Snow Cam

I tracked JJ’s ship on January 12th as it moved up the river to Lake Huron, concerned that they were going to travel tthrough the storm’s strong winds and high waves. However, they anchored soon after they reached Lake Huron. Whew. They continued on their way the next day when most of the storm had passed.

Meanwhile, we were expecting the storm to bring us heavy snow and high winds to our area. We woke up the next morning and found only a few inches of snow. I thought, “Wow, if I were paying for this storm, I’d want my money back!” But it snowed and snowed all that day, and snow yesterday as well. Yesterday morning I took a yardstick outside and measured about 13 inches of snow. I don’t know how many inches of snow we got after that, but I’d guess we ended up with a total of about 15 inches of snow. The snow is deep enough that it is higher than my boots.

The snow isn’t a major problem because the snow plows clear the roads quite quickly. The greater problem is the wind which could have damaged trees and caused power outages. The wind was strong enough that it whipped up the snow into clouds and snow-nadoes. However, we never lost our power–not even a flicker–for which I’m grateful because the temperatures have become quite cold. They are in the low teens during the day and near zero at night. Brrrr. Still, we live in the North where it gets snowy and cold in the winter so we are prepared for winter weather but it’s always nice when we don’t lose our power.

Today our neighbor snowblowed our driveway with his big tractor. He’s been taking care of our driveway for several years. It’s such a blessing. It would take us at least 2 hours to snow blow our driveway with our little walk-behind snowblower. He can clear it within 15-20 minutes with his tractor AND he doesn’t accept any payment.

Last week–or maybe the week before that–we smelled a horrible smell at a certain area when we walked down the driveway. It lingered for days. We tried to guess what could have caused it. I guessed that maybe a skunk had gotten scared and blasted the area. EJ guessed that it could be a bear. Until this last storm, the weather has been warm enough that maybe they didn’t go into hibernation–and bears stink, he said. We really don’t know, but as I walked Hannah Joy down the driveway one day, I thought, “What if the smell is lingering because there is a bear regularly traveling through our property? What would I do if I encountered a bear?” I’ve read that bears tend to be shy and run from humans….but still.

We’ve been wanting to get a trail cam for quite some time. EJ has wanted one for security. I have wanted one to see what wildlife is wandering through our property–like bears. I researched trail cams on the internet. There’s a plethora of different features to consider and I had to look up what some of these features meant. I finally found a camera on sale for not much money that seemed to have decent features. I It has a decent camera with infrared for night viewing, the range and trigger speed seem adequate, it takes photos and video, we can connect the camera to my phone through wifi/bluetooth, it is password protected, and we can program the hours we want it to operate. I ordered it and it arrived just before the snowstorm. I spent a few days trying to learn the features of the camera and I studied our terrain to decide where to put it. I finally got it up this morning. My hands got so cold that they hurt, making it awkward to strap the camera in place. I’ll leave it there for a day or so to see if it captures anything. I plan to move it around until I find the perfect spot but I’ll probably wait until the weather is nicer. It’s too cold to be tramping around in deep snow.

If the camera takes an interesting photo or video, I will share it with you.