We have had some slightly more seasonable/typical weather recently.
Several days ago I did the spring cleaning on my Yamaha YZF R3 motorcycle, and cleaned/lubricated/adjusted the drive chain. Did I mention I really prefer the drive belt on the Harley vs a chain?
I did a 45 minute ride on the Yamaha, my first motorcycle ride for 2025.

Yesterday, I rolled the Harley Road King out of the barn and did spring cleaning on that. When I finished, I thought about taking a half day ride on the Harley, and quickly decided against it.
We have had out-of-town company for around 10 days, and disappearing on the Harley would have been frowned upon, in addition it would have been rude.
Oh, and that out-of-town company? This morning I drove four hours round trip and dropped them at the airport. My Girlfriend's maternal Grandmother passed several months ago,
and the funeral/burial was last weekend. My Girlfriends parents stayed here at the house with us.

So instead of a Road King motorcycle ride, I climbed on the 2013 Kubota BX 2370 tractor I've spent between 80 & 100 hours restoring/repairing over the previous month and a half.
I could have waited another week before the lawn at the house really needed mowing. But at some point, I knew I had to stop painting/polishing the Kubota and put it to work.
I am happy with the results of the Kubota restoration. It didn't do anything unexpected. No leaks, no unusual noises, no vibrations.
After spending several hours mowing, it appears it will be everything that I had hoped it would be.

Here is the damage they did to my Dunstan Chestnut tree when they dropped two Popular trees into the tree and damage the limbs. When I tried to call the worker over who was working about 60 yards away, he ignored me and after several shout outs, gave me the finger. That is when I pulled out my Rossi 44 Spl and shot the rake out of his hand.







He didn't cut this branch off close enough to the collar so it would heal over in time.

I finally caught a sunny day. We've had monsoon rains here for weeks.
It's the first mowing of the recreational property for 2025, and the first time using the Kubota BX 2370 up there. I've mowed several times at home already.
I filled the tractor fuel tank as I was heading to the property before mowing, and filled it again on my way back home.

Even with the extra long grass and having to re-mow the windrows of grass clippings, it appears that the diesel uses about half of the gallons quantity compared to the gas powered John Deere.
Here at my location, diesel fuel is about seventy cents more per gallon compared to regular gasoline.
The diesel engine doesn't bog down when re-mowing a five inch tall windrow of previously cut grass clippings.
It was so tall, in places where a tractor wheel drove over the clippings, it packed the clippings down into a mat which will kill the grass underneath.
But it isn't a golf course, and a year from now it won't matter.

Apparently, the cold winter weather didn't kill off the ticks, as I brought one home with me and the better half had to remove it from my leg.

I did take a few photos using my new cell phone. It has an option in the camera settings for 50 MP ultra high resolution photos, and the file size per photo is about 20 MB. (8160 x 6144 pixels)

PXL_20250512_222827861 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

Whadda coinkydink. I mowed the upper half of the pasture with the B2650 and Landpride 60" rer finish mower and the back yard with the 54" Husky rider I bought last fall.

Lower half of the pasture needs a week of dry weather before I'll be able to mow it, and it'll likely be a foot high by then.

Yesterday after completion.
It didn't turn out bad at all for an old humpy/bumpy farm pasture.
There are several locations in the ~ 2 acres that have chronic high grass growth rate, over the bank and downhill where the water runoff tends to go when it rains hard.
But it's never soft ground, and if it's dry enough to cut grass, just bring a hay baler.

PXL_20250512_222630506 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

PXL_20250512_222634747 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

PXL_20250512_222638912 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

PXL_20250512_222642753 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

PXL_20250512_222651297 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

Looking good, green grass and trees coming out is always nice to see.

Now that you have the BX 2370 you could get a bar to tow behind it and lay out some top soil to level the place a little at a time... to rid the Humpy bumpy pasture You don't want to spill your barley malt whilst mowing!

I believe most of the uneven surfaces are a result of cow pathways. They will walk on a particular path for their entire life.
Filling the low spots in? Nope, not going to happen!
It was tough enough removing the huge rocks.

I can't drink any barley malt while there doing mowing, I have to drive home.
When I'm at the cabin and staying for a day or more, then that is a different story.

Yup on the cow paths.

Heck I've got a "PHPaul Path" from the back door to the chicken coop from walking down and back twice a day for 30 years while I kept critters!

That yard looks fantastic! I see yards on nice houses that don’t look that good.

How far a drive is it from your home to the property? Do you tow the mower on a highway?

Good looking lawn, how often do you cut it this time of the year, weekly?

^^^
This early in the season, every 7 to 10 days.
Later in the season, IF it ever stops raining, 10 to 14 days.
In the past, I've pushed it to 18 - 20 days if it's really dry.
I was there again today. So exactly one week.

It's about 25 to 30 minutes driving time. Home to cabin.
It's all two lane blacktop, tar/stone, and the road frontage at
the recreational property/cabin is dirt for the last mile or so.

I don't see any real difference towing the BX 2370 vs the JD X720.
The BX is about 300 pounds heavier, but still inside the Jeep's rated
towing specifications.

The Jeep is a Rubicon with manual transmission and 4.10 axles.
It easily hauls the Kubota BX mower at 55 to 60 without any concerns.
With the other Kubota BX loader/backhoe on the steel double axle trailer,
it works harder.

I have been "fighting" with the hinges on my shipping container entry doors since I purchased it.
The day it was delivered at the remote property, the hauler/installer got stuck in traffic accident bumper to bumper gridlock on I-81 and was delayed for arrival for multiple hours.
The installer demos the newly installed shipping container for the customer.
Surprise! The entry doors hinges were very stiff.

The installer still had to travel back to the container yard in the Philly/Trenton vicinity, so I told him I would lube the hinges.
Nothing worked during the years for freeing up those stiff hinges.

Yesterday, with the heat and humidity off the charts, I decided to do something about the stiff hinges.
The hinge pins are welded in place, so it isn't really possible to remove them and free them up.
I have tried all the "rust buster" aerosol products, along with ATF and motor oil.
The only thing that made any difference on those hinges is "Ed's Red" which is a 50% - 50% mixture of ATF and Acetone, and it didn't really free the hinges up for long.

Yesterday, I decided to install grease fittings on all of the eight hinges. It was a pain in the ass job!

1) Because the exterior surface of the hinge is round, first you file a flat by hand.
2) Centerpunch.
3) Pilot drill the hinge body and the hinge pin.
4) Tap drill the hinge body.
5) Tap 1/4"-28 UNF.
6) Install grease fitting.
7) Grease the hinge.
8) Move the door back and forth endlessly.
9) Grease again, continue with moving the door back and forth.

Each of the two entry doors on the container have four hinges per door, eight hinges in total.

One door freed up nicely, you can move the door using just pressure from one finger.
The door that was always the really stiff hinges is better, but needs more greasing/moving.
I stopped yesterday when I about dropped from the heat/humidity.

PXL_20250706_203723301 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

On another matter, I will mention that I recently signed a non disclosure agreement.

Another brutally hot & humid day at the recreational property/cabin.
Due to circumstances beyond my control, (unending rain) it had been 17 days since I mowed the last time.
I don't believe I had any fun while there today.

It's 98 degrees Fahrenheit outside today here in upstate NY, and way too hot for any outside tasks.
Today, I activated/registered/updated firmware for my Cuddeback trail camera system.
I purchased all the hardware components back in late March, 2025.
The warranty period starts the day each camera is powered up for the first time, which was the reason for waiting.

I bought six cameras for deployment in my woods, and one home camera for gathering all the images from the six deployed woods cameras, and the home camera sends all the collected images from the deployed cameras via cell signal to the Cuddeback server. The server then sends all the collected images out to ten email addresses/phone numbers maximum.

Lots of tedious entering alpha/numeric characters on their website, registering each device for the warranty.

Cuddeback has come out with updated firmware for the camera system since my late March purchase.

Previously, each time a firmware update was available, you downloaded the new firmware onto an SD card, and installed it manually in each device. That's what I did today.
If the camera system was deployed in the deer hunting woods, you had to physically go to each camera and install the new version of firmware in each camera from the SD card.
The camera system shipped with Gen 2 firmware installed, and I installed Gen 3 firmware today.
The Gen 3 firmware has several huge improvements, it allows transmission of full sized images instead of thumbnail/reduced resolution images, and also allows camera firmware updates and changing individual camera settings/adjustments remotely from anywhere in the world the user has an internet connection.

Those unfamiliar with the Cuddeback/Cuddelink trail camera system, they generate their own private mesh WiFi network out in the woods, and the cameras all communicate with each other and send photos from the furthest away camera, to the next closest camera, up the daisy chain of deployed cameras, to the home camera which is located where cell signal is available.

In my cabin, I have fiber optic internet, and a Verizon network extender.
The Verizon network extender uses a wired internet connection, and generates a Verizon cell signal for about a 250 foot radius from the extender, just like a normal Verizon cell tower.
Up to 23 woods cameras maximum will interface with one home camera.
The cell phone plan I purchased is for the home camera, $16.20 per month including tax for 2000 transmitted images per month.
That's their basic entry level plan, and higher cost options are available for more monthly images.

I believe I now have all the cameras ready to go to the woods for deployment.
One of my deer hunting buddies will go with me when we deploy all the cameras out in the woods, but that will happen another day when it's cooler.

This long Labor Day holiday weekend has kept me very busy.
Saturday, I got all of my bush hogging done at the recreational property.
We only do it once per year, typically on the Labor Day weekend.
This allows bountiful grass growth for my deer herd before we get snow.
It was mostly uneventful, I didn't get stuck in the mud this year.
I did roll the remnants of a small tree stump up out of the ground and it got under
the rotary cutter deck. A few seconds later I was driving up my woods road heading
for the cabin. I had proper tools in my shipping container and a spare shear bolt with
hardware in the toolbox on the BX 25. I will have to remember to buy another package of shear bolts before bush hogging my food plots in 2026.

Sunday, it was more work, but also interesting and fun.
With several assistants, we installed the Cuddeback/Cuddelink trail camera system.
The home camera (and it cannot take any photos) is mounted inside the cabin.
It serves as a digital photo collection device, and using LTE cell signal, it relays all the photos collected from the deployed trail cameras installed and sends the photos to the Cuddeback server.
The Cuddeback server then sends the collection of photos out to email addresses and cell phones.
You're limited to 10 email addresses.

As you're deploying the woods trail cameras, you set the camera you are working with in a special
setup receiver mode, and it measures in real time the mesh WiFi signal (used for moving pictures from camera to camera) being transmitted from the home camera.
It's important to start with the home camera, then the closest trail camera to the home camera,
and continue working away from home camera. As you deploy cameras, since you are monitoring the WiFi signal strength, you will always have usable signal strength for moving pictures "upstream" to the home camera.

There isn't any setting clocks, or setting camera identifier numbers/names or changing camera settings. The cell connection and the Wi-Fi signal is bidirectional and all adjustments, camera numbering and camera naming is all done remotely from a computer or laptop or cell phone.
I did keep a single page "cheat sheet" paper when out in the woods when deploying trail cameras.
Easy to keep track of camera identifier numbers, camera names, and camera locations.
This proved invaluable when completing the system setup after I arrived back at home.
Because my desktop PC at home has failed, I did all of the Cuddeback/Cuddelink system setup just using my Android cell phone.

The system was fairy easy to setup. I also have the Cuddeback App on my Android cell phone.
The other user interface, is the: camp.cuddeback.com website. Any camera setting or adjustment can be done remotely from home. The system also has several features I appreciate.

1) You can set up a trail camera for property surveillance easily. Giving the selected surveillance camera a special identifier, it allows pictures from the selected camera to be sent virtually instantly to the Cuddeback server for almost real time notification of potential trespassing concerns.
Pictures from the non surveillance cameras (the woods cameras for watching deer) are held in the upload area of the home camera, and uploaded to the Cuddeback server at periodic intervals, adjustable by the user.

2) During setup, you can set up the system to take a picture at each deployed trail camera
once per day. These pictures are triggered by the system and not by motion or heat.
The sole purpose of these daily "proof" pictures is to prove that each trail camera is capable of taking a picture. You seeing the proof pictures proves the Wi-Fi network is operational, along with the home camera picture collection activity and cellular transmission is all functional.
The daily proof pictures are purposely VERY low resolution, and very grainy.
Why? Small digital file size for quick transmission, and proof pictures do not count against your
monthly allowance which varies depending on which photo plan you have purchased.

My purchased picture plan is for 2000 pictures per month for about $16 including tax.
I have five deployed cameras in my woods, and one deployed camera watching the cabin for trespassers.

3) Once per day, the system sends you an emailed report about your systems operational status.
You get individual trail camera battery status, interconnectivity of your WiFi signal strength, and everything a trail camera geek ever wanted to know.

Trail camera photos have started arriving since deployment yesterday.
It kind of nice to see pictures from 25 or so miles away, and if you feel like looking at the arriving pictures from the comfort of your bed, you can!

My desktop PC failed over a week ago. It's replacement is due for delivery tomorrow.
It will take me several days to get it operational and configured, and then I will again have the ability to post photos. I'm doing this post from my phone and never mastered posting pictures from a phone.

So how do I like the Cuddeback/Cuddelink cellular trail camera system so far?
I give it a big thumbs up!

I am gradually gaining an understanding on the setup & operation of the Cuddeback/Cuddelink cellular trail camera system.
I have five cameras in the 69 acres of woods, and the sixth is doing security overwatch on the cabin.
The cabin overwatch camera was installed about 15' up a tree using an extension ladder.

The Cuddelink system can run up to a maximum of 23 remote cameras. (remote cameras are $150 each)
There is no additional cost for running additional remote cameras, other than the initial camera purchase, and with additional remote cameras, the cellular photo plan MAY need modification due to more monthly pictures arriving from more cameras in total.

Yesterday, I actually had to go to the recreational property and physically relocate two of the cameras onto different trees.
Pictures are arriving at home, or anywhere there is an internet connection, viewable on a PC, laptop and/or cell phone.
I have the system set up so any pictures taken by the cabin security camera are sent immediately, rather than in batches for game pictures, four times per 24 hour period.

Any camera setting/adjustment is made using remote adjustment via PC/laptop or cell phone, other than hanging it onto a different tree. That's still boots on the ground.
Additionally, camera firmware updates can be done remotely as well, the mesh Wi-Fi system is bidirectional for adding additional camera features and bug fixes as the camera firmware is updated routinely.
The transmitted pictures are in reduced image size/resolution for faster transmission with the photo plan I'm paying for.
Additional photo plans are available (with a higher monthly cost) if you want the full resolution pictures transmitted over the cellular network.

My monthly plan is $16.20 including tax for 2000 monthly cellular transmitted pictures.
I also have a free photo plan at the Cuddeback website, where up to 2500 pictures are stored on their server, for up to 14 days, before automatic deletion.
You download any pictures you want to keep to your personal device(s) before the automated deletion at 2500 total and/or 14 days.
The full resolution pictures are available anytime on the "native" camera SD Card where they were taken originally.
I am using 32GB SD cards in the cameras, each is good for 20,000 to 30,000 pictures per SD card.
You can also "wipe" an SD card remotely if it's approaching full capacity.

I have purchased my hunting license, and collectively, we are looking forward to stands & blinds preparation day, along with the upcoming hunting season in November.

IMG_1821834555 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

IMG_1834770444 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

IMG_1831727784 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

This photo is at the Canadian Cooler deer stand location. One of the guys in the group is a Canadian with dual citizenship, and the hunting stand location is in the coldest most shaded location on my recreational property. It's never warm at that spot. (that's the reason for the deer stand name, along with the hunter using that particular spot)

IMG_1824515167 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

IMG_1820783203 by cee_Kamp 32ACP, on Flickr

Excellent report and love the Game Cam pictures. Good job!

I did the Cuddeback/Cuddelink system setup using my cell phone. My desktop PC failed and died. It was four+ years old and the extended warranty expired in December 2024, right after a mid year 2024 warranty repair with a new power supply and motherboard. This is the second Dell high end desktop computer that has failed miserably for me. DOA at just short of five years old.
Fortunately for me, I am a FIRM believer in backing a PC up, I even had a backup to the backup, with two external hard drives. I did not lose a single file with the Dell PC failure.

I decided to replace the Dell with an MSI Gaming desktop PC. I don't use the MSI unit for gaming, just that it should be longer before it is obsolete. (assuming it doesn't die early)
High end components, fast Intel processor, Nvidia RTX 5060 graphics card, 2TB internal SSD, 32GB of DDR5 RAM, and two external 2TB drives, with one external drive being SSD, and the other, traditional hard drive. Of course, it was over the Labor Day holiday weekend when the new MSI PC was being shipped, and I had available time for the camera system setup and deployment during the holiday weekend.

I do now have the MSI gaming unit all set up and configured the way I want, and today on the big MSI curved monitor, I see that I "fat fingered" the cell phone screen and during camera setup,
I labeled the trail camera CANADIAN _COOLER, when I meant to type CANADIAN_COOLER. (a space after CANADIAN)
That small issue is now corrected, and the next time the system connects to the cellular network, that typo will be corrected.
Camera numbering & naming is all done remotely with a phone or desktop/laptop PC.

You can see the space in the photo above. (2 pictures up)
No more 1" x 2" monochromatic, hard to see, hard to read screens on the individual trail cameras.
If you have ever set up a trail camera, you know what I mean.

Very impressive system.
Can’t wait for more game pictures!

The picture above with the four Turkeys:

Nighttime photos at that location, the "invisible" to the human eye Cuddeback "Black Flash" reflects off the blueberry bush in the right foreground.
It "washes out" nighttime photos there and causes them to be overly bright and results in somewhat poor nighttime image quality.
High quality nighttime images at that camera location could be valuable for arresting/prosecuting vandals, trespassers, and thieves.
In addition, on windy days, sometimes the blueberry bush motion triggers an unneeded/unwanted security photo.

So that blueberry bush has to go. The BX 25 Kubota will easily push the blueberry bush over and uproot it.
I have a small topsoil pile over in the woods line for filling in the divot in the turf when done.

You can't see it in the above Turkey/Cabin photo, (the right foreground blueberry bush is in the way) but right off the corner of the cabin that has the solar street light mounted, there is fresh topsoil from removing a huge blueberry bush. That huge blueberry bush blocked camera visibility of the cabin front porch and the entry door, so when we installed the camera system, that huge blueberry bush was removed. I should have removed the additional right foreground blueberry bush while I had the BX 25 at the recreational property, but simply ran out of daylight working hours.
I guess it's just another excuse to load the BX 25 and haul it up there for another day of tractor fun!

Speaking about that Cuddeback Black Flash, standing right in front of a Cuddeback/Cuddelink trail camera and triggering a flash, you cannot see anything, even in darkness.
The only way to see if the Black Flash is functioning is to use a smartphone, have the phone ready to take a picture, and watch the phone screen.
Apparently, the image/photo sensor on the smart phone is more responsive to the light wavelength being emitted by the camera flash than the human eye.

There are a variety of flash options available from Cuddeback when the system is being ordered.

White Strobe, furthest flash distance, but very visible to the human eye.
Infrared Flash, less flash distance, less visible to the human eye compared to the white strobe.
Black Flash, least flash distance, invisible to the human eye.

For me, I picked the Black Flash for the stealth.