Rainy Day…

It’s the beginning of the summer rainy season in southwest Florida. Today is a rainy day: an unusual slow, steady rain during a season characterized by sudden, strong thunderstorms.

I am home this weekend, laid up with a bad back. It started Friday morning before work. Spent the best part of the day struggling with the stabbing pain in my back, while trying to focus on polishing leadership lessons for next year’s third graders. By bedtime, the spasms started, and I haven’t been out of bed since—it’s now Sunday afternoon.

I was hoping to get back out to Picayune this weekend. I ordered a steel case and a steel cable lock for the TrailCam on the advice of Tim Tetzlaff from Naples Zoo. In Tim’s words, “an ounce of prevention…”

Needless to say, bouncing around in the Jeep wasn’t in the cards this weekend. Hopefully my back will be better tomorrow, and I can make a run out after work. Now, with the slow steady rainfall today, that might make for an interesting ride tomorrow. The good news is this rainfall is still less than half an inch here at the house. After a true summertime thunderstorm on Tuesday, the rain gauge had 1.5” of rain in it. Hopefully today’s rainfall will fill the empty spaces in Picayune (there are a lot of them!) before anything covers the roads.

The two minute video below was actually from last week’s card swap. This bear comes down to the pond for a drink at 8:34 am. The sound of it lapping water is clear over the sound of the breeze. After getting its fill of water, the bear continues its path past the camera, giving it a curious snuffle and sniff as it passes by. After swapping the card last Saturday, I moved the camera back into the trees about twenty feet, just so it was not as exposed on the pond. The area is clear, and given the views of bear, deer, and turkey so far, this should be a good spot to capture wildlife.

The plan is to leave the camera in that location on the pond for the wet season. Once the pump station on Merritt starts flooding the area, there’s no more driving to the pond. There are a couple of routes to hike/bike to the location. If all else fails, I’ll load the camera with fresh batteries, and leave it for the season.