Trailcams and a Shed Hunt Walk

One of the chores that Van did while waiting for materials (for the room addition) was to prune the fruit trees.  One of the trailcams caught him in action.

The trees were pretty overgrown and badly needed a pruning job.  Van studied You-Tube "how to" videos.  Steve came out to haul the branches away as Van cut then down.

The end result looks pretty severe compared to the unruly growth that was there before.  We'll see how the trees react but I'm hoping it really helps them.  Van did the apples and the pears but he hasn't tackled the cherries yet.  They may be too far gone.

I was hoping to find some shed antlers and I did find two small ones.  This one is below the Hi-Rise stand.

And this one is in the barn field not far in front of the mineral lick.

 They really were pretty small antlers.  As you'll see later in the trailcams, some bucks haven't dropped their antlers yet.

I was surprised to find daffodils already in bloom and/or ready to pop.

The trails are really showing alot of erosion from the heavy rains.







There were numerous places out in the woods that were freshly scraped like the one below.  I don't think that they were deer scrapes - I'm guessing that it's the turkeys rooting around.

I've seen these trees in previous winters - I believe that they are slippery elm.  There is something about this type of tree that the deer really like (better than any other tree).  At this time of year (before greenup), the deer just eat the entire bark right off the tree.  I'm surprised that any of them survive but I seem to find new ones stripped like this every year. It's more than a rub - they have been debarked from ground level to 6' up.

The beech trees always tend to end up like this one - a semi-rotten hollowed out snag. I guess that it makes the woodpeckers and raccoons happy.

And the winner for "Poop of the Week".  I don't have a clue who deposited this little pile of tar - maybe a raccoon?

I think that this is a Chinese Chestnut tree up beside the barn.  It drops these spiney nuts or fruit. You definitely don't want to walk barefoot near this tree.

When I was a kid, we used to think that winter was predicted based on the amount of brown vs black on these wooly catepillars.  This is the first one that I can remember  seeing that was completely black - and we haven't had much winter this year...

I guess that this is a button buck and not one that has already shed...  I had dumped a few stale apples out in front of this camera.

The evening parade near the ladder stand.

The neighbor's lab - I wonder what he was into that slimed his face?

More traffic in the same spot - this time a turkey.

And a fox has even been visiting (hard to see him).