Trailcam at the Sandcastle

It has been a learning curve getting the hang of the trail cam with cellphone connection.

Setting the sensitivity, placing the camera in the best location and learning the other settings has taken some time.

Now to get the animals to pose a bit better.

Two butts.

The shadow of a black bear

Side eye from a nice sized buck.

Bluejays, but I get a few squirrels in this spot as well.

Traffic on Sand Road.
 I see lights like this around similar times fairly often, but I have turned down the sensitivity to cut down on photos of traffic on the road.

My next trip up there, I will add a steel case and move the camera slightly to aim away from the road.  It is fun to see the photos of wildlife.  I think it might be real interesting in the winter months too.

The view is changing out my living room window. 

Sunday morning was misty and showing a good start on fall color.

 I love these cooler temps. I did turn on the furnace, 

but the gas fireplace keeps the chill off in the house. 

So far.

More Ruby Volleyball

 On Thursday, 9/8/22, it worked out that Ruby played at Frederic at 4:30pm and Stella played at Luck at 7pm, so I was able to see both girls play.

Ruby's team is improving all the time but losing is hard, for sure.

Personally, I don't care what is on the scoreboard, especially at this age, as long as the kids have fun, do their best and display good sportsmanship.

Here are some photos of Ruby.

I knew she knew that I was zoomed in on her. Finally got her to sneak a look.

Jude is a good fan, he was traveling between to the two gyms to see both the 7th graders and the 8th graders play volleyball.

More Stella Volleyball

 2022 09 08 Frederic at Luck Varsity VB Games 

Here are the rest of the photos from the 5 game match between Luck & Frederic. 

Great niece Stella Johansen is #2. 

An exciting night in the Luck Gym, the crowd was loud and the play was intense. 

Of course, we wish our Cardinals could have prevailed, but no shame to lose this one, it was well played on both sides of the net.

It was a great match for these two school districts that are about 8 miles apart.

Many of the kids play sports together through the year as the track team, baseball team and a few other sports teams are a partnership of students from both schools.

Stella and Volleyball

 Just a few photos from the Frederic at Luck match from last Thursday.  The teams were evenly matched and the win came down to the 5th game in a heart stopper.

These photos are from game 1.

Stella is one of the team captains.

It was an exciting night, more photos to come.

Jude

 

Jude  is sporting a new watch.  

He was showing it off in the gym the other night.  

He was explaining to me that he can tell the time and the date. 

He has grown up. 

He's such a sports fan,  

always hanging with the high school kids on the bleachers

Grapes are slow I guess

 I planted the concord grape vine in 2012.

First cluster of grapes appear in 2022.

They are beautiful,  worth the wait.

A saga of worry

Between the concession stand & my car, I lost my wallet at the Luck gym Thursday night. 

Hoping it turns up.🤞

I suspect it fell out of my camera bag on the bleachers, but I'm not sure.   I know I had it to buy popcorn when I arrived at the school. 

I have talked to the school and am hoping for good news.

If not,  I will be having a pretty interesting (crappy) day.

By way of background... it was like a sauna in the gym Thursday night.  I left right after the game, desperately wanting to find some cool air outside of the gym.   I had a craving for an icy drink so decided to stop at Kwiktrip in Cumberland for gasoline & a frozen lemonade.   Kwiktrip is 100% pay at the pump, or prepay, so after parking at the pump,  I started looking for my credit card.  This is when I realized that my wallet was missing.  I quickly realized I had lost it back at the gym. Then, I started looking for another credit card in my purse,  but there was neither credit card nor cash.  I had $8 in my pocket.   That's it.  

So,  I headed for home to have a sleepless night trying to remember exactly when I last saw my wallet & trying also to remember what exactly was in that wallet...  drivers license,  credit cards, debit card,  checkbook, etc. 

Friday morning

👏👏👏

It is found! Yay LHS!  Heading to Luck now to retrieve it!

Seems like I was more worried about my popcorn than putting my wallet away. Duh!

So, the boys basketball team was running the concessions, my wallet was just as I left it, I am thankful for their integrity & to their coach Josh for getting the wallet to the office for me Friday morning.   And to everyone who tried to help & who shared in my worry, thx.  Kyle emailed teachers/coaches & Facebook friends were empathetic to my situation. 

Crisis averted and I had a good day in Luck. Picked up my wallet from the very friendly & concerned school office staff, met my SIL for lunch and long chat,  then stopped by Bruce's to drop of jug of ice melt as thank you for his cemetery tending, and then finally drove home.  I stopped in Cumberland to buy the gas I needed the night before, but I skipped the frozen lemonade.

I'll be making some changes to how much I carry in my wallet and take some photos for inventory recording.  I would never have remembered some of the important items that I carry.

All is well that ends well.❤️

Ruby, 8th Grade Volleyball

 It is no secret that Ruby has fun when she's playing sports.  

I hope she never loses that.  

It makes it so fun to watch her play.

Here are a few photos from her game on Thursday versus Siren at Luck.  I sat with Great Aunt Lois and we had a nice chat while watching Ruby and her team play.  

I love this girl.

Looking forward to next week when I get to see her play again.

Road Trip to the Sandcastle

 Wednesday was a hot summer day and I had nothing on my calendar.  I had purchased a trail cam for our Sandcastle cabin and wanted to get it set up at the cabin.  I also was interested in a little time on the beach at Wisconsin Point, since the cabin is about 1/2 way to Lake Superior, I had a plan.

First stop, the cabin.

I was happy to discover that the signal to the cell tower was plenty strong for the camera, this was an unknown until the moment that I turned on the power.  Yay.  Now the camera will capture photos of motion and send the photos to my cell phone via the Tactacam app.  I positioned the camera just off the driveway about 10 feet into the woods.  

I was pleased and continued on my trip North.

I was about 15 miles North when nephew Ryan called me.  I had sent him my sample photo.  He was concerned that the camera was going to pick up the movement of the leaves and ferns that are in the view of the trailcam.  I was assuming that the camera would only pick up heat & movement, but that is not the case.  By the time I got to Lake Superior, I had received 40 photos of leaves & ferns moving in the breeze.

I had my beach time and noodled on what to do.  There really was no option, I had to go back to the cabin and relocate the trailcam.  Google got creative in the tracking of my trip, as I took the exact same route both coming and going.

Third stop:  Sandcastle cabin

Initially, I had thought it was good to camouflage the camera by placing it partially in the woods but since I could not trim the whole forest to give it a clean view, now I decided 'in plain sight' was the better location.  I'm not too worried about theft, I would have a photo of the thief & the camera has it's own GPS, so I could locate it if removed from the cabin.  So, now it has a clean view.  One problem is that it can see to far, but luckily the traffic on Sand Road is very minimal.  I'll have to think about how to avoid getting photos of cars on the road.

It is a pretty spot and a charming cabin.

I stopped by Craig  & MaryJo's on my way back to the highway.  Always nice to share a cold beer with friends. 

It was a fun road trip. 

Now I am getting a few squirrel photos and a few birds who perch on the post, but I am also getting a few deer.  Yay, mission accomplished.

The photos are not very high resolution, but you get the idea.

Last night I saw that it was 37 degrees.  Fall is coming.

I'm looking forward to seeing the seasons change up there and maybe we will have more visitors than just deer.  I am hoping for a wolf or other interesting forest dwellers.

I got caught up in the fun of these photos and ordered 2 more cameras so we can look behind the cabin and to side as well.  Now I'm smarter about where to put them, so installing them will be easy peasy.