Author Archives: Maria Langer

Snowbirding 2016: Introduction

Posted on by
2

I officially become a snowbird.

Posts in the Snowbirding 2016 Series:
– Introduction
– The Colorado River Backwaters
– Quartzsite
– Wickenburg
– Phoenix
– Home
– Back to the Backwaters
– Return to Wickenburg
– Valley of Fire
– Death Valley
– Back to Work

If you’re not familiar with the term snowbird, it refers to a person, normally retired, who migrates seasonally to more appealing weather. Usually, the person lives in a northern climate and migrates south for the winter, like a bird might. Occasionally, the person lives in a warm climate and migrates north for the summer. I have friends in Arizona who do that. And then there’s a whole separate class of snowbirds who live full-time in RVs and travel around the country for the best weather and activities and places they like.

When I lived in Arizona — which has brutally hot summers — I was fortunate to have summer work that took me north to cooler climates. Now that I live in Washington, I’m fortunate to have free time and late winter work that makes it possible to go south to warmer climates.

I’m not retired — not yet, anyway. I feel semi-retired and often tell people I am. Most snowbirds are retired because usually you need to be retired from a job to have the freedom to travel seasonally. When I wrote books for a living, I could have had the same lifestyle, but I chose to stick with the man I thought was my life partner; unfortunately, he valued a steady paycheck over a flexible lifestyle. Fortunately, I don’t have him holding me back anymore.

I did some traveling to Arizona last year. I house/dog-sat for some friends in Wickenburg while they were away and turned my visit into an extended stay. It was nice getting back into the sun and seeing old friends. But I had a lot of work ahead of me at home — I’d started construction work on my living space that winter and was eager to finish up and move in. So my visit was short — about two weeks? — and I didn’t really get the snowbird experience.

This year is different. When I’d had enough of this winter’s extraordinarily generous snowfall and began really craving sunshine, I consulted a mostly empty calendar and started thinking of the invitations that were trickling in from points south. I had at least three potential destinations:

  • Some very good friends in Wickenburg (northwest of Phoenix, where I used to live) told me that I was welcome to stay in their guest house “as long as I liked.” While I didn’t think they meant the two months that I was interested in, I knew I’d be able to stay there at least a week. I looked forward to seeing them and visiting with other friends in town.
  • Some other friends were staying in their RV in the Quartzite area. My friend is an artist and shows her work there. But before the show, they camp out in the Colorado River backwaters south of Ehrenberg, AZ where they relax and fish and have campfires at night. This year, they’d have three horses with them.
  • For the fourth year in a row, I got a frost control contract in California’s central valley. The contract normally runs from the end of February to the end of April. Although I’m not required to stay with the helicopter at my base there — they pay a generous call-out fee that covers the cost of me flying down from Washington when needed — I really like the area. I also get a great deal on an RV parking spot at the airport where the helicopter is based. I have friends there and even learned to fly a gyro with one of them back in 2014. It’s a great third destination.

I had other invitations to visit friends down south, too. A friend of mine in Salt Lake City invited me to spend New Year’s Eve with her and her son. Other friends with a new home south of Phoenix had a guest house bedroom waiting for me. I even had an invitation to spend some time with a friend in Tucson, if I decided to go that far.

What made traveling south for the winter a lot easier was having a place to live when I wasn’t a guest at a friend’s home: my unsold Mobile Mansion.

The Long Drive
The long drive. I had overnight stops in Pasco, WA; La Grande, OR; Boise, ID; and Las Vegas, NV.

So on December 29, I got the Mobile Mansion off the sale lot in East Wenatchee where it was waiting for a buyer, hooked it up to my truck, and headed south, leaving my home, chickens, and barn cat(s), in the capable hands of my house-sitter and her doberman.

Along the way, I got delayed due to truck mechanical problems that eventually killed my truck, bought a new used truck that puts all my past trucks to shame, and kept on going. I missed out on the New Year’s Eve celebration in Salt Lake, drove through an area of severe cold (like -19°F) that turned the wine and champagne stored aboard the Mobile Mansion to slush, spent my first night in the Mobile Mansion at an RV park in Las Vegas (of all places), and rolled into my friend’s Colorado River campsite in time for lunch on January 2.

Sam's Town
I bet you didn’t know they had RV parks in Las Vegas.

And I’ve been having a ball ever since.

I’m going to do my best to blog about each of the stages of my snowbirding experience. I don’t expect it to be what anyone might consider typical.

On the Misinformed

Posted on by
6

When lies make us stupid.

Mark Twain Quote

This morning, a typical quote + image meme appeared in my Twitter stream, shared by @Phillipdpl1974. The illustrious person in the photograph who was being quoted was none other than my favorite author of all time, Mark Twain.

The quote hit hard, primarily because of the events of the night before, which I’ll get to in a moment. It said:

It’s easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled.

Later in the day, while surfing Facebook, my friend Stewart shared a link to an article on Five Thirty Eight titled “Trump Supporters Appear To Be Misinformed, Not Uninformed.” It also hit hard because of the previous night’s events.

What Happened Last Night

It started innocently enough. I’d mentioned to my two companions — we’ll call them Sally and Joe — that I’d talked to guy at the concealed weapons permit booth at Quartzite. They were both familiar with him and both seemed to agree that the guy was a jerk. I told them that in the course of our discussion, he’d insinuated that California was not part of the United States. He apparently thought that was funny. But with all the NRA signage around his booth and his obvious close-minded, anti-liberal attitude, I didn’t think it was funny at all and let him know before turning my back on him and walking away. (In all honesty, the NRA signage was enough to prevent me from spending any money at all at his booth.)

My discussion last night with my friends naturally segued to the topic of the President’s recent executive orders related to gun controls, specifically those new rules for background checks. Joe immediately got testy. He said he didn’t understand why the president was making laws that already existed. When Sally and I asked him what he meant, he told us that background checks were already required for all gun purchases.

Sally reminded him that he’d bought a gun in Arizona at a gunshow and no background check had been required. I told them my wasband had done the same thing.

“When was that?” Joe demanded? “Twenty years ago?”

We admitted that it had been quite a while ago but that we didn’t think the laws had changed. Joe insisted that background checks were required in all states for all gun purchases. The discussion elevated to shouting, which really surprised me. Already yelled at by Joe for interrupting him “all the time,” I shut up.

While Sally and Joe continued arguing, I pulled out my phone and Googled, “In which states can I buy a gun without a background check?” Then, when there was a gap in the shouting match, I began to read:

Eight states require background checks at the point of sale for all —

Joe cut me off. “Where does it say that?”

“Wikipedia,” I replied.

“Oh, Wikipedia,” Joe responded in a tone of voice that made it clear he thought I was an idiot for relying on anything I read there.

I clicked another link. This one displayed the Gun Show background Checks State Laws page on Governing.com. I mistakenly identified it as “a government website,” but I still believe the information there is accurate. I read:

Known as the “gun show loophole,” most states do not require background checks for firearms purchased at guns shows from private individuals — federal law only requires licensed dealers to conduct checks.

I held up the phone to show him a map with states colored depending on whether they required background checks for all gun purchases, including gun shows and private sales.

“It’s on the Internet,” Joe said sarcastically. “It must be true.” He then started a rant about how you couldn’t believe anything you read in the media.

I told him that some sources were definitely better than others.

He asked me where I got my information from.

“NPR, PBS, the New York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post. These are all pretty reliable as far as facts go.” (If asked again today, I’d add the Economist, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, BBC World News, and the Guardian.) I know better than to trust far right or far left media sources like FoxNews or Mother Jones.

He then went off on another tangent related to whether it was legal for felons to buy guns. Sally and I said no.

“So in these states where there’s no background check required, it’s legal for felons to buy guns?”

“No,” we both repeated.

“But can they buy guns?”

“Yes,” I said. “Because they can lie because there’s no background check. That’s the point. The background check would help prevent people who shouldn’t buy guns from buying guns. That’s why Obama made the executive order.”

Joe responded by telling us that he didn’t trust the president. That shocked the hell out of Sally and me. While Sally continued arguing with Joe, I took a huge step back, out of the conversation. I knew then that Joe was a lost cause.

Life’s just too short to argue wait people who can’t form their own opinions based on facts.

Oh, and I should mention that what I reported above is only part of a much longer, very angry conversation about laws, guns, truth, the media, and the president. Honestly, it went on a lot longer than it should have.

The Misinformed

This morning, after reading the Five Thirty Eight piece Stew shared, I realized that my friend Joe had become one of the misinformed.

We all get crap shared by our Facebook friends — crap pushing one opinion or another, often through the use of misleading or inaccurate data, charts, quotes, or statements. A lot of it is hateful or even racist. I’ve seen some pretty bad stuff and, in most cases, I simply stop following or even “unfriend” the person who shared it. I’ve blocked more than a handful of friends of friends who share inappropriate comments on my public posts. I have zero tolerance for hate.

Some of us get angry when we get crap we don’t agree with but cling to the crap we do agree with. Others disregard the obviously misleading crap — “Obama is a Muslim” or “Syrian refugees are part of a terrorist sleeper cell” — and spend time researching the crap that might just be true. Nine times out of ten, that “might be true” crap turns out to be just as wrong as the rest of it. But that one time it isn’t — well, then we can learn from it.

My friend Joe was from the first camp. He got a lot of crap from people who thought like he did — Sally confirmed this suspicion later that night — and he believed it. Yet ironically, he claimed that you couldn’t believe anything on the Internet.

How could you argue with someone like that?

The Five Thirty Eight piece discusses the differences between uniformed and misinformed people:

Uninformed citizens don’t have any information at all, while those who are misinformed have information that conflicts with the best evidence and expert opinion…. In the U.S., the most misinformed citizens tend to be the most confident in their views and are also the strongest partisans. These folks fill the gaps in their knowledge base by using their existing belief systems. Once these inferences are stored into memory, they become “indistinguishable from hard data”…

… When misinformed citizens are told that their facts are wrong, they often cling to their opinions even more strongly with what is known as defensive processing, or the “backfire effect.”

The article goes on to discuss various studies and actual examples of the use of misinformation as a way to more firmly connect with supporters. It’s not a very long piece, but it’s a fascinating look at psychology. I highly recommend it.

How Lies Make Us Do Stupid Things

If we believe things that aren’t true, we form opinions based on that misinformation. Those opinions can guide actions. If we follow a course of action based on bad information, we run the risk of following a bad course of action.

There’s a pretty good example of this from my own life. My wasband somehow got the idea that he had a legal claim to everything I owned, despite the fact that I’d acquired most of it before marriage and through my own efforts. He firmly believed that he was entitled to half of everything and, for the life of me, I can’t understand why his lawyers didn’t set him straight. Or maybe they tried and he refused to believe them. His misinformed belief caused him to launch a lengthy and expensive divorce battle that he eventually lost. Still believing he was right, he couldn’t accept that loss and appealed the judge’s decision, thus launching another lengthy and expensive court battle that he also lost. Clearly, his belief in incorrect information cost him a lot of money that would have been better spent rebuilding his life with the woman who likely misinformed him and goaded him to going after my money in the first place. (Talk about irony.)

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, who was then a medical doctor in the U.K., published a fraudulent research paper that linked the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism. It was later discovered that the patients in his study were recruited by lawyers suing MMR vaccine makers and that those lawyers had paid both Wakefield and the hospital he worked for large sums of money. Further, Wakefield had applied for a patent on a measles vaccine to be used instead of the MMR vaccine; discrediting that vaccine would certainly benefit him financially. All of these situations were a huge conflict of interest for his research paper and probably explain his motivations for committing the fraud. The report was formally withdrawn in 2010 but the damage of his misinformation was already done: a huge group of people believed — and continue to believe — the now debunked results of his research. Although there is no link between the MMR vaccine — or any other vaccine — and autism, an alarming percentage of parents around the world refuse to vaccinate their children. The result: thousands of deaths and illnesses that could have been prevented by vaccines.

Nowadays, we’re seeing opinions based on misinformation dividing Americans and filling them with hate. These people are voters and many support candidates such as Donald Trump who, in the words of the Five Thirty Eight piece’s author, Anne Pluta, “has a consistently loose relationship with the truth.” This is a man who has made many public derogatory remarks about women, wants to discriminate against people based on their religion, and claims he’ll get a foreign government to pay for the cost of a border wall that is impossible to build. He’s a narcissist with a crass personality who makes the American people look like idiots in the eyes of the world every time he opens his mouth. Very little this man says is true, but the misinformed believe him and eat up every word he utters. I think it’s safe to say that the action they might take — actually voting for this man to be our president — is a foolish one.

My friend Joe’s concerns about trusting the media aren’t outrageous. There are many, many media sources that I can’t trust to present facts that are not tainted by opinion. I already mentioned two of them — FoxNews on the far right and Mother Jones on the far left. These two media outlets present opinions supported by cherry-picked “facts” and quotes often taken out of context. But they’re only two of the thousands of sources people — including voters trying to stay informed — trust every day.

What’s the solution? If you can’t find a truly objective source of factual information, there isn’t one.

I’ve got to think that it’s better to be uninformed than misinformed.

My New Used Truck

Posted on by
4

I didn’t want to buy it but I’m so glad I did.

I broke my truck last week. Twice. The second time, I broke it so well that it would have cost more to repair it than what it was worth.

That truck was a 2003 Ford F-350 SuperDuty Diesel with a super cab, long bed, 4WD, and a towing package. I bought it back in January 2013 to replace my Ford F-150. I needed a truck that would pull my RV and although my wasband had assured me that I’d be able to keep his Chevy 2500 Silverado pickup in the divorce, he decided to put some pressure on me by yanking it out of my possession. I responded by trading in my truck for another one that would do the job.

I was done letting him hold me back from what I wanted/needed to do.

I never liked the 2003 Ford, but I had to admit that it did the towing job a hell of a lot better than that Chevy. Got better gas mileage, too. But it was ugly green and the paint finish was wearing off on the hood and roof. The interior was drab and worn. Still, I only needed it as a hauling vehicle, so I really didn’t drive it that often. Owning it wasn’t an ordeal.

And I sure did haul things with it. Not only did I move the mobile mansion between Washington and California several times, but I also used it to haul a flatbed trailer full of stuff from Arizona to Washington in September 2013 when I finally closed down my hangar in Wickenburg. And how about the load of Pergo — two full pallets of the stuff — that I hauled the 15 miles between Lowes and my home in Malaga? One load made a round trip when I realized I didn’t like the color after all and had to return it.

Last summer, someone offered to buy it from me. I told him I couldn’t sell it until I sold the RV I needed it to pull. In hindsight, I should have sold it.

Last Tuesday morning, I hooked up the old Ford to the mobile mansion and headed south for a snowbirding trip to Arizona, which I’d follow up with my annual migration to California for frost season.

Old Ford
Before hitting the road, I stopped at Les Schwab to have my trailer tire pressures checked and adjusted. Yes, that is a ton of snow on the roof; it was still falling off several days later in Arizona.

I noticed on the way into Quincy — that’s about 40 miles from my home — that it wasn’t taking the hills very well. By Mattawa, I thought it was something I should probably get looked at. I worked my phone and tracked down a Ford dealer in Pasco who would look at it that day. I almost didn’t make it. The damn truck just wasn’t interested in climbing hills with its 12,000+ pound payload.

I limped to the Ford dealer by noon, unhooked the RV at the curb, and drove the truck into the service area. I’d driven a total of about 130 miles.

While they looked at the truck, I looked at replacement trucks. They had a 2008 Ford F-250 super cab with a 6.4 liter engine and 4WD. I wanted a replacement that was 2010 or newer, but this one was red and I’m partial to red. I talked to a sales guy. They worked up numbers with me. The final number was just a little more than I was willing to spend. Some friends I was texting with supported my decision to just get the old Ford fixed.

I got a diagnosis and an estimate. It was a lot of money. But they assured me this would fix the problem. Best of all, I’d be back on the road by noon the next day.

I okayed the work and took a dealer shuttle ride to a hotel on the Columbia River.

I called for the dealer shuttle first thing in the morning. While I waited for them to finish up, I started prepping the RV for my snowbirding stint. It had been on a sale lot since October so it was pretty much empty. I’d “packed” it by moving in big plastic bins full of the stuff that had been in it before I put it up for sale. That morning, I worked on the bedroom, making the bed and putting away the clothes I’d brought.

True to their word, the truck was ready by about noon. I paid the bill, drove it to a nearby gas station, and topped off the tank. Then I went back to where the RV was parked and hooked it up. By 1 PM, I was back on the road.

My goal was to get to Salt Lake City to spend New Year’s Eve with a friend. If I made Boise by nightfall, I’d be able to get to Salt Lake just after noon on Thursday. Things were looking good.

Until I started losing power climbing hills. Deja vu.

I’d just gone past La Grande, Oregon, when the truck’s power cut to a low-gear crawl. I got into the shoulder, which was just wide enough for my rig. And then the truck’s engine just plain died.

I’d gone about another 130 miles.

I got on the phone. First, I called the service guy at the Ford dealer in Pasco to give him a piece of my mind. Then AAA. Then the La Grande Ford dealer. There were a lot of calls going back and forth. It was after 3 PM and would be dark in less than 2 hours. I needed the truck and the RV moved off the highway shoulder, preferably back to the same place.

Fortunately, I’d added AAA RV coverage to my policy the week before. I know for a fact that it saved me $350 because that’s one of the quotes I got during my phone marathon. In the end, the La Grande Chevy dealer came out with a tow truck and a truck with the necessary gooseneck hitch ball to move my RV. (Yes, it’s fifth wheel, but it has a gooseneck hitch.) While semis roared past us on the freeway, they managed to get the RV unhitched and rehitched to the other truck. That wasn’t made any easier by the RV’s landing gear deciding to break down. More phone calls to find an RV dealer who could look at that and possibly fix it.

In the end, we got the RV dropped off at an RV fix-it guy and the truck dropped off at the Ford dealer. By then, it was well after 5 PM. I got dropped off at a motel walking distance from the Ford dealer and had to force a tip on the tow truck driver, who I suspect felt really sorry for me.

The motel was called the Sandman. Really.

In the morning, I checked out and walked the 8/10 mile from the motel to the Ford dealer. Although it was 17°F (according to the sign on a bank I passed), it really didn’t feel that cold. Just kind of brisk. I think it’s all about wearing the right clothes — and not having any wind.

They told me they had “the best diesel mechanic in Oregon.” Okay. I told them what had been done the day before and even provided them with a copy of the work order.

While they looked at the truck, I looked at new trucks. The sales guy they hooked me up with, Michael, was a nice guy around my age who knew how to listen to what a person wanted. Of course, they didn’t have any matches. But they did have a nice 2012 Ford F-350 SuperDuty Diesel with Crew Cab, long bed, 4WD, and 6.7 liter engine.

That was a lot more truck than I needed. I planned to replace the mobile mansion (eventually) with a truck camper and had been advised that a 3/4 ton pickup would be enough. I figured a 2010 F-250 or equivalent with a super cab and long bed would be enough.

But this truck was nice. It had the Lariat package — that’s Ford’s deluxe truck package. That meant perks like heated and air conditioned fully electric leather seats, bluetooth voice activated stereo system, back up camera, tail gate step, full running boards, electric back sliding window, sun roof, etc. All kinds of bells and whistles I’d never had in a car or truck. It had a factory spray-in bed liner, was rigged for a gooseneck hitch, and had a towing package that included integrated trailer brake controls. In other words, this thing was not only a nice truck, but it was already completely set up for me to tow my rig.

It was expensive. I won’t deny it. It was a lot more than that red truck and a ton more than I wanted to spend. And it wasn’t red. It was a classy two-tone silver that I had to admit looked pretty sharp.

I sat on the fence for a while. I tried to contact several friends who were knowledgeable about trucks to get their input, but none of them were around.

I thought about what my wasband would have advised: Don’t buy it. Do more research. You don’t need it. Cancel the trip. Go home.

So I bought it.

New Truck
My new truck at the fuel pumps, getting its first tank of diesel for me, courtesy of the dealer. Did I mention that my new truck is big? That’s a full-sized van sitting behind it.

We did a bunch of paperwork. Michael took me to the gas station and topped off the fuel tank, as well as the reservoir for some sort of additive I’ll need to put in every 10,000 or so miles. (Yeah, I need to read the book.) I bought him lunch. We got back to the dealer and pulled up to the bay where my dead truck — which they’d never even gotten started — sat with all kind of diagnostic equipment attached it it. (The diagnosis was bad. The Pasco dealer had misdiagnosed the problem and fixed one of the symptoms but not the cause. In all honesty, I was lucky the La Grande dealer was willing to take it on trade.) While I moved everything out of the truck’s interior, the work crew moved my 100LL fuel tank off the back of the old Ford and onto the back of the new(er) one. We strapped it into place — I’ll likely have it permanently removed when I get home with it this spring. Then I said goodbye to the old truck and left it behind forever.

Good riddance.

Michael came with me to the RV repair place, where the owner had just finished fixing the RV’s landing gear. I think he just wanted to drive around in my truck. I paid the bill there and hooked up the RV. I dropped off Michael on my way to the freeway.

It was about 1 PM when I got on the road.

By this time, it was already New Year’s Eve and far too late to meet up with my friends in Salt Lake City. I adjusted my travel plans accordingly. Boise was still my destination for an overnight stay. I hit the freeway running — and immediately experienced an amazing difference in the way my new rig ran.

Uphill, downhill, flat ground — that new used truck pulled the 12000+ pound load as if it were nothing.

New Ford
My new rig in a parking lot in Ely, NV on the fourth day of my extended journey. Looks pretty sharp, no?

We made excellent time to Boise, mostly because I was actually able to drive at the speed limit, even uphill. We spent the night in a less than satisfactory Super 8 near the airport, then hit the road at 5 AM local time. We were in Vegas by 3 PM. The next day, we were in Ehrenberg in time for lunch with my friends.

Since landing at our first campsite on the Colorado River backwaters, I’ve had a chance to drive it on the freeway and back roads without the fifth wheel attached. This truck is fast. And comfortable. And a real pleasure to drive.

A few of my friends, on hearing that I got a new truck, told me that I deserved it. I doubted them at first, but now I have to agree: I do.

And it was worth waiting for.

The Starbucks Resolution

Posted on by
1

One New Year’s Resolution kept.

Last January, I shared my short list of New Year’s Resolutions. Like most people who try to make and keep resolutions, I pretty much failed.

Say No to StarbucksOne resolution I kept, however, was the one swearing off Starbucks. I wasn’t necessarily swearing off Starbucks coffee — after all, it’s pretty common in many restaurants. Instead, I was swearing off Starbucks as a source for coffee (and anything else) — in other words, the Starbucks coffee shops.

They were everywhere. In town, at airports, in malls. In some cities — I’m looking at you, Seattle! — they were across the street from each other. You could walk up or drive through. It was the ultimate in ubiquitous convenience.

It was the supermarket shops that got me. How easy was it to grab a latte before rolling down the produce aisle with my cart? How much time did I waste standing on line? How much money did I throw away on mediocre coffee served by often snooty baristas?

So I swore off Starbucks and actually stuck with it for an entire year. Yes: I went a full year without buying anything at any of the hundreds of Starbucks coffee shops I passed in the course of my life.

It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be — except when I went grocery shopping, of course. I really wanted that warm cup off coffee in my hand or in the cart’s cup holder while I shopped. But even that became easier over time. And as the year came to a close, I began to feel a real sense of achievement at meeting this silly goal.

Where did I get my coffee instead of Starbucks? Well, west coast states have drive-through coffee stands all over the place. In the Wenatchee area where I live, Dutch Brothers is big — there are numerous convenient locations — and they’re even big in California, where I go annually for my frost control work. Aut-to Mocha is a local chain with numerous locations in the area. Both of these have punch cards that give you a free drink when you buy 10. (I have punch cards in each of my vehicles.) I began frequenting those places instead of Starbucks. In most cases, I liked the coffee better. And when I was at SeaTac’s Terminal C, it was a real pleasure to wait behind two people instead of a dozen when I wanted coffee while waiting for a flight.

Oddly, just yesterday I found myself in an Albertson’s with a Starbucks coffee booth. My year was over; I’d achieved my resolution. Celebrate with a cup of Starbucks on a chilly, rainy morning? It was the worst cup of coffee I’d bought in a year — weak and bitter. Ick.

Maybe I’ll just extend that resolution for another year.

Night Stalkers

Posted on by
Comment

Caught in action!

Game Camera
Game cameras like this offer an affordable way to keep a record of visitors while you’re gone.

Last winter, I set one of my game cameras up on my unfinished deck. I’d found an animal turd on a piece of plywood outside my living room door and wanted to know where it had come from. So I set up the camera — and promptly forgot about it for six months.

Eventually, I got to work on the deck and the game camera was in the way. I brought it inside, where it languished on the windowsill beside my desk for a while and then brought it downstair to the big desk in my shop. I thought it had been turned off, but it hadn’t. It took pictures whenever it sensed movement until the batteries finally died.

Today, I pulled out both game cameras, put in new batteries, and prepared to set them out to see what they might capture while I’m not looking. I pulled both SD cards out of the cameras and had a look at their contents.

One camera included video shot inside the garage of my old Arizona house back in 2013. I’d set up the camera after I realized that someone — in all likelihood, my future wasband — had attempted to break in through the garage window beside the front door. Fortunately, we’d put a bar there years before that prevented the window from opening more than a few inches for ventilation. When I noticed it, the window was open and stuck hard half off its track. Since I did a lot of traveling that last season home in Arizona, I thought it might be a good idea to set up some kind of surveillance for while I was gone. We did some Googling, came upon this business: Video Cloud Surveillance Platform – Arcules – Get a demo today! And set up a consultation, which resulted in us getting the advice that game cameras in the kitchen and garage were a good and cheap solution. Fortunately (for my wasband), the only activity they captured was me and my friends coming and going.

Dawn Cat
One of my two barn cats looks out over his domain just before dawn last March.

The other camera was the one I’d put out on the unfinished deck last year. It was set up for motion triggers images. And what it caught kind of surprised me: my barn cats hanging out on the supports for the deck. Keep in mind that the only way they could get up to the deck was to climb at least ten feet up one of the posts. There was no ladder, overhanging trees, and no staircase.

Barn Cats
Here’s a shot with both cats. The surface they’re on was approximately 3-1/2 inches wide 10 feet off the ground.

Glowing Eyes
The cats spent most of March 27 up on the deck. According to my calendar, I’d just come home from a trip to California the afternoon before.

I found about two dozen photos with one or both of the cats in them. In most instances, they were either walking right past the front of the camera’s lens or sitting on one of the 2 x 10 beams that support the deck.

Nowadays, I think I have just one barn cat: the black one. Although I saw Black Cat just last night on the pathway between his “safe place” in the shed and my front door, I haven’t seen Gray Cat for months. I’ll likely get one or two new barn cats in the spring. I got them to keep the rodent population down so the snakes wouldn’t have anything to eat and it worked like a charm — I didn’t see a single snake within 200 feet of my home or garden. This is, by far, the best way to control snakes and rodents. Best of all, since they’re not really “pets,” they don’t take much care. I can provide enough food and water in their shed to keep them satisfied for a month since they supplement cat food with rodents and their water with the chickens’ water.

As far as cameras and security goes — without revealing too much, let’s just say that I don’t rely on game cameras for security anymore. I have a far more sophisticated system with live cameras I can access from anywhere. Of course, none of that really matters when my house-sitter has a Doberman and knows where I keep my shotgun.

And I never did find out where that turd came from…