So, some time has passed since my last post and that’s because my focus has been distracted. Reality has a way of intruding on the cocoon we build around us. It may be sudden severe ill health. Or, as in my case, an intrusion.
In my “battle of wits” post last month I mentioned the advent of the fox which seized my favorite chicken. A predator from the outside. Well, a few weeks ago, another predator surfaced – the human kind, and one evening, when I was away from the property, they broke into the log cabin and stole (I was going to say “removed” but why mince words?) a bunch of items. Although I am at the property every day, I am not there every night. In the beginning, in anticipation of such an event, I resolved to not keep any valuable/significant items at the log cabin. And then, as the months rolled by uneventfully, complacency set it and I began leaving (for convenience sake) more and more tools and possessions.
When I first purchased my pickup truck I acquired a large tool box, which fits over the truck bed, and each day I selected the tools I needed and transported them in the tool box to and from the property. For the past few years the tool box was unused in storage. It is now back in commission and I will continue using it until I have better secured the property.
To secure the property I have been working on several fronts:
- the excessive vegetation, which provided privacy, comes with a cost – lack of security because it impedes surveillance by neighbors and may even give the impression that the house is abandoned or rarely visited. So a lot has been cut back.
- neighbors are important for deterrence and detection and I am lucky to have two supportive neighbors who are keeping an eye on things.
- gates. It is not enough to chain gates since they can be lifted off their hinges, which actually happened to me. So I have cabled secured the hinge side of the gates.
- lighting. I have sprung for the very efficient LED dawn to dusk lights and dawn to dusk fluorescent lights. Initially I used halogen 300W lights, which are very inefficient, and I was going to transition to halide or sodium until I decided to spend a bit more for LED.
- when I purchased the log cabin I replaced all the external locks with Kwikset SmartKey locks, which can be easily rekeyed – less than a minute to rekey each lock.
- alarm system. I have installed internal motion detectors and a siren and will in due course include a monitoring system.
- surveillance cameras. These are being expanded and upgraded.
- I re-sited my outside motion detectors, which were intended to locate the fox, to the exterior of the house to provide early warning of human visitors.
In future posts I will provide more information on the various techniques. Of course the proof is in the pudding, so will wait and see how matters proceed.
To return to normalcy, today I replaced the shattered window, which provided access to the intruders. It was actually a fairly simple operation. The key was to find the exact replacement and I was lucky that Lowe’s carried the match, which came with a few extra features, for a reasonable price. Replacement windows do not have “nail fins” which are on the original windows. So the first step is to cut off the nail fins which secure the old window to the opening. I have an old, good quality reciprocating saw (fortunately never stored at the log cabin) and I was able to cut through the plastic nail fins on all four sides of the damaged window without too much hassle. The window came out easily, I then cleaned the frame, applied caulk, inserted the new window and screwed it secure. My other step towards normalcy was to post to this website.
I have some catching up to do – a recent good honey harvest, squash which are producing and have not yet fallen victim to the borers, a decent garlic harvest, and more – for future posts.