The End

 Last night was my final cat adventure up Quartzville road.   I took two game cams along and two traps.

It was pouring and quite windy, but I went anyhow.

It was important to see what was eating the food I've left out a few times since the road opened after the slide.   I did not believe it was a cat eating it, but one can always hope.

I got a couple of tacos in Sweet Home to take along for dinner and got to mp 15 just as darkness was descending, about 7:30.  

I checked for tracks, found none in the soggy dirt, then set one trap at the bathroom and one over across the parking lot by the picnic table.  I set up game cams to watch both, protected from rain in plastic containers I got at the dollar store.   The cameras are water proof but in the rain, the lens get hit by moisture and the view is occluded.

I parked out by the road, to give maximum privacy to whatever was out there.

I'd brought along a book I'd been reading in bed nights.  I had about a quarter left to read.   It's written by a Dane.  A Greenland native, is living in Copenhagen in state supported apartments struggling with her identity.  A young boy living there too has died falling from the roof.  Smilla, if nothing else, knows snow and ice.  She is an expert in fact, and has led scientific expeditions in Greenland where she did nothing but read the ice, for safety.

She becomes convinced the boy did not die accidentally.  The police are not very interested in the case.  She is not an easy woman and begins her own investigation which is wrought with extreme danger as it becomes clear, very powerful and very rich people are involved.

Anyhow, I finished the book in my car.  The last 20 pages I had to do so with broken reading glasses.  I'd taken a break, after falling asleep at 9:00, to go check the traps at midnight.  Nothing had touched anything that I could see.  So I went back to my car and back to sleep after I finished the book, removing my shoes and wrapping myself in a cozy blanket.   I thought, I could be here forever.  The night was so dark and quiet.  Only the occasional sound of the rain, soft as a whisper, hitting my windshield, and rushing water from Moose Creek plummeting down to the still low extended Quartzville Creek arm of Green Peter reservoir, from beneath the bridge, reached my ears.  

I woke with a start just after 6:00 a.m.  I was groggy and unwilling to leave my cozy cacoon.  I had brought along a thermos of coffee.  By now it was cold, but I poured a cup and drank it down.  Finally around 7:00 I put on my shoes and collected my gear.  I headed home.

There was now a dead deer sprawled across the center line not far from Whitcomb Creek.   Whomever had hit the deer must have had some damage to their car or truck.   But leaving it as a road hazard there was not a good thing.   If I'd not been eager to get home, and already tired, I would have drug it off the road.

I've seen two dead deer in the few times I've been up since the landslide was cleared.   On the Lyons road, between Scio and Mehama, I counted at least four.  Or was it five.

The hotspot for cell coverage at Thistle Creek vanished into the storm.  I could get no reception going or coming there.  

Next week, we could have three days in the 70's.  Everyone is very excited including me.  We've had so much rain this winter.  It's gone on and on and on and will go on all weekend.

When I got home about 8:30 this morning, I checked both cards from both game cameras and was not at all surprised by what I found on them.

Camera number one, at the bathrooms, revealed an all nighter deer mouse party had been held at the bathrooms.  There was no food out except in my trap but the mice had no problem running in and out of it.  The card held over 500 photos of mice, mice tails, mice butts, mice scurrying, blurry.   Must have been fun for them to discover this sudden food source.  Word went out.

The other camera, on the other side of the parking lot, wasn't placed well.  I didn't expect to find anything on its card, but I did.  A fox!   Where there are mice a plenty, there will be foxes.  This is denning season and this fox appears to be a female.  I have another photo which shows her butt end with tail to the side, to know its a girl.  She may have pups nearby.   Its a gray fox and although the image isn't clear you can see the black line down its fluffy tail.  

I'd seen two other foxes along Quartzville road and heard one yap at Thistle Creek when I'd pulled in there once and was stunned to see deer mice pouring from a hole in a dirt berm.

Foxes are very very common around here.  Some years they boom in population, some they ebb.  I had some better photos of the fox, but I edited them on an unsupported google discard program---Picasa.  So they won't upload to the blog.

This fat mouse, who marched into my trap to retrieve a glop of wet food may soon end up food in the mouth of a fox.

I've wondered over the audacity of mice.  Everything in the world is out to eat them, but out they go still, to find food.   "Won't be me gets eaten," they must reason. The optimistic mouse syndrome I call it.

We all suffer from optimistic mouse syndrome.  We have to or we'd just hide in terror.

That does it for cat hunting up Quartzville road for now.  If you know me, you know I have to do things like this, like spend a final night up there with game cams on, so I can sleep well at night.  So I can let things go and move on.

However, doesn't mean I won't be going up to enjoy that beautiful area again soon.

Took a few photos as light began to relieve the darkness of night.