Willow Spring Pics and the Promised Natural Dye Pics too!

Okay, so I checked my trail camera today and it was a good thing I did. I set it down by a little wetland area I call Willow Spring, near a bunch of overgrown apple trees and overgrown pasture land. This place is thick with brush, grasses, shrubbery and dead trees. There is a lot of browse and food around, and lots of cover for all sorts of animals. My camera caught pics of red squirrels, eastern cottontails and chipmunks but no birds this time around. I also got a pic of the resident porcupine, a skunk and a ton of raccoons! There are tons of them, mostly a pair that seem to be brother and sister, and once in a while, there are three of them running around.

They all seem very healthy, and it is nice to see them around, because the raccoon population got hit really hard about 10 years ago when the rabies epidemic moved through the area. We had a few rabid raccoons move through camp at that time, and we had to make sure none of the campers got anywhere near them. Then, after the wave of disease passed, we saw hardly any raccoons around our camp for many years.

So, it is good to see them back! I am also sure that they are hitting our compost pile hard during the summer season, and searching the bushes for crusts of sandwich and apple cores.

The skunk and porcupine didn't stick around long as they passed through the area, so I am thinking they are finding a lot of food and aren't all that hungry to sample the fallen apples.

The deer stayed for a long time, and I had about fifteen pictures in different stages of eating, sniffing, scratching and looking around. I was surprised that there weren't more deer running around in the area than just this one, but I guess they aren't using this trail.

Next week I will post more pics and I am moving my camera to another spot, so we will see if I can get a picture of a coyote, or a fisher or maybe the bobcats rolling through. I will probably pick up a road kill of some kind to see if that will attract some different animals. Meat, especially decomposing meat, will bring in crows, hawks, opossums and other scavengers. We might even see a bear!

Right now, the forest and swamps are chock full of berries, hawthorne apples, wild apples, acorns, hickory nuts, beech nuts and lots of other seeds and foods. It hasn't been that cold yet, so the need to pack on the calories hasn't kicked in just yet, but it will happen.

Getting good pictures starts with scouting the trails, to see which ones are being used by game and finding food sources, too. I have a lot of timberframing to do for the next few months, but I will try to get out for a mid morning walk and see what I can see.

I am also adding some pics of Trista's wool, which she dyed last week. The colors came out beautiful, and she is going to make a sweater with it! More pics of that as she gets it started...

She used elderberries, goldenrod, onion, black walnut and purple asters, I think. They came out pretty nice, don't you think?

Willow Spring Trail Camera Pictures

I put my trail camera on a small elm tree overlooking a little wet spring to see what might come by. It's about 200 yards from my house, and the game trail is in an area that gets little human traffic. The whole area used to be pasture, along with some old heirloom apple trees that could have been an orchard a hundred years ago.

The red osier dogwood, black willows, sedge grasses, arrow wood viburnum and nannyberry provide excellent cover for all kinds of animals, as well as food, and there is plenty of water, too.

The trails of deer, foxes and other animals crisscross the region, and there seems to be food available during every season.

I didn't bait the area, so these pictures are all from animals moving around, in their natural environment, doing their thing.

The porcupine chews on plywood scraps inside our timber framing barn workshop, when he can get in.

We hear him gnawing in the woodshed or barn, and it is always fun to see how our students react to finding him with a flashlight at night!

One thing that is funny is that we don't really see the raccoons or hear them at our camp, even though they are clearly here and around us all of the time. Very few tracks, no problems, etc.

I hope to keep it that way! I am sure they get a chicken or two during the year, but you never can be sure it isn't the bobcat or a fox, either.

The bobcat is probably a large female who had two kittens last year. I saw the pair of them while bowhunting last year, chasing a rabbit. I first saw the rabbit, a small cottontail, stalking his way through the honeysuckle and hawthorne, and I couldn't figure out why he was stalking until he was out of sight. Then a few minutes later, I saw the young bobcat sniffing and following his trail. He never missed a step, and he would stop and sniff the air above his head to catch any other scents. He was followed shortly after by his twin, who seemed to be mostly checking up on the situation. Neither of them saw, heard or smelled me, perched in my tree stand about ten feet up. It was one of my favorite moments hunting last year.

Enjoy the pics. I have moved my camera to another area, and will keep moving it around and seeing what I get. I am hoping to get some pics of the coyotes, which have remained elusive so far, and also the fisher, the beavers, maybe a mink or two, and even the rare but present bear in the area.... I will post them as I check the camera every month or so.