Often we forget to put the camera card back in the game camera. And usually, we forget it's even there. (Though you can tell from a few of these pictures that the kids sometimes clearly recall it is there.) But it's always fun when we bring the card home and see what there is to discover that has been happening on the farm without us there. For example:
This picture makes me laugh every time I see it. That is one of our steers. And there is no time that the game cam should ever have a picture of him since he is in theory penned behind barbed wire fence a good distance away from the where the camera is. And yet ...
And this:
Every time we catch a rooster pheasant on the camera I want to shout, "Run! Run for your life you fool!"
I left incriminating evidence off of this blog post, but we have a number of pictures of people trespassing on our property with shotguns in hand. We even have pictures of some guys carrying our little Jon boat to make a duck blind for themselves. Ugh. The nerve. In any case, no rooster pheasant can possibly be safe there!
(Other incriminating evidence? I left these images off so as not to feel a smidgen grumpy every time I come back across this post, but we also have about a million pictures of our neighbor's dogs--often coinciding with the times of finding our chickens dead. Why we even have one with their dog carrying a piece of one of our chickens in his jaws!)
Of course they aren't alone. We often see this fellow:
We probably ought to trap him, but ... I love foxes, so that's a sad thought.
And of course there are plenty of harmless trespassers:
We see this cat going about, making his rounds constantly.
And lots of birds set off the camera.
This cat is also a regular on the farm at night. And ... a passing bus. Probably can't quite be called a trespasser. (When you hear the word "trespassers" do you always think of this line describing Piglet's house in Winnie the Pooh? "Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: 'TRESPASSERS W' on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn't be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William." I hope you do think of that, or, at least shall from now on.)
There also appear to be a number of ... ghosts (?) on the farm:
Why, this ghost is even looking challengingly straight into the camera!
And now, in no particular category, all the rest. (By "all the rest" I mean, of course, a tiny handful of the 600 or so images we've captured.)
These first two were captured the first time the kids ran to greet the cows and terrified them so badly that they frantically broke out of their pen. You see Jesse running to tell Mike the bad news, and Mike then following him back to size up the situation.
Hansie on a dock.
Summer. I think?
Mette knows the camera is there.
Giving it the side eye.
More Hansie on the dock.
Mike and Jesse on the dock in church clothes.
Jesse, in same church clothes, carrying back water for the chickens.
Run chicken! Run! A dog is probably after you. Sigh. (We do have our poor remaining chickens locked up in a pen they are quite safe in now.)
A thoughtful Penny.
Pen and Jesse looking like they are on a mission of some sort.
Penny running. Which makes me think probably cows were out again.
Mike on the dock.
Back when lots of our hens were still alive. Sniffle.
Mike doing farmy things.
Penny strolling out to the dock.
Daisy and Jesse. Daisy looking ill-prepared for farm work (but very cute all the same).
Me looking ill-prepared for farm work! I feel cold just looking at myself.
Oh! But look! Eight minutes later on the time stamp. I now have Mike's coat and hat while he has nothing. Good good man.
I remember this day! I used that wooden perch from the chicken pen to try and break the ice on the pond to get water for the chickens. But the ice was so thick it just ended up breaking the end of the wood!
There I am carrying the water bowl over to the canal (where I had no better luck, mind you!).
Plenty of shots of our various vehicles driving past.
Trying to get hay a million miles across the farm to the steers. (We've since had some huge bails dropped off right next to where they are thank goodness. In fact, at 10 pm last night Mike and I were over there trying to cover them with a big tarp before an incoming storm.)
Ill-prepared again. I stopped to feed the cows after a visit to the temple. Luckily I had at least thought to throw a pair of tennis shoes into the car.
Mike the opposite of ill-prepared! He's never been cold once working in that full Carhart suit we recently found for him!
Daisy looking much better prepared for farm work. (Cute boots!)
Jesse and Anders who are slowly coming to terms with the fact that Mike will be taking them to the farm to do some task or other every Saturday ... possibly for the rest of their lives.
I cannot tell what Anders is holding.
Hey Van.
And that's all for now. But I'm sure there will be more posts like this one!
