A Mysterious Guest & The Solstice Sunset

We live on 5 acres of woodland in the Smoky Mountains, with the Nantahala National Forest on the perimeter of some of our land.  Needless to say, lots of trees, steep climbs and lots of area unencumbered by human scent.  While we have had a few wildlife visitors at our garden, specifically a coyote and another cat like creature we can't quite identify, we have never seen the evidence other than the critter cam pictures, and all that activity has been relatively close to the cabin, where there is lots of human activity. 

Interestingly, we discovered a disturbed area of ground up in our woods, an area we travel infrequently.  Our land runs along one of our creeks, heading toward the Nantahala National Forest at an upward climb.  We periodically hike through it just to look around, hunt for mushrooms, see what's new, etc.  We came upon this spot of land...it's a little hard to see but the brush is crushed a bit, like something was laying on it...

...here is one more...

Can you see the that some of the brush has been flattened & some branches are broken?  Clearly, whatever did this is somewhat large.  What is more perplexing is that it did not create a trail to this spot...tdu tdu tdu tdu....(that's supposed to be the alien type sound)...makes us think maybe a deer?

So we have set up the critter cam, and put out some corn, to see what comes by.  Of course, by doing so, we have contaminated the area with human scent...a bit of a deterrent to wildlife...so we will see. No matter what comes of it, we are intrigued!  Stay tuned for our next creature feature, LOL!

And to close, the sunset on the summer solstice yesterday, (Wednesday, 6/20)...happy longest day of the year:)

Thanks for reading my blog, you are the best f/f/r/s/f's, see you tomorrow,
Lise