Wednesday wildlife, buck in the snow

Our first snow of the new year, this buck made his trail and paused for a moment among the young cottonwoods.

A little Black Hills spruce update

We planted over 100 Black Hills spruce last spring and the deer have left them alone for the most part. Even though I ordered the 4-8 inch size, most of them were in the 8-12 inch range when we planted them on May 5th. Some have gained 5+ inches this year.

Here's one on October 19th:

And this past weekend (not the same seedling):

After the snow on the 5th/6th of January, we see it has been avoided by deer and the rabbits (so far.)

We intend to thin out the row: some of these for Christmas trees, others for transplant sales and some will be transplanted after our house is built. That's the plan anyway.

We like the soft needles compared to the Colorado spruce and its density will make a good windbreak. I haven't decided if we will add another 100 this year or try the white spruce and plant those around the pond. Purchased from Chief River Nursery in Wisconsin, I like what I see so far and intend to be a customer again.

What's the temperature outside?

Since February last year, I've been taking temperature readings at the pond using a EasyLog data logger:

With a very simple program, I set it to take a reading every 15 minutes and it can collect upwards of a year although I download to my tablet about every three months. At this point, I have it inside the shed instead of a proper ventilated box like the weather service recommends. It may not be accurate to .00001% but this gives me a good idea of the temperature and now I have a historical record.

Here's the last quarter of 2014:

With the downloaded text file, the EasyLog software can be used to view the graph or the file can be opened with Excel and can be imported into a database. Hovering over the graph with the mouse and you can get the detail of the reading, such as 1 degree on the morning of 12/31.

This is one part of the plan for record keeping for the tree farm. The last piece missing is an accurate account of rainfall instead of relying on the weather service's radar measurements (which isn't even close.)

A little snow to start the year

The first snow of 2015. About 4 - 5 inches that fell in the draw above the pond, packing around the camera lens and distorting the picture a bit.

Wednesday wildlife, winter doe

Snow's on the ground again and the seasons are closed.

Maybe next year.

Trail Cameras

After David's comment, I thought I would share my results of a little over a year of using three different trail camera models.

Our first camera we deployed was a Hunten 5MP No-Glo - (I paid a bit more than the price listed here) I set up two with one facing the shed and the other facing down the aronia berries. There is no flash which is  doesn't spook the animals. One camera captured a picture of our big cat and the quality slowly got worse until there is a washed out picture every time now and we retired it. The other has given me no trouble and captured the picture of the twin fawns. The biggest drawback is that battery life is terrible. I'm disappointed with the 4 C cells dying after a couple of weeks in the winter. Switching to rechargeable batteries saved a little. 

With the price drop, I give it a neutral recommendation so long as battery life is not a concern. But I don't plan on getting another.

Our second type was a Wildgame Innovations 6MP purchased at one of the big box "home center" stores. While picture has been good, these are not durable in my opinion. One of the latches holding the SD storage card broke by spring and the bracket to hold the batteries split after being dropped off the seat of the pickup. Yeah, we shouldn't have dropped it but from the seat to the floor? Electric tape to keep things together and it still works. On the positive side, battery life is very good. I'm only on the second set of 8 AA batteries since deploying it a year ago.

There are better cameras out there at a better price. I'd give them a pass.

Our latest attempt at chronicling the wildlife was to purchase a couple of Stealth Cam 8MP P14 (unfortunately no longer available). We deployed them in the SE corner and captured our standing deer and many others. These have pre-programmed settings and are the easiest to set up out of the box and battery life has been the best of the bunch. After 6 months, I still have 4 of 5 bars on the display for the 8 AA batteries. Using a USB connection, downloads are fairly quick to my tablet without ejecting the SD card each time.

 
For an 8MP camera under $55, I was impressed enough to purchase two more and deployed one up by the pond and another in the SE corner. I would recommend to purchase more if they were available.

A search of Stealth Cams bring mixed reviews from others, with some claiming they would never get another. I'm satisfied enough that I'm looking at some of their no-glo/black light models, but the tightwad side of me wants to wait for a price drop.

This is just my experience but your mileage may vary.

2014 by the numbers

Over 60,000 pictures from the trail cameras (most were triggered by the wind)

1203 trees, seedlings, nuts and acorns planted

Fruit planted: 20 Juneberries, 4 honeyberries, 15 blackberries, 5 grapes

Hours spent working at the pond: not enough

95 on 8/25/14, warmest temperature recorded

- 9 on 3/3/14, coldest temperature recorded (after our measurements started 2/22/14) 

And a half dozen loyal viewers

By general consensus, everyone's favorite picture of the year:

Thank you all for stopping by.

We have some big plans for 2015 and not just more trees in the ground. God willing, we can get one or two accomplished this year.