No bears around for days since we 'loaded' for bear last week, and one of the bears got scared by the PBD 'pop'  



Here's a picture of the bear sniffing the string and he left... Then walked around the container and tripped the PBD...  Hasn't been back...






Here's the Adpro long range IR 'Curtain' sensor mounted...






There are 12 volt car door lock actuators that have a stroke of about 0.7 inches. They can be disassembled and the stroke increased to about 1 inch.

A 9v battery will operate them a couple times -and that may be all that's needed. I'm trying to operate a big 200 amp circuit breaker with one or two to use the breaker as a high current remote controlled switch/latching relay.

Useful for --well use your imagination...







More on this later in another thread...



SO going for a load of brush debris and running the skid steer like a professional construction worker...

The Adpro sensor will detect a human past the machine and to the edge of the clearing she made.






Must have run out of brush...  Usually the bucket is so full it's hard for her to see ahead...

A lot has happened in the past week+ that I'll try to get updated with pix... PBD's poppers set off a couple times...

Yesterday we weren't here, but the PIR sensor mentioned above alerted us something was going on at the barn. Logged into the PTZ cam and it was this bear.

Also, I found out a cat [I mean medium size cat] was nuisance tripping the PIR and I'll post abt it later.  Otherwise the PIR has been rather free of falsing...

Added two more Adpro PIR's on the container, pointing in strategic directions. Pix soon.


One of a series we got over a couple minutes of him playing around. The bears are fascinated by anything out of the ordinary... Have pix of him climbing the tree and trying to get the trap, but I put it on a dead limb and the bear was very wary not to risk itself...

After climbing the tree, still couldn't reach it, tried really hard, dancing around.






After climbing the tree, bear was really frustrated and look a leak in the driveway and got a tasty drink.  If it were a male bear, would it lift it's leg to pee?

That water is off the roof and has a TDS less than most of our RO water, about 4 or 5...






SO just called on the radio and said the bear has been biting pieces off the rubber Fernco that couples the barn roof drain to the underground pipe that comes up at the wash tub...

Time for some string and a PBD to discourage that... Maybe a micro switch with a trip paddle  and one of those actuators to push the PBD from the sleeve... Already have the actuator part built and tested...

Also suggests bear is hanging around close...

Or, it may be time for a modified version of the Tactical RTDL...


http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_10_17/661455_Tactical_RTDL_for_disorienting__misdirecting__confusing_Zombies__uses_X_band_microwave_sensor.html

From the nose color, I think this is the one who was watching my SO wash dishes through the screen door one night 2 weeks ago...









Bear was shaking the branches but not enough to break the dead one with the fly trap...




Crawled into different positions trying to reach the trap... He wants it SOOO bad...  

All he has to do is break off the dead limb...





Frustrated- so -take this!




I'll be back...

Last week due to call of nature, stepped out the back of the barn and there was the most outstanding specimen of a Bobcat I've ever seen... It had deep orange and black colorations, just outstanding.

It was walking with a dead rabbit in it's mouth in front of me and I was so stunned for a couple seconds I forgot I was armed and just stared at it as it walked down the dirt driveway and into the woods.


A few days earlier, there were some nuisance alerts from the Adpro PIR on the barn and each time I got the PTZ cam running nothing was there.

Then, in the evening just before dark, it alerted and I was already at the computer so I looked just in time to catch the behind and tail of [likely]  this bobcat going behind a small pine at the maximum range of the Adpro.

That explained that...



Last evening I stepped out back for the same reason and there was a fat squirrel near the generators looking for some wires to chew. The FN SLP was just inside the door from some testing and I quietly got it and stuck a low brass WalMart something or other in and fired at the squirrel on a rock where it moved and the shot hit a few inches low and may have got it but couldn't find it.

Interestingly the action cycled. This is with the modified piston I mentioned in another thread...

Couple more posts...

Those bug zappers referenced on the previous page or so, are superb!

I often leave the barn door open and the door to the highly insulated/lab/survival/general purpose room open also, and all day there's a POW/SNAP as one flying bug after another has their nasty parts blown off...

Sitting here now with the computer monitoring various sensors incl the Dakota "Alarm Zone 1" that's connected to the Adpro PIR. There's an Axis 213 with the expansion module with a microphone plugged into it and it relays all the sounds to a connected PC over the internet.

For some reason yesterday the flies were out in force and I closed up the room when we left.

Every little bit there's a satisfying SNAP over the speakers from the bug zapper.

If you haven't picked up one of these to try, I suggest you do.

We have one outside the container to distract the moths and bugs at night, and the flying critters during the day and it has made a big difference.


Was in the container yesterday morning and heard something on the screen door. One of those ground rats -we call them 'Squeekys' -had run up the screen. I opened the door and it ran down again. Last thing I want is them learning how to get on top of the container... The Pack Rats were bad enough...


3 days ago, sadly caught a rabbit in one of the heavy duty traps set near the fireplace just outside the container door, and a squeaky was taking bites out of the rabbit's stomach.

Slid the door open quietly, squeaky didn't even notice and got it with 870 20 ga.

Finally, to get caught up...


~2 weeks ago now the game cam photographed a bear snooping around the container but the PBD's never went off.

The pix are poor, don't know why, maybe the IR emitters are getting weak?  Batteries tested good IIRC...


What's interesting is the bear has learned something about the string. The 12 or so pix are so poor, I'll post 2, one of the bear getting ready to leave approaching a string and another picture  slipping under it.

The bears are 'brushodynamic' so branches and trees don't snag on their ears and stuff as they slip thru the woods...

I lowered the string...




saving -wait for pix

Can't find --will try later other places......

Found pictures...

One morning before daylight the bear was snooping around the container and I didn't have any sensors on. Got a bunch of poor pictures of it and the last were of it approaching the string...





And slipping under it... Remember the word Brushodynamic...

The bear quickly learned to defeat the string and PBD... String is right over the bear's back in this pix.

Now I've moved the string lower....





The next evening it was windy and early on one of the PBD's went off with a roar...

I went outside the container to see what was going on  ---to find that the wind had blown a piece of insulation we keep on the solar water box in the summer so as not to let it over heat...

The insulation blew against the string and set it off...

A couple days ago my SO stumbled upon a large buck that had bedded down about 10 feet off the path between the barn and container.

She's always curious and gets too close to animals and she said she drew her gun and watched it.

Then she came and told me...

I suggested she get some pictures but not get too close.  A deer can really mess you up...


She went back, took a pix and the deer slowly got up and left, not really afraid of her.

The evaporative water collection device for remote areas in a recent post is interesting and I'd like to share something we found on our property that is similar but all natural.

It's a  natural refrigerated area in a hidden ravine that I expect few white men have ever seen, and no one living knows about...  [Besides...]

It would have been a valuable resource for Indians...

The geology is interesting with a large flattish bowl ~several hundred yards across that collects rain and snow and the water percolates into the ground.

On the north side there is a sort of normally dry ravine where part of the "bowl" empties due to its slope, and the refrigerated area in a little further down the ravine.

There's a year round productive spring another few hundred yards or so past the refrigerated area.


Initially when we purchased the property, we were exploring high on the other side of the ravine [think of a small ravine maybe 10 feet average width across at the bottom ---of a much larger ravine [or a tiny 'valley']  The elevation difference from the high north side to the bottom of the ravine -I'm guessing, is about 100 feet]

It's difficult to get into the ravine due to the sheer walls and the danger of climbing down, but pretty easy at the beginning [the entrance is sort  of hidden] and at the west end about 1/3 mile away -guessing

There are some unusually large trees in the ravine valley near the middle and that's where the spring is. There's some sheer drop-offs in the ravine too...

When we explored the area a few times we could hear water if we listened with our ears cupped, but were scared because of animals and the difficulty to go down into it.

It didn't take long to find the best way to enter from the east upper end...  And we were surprised to find that not far in there was a quite cold area...


Water percolates into the ground from the 'bowl' and there is a sheer wall of what looks like bentonite that stays moist for about a 35 foot length of the little ravine.

West winds flow up the ravine and against the wall and are chilled.

I took a Hilti masonry drill and the longest bit I could rig up and an indoor outdoor  digital thermometer with a long probe, drilled the wall and measured the temperature about 40 inches inside. In July IIRC, it was about 45 degrees F.

The temperature on a 98 degree day was about 70 degrees in the ravine for about 50 feet.

The wall was noticeably moist to the touch. The wall was about 10 feet below the surface of the bowl, in the area we were testing...


We haven't visited the chiller for a couple years being occupied with other stuff around the barn and the springs on the east side cliff...

Interesting.  Have you posted about the chilled area before?  I have read of something similar somewhere (here, a book, don't remember) if not.

I may have because at the time we found it we were excited, but it would have been some time ago, just don't remember...

Yeah, it could have been up to 15 years ago.  Password issue with the first account.
45 degrees internal temperature on a 90 degree day with natural evaporative cooling is really impressive.
Dig a good box in, add an insulated door, and keep things cold with no power.

Ran across a website a week or so ago that I haven't been able to find the URL

There was a discussion of black bear hibernation and number of cubs born and survival of them.

The blacks go into hibernation earlier than I thought, but is consistent with when we hear them stop calling in the fall, about late October and early November IIRC. Always wondered about that. The wx is still pretty nice high in the mountains then.

We have yet to find a hibernation den that looks big enough for a bear. Fair number that have a 1+ foot approx. diam entrance and a 6" or so vent about 8 feet away. Don't know what lives in them.

IIRC, cub mortality approaches ~40%, and sometimes as many as three survive but I expect it's unusual. In the first pages of this topic there are pix of 2 cubs and the momma black bear and since then I don't recall getting pix of more than a mom and one young one...

The babies are born during hibernation. Also, hibernating bears may leave their den and move around for short periods of time. The young bears hang out with their momma for over a year getting trained to survive. I think the article said the bears don't reuse the dens they hibernate in.

Sometimes a male bear will kill the young so it has another opportunity to mate...

There was also mention about bears -in a different article IIRC, that the female will hang around terrain occupied by humans as a defense from males killing their young.

After we put the 'poppers' and strings out several months ago, the bears stopped coming around, but that may be because of their hibernation schedule. It'll be interesting to see what happens this year. We expect the bears to end hibernation abt the beginning of March.

There's a fair amount of snow on the ground now and it seems to be noticeably deeper at the barn than 500 feet below. I plowed the road yesterday with the mini-excavator and there's tracks everywhere of smaller animals and deer. The deer were in the flat below -about half a dozen or so. Why they don't go off the mtn to a bit warmer area is curious, altho the outside temp readout on the SUV often shows it's warmer at the barn/container than below. Sometimes at night there's a noticeable termp difference from the container to the barn, only ~150 yards apart.

Had a flock of turkeys come through a month ago based on tracks in a dusting of snow.  

The fancy highly directional and 450 foot range PIR sensor we installed on the barn is still working great and when it goes off there's usually an animal culprit.  The other day it went off, my SO was in the barn and the doors were closed and she peeked out and a big buck was standing there...

It's linked by a modified Dakota Alert to transmit the usual Dakota 'message' --to the container and any receiver close by. We can monitor it and other critical sensors over an audio link from an Axis camera anywhere we have an internet conx. Like here in the valley.

Finally found a high fidelity audio [only]  IP server made by Axis but is pricy at abt $300. Will keep using the camera solution until I can find one for less... I'd like to put a 30" parabolic antenna with a good microphone near the focal pt, on a rotator to monitor sounds not normally obvious, and link them all over on the net. Should get this partly done using an Axis camera audio input, this year. Reason for the Axis product is that their human interface/menuing is consistent, familiar and powerful.

Have a ton of pix of various stuff on a memory stick to load onto Photobucket and pick out ones to post.

All the huge piles of cuttings incl all the stuff from cutting the new road in are gone. My SO spent almost 4 weeks 'taking care' of it -I was amazed and the place looks great...

The new road mentioned a month or so ago makes getting to the barn without getting stuck in the snow well worth cutting it in.

Momentum --HAHA--  takes you the extra 30 feet to make SURE you're stuck... Seriously tho, momentum is useful to get you through a difficult area, like yesterday, I accelerated prior to going up a sun shaded hill to get to an area 50 feet or so where traction was better. One of the gates is necessarily installed at a place where there is a bit of slope and stopping to let my SO open the gate I usually can't get traction so have to back up 100 feet or so to recover traction and then use the 'momentum' to go through. Then get stuck on the other side again, and SO has to reopen the gate to back down through...

There's a website that gives balloon sounding data and this time of year for about 2 months there are frequent temperature inversions from the mtn to the valley and it can be 10 degrees warmer at the container for a week or 2 at a time. I usually check the temps in the mtn with various IP methods, cameras, etc., vs. reported valley temps to gage any inversions.


.

dupe

someday I will figger this new site out...

Which brand Quonset do you like?
Maybe I missed the thread...is it spray insulated?

Sorry for the delay responding...

Ours isn't spray insulated but many folks do it...

The reasoning it isn't insulated, ---and I did buy the insulation kit   --then sold it for about 1/2 what it cost, the storage space it took was enormous...

And was THANKFUL a young fellow and his wife seized the opportunity




I did the analysis where the barn is located---  in the mountains it doesn't get too hot for too long for too many weeks, during the worst part of the days.

We installed high end commercial 'roll up doors', a 10 x 10 on one end and a 12 x 12 on the other.  I can open them and get a great breeze thru the building and the radiant heat from the curved metal structure never seemed too great.


On the other hand, in the winter, when the sun is shining, the heat up high in the building may get 20F higher than the outside ambient.


I've usually installed decent sized fans high up in large open buildings, that always were insulated and heated, to blow heat down in the winter.


So I thought about the Quonset barn and installed a good sized Dayton commercial fan I had left over in the ceiling and it runs of the solar system and I have it controlled on/off over the network.

It has really made a difference and helps keep the inside comfortable when it's cold and the sun is shining. Actually though, we don't need to use it much.

This winter has been a lot milder this year [Androgenetic Global Warming]

So, there hasn't been as much snow as usual.  A month ago there were lots of deer in the flat below, and smaller animal tracks.

There's been snow, but not as much at one time as we're used to seeing.


We've got stuck several times including abt two weeks ago when there was a warming trend and the underneath area of the snow was more like ice and the SUV slide to the side into some snow buildup where I plowed.


What was interesting and that someone might benefit from is, either I or my SO turned the wheels hard left and either tried to back up or go forward...

[When stuck, usually try to keep wheels in the direction of least drag to increase the chance of getting out]


But with the wheels hard left, I shut off the engine and put it in park.


We got the excavator out and chained to the vehicle and my SO tried to start the engine and couldn't get the gear out of park because the steering wheel wouldn't move in the snow to release the interlock system.


So I had to pull it a little with the wheels locked and turned crooked in some deep snow...  Fearing something might bend or break.

Pulling -the mini-ex slid, the tracks slipped, so I put the blade down,  --and used the stick to effortlessly pull the vehicle. Rinse and repeat.


Excavators are great for plowing snow and retrieving vehicles, [for us]  because they have most everything needed for self recovery [the bucket, stick and boom, and the blade, plus independent drive to each track]

Only bad thing is they're sort of slow, even with a 'sort of lower torque' higher 'gear' 'RABBIT button on the Kubota's]  [ a different flow rate from the hydraulic pump driving each track hydraulic motor]


Yesterday, on the PTZ cams, took a look from down here and saw a fresh rabbit track and a tracks from a tiny animal, not much bigger than a mouse. Wish I knew what it is.

The bears are still sleeping, getting a good rest, for all the food gathering, growling,  and breeding they'll be doing in about a month and 1/2...

Great updates!

If the icy patch isn't too long a little sand/cat littler/rock salt goes a long way.  Spread a gallon or so over 50 feet of tire path.

Bump for Spring update.

We've been watching for bear prints and haven't seen any as recently as a week ago.


I'm surprised but maybe shouldn't be because there doesn't seem to be anything for them to eat except other critters...

And US!



I told my SO last week to be very careful.


My SO saw some of the rocks lining the roads messed up, and the bears do this when looking for insects, but I messed up these plowing snow.


We spent a few days last week regrading the road with the excavator to level it better especially in the area a few 100 yds before the barn and in the pics above where we slid down into plowed snow and had to use the mini-ex to get out. Twice.

Hopefully this is resolved, we moved a lot of dirt.


As soon as we see bear activity, I'll update.  Lot's of other animals out last week, elk, deer, the damn ground squirrels, some insects, a few flies.

2 days ago the IR long-range alarm went off [see description above] -we were monitoring it while we're rebuilding the differential in the BOV, and I hustled to the computer and saw a deer at the maximum range way out in the last line of trees in the pic. Amazing sensor...

In the past week or so, there was bad wx hail and the alarm rejected all the interference.

Then the alarm went off several times and I couldn't see what was doing it and with the Axis PTZ, I can see the whole area in great detail... Wonder what it was...

The camera is an Axis Q6115-E and I could trigger it with the various sensors, it can be programmed to go to a specific view.


Oh, my SO saw some skinny waste, maybe a fox or bobcat...  Nothing on the barn trail cam.

Just got up here, ---this morning down there below, I heard the 100 yard IR sensor go off and I was near a computer just in time to see ---a big deer cross the new road we put in...

I don't know why...

Actually 2 and I got a snapshot close up.


Then when we got here my SO was outside the vehicle and maybe the same one ran past her...


The best thing is we saw the first bear tracks!



Hauled up 3 Hot Water Heaters that still have the outside enclosure on them and we're going to put them in the woods somewhere out of the way to free up space below.

Saw the first bears today...

We were working on 2 CNC machines we got recently and heard the narrow beam long distance IR sensor go off over the internet.

Logged onto the high res PTZ cam that can overlook the road we put in last year that there's pix of earlier in this thread...

In the area of the big galvanized trash can we route water into from the left side of the barn...


And saw a BIG solid black Mama Bear and a little tiny Baby Bear.



They were getting a drink from the trash can and the cub was crawling all over it and it's mom.

After a bit, they wandered closer to the barn and the cub can run pretty fast, snooping around. They hung out for a couple minutes in the area and disappeared.

Judging from some round tiles that are IIRC, 12 inches in diameter, that are over by the area we store some metal, the cub is just a baby, not much bigger in a bird's eye view than the tiles.

The cub went back to the can and crawled right up on it, thankfully it didn't fall in.


Got some great high res snap-shots and I'll post some... Got some video too...


Wonder what they are eating this early in the year?

The family saw bears on our property for the first time in four years as well.  Mom and two cubs hustling towards the back of the property where it is wooded.  Wife and kids were eating breakfast and saw them a few hundred feet from the house in a field.

Bear poop piles in the fall told us they were around eating the pin cherries and apples, but we hadn't seen one before.

We enjoy the bears but they usually make themselves scarce, maybe just hiding in the bushes ---

Watching...

We hear them making their various bear sounds a lot starting in the summer. Including loud 'pops' that sound like a gunshot not far away, when they are 'anxious'.


I reviewed the video and pictures, and the baby is a lot bigger than I thought. Imagine a full sized old fashioned galvanized garbage can, and the 'baby' when standing up is considerably taller than the can.


I've got one of the 'poppers' out to protect the container toileting system, and as of this afternoon, it hasn't been tripped.

We had another chance to watch the little bear climb into the trash can for a drink 2 weeks or so ago...  May have already mentioned it.  Got pix.

This past week, the bears attacked the skirt around the shipping container where I installed the basement vents.

Last fall they tore out the vent on the east side [see pix] and damaged the toileting system.


This time they poked around the same vent and set off the POPPER I mentioned a post or so ago.

LOL

It went off ---sadly my SO had a 32 Megabyte card in the game cam and it ran out of memory after 80 pix of us and some rabbits.

Missed the bear and popper action  

The popper went off so violently the aluminum sleeve the CO2 cartridge fits in, was broken off ---I'm finally understanding how to 'load' these things so they work right.


The bears did rip out the vent on the west side but that was easily fixed.

Something took a poop in the middle of our path between the container and barn... Might have been a bobcat or young lion.

They also got 2 of the fly traps I set out 2 weeks ago, one was chewed and couldn't be reused, the other one I couldn't find...

Here's the latest 'baby bear' pix...








That isn't a shadow behind the momma bear...

Re-graded the new driveway this year after getting stuck repeatedly this winter because it sloped to the right and we slid into plowed snow.




What a great pillow he would make...  






Not sure which end this is of the little bear...








Momma never gets the little bear too far out of her sight...

The little bear scampers all over though...


Probably a month+ out of hibernation...


See the 'toileting thread' for latest bear pix.

Heard the bears 'calling' for the first time last night...

All of the replacement fly traps have disappeared...

These pix and story are from the "toileting thread" from about a week ago...


Bear got close to tearing up toileting system a week or so ago...

Over-watch popper was deployed...

Days latter popper activated. Toileting system not disturbed.  

Bear likely was...



Camera ran out of memory and didn't take action...  32 meg card...




Popper rebuilt and redeployed...

Latest pix---



Sneaky bear watching to see if we're home...







Crossing trip string....




Approaching toileting system behind shipping container skirt...




Bear sniffed vent that is their first target and then the following pictures show it wandering off...

Just got here, and the popper was deployed but the camera results are once more disappointing...

Same bear and I'm going down right now to see if the CO2 went off or not.

My SO called and said she can't find it and one of the electronic mouse traps has disappeared from under the steps area in front of the shipping container...




Good news is -so far looks like nothing has been damaged.

Had supper and looked things over again...

My SO found the electronic rat zapper about a 100 feet away at the edge of the bushes. I put a piece of Gorilla tape, with a remove tab on the back end where there are some mouse sized holes, to force them to come inside from the business end. I found the piece of tape with teeth holes in it and the trap's plastic housing showed some scratches...


I haven't found the popper but the string I tied to it's handle still has a small loop w/ a double half-hitch knot in it...


Now for the disappointment...

Look at the pix and note the times...  There are many pix over the 6 minute time-frame and I'm only showing a few.





I figure this is the same bear as last week based on his champaign color and 'boots and shoes'





Bear came back from same direction as before...

This is the last recorded pix of the bear.  The string is still deployed...




This last pix is from a couple hours ago when my SO pulled the card. The popper has been activated.




It's a mystery to us how the popper got activated with no picture of anything disturbing it.

The CO2 most likely vented and popped the housing since the assembly is nowhere to be found, and it's likely within a 50 foot radius.




Bear looks like he hasn't had enough to eat and maybe turned loose by the mother last year... Yet it looks pretty happy...


Regarding the tiny baby bear in the pictures a few posts above, we haven't seen it.

Didn't hear bear sounds this evening either...

There's a partial moon out tonight so if something alarms, I have a good chance of getting picture.

Not going to put out another popper this PM, those things aren't peanuts either...

Popper went off today... I checked it around lunchtime and it was GTG. Big black bear set it off she said..

My SO checked the game cam and found at least three different bears, a pair of foxes, a squirrel that was close to pulling the popper out of the tube and I don't know what else.

When we got here a lot of her rocks were pulled over, a definite sign the bears visited.

Pix when I get a memory stick and get them up on Photobucket.

Sounds like you're going to have quite a bit of visitors this year.  (That's part of the fun of living in the wilderness, though)  
Looking forward to the pics.  Stay safe!

Here's the popper with the 2 extra bridal strings attached to enhance coverage...




Blondie is back keeping a safe distance from the popper...




Getting braver




Fox showed up...




Two foxes!  Can't tell if this is a cub in training...





Blackie is back, can't tell if this is the Momma bear without her cub...

Can anyone look back and see if this one is big enough to be the Momma?

[Don't want to pre-bias, but the paws look too small and it looks like a lot younger bear...  Could it be the little brownish cub has gotten darker and bigger???]




Big mistake!

That's a new type of fly catcher I'm trying out and forgot to put it up high...




Popper set off...

Look at time line...

Also note fly catcher on ground...

The elevation from the stones to the [upper at the top of the skirt]  edge of the container at the corner of interest, is 24".

Momma bear and funny cub pix from weeks ago, for size reference...




There were pix of a squirrel and looked like it was getting ready to pull the popper from the tube...

It didn't and my SO erased them... She goes thru a lot of pix saving the best ones...

She still needs to look at the cam's memory at the barn for more pix...

Bear struck again no more than a couple hours after we left the other day...

Like last year they seem to know when we leave...


This time some damage was done, it was one bear who seems to hang around when we aren't here and has a schedule...

I'm not sure yet if it's Blondie or a close relative...

I looked at the game cam pix and there's a lot and the popper went off...

Can't tell exactly when ---but the bear just sits there and looks around when I think it went off...


SO is pissed and I'm going to have to deploy some more deterrents...

I have to cut new skirt siding tonight and get it installed to keep everything else out from under the container...


Pix coming...


In the meantime, here's a couple inside the container where I'm eating right now...  

Having a semi-keto fad meal a couple weeks go...




Another one...




This my computer and work/eat/do everything area across from my SO's kitchen counter where she eats...

Does the generator sit outdoors full time or do you take it off the blocks and wheel it away when you leave?
I have a Coleman that is probably 15 years old and it has a little light surface rust on some of the sheet metal from running in the rain or snow followed by storage in the barn.  Fires up and works fine though.

We've been letting it sit outside...

We only use it to run the microwave and to fix some Keto popcorn with an air-popper...

It's remote start so my SO doesn't have to go out and pull stuff...  It's wired into the container solar/battery system, and it's little battery is eliminated.

Here's the pix sequence...

SO is returning from brushing her teeth, spitting tobacco, checking on something, I don't know what... She probably washed off...




Bear shows up a couple hours later...   -watch how delicately he navigates the string...




In the sequence he just clips it w/ a rear paw...  ---probably on purpose...

Continuing...

Now time advances a few minutes and bear is sitting down, having ripped out the skirt and I think---  The popper goes off.

Look at the string vibrating...




Bear turns head and wonders what happened...







Could care less...  





Suspect bear is chewing on something...





Inspecting damage next day...

Tonight I couldn't get the skirt cut and installed so I've put the popper, 2 rat traps, 2 mouse traps, and a Harbor Fright IR driveway alarm...

Out for over-watch.

I like the main sliding door to be open a little so the Fantastic vent in the bathroom pulls in cool night air.


There's one of those rectangular bug zappers out on an extension cord running off the inverter -doesn't draw much...

Last year one of the bears stuck his nose in it and got bounced back pretty good...  See pix...


Oh Crap- Forgot...

Something had done something to the Reconyx HC600 game came that took all the pix above...

I think the reason it missed all the action was because there's a programmable delay after each pix   -if you notice on the top line of each pix, a series of automatic ten exposures...

So I went to set it and all the push button switches were loose.

Took it apart and they were broken from some sort of squeeze of the housing, I think...

Took it to the barn lab where I have some micro surface mount switches to replace them...


And dropped the circuit board on the floor and cracked the LCD...

Can't find a replacement on eBay, Digikey or Mouser...

$500 shot ---unless I can find one for parts, but will keep looking for an LCD...

Can't win for losing...

Few minutes ago the barn long/close range alarm went off and I was at the container w/ my SO working on the toileting system...

She said maybe the bear's in the barn --and I left the door open to my lab with all sorts of interesting things to destroy...

I have the LAN system down because of a major switch failure in the container so no access to cams at the barn...


I ran to the barn and the Beautiful Dark Blond Elvis Pressly Class bear [same one in the last picture above] was standing on that big rock at the end of the IR sensor's detection range -see earlier posts...

What a MAJESTIC animal... It disappeared into the woods in the direction the bear sounds always come from... After I did something...

I guess it was checking out where we were so it could decide what to do next...





Then I came back down here and ignored the fact that there's all these traps [caught one mouse in the electronic imported one, all the rest had the peanut butter licked off, something always seems to do this] around the broken container skirt and was crawling into the opening and wham!!!

I stuck my thumb in a Rat Trap... Why couldn't it have been a Mouse trap...



The edge is already turning color...

A lot has happened in the past several days...


A short time ago the long range IR triggered and my SO and I were near a PC and I logged on as fast as I could and saw the baby bear and the momma on a rather 'fast patrol' and couldn't get the barn PTZ cam on them for any length of time to get a good picture because the baby was all over the place.

They crossed into the trees and brush so I transitioned to the container PTZ, bladed it at 45, and watched.

They completely avoided the container and moved back into the trees, then came out and as fast disappeared again.

The baby is bigger, fast as lightning, and looks great!

No pix.


We did rebuild the damage last week, ---better, and made some mods to the toileting system while everything was opened, and learned some thing about the macerator pump.


Also, we deployed a second popper, on the wall of the container, pointing down, with an improvised magnetic trip setup.

We also put in a fence post to form a triangle with ~10 foot legs, from the far right side of the skirt the bear tore up ---to the post and back to the wall at the generator.


I strung safety wire at 24" and 18" and connected to a 12 vdc battery operated fence zapper [we bought on eBay way back during the Bird Flu Scare]  and hooked it into the container 12 vdc bus.


Ran two trip strings from the popper staked into the ground to the container and one from the wall mt'd popper to a bucket with a rock.

Put an old game camera up since someone broke the good one.


Have pix of the whole setup that I'll try to get up soon...  So far noting has been disturbed, a few bears may have gotten their noses zapped, that's why I think the 2 today stayed at least 15 feet from the container  ---instead of poking their noses into everything.

What part of the country are you in? i can only assume idaho/montana/wyoming or maybe alaska?

The part of Disbelief...

Bears were active last night...  Had to use IR and didn't get very good pix, couldn't ID bear, I think it was repelled by the fence zapper.

Also, the alarm at the barn alerted late, and two beautiful foxes working as a team looking for mice came by...

Pictures---


The popper on the wall has been weakened so as not to harm ears... It should be clear how it's activated, note magnet.

Everything has been repaired/upgraded and painted.  The stainless 1/4-20 bolts are alignment pins for quickly R&R the skirts.

Everything is safe for us and the animals...

Note expedient insulators.

Also use of stainless pot scrubbers to seal openings. The insulator brackets were salvaged from D-Link 16 port switches that come with two rack mount brackets.

Fence zapper is stuck on the wall with a magnet and a D-Link plate J-B welded to the back...

Anyone figger out how the vertically mounted Popper Deployment Cannister --- works???


ETA---

OH CRAP!!!!

I just realized I didn't tie the 2 electric fence wires together!!!!

Stupid me!

This afternoon my SO was out exploring and looking for certain rocks and got lost again in the woods.

What's interesting is after she got straightened out, she saw a weird animal...

It had 4 short legs, a sort of thick body, a long neck and a small head.

We think it was a llama. It was a smallish brownish animal and she thought the head was at a height of about 3 1/2 to 4 feet...

It moved fast in front of her when it saw her...

We can't figure out what a llama would be doing around here running loose, and how it could survive the bears, lions, coyotes, etc...

Few folks around for a large area... What could it be...

Juvenile Bighorn Sheep maybe?  

Could be a llama, some people use them as pack animals when hiking.  
I guess it's not outside the realm of possibility that one got separated from its owner on a trail somewhere.