Current conditions in the back yard.

Some recent fox pictures.

Lol, that would do it.  The neighbors would have a problem though.  Their houses are about 2 feet above the creek level using the level above the waterfall.

Update coming soon on this tree

Still trying to get the one update out but here is a sneak peak.   That is not me in the tree.  I'm adventurous but not doing that.

UK never reported anything back to the county extension office.  I would assume that means they didn't find anything.  I guess I'll find out in a few months if there is a problem or it was just an off year for the trees last year.

@SWIRE

This is an awesome thread!

What you have done is nothing short of amazing. For a while we lived in a house that was built in the late 1880's. It had undergone several remodels before we moved in. As an example, one of the owners basically turned the house around on the inside, so they moved pretty much all of the rooms completely around.  

Whoever did the work used whatever materials they found on the roadside, scrounged out of dumpsters or recycled from other projects, so needless to say nothing was uniform anywhere in the house. We had old aluminum wiring, paper wrapped wiring and Romex, the plumbing was a combination of galvanized pipe, copper pipe and PVC pipe and the walls were lathe & plaster in some rooms and 2x3 or 2x4 stud (Not to code) and sheet rock walls in others.

We did get an opportunity to meet one of the families that had lived in the house as kids and their dad did a majority of the work on the place himself. They did describe him as a "Scrounger" of sorts. When they visited us and gave us photos of the house from back in the day and they also drew us a diagram of what the house originally looked like inside before their dad did all the work on it. That was very cool and it answered a lot of questions on why things were the way they were with the place.

Apparently when they moved in it was just a one story house built on a hillside. The entire family was put to work hand digging a basement for a single car garage and a sort of a "Dorm" room for the boys downstairs that had it's own bathroom. The only way to get to this room was to go out side, down a set of side stairs and into the garage. When we lived there, this ended up being my "Man Room". It was 12' wide by 30' long, so I had plenty of room for all of my toys.

While we did our best to put our own stamp on the house, a lot of the work we did was just trying to get everything standardized and up to code. It was a great house, but it reminded me of the Tom Hanks movie, "The Money Pit"......

ETA:

What ever became of your asshole neighbor with the gun and the chemicals?

Sounds like the house created a lot of memories for you, both good and bad I'm sure.  The question of "why did they do this" is valid for every 100+ year old house.  The previous owner's hobby is period furniture and architecture.  He did a lot of research and was able to get the house put on one of the local registers.  I was able to get that document but there is still a lot of questions.  The 2 story part of my house was also rotated.  The front entrance used to face north, when they merged the two houses together they made a south facing window a door the north facing door a window.  Then they kicked the front of the house out 10 feet and added on.  It was a load bearing brick wall that they moved.  I don't know how they supported it...and probably don't want to know.  

The bad neighbor fled once one of his under the table, and not the brightest, workers told a person from the Environmental Cabinet that they pour their chemicals down the drain.  They cited him for generating thousands of pounds of hazardous waste without any permits.  Once that happened the rest of the city agencies changed their tune from "yeah we are aware of him" to actually looking into how an unlicensed business was allowed to operate in the open for 4 years, had no licenses, never paid any taxes, and contaminated both the sewer system and landfill with hazardous waste.  

That guy was just a renter and screwed the land owner.  That owner eventually sold the building.  The new owner, I'm pretty sure got some huge PPP grants and had money to burn.  He paid a pretty penny for the building, then ripped all the steel off the building except the beams, rebuilt the building exterior and interior, and was supposed to use it to do custom side by side work.  The building has been done for at least 9 months but it just sits there empty.  It is still zoned residential and the grand fathered non-conforming use has been limited down to light automotive work with limited noise.  

Things got odd about 6 months ago.  Someone applied for a residential conditional use for the property to operate a barbershop.  I asked the question was that for the entire property or just part of it.  Applying for a residential conditional use is a conforming use, which means the non-conforming use would be abandoned.  The barbershop was just supposed to be one room up front, not the whole building according to what I was told.  The person applying for the conditional use never showed up to the meetings for it and eventually pulled his application.  So the building sits empty.  

I do have new neighbors though, the house on the corner sold.  I had tried to buy when it went up for auction about 3 years ago but housing market in my town had started to boom and investors from the next town over bought it.  I had bid up to $40,000 and the investor went up to $75,000.  The city had kicked the door in, boarded up all the windows, and cut the water and power to the building.  I believe got into the basement and had stripped the wires and hvac.  The biggest issue was the back wall had bowed out about 6 inches.  The investor realized they got in over their head and it wouldn't be a quick flip and sold it to a church.  The church had volunteers working for a year to renovate the house.  They removed the back wall and rebuilt it.  Not sure if they rebuilt it using solid brick or a brick veneer.  The 3rd floor was finished, so the house has several bedrooms and bathrooms it they are awkward.  Most the workers were unskilled but they brought in skilled trades for things like plumbing and electrical.  The house faces a pawn shop, has a very small front yard that ends at a major and very busy road, the back yard was tiny and church turned half of that into a parking area as there was no driveway or place to park except the street.  Now they have maybe a 30' x 30' area of grass for a backyard.  With all those things going on they still found someone to pay over $400,000 for it.  But the couple is very friendly, younger, married a year ago, and the guy is a doctor.  I do not expect that they will be generating thousands of pounds of hazards waste.  If anything I'll end up being the asshole running my chainsaws, tractor, and having fire pit fires that they can smell.  

That is good news about your bad neighbor!

We did love our old house, but it was truly a nightmare at times. We found out the hard way with the hand dug basement that they didn’t go deep enough with the sump pump pit so, when it rained hard, the entire basement flooded.

I ended up borrowing a large hammer drill from a contractor friend. I then crawled under the house and dug the sump pump hole as deep as I could to get it below the level of the basement floor. That area under the house was rock, so I could understand why they didn’t or couldn’t go deep enough. The hammer drill worked great, but it was pretty tough going due to the tight space.

Looking back on it, I would have been better off going through the basement wall to get to this location, but I ended up using 5 gallon buckets to get the rock and dirt out via the “Fire Brigade” style bucket line with my wife and kids……fun times.

I was happy to find out that it actually worked during the next torrential rainfall we had….that was a great feeling!

Finally getting around to the tree update.

The tree directly behind the house is older, leans towards the house, and has been losing branches every year.  Last year it dropped about a 6" branch right on to the seating area and broke a concrete table.  I liked tree but the threat it posed to the house and then the lives of people is not worth keeping it around.  I drew a center line from the base of the trunk and it is very clear if the tree fell it was going into the house.

I hired a tree crew come and take it down.  The quoted price was $2,500 which is about what I expected for my area.  




Before from behind the house



Drone shot showing how many branches were way above the roof of the house.
















Tree down




There was a second tree that had branches reaching out over the house and seating area as well.  That tree has lost a few branches as well so I decided to have part of it removed.  I'm sure that isn't good for the tree and will cause problems for it.  However, it can no longer damage the house or hurt anyone.






Looking back with the tree removed and the other trimmed there is a very obvious opening now.





Before pictures





Now I'm left with a large mess in the back yard.







The tree was starting to rot from the inside which was a concern given the age.  I'm sure it would have stayed standing for many more years but it did confirm that it was declining.  




How far up the tree does that hole go?  The tape measure could fit 37 inches which seems like that is a huge cavity.  





Video of several of the tree branches coming down.  That is followed by a clip of a tree I took down, it was a Ailanthus Altissima tree, tree of heaven, Chinese invasive species that grows quick, is brittle, and rots in the middle.  I'm removing all of those trees plus this one was leaning over the road and fiber optic lines.  I had a little help making sure it went the right direction.  Then the last clip is a recent video of the fox.  

I've also started work on moving the other side of the flower bed forward by about 20 feet.  

I had 15 yards of compost brought in.  



Spread that out with my tractor.



Then hired someone to till it in.




Speaking of flowers the 2022 tulips are in bloom.  I've lost track of how many years this is now, possibly the 5th year these are what came up.  It was rainy most of March and I think that muted the color of the tulips this year.  They are a lighter color red almost pinkish.  

Ouch - sorry you had to lose the tree... and pay a pretty penny to do so - but it was the right call.

Where'd you get the compost?  Decent?  Price?

If the tree wasn't leaning over the house or been in an area where I could get a lift to it, I would have taken it down myself.  I could have bought a Stihl MS 661 MAGNUM saw, rented a lift, and had some change left over if it had been accessible.

The compost comes from Lexington and is very cheap.  They also have mulch of various colors.  It used to be called Con Robinson but was purchased by C &R Asphalt and is now called C & R Mulch https://www.candrmulch.com/.  They haven't updated the website with this years prices yet.  The compost is made of leaf material and yard waste. One cubic yard costs $17 now, it used to be $15.  They can fit 20 yards on a tri-axle.  Delivery charge where I am at is $95 and I'm on the edge of that range.  Your place should be around $115-$125.

Using my truck and trailer getting 2 yards at a time would have taken me all day, I would have had to manually unload it all, and it would have cost me more in gas.  Even if I rented a dump trailer the rental for the day would cost more than the delivery fee.  

Thanks for the info, I may give them a call.  I've gotten from Triple J in the past, but was underwhelmed with the last batch.

Underwhelmed on price for what you get, quality of material, amount ordered vs what was delivered, or all of the above?  C&R used to use a full size loader and a level bucket for 1 yard.  Other places use a skid steer and consider a bucket a yard but at best that is 2/3 a yard.  

There is a company in Versailles that is supposed to have high quality compost.  They only have an FB page for a site.  They are one of the companies that uses a skid steer bucket.  I believe they are $30 a yard and they can deliver as well.  https://www.facebook.com/WhinnyThePooCompostandTopsoil/

A second fox has been spotted.  The other week I went to put food out for the animals and saw what looked like the fox sitting near the shed.  That is further away than where he normally sites.  Sometimes if dogs are barking or something has him spooked he will keep his distance, so I didn't think anything of it.  I called to it and it darted away.  That was strange but again if something had it spooked not completely unheard of.  

A few nights later the same scenario played out except as I approached the spot where I put the food out the regular fox was sitting there and animal by the shed darted off.  It is fairly dark and all I saw was a silhouette from 100 feet away. I wasn't 100% certain it was a fox but it looked like one.    

Last night the regular fox came to greet me as I was walking into the yard.  I looked at the shed and confirmed another fox was standing there but then took off.  

The regular fox's behavior has changed as well.  It is much more bold and aggressive at getting to the food, almost as if it was starving.  However, after it eats a little it starts burying the rest of the food.  Previously he would not come closer than 5 - 10 feet and would just sit there.  

Video of fox coming within a foot of me to grab food and run off.  It is night and filmed with a cellphone so the quality isn't the greatest but it gives you the idea of how close he is willing to come to snatch food.  The second clip in the video is him grabbing an egg and then burying it.

What is the going rate for a beaver pelt?  Anyone interested in trapping one?  if this ends up killing these trees I'm going to be really pissed.  Already have more tree work than I want to deal with and having a beaver killing off a dozen trees is going to be a major pain for me to clean up.  

The fox is getting used to lights and cameras.




I think I know why the fox is aggressive when it comes to getting the food.  Anyone else see the reason?

If you are going to post uncensored booby ... oh, wait, this isn't GD and I am not a mod. Carry on!

(Momma fox is in the family way?)

It appears so.  I've seen another fox in the shadows and it runs off if I get within 100 feet of it.  It's full size so I assume it is the mate.  

I wish she would come out when it was still light out.  She doesn't stop moving so even with a tripod and lights I get motion blur unless I crank up the shutter speed and ISO but then I get the noise seen below.  Even with the noise these pictures capture her face and eyes really well.

Look who showed up before it got dark.  She must have heard me working in the backyard and came around early.

I have confirmed there are 2 foxes.  The regular female was near me eating when she stepped back a bit to look at something.  I stood up to see what she was looking at and saw the fox on the left side of the picture behind the woodchip pile while she was to my right.  

Not the best pictures but it was clearly a full size fox.  Also later, well after dark, as I was still working in the yard I lit up the area where I put food out and saw a full size fox.  I called to it and it ran off.  Clearly not the same fox that comes to me when I have food.

Some of my best footage to date of the fox.  Video from when I setup lights a couple nights in a row and filmed her.  

Best picture of the fox so far.





This is how close she will come near me if there is food.

Any tips on how to eliminate this bastard?  I've been trying to get him for years.  He won't go into the traps.  I've resorted to tracking down his dens, flooding them with water from the creek for hours and filling them in.  Yet he remains.  Ever few days he chows down on these flowers and strips them of all their leaves.

Yes, HE is the MOM.  All these years I thought the fox was a male.  Mainly because it was alone, never saw any signs of it nursing pups before, and seemed pretty out going/assertive about getting food.  Now it appears she is a strong and assertive female that shows little fear.

I assume the shadow fox is the mate.  She shows interest and not fear with the other fox.  Watching some YouTube videos it is usually the male that finds the food and brings the female along.  They seem to stick together even after kits are born.  On one occasion she looked up and saw he was there but then saw him run off back towards the den.  She grabbed a whole hot dog and ran off after him.  

The last picture is a groundhog with a mouth full of Begonia leaves.  Once he finishes them off he will go after the tomato plants.  They are just too destructive to have around.

If anyone is wondering if all I do is take fox video and pictures the answer is no, I work on other projects as well.  The fox is just a welcomed break in the evening.

In the past month and a half I have done the following:

Rescued a maple tree that was being squished by a walnut tree that feel over due to creek bank erosion.

Using a loader tractor as a ladder. I was able to cut away some of the walnut and then pull the maple tree free









Behind that fallen tree is 2 other fallen trees.  They have been there for a couple years now and I had just left them until now.








Next up was getting the chimneys of the house inspect.  All were in terrible shape as expected.

This is the original 1789 fireplace.




This is what the chimney looks like, most of the mortar is gone.  The historic mortar was lime based, wood ashes are acid and add rain to that and it eats away the mortar.





We had a really cold snap around that time.  This little guy had been hanging around my house all day.  He got on the fence and came towards me.  He was shaking, either sick or really cold.  I grabbed him and took care of him for 2 days until the weather warmed up.  When the weather did warm up I could hear an adult squirrel outside loudly calling.  It took a break to raid my bird feeder and I noticed it had been nursing babies.  On the off chance that was this guys mother I took him outside and let him go in full view of the other squirrel.  He hid by that side of the house .  The mother ran off but 15 minutes later she was back calling and looking down to where he hid.  After 15 minutes she was still calling but looking on the other side of the neighbors fence. Another 15 minutes past and all was quiet.  I'm assuming he found his mother.





That brings me to another problem tree.  This one has been growing and started touching the neighbors garage.  Technically not my problem but I'm not going to let something from my property slowly damage the neighbors property.  In order to get to it I needed to remove 5 other trees.  I had cut one down before I took this picture.  Everything with the red X needed to come down so that I could get to the tree with the arrow that was touching the garage.





Once I got those trees down I realized last tree was bigger and leaned over the neighbors garage more than I thought.  The property line is pretty much under the edge of the roof.  The tree trunk started 2 feet away from the garage.  All the branches were over top of the garage.  I had thought about using the tractor to pull it but didn't want to risk it should something go wrong.



I ended up bringing the tree guy back out.  He cut the top out and lowered the branches.  




Now there is a noticeable bare spot in that side of the yard.  It was made even worse as the tree guy did some work for the neighbor afterwards and removed all the bushes behind their garage.




That brings me to the pile of wood from the walnut tree that I had cut down.  I had finally removed all the brush and got the log splitter ready to go.  





The trailer is 10' x 5' and loaded up with the first load.




The second load got the rests.  A few large pieces remain as the log splitter stopped and didn't want to start back up.




The wood all stacked, 2 rows deep and over 7' tall.

That still isn't the end of the projects I have been working on.  Last year I moved the left side of the flower bed forward about 20 feet.  This spring I've been moving the right side forward.

Almost everything seen here has been dug up and moved out of the original flower bed.



The dirt is the new bed, the straw is where I extended the bed the previous year, and behind that is the original bed.  All the lilies are bulbs I planted in previous years that had to be moved.




I also put in edging along the main path way, hopefully it will keep the grass from encroaching.  I also put a row of annuals in on each side.  I still need to get some compost put down along the edge and grass seed down for the path.

At first he would curl up into a tight ball and not want anything to do with me.  But I knew he was hungry and at 6-7 weeks a baby squirrel is supposed to eat every 3-4 hours.  I saw him outside hours earlier looking around for food.  I threw out some bird food and he didn't run off but didn't eat either.  Then I saw him grab a seed from a maple tree, he put it in his mouth and then didn't know what to do with it.  

Several hours later, after the clouds rolled in the temp dropped significantly, I went out to top off the bird feeder and saw this.  He didn't run off or even hide.  He started following me along the top of the fence and that was when I noticed he was shivering or shaking from some type of illness.  I wasn't sure which at that point.





I could tell something wasn't right with him so I put on a leather glove to pick him up.  My biggest concern was some type disease, like rabies that would affect the mental state.  As a young kid I was helping my father and brothers cut firewood in the fall.  A raccoon came out in the middle of the day and was staggering around coming towards us.  It was dispatched and my father was pretty confident its behavior was due to rabies.  That has always stuck in my mind and the squirrels behavior was slightly similar.





I held it for about an hour trying to warm it up.  He didn't move much.  Then I wrapped him up in wash cloths and put him in a cardboard box.  He still didn't move much.  Then I took one of the daughters out to get a container and food supplies.  I told the other daughter to pay attention to the box as it might try to get out once it warmed up.  Heading back from the 3rd store with the supplies I get a text "get home quick the squirrel is going nuts and trying to escape".  Once home I transferred him to a more secure container and started to prep the formula.

I looked up what to feed a baby squirrel and there is some type of goat milk puppy formula that people recommend.  There was none to be found anywhere around me.  Another site mentioned that if can't be found to mix goat's milk, plain yogurt, and heavy cream to get the proper protein/fat ratio.  Surprisingly Walmart carries goat milk.  That's why I had to go to 3 stores looking for supplies.  

Once he got a taste of the formula I mixed up for him then he couldn't get enough.   If you liked the still shot here is a video.  You can ignore the cries of the cat wanting to play with it.  When not under my control the squirrel was kept in a secure container and not at risk of any cat.

The cat the wanted to play with the squirrel found a baby sparrow, fully feathered but couldn't fly more than 2 feet, and brought it to us unharmed.  Not sure if wanted it as a toy or brought it to us because he knew I helped other small animals.  Unfortunately my efforts to care for it until it could be released failed.  The bird never wanted to eat.  Even once I started to force feed it a little.  Most videos on bird they respond quickly to anyone giving them food.  I had no idea what to feed it how much to feed it.  The closest thing I had on hand was wet cat food thinned with water.  Not sure what went wrong, I possibly over fed it, it could have gotten too cold, it might have needed more water than food or any number of other things.  Taking care of a tiny bird is a lot harder than a small squirrel.

The groundhog has started in on the tomato plants.  If it was possible where I live this would be my response  

I don't mind watching them and if they left my garden alone I wouldn't care.  In prior years I had put out 20 tomato plants only to find them all chewed off down the ground a few days later.  For this one I would need a blind and to sit outside all day for several days in a row.  This one is smart and knows to stay hidden if he thinks I'm around.

I noticed last night he started eating the pumpkin plants as well.  There is a den that keeps getting dug out.  I have a camera on it to see which animal it is.  If the groundhog is the only animal using it then a body grip trap will be placed.

Picture from last night.

Can you start leading the fox to the groundhog den?

I wish.  The gray fox is tiny, think of a dachshund with longer legs.  That is how big she is.  The groundhog probably weighs 3x as much.  

Speaking of the groundhog, I pulled into the driveway tonight and saw a flash of brown run form the garden 150 feet away and stop on top of a rock pile.

I check the garden out to find my pumpkin plants looking like this.  




Then I go down to check on my fruit trees and find out that the beaver is still around.  Thankfully has hasn't gone after the fruit trees yet.  I followed him to the creek and snapped this picture.

@Kitties-with-Sigs  now I'm dealing with this animal baby situation.  Trying to find a shelter for them but everyone I contact is at capacity already.  Do you need some new pets?

Found a shelter and those two raccoon babies are gone.  However, I checked the wall and there is a 3rd one but he moved away before I could grab it.  The only way to get it would be to rip out part of the great room wall which I really don't want to do.  I was told it should come out of the wall when it gets hungry.

This picture gives a relative size for the fox.  She is tiny.  I wear a size 11 boot and the container on the ground is probably a 10" pie cover.