The critter cam was delivered and I’ll need to get some batteries and a micro-SD card for it. I’ll also need to learn how to mount it to one of the posts supporting our sun room.
The rough distance from the camera to the drain grate is about 40 feet, so it should be well within the camera’s range.
We plan to remove the rocks, but leave the worm gear adjustable clamp on the grate. There hasn’t been any new disturbance since my last post about it. The rock is still on top of the grate.
I’ll test the camera first just to make sure I’ve got it set up correctly, which could be a challenge for me since I’ve never done anything like this before.
We’re going to try our best to catch whatever has been messing with our drain grate. Wish us luck!
Update: I just formatted and installed the micro SD card, the 4 AA batteries, set the clock to the correct time, and quickly ran through the functions. It seems to work fine in Test Mode. It’s a little late now, so we plan to set it up for tomorrow!
The drain tile ghost struck again last night. You’ll recall a couple of days ago, I stacked two large rocks on the tile drain grate which has been the subject of numerous vandal attacks for at least the last couple of weeks.
It looks like the top rock was picked up and turned over on the ground about a foot away from the grate. The other rock, which is heavier, looks like it was pushed across the grate, seemingly to remove it. The grate is still attached with the worm gear adjustable clamp.
This happens only at night.
The only trouble is we don’t what’s causing the problem. It’s a mystery that drove us to order a critter cam, which is supposed to be delivered in the next couple of days.
We also don’t know why only one of 7 grates has been singled out for attention. They’re all the same. They help control drainage in our back yard. They all have water in them, which slowly drains. There is nothing else inside the pipe worth all the effort apparently being expended.
Over time, the major interest is not that this occurs, but who or what is causing it. So, for now we plan to leave the scene of the crime as it is. We’ll see what happens tonight.
I’m not going to post any guards. They’ve all been incompetent.
We can’t believe the 3-rock weight option to help secure the drain tile grate failed last night already. This morning, the top rock ended up about two feet away down the slope of our yard. The other two rocks were tipped over into the landscaping rod.
What’s crazy about this is how the top rock got moved so far away from the grate. I think something or someone would have to pick it up and move it. It wouldn’t have taken much strength to tip the two other rocks.
Obviously, the three grate guards failed as well, probably because they were drinking on the job. They will have to go.
On the bright side, the grate was still attached, and the clamp was secure. I replaced two of the rocks on the grate and we’re hoping for the best for now. But we won’t be surprised if it’s a mess tomorrow.
This is an ongoing mystery which requires a critter cam now. We are ordering one today.
We’re hoping to catch the culprit on camera if the shenanigans are still occurring when it’s delivered, and we’re pretty sure they’ll continue. There’s no reason I can think of for any animal to mess with a drain grate. There’s no food in the drain and water is a lot easier to get in the wild.
And what kind of person would pull a prank like this?
You’re probably wondering why I don’t just secure the pipe and the grate with stout screws and forget it. There are two reasons. One is that I’m not convinced that would eliminate the problem.
The other is like Clark Griswold’s attitude in the movie National Lampoon’s Vacation (1983), expletives deleted:
“I think you’re all bleeped in the head. We’re ten hours from the bleeping fun park and you want to bail out. Well, I’ll tell you something. This is no longer a vacation. It’s a quest. It’s a quest for fun. You’re gonna have fun, and I’m gonna have fun… We’re all gonna have so much bleeping fun we’re gonna need plastic surgery to remove our bleeping smiles! You’ll be whistling ‘Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah’ out of your bleeps! I must be crazy! I’m on a pilgrimage to see a moose. Praise Marty Moose! Holy bleep!”
This thing is too senseless and has been going on for too long for me to say, “Just screw it.” So, the drain tile grate mystery is now a quest. No, I don’t need an aspirin!
Last night something removed our tile drain grate again! This time it wasn’t flipped. Something lifted the grate off the pipe and set it on the ground beside it. We were flabbergasted.
Recall that I thought I had secured the thing with a worm gear adjustable clamp on October 1, 2022. Up until that time, something (or someone) was flipping the grate upside down off the pipe every 2-3 days and lately every day.
I looked around and could not discern any animal tracks. The two crossed rods and thread over the grate were not disturbed. The worm gear clamp was still in place. I figured I had just not placed it close enough to the top of the grate and not screwed it down tightly enough.
So, I put the grate back on the pipe, pulled the clamp up so it covered the seam between the pipe and the grate better, and really cranked the screw tight enough so I could not move it at all.
Now we’re shopping for a critter cam. I favor the idea that a raccoon could be the culprit. Another outside possibility is a woodchuck. Both have fingers and are strong. This lid removal caper looks like it only happens at night. Sena checks it in the evening when she comes in from working out in the garden. That would tend to focus on the raccoon suspect since it’s nocturnal and the woodchuck is not.
Sena is going to get a brick or two to set on the grate and we will see what happens. Raccoons can lift 10-20 pounds, though. I’m thinking it’ll just move the bricks one at a time.
The other possibility is that the culprit might not be an animal. What if this is a kid playing games? There are not any kids in the neighborhood old enough to pull this off, though.
I’m pretty sure it’s not Bigfoot. The sod is loose and soft around the grate. Bigfoot would leave obvious tracks.
What about extraterrestrials? For example, some people think aliens are behind all the cattle mutilations. Others think it is some ultra-secret government agency running experiments (which have been going on for decades) to see how much nuclear radiation cows are absorbing from all the atomic fracking these bozos are doing to discover more fossil fuel energy resources underground all over the country. They cover their tracks to hide it from the public using the usual conspiracy tools—they just tell enough to investigators who get TV producers to make expose shows about it. They tend to air them in October to make you think this is just all about Halloween. I saw this show on TV last night.
Of course, if the government were doing that, there would be nobody living in the country by now because everybody would be dead from cancer from all the radiation.
But what if the extraterrestrials are trying to steal all the tile drain grates to use them as cooking grills to make barbecued chicken? The only problem is that aliens are so puny, they cannot do more than barely move them off the tile pipe. They get all out of breath and exhausted, which leads to them just giving up and going to a good BBQ joint like Jimmy Jack’s Rib Shack in Iowa City.
Where was I? Oh, I need to hire a new guard for the grate now. Obviously the first two bozos were incompetent. The zombie was too busy eating his own armpits and the wolfman started pooping on the grate and clogging up the slots, because even though they may be hundreds of years old, you still cannot potty train them.
And the sword the wolfman carried got stuck in the grate slots, leading to a hernia, the surgery for which veterinarians charge a lot. I could get them from passing zombies, but they are touchy about their stuff.
So, the tile drain grate saga continues. Aren’t you glad?
Update: Sena bought 3 big rocks, the total weight of which might exceed 20 pounds. We set them on top of the grate. And I called the Temp Agency and hired 3 new guards to make sure that grate stays on. Depending on what history you believe, either good things come in threes—or bad things come in threes. We’re going to go with good things.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 