Sunday Snapshot: What's Back By the Barn?

For the past week, we have been finding animal parts in an area toward the back of our property behind the barn.  First it was a couple of deer legs, then it was a portion of a large dead bird.  Yesterday, it was big chunk of deer hide that resembled a hairy rawhide dog chewy.  

My trusty game camera is the perfect tool to use to identify whatever animal is responsible for this.

Foxes.

This was the area where a mama groundhog dug a burrow and raised a litter of three babies last year.  A fox family appears to have moved into the empty den now and has set up housekeeping.

Having foxes in residence back there should keep the groundhog numbers in check, so we aren't overrun with them like last year.

Looks to me like one of these foxes in the photos is larger than the other(s).  Perhaps it's a parent and kits?  Whatever the situation, they are welcome.  We don't have chickens, and neither do any of our neighbors.  Based on the animal parts outside the den, it looks as if these foxes have mostly been scavenging, not hunting.

I will continue to monitor the area, to see what else may be back there.  I'll let you know if I find something.

It's a beautiful day today ...

Happy Sunday, Everyone!

This Week Was a Blur

Most of you have probably already figured out that I rarely sit still.  I generally have at least two projects going at once, so I'm used to skipping from thing to thing to thing.  This week, though, I had WAY too many things lined up to do. 

My rose propagation exhibit at yesterday's Culpeper flower show was a big hit.  There weren't enough people there at any given time for me to do any dedicated demonstrations, but I did answer a LOT of questions. 

 

 

What's that I see in the center of the table with the rest of the items in my display?  That would be the award given to the best educational exhibit, scoring 95 points or higher.  I was in total shock when I saw it.  I don't do these things for awards or recognition ... I get my reward when people go home and have success when they try what I teach them.  (It's still really cool to win, though.)

 

 

 

I have two new game camera photos to show you.  In its new spot overlooking part of the Rose Field, I captured two decent photos.  Night #1 had one photo of a deer ... look carefully on the right.

 

 

 

Night #2, the camera captured another image of a fox.

 

 

 

I mentioned that I was out of town from Saturday until Tuesday of last week, helping my brother.  He and his wife are renovating her mother's former house near Abingdon, Virginia. My brother is a VERY talented kitchen installer by trade, and he gets to put his considerable talents to work on his own project this time ... updating the place to make it into a comfortable second home.   My part of the renovation will be to paint the cabinets. I'm working on a custom color that I know you're going to love.

 

 

 

What am I doing today?  The weather is beautiful and it's a great day to work on the new rose bed that I'm putting in along the fence behind our garage.

 

 

 

I hope all of you have a great Sunday!!

 

What Happens While the People Are Sleeping

I have been told by more than one person that it's important to be patient when trying to capture photos of wildlife with a game camera.  Just like I promised to do in my last post, I left my camera in place and didn't mess with it at all ... for four whole days!  (This wasn't too difficult to do, since I was out of town during that time ... from Saturday morning until Tuesday night.) 

This morning, I anxiously went to the barn to retrieve the memory card from the camera ... hoping that there had been some action for it to photograph.  I was not disappointed.

Here is a big fat groundhog.  (My camera takes color photos during the day, and infrared B&W photos at night.)

 

 

I got lots of photos of deer over the course of my absence.  Night #1 yielded these ...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Night #2 was very fruitful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The camera only captured one photo on Night #3.  (Peek-a-boo!)

 

 

 

No deer on Night #4 ... but I got a pretty decent photo of a fox!

 

 

 

As I was walking to and from the camera, I noticed that some of the roses in one particular section of the Rose Field have been nibbled on by what I assume was deer.  I have the camera trained on that spot and the path that leads to it, so I hope to have evidence of the nibblers by the end of the week.  (Believe me, it's going to be really hard for me to leave the camera alone till then.)