homes can be rebuilt and trees will grow back.  Thankfully no one was killed or seriously injured.