At the end of December 2017, R and I (together since 2004, married in 2007) purchased 22.5 acres of raw land in Piscataquis County, Maine. It's about 300 miles from our current home; the total trip length usually amounts to about 6 hours. R and I had talked and dreamed for years about buying some land somewhere relatively remote to build an off-grid cabin, with the purpose of eventually moving there in a few years after my stepdaughter, N, graduates college. We binged watched wilderness shows and kept the dream alive with a small garden and a couple of chickens in our back yard until all the right pieces to the puzzle fell into place. Now, the adventure begins!
Our trusty sidekicks, Tyson the rottweiler and Willow the Grey Ninja *ahem* #adventurecat, are right by our side the whole way having adventures of their own. Our two other cats, Zoey and Sonny, are more homebodies but are nonetheless vital parts of our family in their own ways, and will let Willow take the lead in securing the new land until it is finally The Time for us all go start anew.
“Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come.”
Zig Zigler
I hope the summer has treated everyone well so far, and that you've had lot of adventures yourselves. *pause* Come to think of it, it's not even officially summer yet. The summer solstice is on Friday, June 21. After that, the daylight hours will continuously get a little shorter, minute by minute, each day. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news! But lets remember, we'll still have plenty more beautiful days to come, well into the fall. Fall is my favorite time of year.
This post includes below two videos I put together of highlights from our trail cameras on which we seem to have a decent amount of activity. Well...at least one of the handful of cameras we have placed around camp. The camera at the intersection of our driveway and the trail is the most active. I sometimes wonder how long I should leave a trail camera in a location that doesn't provide me with any images over the course of two weeks. Usually I'll set it in one spot for a month, and move it if it doesn't produce anything in that time.
I hope you are able to view these. I've posted them from YouTube, so if you can't see them here, please visit my YouTube Channel.
This first video is of the trail camera highlights from 2018. It's almost hard to believe we've already owned the land for over a year.
This video is the best of 2019 so far; as of June 2, 2019.
It's always exciting to arrive at camp and scoop up all the SIM cards from the trail cameras for viewing. I'm excited to share them with you all, and I hope you enjoy them as much as we do!
"Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well." Theodore Roosevelt
Happy Spring! 💙💦🌱 Finally we made it in to camp for the first time this year. We made it in last year around the same time (end of April). There was still a little snow on the ground in the shade; six inches here or there. The mud was abundant, though. If it were not for our lifted truck with 35" tires, we would not have made it past the first half mile of trail. A normal car or truck would be sucked up into the depths of muddy mess. There was a station wagon and a truck parked on the side of the trail at the beginning because they could not go any further without the risk of getting stuck. There were a few surprising times where our truck was sucked into some mud and after we scrambled out, R and I momentarily locked wide-eyes in surprise with excited grins.
Thankfully everything was as we had left it December 2. We were even surprised because we forgot we had gathered a night's worth of firewood in the cabin before we left last time. However, that pleasant surprise was short lived when we opened the stove and part of the rope caulking came off the wood stove door. R started a fire to see if we could make it work, but soon the smoke billowed out of that unsealed portion of the wood stove door and quickly filled the cabin. We had to rush Tyson and Willow out to the truck for fresh air before we extinguished the flames in the stove so we could start to air the place out... Que sera sera. R checked the weather before we left and the low was expected to be 29℉. We had plenty of blankets, so we weren't too worried.
We left at 2:30 a.m. on Saturday and arrived at camp around 8:30 a.m. It rained all day. Willow didn't care though. Willow loves the rain. She even blessed me with a cute little "purrrRR" in the video.
She also let me know that I need to work on expanding her Maine catio during the next visit or two. This one is too small, she says. She's comfortable enough now to have a Big Girl Catio. Ok, Willow, I'll get on it.
While Willow was taking her afternoon cat nap, Tyson, R, and I went on a hike through our woods to see if we could locate the western property line. Tyson enjoys bounding through the woods all willy-nilly, but we kept him close because in his old age (he'll be 8 in July) he's lost some of his vision and we don't want him to get lost in the woods. We've learned the hard way that calling him from afar can sometimes backfire because the echo of our voices throws him off. Plus, our walk was headed towards the area that we last year the coyotes, and we certainly don't want Tyson to be lured off to his impending doom.
Lets see if you can spot Tyson in the next couple of photos. The first couple are easy.
Tyson, in his spiffy bright orange jacket, so we can see him in the woods.
This picture shows about how much snow was left in the shady areas.
What a happy puppy. Tyson is wondering why we aren't keeping up with his pace.
Ok - here's a good one. Where's Tyson? 😁 His dang pink tongue is always out.
We were unsuccessful in finding any boundary, but we did find some other interesting things. We noticed there were a good few large'ish trees that had fallen, and we wondered why. Then we saw inside the snapped trunk and became even more curious.
I received the opinion of a few people on what might have caused this damage. Opinions ranged from straight-line winds and carpenter ants, to something called Heart Rot. Heart Rot is a slow-growing fungus that rots out the center of the tree while the young'ish tree continues to grows around it, fungus unseen. Heart Rot weakens trees, obviously, and can cause them to break and fall more easily. The former owner felled a few trees and we noticed what we thought to be a mysterious hole in the center of the trees, with solid outer rings. Unfortunately, I think Heart Rot might be a good guess, especially with all of the fungus we see growing throughout our young forest. Once the nicer weather gets here, we're going to contact our Forester and a regional biologist for their opinion.
More interesting finds - scat! We've read that you should pick through the excrement with a stick to see what it contains because that will give you an idea of what animal dropped a deuce. R did the picking...
Viewer discretion is advised. Please avert your eyes from the next picture if you are susceptible to a queasy stomach.
I know for sure the small pebble-like droppings are deer. I'm thinking the top right and bottom right may be bear, though we haven't seen any bear on our trail cameras. I'm not sure what the left two are. The bottom left looks like it could be bobcat? 🤷
While we had our eyes open for additional piles of scat, we saw Tyson just off the trail in the woods and he scratched at something. We hollered his name and he stopped to look at us (good boi). Hurrying over to his location, I looked down and gasped aloud. (Viewer Discretion is Advised).
Take a minute to look at this picture. Zoom in a bit, if you will.
WHAT. THE. HELL.
I have a....an issue with snakes. I don't care for them, as much as I value their place in the ecosystem. As I was crouching down for this picture, I was tensed, expecting them to leap up at me out of their dead state. I had to keep reminding myself that they were dead as a door nail, and I was not going to be harmed. 😅 A close friend pointed out that the top, knotted snake's exposed muscle from the beheading is still pink. This means it must have been a fairly fresh kill. Whatever it was, it's lunch may have been disturbed by the three of us traipsing through the woods! WHAAAAT. We leave it be and head back to the cabin.
On our way back to the cabin, we walked down the main trail that bisects our land. There are ditches alongside the trails to divert water from the thaw. The trickling water is such a pretty sound.. (wait for it...)
Oh! We finally were able to check our trail camera. We hadn't checked it since December 2, 2018. Much to my chagrin, I forgot to delete some files off of the SD card, and so the camera was only functioning until mid-February. Bummer. But we did capture a few woodland creatures on video!
The first is a grouse, which is a bird that looks like a basketball with a head. Willow and I have seen these in the woods.
Next comes the first sighting of a fox.
Lastly is another video of a bobcat. I'm wondering if we have two bobcats, because they look different sizes. I've read that male bobcats often have one or two females within their territory.
It's amazing how silence can seem deafening, even amidst the soft rustling of the already partially transitioned autumn leaves. This is my absolute favorite time of year.🍁♥ Whenever I step outside the cabin, I always take a few seconds to stand and listen to the forest. "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" I understand this is meant to be a philosophical question, but I whenever I hear it, I always think to myself, "of course it does". Each tree, twig, leaf, and living being all make sounds within the forest, whether by their own volition or by the power of that lovely light breeze sweeping through the woods, so why not take a few moments to listen to those sounds and get acclimated with them? In doing so, I can learn to identify the sound of an approaching animal or person when I hear slight sounds that are out of place from the norm. It's a comfort having Tyson and Willow with us at camp for many reasons, and every once in a while Tyson will earn his keep by standing at attention while looking off into the woods, emitting a few deep "woofs" of warning to whatever lie beyond our sight that he feels is in need of attention. And though Willow is not allowed to wander the land, she keeps watch from the cabin. I think I need to expand her catio soon. The window screen placed in front of the open door won't keep her at bay for much longer. Love that tail... It's always going.
Willow is observing R working in the yard
One project on our list was to dismantle the a-frame tent we constructed for winter camping. It only consisted of 2x4s and heavy plastic poly, but we stayed warm [enough in 4℉!] with the small wood stove heating the tent. Mission accomplished! It feels good getting things accomplished. Sometimes it seems like there is always an obstacle standing between you and your ultimate goal.
R enjoys getting some sun while disassembling our winter accommodations
In the midst of disassembling the a-frame, we also disassembled some spider webs. ::shivers:: I'm overcoming many fears, and spiders is one of them. I have a hard time looking at pictures of them, never mind nearly walking through their web! It was nearly painful scrolling through pictures online as I tried to identify our creepy neighbors...
Marbled Orb Weaver
Even in the cabin, the spiders move back in quickly...
We try our best not to kill the spiders we encounter. Despite the horror I feel when I see one, I appreciate their worth. They just need to please stay out of the cabin... In addition to spiders, there are also other lovely creepy crawlies that are thriving this summer.
Cicada shell
Hickory Tussock Caterpillar
Nope Rope
Ants
creepies that sting...
slug
We hadn't been down to the river in a while, so R wanted to make the short hike down there to try and see how deep it actually is (again...his last attempt was not a success). It's a minor south shore tributary of a nearby 6,000-acre lake. Unfortunately, I didn't take as many pictures of the water as I would have liked; just a few of the magical forest heading down there.. I love this forest and can't wait to explore the rest of the land. The canoe was left behind by the prior owner and has seen many better days. Probably we'll bring our own canoe up to camp. It was a little bit of work getting the canoe out to the water, but we did it. We had to trudge through about thirty-feet of waist-height grass before it opened up to the smooth water of the small river. R had a six-foot long stick that he used to estimate the depth. The edge was a couple of feet deep, but then dropped past the six-foot mark of the stick. Plenty deep enough to canoe and fish in! Even as R was sitting there in the canoe, he saw little fish gathering around. Next time we visit camp we'll bring a couple oars so we can explore the river a little more. Mental Note: I will have to remember our Go-Pro camera and set it up on the canoe.
Once we made our way back up to camp, Tyson was exhausted from swimming. He would swim until he died, I think, if we didn't put some sense into his actions. Good thing Willow is up to the job of watching the camp while Tyson sleeps at night. #careof vitamins offer challenges or meaningful quotes on their daily packets of customized vitamins. I grabbed a couple packets randomly as I was packing before our couple-day trip, and smiled when I read that day's challenge.
#unplugging
#attackcat
Probably I've already mentioned this, but when we arrive each time at camp, we grab the SIM card out of our trail camera that is situated at the end of our driveway on the trail leading in to camp to see what has been around the last couple of weeks while we were away. This time was no disappointment! We have a freaking caravan of animals traipsing by our driveway at all hours. Here are a few of our visitors! Check out the Photo Album for moar trail cam videos!
This blog entry is the combination of a couple of visits; I promise I'll update more regularly! 😊 Thanks for following! Don't forget to check out the new Black Birch Acres Facebook page! There is some parallel information between the two, but there is also a bit extra posted there.
As I've mentioned before, it's a long ride to camp (4.5-6 hours) so I start saying key phrases to Willow (e.g. go pee pees, want to go for a RIDE in the TRUCK to CAMP in MAINE, and we'll leave when Daddy gets home) (repetition=training) a few hours before we leave to give her a heads up and I will encourage her to use the litter box. Being a dog, Tyson needs very little notice or encouragement to get excited for a ride in the truck. 😆 I can't remember if I've already gone over this, but for Willow I have a 13x10 Tupperware container with a lid that she uses as a travel litter box (thankfully she's a small cat, otherwise it might not work so well), or she just gets out of the truck on her leashed harness with me when we get gas and does her duty in the leaves/mulch. Then, when it's almost time to go, I'll show Willow her harness. She perks up and starts hanging around out in the open while we get ready. Cracks me up! I never force her to come with us because I want to make sure this is her adventure too, and not just for our enjoyment. She never fails to come out from whenever she is and sits patiently while I put her harness on her and then waits by the door. Or in this case, sits and waits in her bed that we're bringing 😹 I can't get over her sweet little face.
Our little Sonny Boy (he recently turned 1 year), on the other hand, is catching on to the code words too and, not liking it when we leave for a couple days, took his frustrations out on a piece of paper I had left on the bed. I think I even see a little blep of his little pink tongue, possibly mocking me! Fresh! Oh Sonny Boy. Someday you'll be brave enough for an adventure. 😻 You're still a good bit skittish, though ❤️
Sometimes it's hard to stay awake driving that late, but R & I switch off and nap if necessary. We got to camp around 1:00 a.m. I've been driving the second shifts (after the halfway point of Kennebunk) since R wakes up at 3:30am for work in the construction field that day. Since we hadn't yet finished buttoning up the cabin so Willow remains contained during the night while we're asleep, we've still been sleeping in the dated, small camper the former owner left behind - a 1987 Sunline Satellite. Who knows how long it's been sitting there. It keeps us dry and it's decent enough inside, but it's far from ideal. Pretty soon we'll be in the cabin. We're almost done with the soffits.
Of course, a camper left unattended for a couple weeks at a time in the middle of the forest is likely to have some small wilderness occupants. 🐁🐁 We hadn't been bothered by anything while in the camper so far. When we first bought the place last December, we cleaned out the mouse nests we could find and sanitized the surfaces before we starting sleeping in there. As an added bonus, we have Willow eagerly on camper security detail. Truth be told, I think this is her favorite part of the whole weekend.
Channeling her ancestral barn cat lineage from northern Vermont, she caught two of the resident mice soon after we arrived. I was bringing supplies in from the truck and, in the light of my headlamp, thought I saw something in her mouth as she ran to the other end of the camper. She brought the damn thing right on to our freaking bed! So I had to scoop it up in an empty small trash bin that was nearby. Unabashedly I admit that I screamed "like a girl" when I tried to be brave and pick the little mouse up by its tail in a quick attempt to save it from any harm done by Willow's razor claws as it then curled up and started for my hand... and Husband says - let her have it! But I don't want blood and gore all over our bed, thank you. I'm ready for bed at this point and that's not something I wanted to deal with. The small mouse couldn't climb out of the bin, so I took the little guy, apparently unharmed, outside and put him at the edge of the woods. Probably he'll be back... 🙄
The second one was a couple hours later around 3:00 AM after I finally fell asleep (or was it the same one having returned...? 🤔) I felt a *POUNCE* on my feet and I leapt up, startled! Another damn mouse! I cry out Willow's name as I see her in my headlamp light with the mouse in her mouth and she growled at me! "Not taking another one from me Mum!!!" I try to wake Husband but he's dead to the world. I don't want to rouse the dog and get him excited in the tiny camper, and the door is located PAST the dog. I sit for a moment, unsure how to handle the situation...! Willow has the mouse trapped in a tiny cubby-hole (campers have tiny cubbys, inner compartments and all manner of small spaces inside the walls), and every time the mouse tries to crawl out she snatches it back up and into the cubby. I heard it scurrying around in there, it squeaked once, she'd bap at it with her paw like she's trying to stun it...silence...a quick scurry, and Willow SMASHES her body into the side of the cubby! *SLAM* I jumped! 😅 There was a small space at the top of the interior wall that the mouse could fit through that Willow could not! 😹Willow was so mad.
🐁 - 1
🐈 - 0
I promptly passed back out until the next morning around 7am. Husband had no clue what had gone on. To my chagrin, I heard rain pattering on the roof of the camper. We'd been lucky so far with the weather. It had been mostly good for all of our visits.
So, when life gives you rain but you still have to get stuff done in the limited time available and you don't have a rain coat, make a poncho out of trash bags! As you can see, we are just starting our day in the picture below. My hair was even still a bit dry in this picture. At first it was fine - dance in the rain, right? Embrace what Mother Nature is offering us.
So.Much.Rain. 💦 You can only stay soaked and positive for so long. 😆 After a while, everything is soaked to the core, cutting lumber is more difficult, can't get the tools too wet, clothes are suctioned to your body, eyes burning from sweaty rain running down from off of your forehead, blurry/foggy glasses, on ladders against the outside cabin wall holding wicked heavy planks above our heads with rain pouring down our backs from off of the roof as we try to install a soffit, nail gun misfires.. holding.. holding... too heavy, look out, let it drop...
Just the other day I said to R that this is a never-ending life we are headed towards. There will forever be work to do, forever be wood to cut, forever be a project, eventually animals, crops, maybe a business... But working your ass off to survive is so rewarding for us. It feels right. We don't want to work for someone else to ear money to pay bills to buy more STUFF. We feel...our SOULS feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off our shoulders when we're there, working towards that never-ending future. HOPE springs forth and gives us the motivation to make it through the mundane work day, knowing what we have to look forward to. THAT'S what everyone needs to find in life. Something that inspires you, that you look forward to. Whatever it may be - pets, children, gardening, ANYTHING! Sometimes if you open yourself to the endless possibilities, that thing might be out of the box of normality, and that's ok. Just like some believe the heart doesn't choose who it loves, I don't think you can choose where your passion lies. FIND YOUR PASSION!
ahem. 😄 Speaking of passions, we like to find ways to reuse items. The former owner left behind some trash, but he also left behind some things that we can reuse - like the pile of dirty tongue-and-groove flooring. Clean it up a bit, let it bake in the sun for a while to dry out - good as new! 😁 So now we'll use it to close the open gable. When the cabin collapsed long ago, apparently the gable hadn't been re-assembled yet. It also needed to be reinforced because it was not structurally sound... My father was kind enough to let us borrow his battery operated circular saw since we don't have any electricity. We have a generator that we could bring with us, but it won't power an electric circular saw because the initial electrical draw of the saw is too great. Our Toyota Tacoma has an electrical outlet in the bed that we can hook up a sawzall to, but sometimes it's awkward for me.
Willow came in to the cabin for the first time. She was a little overwhelmed, but did really well overall. I'm going to have to transfer her catio to one of the cabin windows (I designed it so it should be relatively simple).
Having changed into dry clothes, we figured we'd stay dry by taking a slow trail ride in our truck and do some more exploring of the local area. The 2 mile trail into camp is quite nice when you're not rushing in at one in the morning. Willow loves the rain, and really enjoys trail rides, too. We're backing slowly out of our driveway in this video.
Willow was so exhausted from an exciting weekend filled with mice and exploring that she totally conked out on the ride home. Blep!
The following weekend...
....that we make the trek to camp (we've visited every other weekend pretty regularly) was very productive. So productive, in fact, that I failed to take any pictures! When we arrived (another 1:00 a.m. arrival), I heard R's concerned voice about the sound of a rodent chewing on something inside the wall of the camper. It didn't even startle when he knocked hard on the wall... We had to get out of there and into the cabin ASAP. Ugh. No thank you. I don't want to sleep in that camper anymore.
Soooo finish buttoning up the cabin we did! We were able to sleep in the cabin for the first time! HOORAY! A wonderful milestone! We built a loft for our bed, and I built some "rustic" stairs 😂 to climb up to the loft. I'll take pictures of the cabin interior next time. We're so excited for the next weekend because it's Labor Day and we're taking that Friday off so we can have an extra day at camp.
While I didn't take many pictures during our last visit, our trial camera was rolling while we were gone. We move it every time to see what we get in different areas and this is the first time we had it on the trail at the end of the driveway. The trail bisects our land, and the driveway you see in the video is ours. Our land extends to the left in the video frame. I had switched the trail camera from picture mode to video mode after seeing some videos on a couple of Trail Camera Facebook pages. Boy I'm glad I did! We caught a glimpse of a raccoon that we've seen around before, but also saw video of a neighbor we did not expect to see. We had to pick ourselves up off of the flor after seeing this!
Oh. You know. Just a HUGE FREAKING BOBCAT taking a stroll down our road like it owns the place! Tyson will be kept especially close in the morning and evening now. Freaking "Feline Ninja Jiu Jitsu Master" more than likely watching us from the darkness of the thick woods this whole time without us ever seeing him...!
Pick your jaw up off the floor. I know. Crazy. We can't get over it, and it increases our night time paranoia just a tad. However, just like this bobcat is moving forward, probably to his next meal or doing a territory perimeter check, my piece of chocolate kindly reminded me that...
